Mark: Alright Michelle, I'm sending you a book titled Stop Doing That Sht*. What's your first thought? Michelle: That my browser history has been leaked. Or that you've finally noticed I eat shredded cheese directly from the bag at 2 AM. Is this an intervention, Mark? Mark: (Laughs) Not an intervention, I promise. But it is the perfect entry point for today's book: Stop Doing That Sht* by Gary John Bishop. And what's fascinating about Bishop is he's not your typical self-help guru. He's a Glasgow-born philosopher who calls his style 'urban philosophy'—it's gritty, direct, and has zero patience for excuses. Michelle: Urban philosophy. I like that. It sounds less like a meditation retreat and more like a conversation you'd have in a pub that gets you to sort your life out. Mark: Exactly. And Bishop starts by digging into the foundation of why we do that sh*t in the first place. He has this concept he borrows from philosophy called 'thrown-ness'. Michelle: Thrown-ness? Okay, you have my attention. That sounds both profound and slightly clumsy.

Mark: It’s the perfect description. The idea is that we are all 'thrown' into the world without any say in the matter. You don't choose your parents, your genetics, the country you're born in, or the financial situation of your family. You're just… here. Plonked into a reality you didn't design. Michelle: Right, the cosmic lottery. Some people get a winning ticket, others get… well, a ticket for a bus that’s already left the station. Mark: Precisely. And from that initial, uncontrollable starting point, we start forming what Bishop calls our 'established truths.' These aren't objective facts about the world. They are the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our 'thrown-ness.' They are our personal, subjective interpretations of events. Michelle: So if you were 'thrown' into a family that was constantly worried about money, your 'established truth' might be that money is scarce and dangerous. Mark: Exactly. And you'd build your entire life around that 'truth,' even if you later become a millionaire. The book has this heartbreakingly clear example of a woman whose father was a Marine. He was strict, career-focused, and she perceived him as being more interested in his job than in her. Michelle: Oh, I can see where this is going. Mark: She felt she could never do anything right in his eyes. So, the 'established truth' she created was, "My father doesn't care about me, therefore I am not worthy of deep connection." This wasn't necessarily the truth—maybe her father showed love through providing security, the only way he knew how—but it became her truth. Michelle: And what happened? Mark: She became a loner. She avoided deep relationships in her teens, and that pattern continued right into adulthood. She built an entire life of isolation, not because of what her father actually did, but because of the story she decided it meant. Her life became a self-fulfilling prophecy based on that one established truth. Michelle: Hold on. This 'thrown-ness' and 'established truth' stuff… it sounds a lot like a sophisticated excuse. 'I can't help my terrible relationship choices, I was thrown into a difficult childhood!' How is this not just a free pass to blame your past for everything? Mark: That is the million-dollar question, and Bishop tackles it head-on. He says it’s the opposite of an excuse. It's about radical ownership. He quotes the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre: "Freedom is what we do with what is done to us." You can't change that you were thrown, but you have absolute freedom in how you respond. Acceptance isn't about condoning it; it's about acknowledging the starting point so you can finally draw a new map. Michelle: Okay, so it’s not about blaming the architect of your faulty life-blueprint. It’s about acknowledging the blueprint is faulty so you can stop trying to build with it. Mark: You've got it. Because once you see the blueprint, you can see the specific design flaws. And Bishop argues these flaws manifest as three very specific, very persistent voices in our heads. Michelle: So we accept our 'thrown-ness.' But what are we actually accepting? What's the 'sh*t' we're supposed to stop doing?

Mark: That's where Bishop gets incredibly specific. He says our established truths harden into three core villains, or as he calls them, 'The Three Saboteurs.' These are the fundamental, negative conclusions we've reached about the world based on our early experiences. Michelle: Villains? Saboteurs? That sounds a bit dramatic, like something out of a spy movie. Mark: He uses that language intentionally because they operate like spies in your own mind, sabotaging your missions for happiness and success without you even noticing. The three saboteurs are the conclusions you've made about: first, You; second, Them, meaning other people; and third, Life itself. Michelle: Okay, break that down. What does a conclusion about 'You' sound like? Mark: It’s your deep-seated, baseline criticism of yourself. It’s not a fleeting thought; it’s the background radio station of your mind. It’s the 'I' statement that surfaces when you're stressed or you fail. For some, it's "I'm a loser." For others, "I'm unlovable," or "I'm not good enough," or "I'm broken." Bishop tells a story about Ebenezer Scrooge, whose personal conclusion after losing his love was "I can never be loved." So he built his entire life around accumulating wealth to fill that void, becoming a miserable person in the process. Michelle: Wow. Okay, I can see this. It's like everyone has their own custom-made negative filter for the world. My 'You' filter is probably 'I'm not prepared enough.' I feel that in my bones, which is why I over-prepare for everything. Mark: And that leads perfectly to the second saboteur: your conclusion about Them. This is your fundamental belief about other people. It could be "People can't be trusted," "People will always let you down," or "People are controlling." Michelle: Or "People will eventually be disappointed in me." Hence, the over-preparing. It all connects. Mark: It all connects! Bishop shares this hilarious personal story about his own 'Them' saboteur, which is "People don't care." He and his wife ordered a huge sofa, and the delivery guys just left it at the end of their sixty-foot driveway. Michelle: Oh no. I would have just sat on it in the driveway and accepted my new life as the weird sofa-driveway person. Mark: (Laughs) Well, his wife suggested asking their neighbors for help. But Bishop's internal saboteur immediately vetoed that. "People don't care," it whispered. "They won't help. You're on your own." So, this grown man spent the next hour wrestling this massive sofa up the driveway, through narrow doors, getting stuck on child gates, sweating and cursing, all because his internal conclusion made asking for help impossible. He made his life ten times harder to prove a negative belief he held about other people. Michelle: That is so painfully relatable. You create the very reality your saboteur predicts. And I can see why some readers find his style a bit harsh. The book gets polarizing reviews online. Some people feel empowered, but others feel like he's just yelling at them that 'you're the problem.' Mark: He would absolutely say, "You are the problem… and you are the solution!" Which brings us to the third saboteur: your conclusion about Life. This is your big-picture belief. "Life is a struggle." "Life is unfair." "Life is out to get me." He tells a story of a client whose life was a mess—fractured friendships, failed marriage, chaos at work. After digging, they uncovered her core conclusion: "Life isn't fair." Michelle: And so she went through life finding evidence of unfairness everywhere, I assume. Mark: Everywhere. Her marriage failed because she was so focused on perfect equity—a 50/50 split of everything—that she missed the point of love and connection. She was constantly in a battle with life itself, a battle she could never win because she was the one setting the terms. Michelle: Okay, this is a powerful framework. Identifying your three saboteurs feels like getting a diagnosis for a disease you didn't even know you had. But a diagnosis isn't a cure. How do you actually stop them?

Mark: This is the most brilliant part of the book. His answer is: you don't. You don't fight them. You don't wrestle them into submission. That's just giving them more attention. Michelle: Wait, what? The whole book is called Stop Doing That Sht*, and now you're telling me you don't stop it? Mark: You don't stop it by fighting it. You stop it by making it irrelevant. He calls this 'redirection' or the 'authentic pivot.' Instead of trying to fix your old, broken-down self, you get busy building a new, more compelling future. Michelle: I'm not sure I follow. Give me an analogy. Mark: He gives the best one. Think of Michelangelo creating the statue of David. He was given this giant, flawed block of marble that other artists had rejected. But Michelangelo didn't see a flawed block. He said he saw David, the final masterpiece, already complete inside the marble. His job for the next two years wasn't to build David. It was to simply chip away everything that wasn't David. Michelle: Oh, I love that. That’s a complete perspective shift. Mark: Exactly. Your self-sabotaging behaviors, your negative conclusions, your past—that's all the excess marble. The typical self-help approach is to stare at the marble junk on the floor and try to fix it, polish it, or glue it back together. Bishop says to ignore the junk. Your job is to become obsessed with the vision of David inside the stone. Michelle: So instead of staring at the junk pile of my past and trying to fix it, I should be focused on the sculpture I'm trying to create. The junk becomes an obstacle, not the main event. Mark: The junk becomes an obstacle you naturally discard because it's in the way of the masterpiece you're revealing. You have to create a future that is so compelling, so exciting, that it pulls you forward. When you're being pulled by a powerful future, you don't have time for the old patterns. You're too busy creating. You stop doing 'that sht' because you're busy doing 'this new, amazing sht.' Michelle: That makes so much sense. It’s not about willpower; it’s about direction. You don't need to force yourself to stop eating junk food if you're genuinely excited about training for a marathon. The new goal makes the old habit obsolete. Mark: That's the authentic pivot. You're no longer shaped by the past; you're informed by the future. You stop being a warrior fighting your demons and become an architect designing your destiny.

Michelle: So when you put it all together, the book is a three-step journey. First, accept your 'thrown-ness'—the unchangeable start of your story. Second, identify the three saboteurs—the villains of your story. And third, write a new ending to the story that's so good, the villains just become boring side characters. Mark: That’s a perfect summary. The book's ultimate power isn't in giving you a 5-step plan to 'fix' yourself. It's a philosophical shift. It argues that most self-help fails because it's trying to renovate a house that was built on a toxic waste dump. Bishop says: stop renovating. Build a new house somewhere else, on a foundation of a future that actually excites you. Michelle: I think the big takeaway for me is that it reframes the whole struggle. It’s not about becoming a 'better' person. It’s about becoming a different person by choosing a different focus. The one concrete action listeners could take is to stop asking "What's wrong with me?" and start asking a much more powerful question. Mark: Which is? Michelle: "What future am I trying to reveal?" If you were Michelangelo standing in front of that marble block, what is the David you see inside? What's the masterpiece you're trying to chip your way towards? Mark: A perfect question to reflect on. And a much more inspiring place to start than staring at your own flaws. We'd love to hear what future you're building. Find us on our socials and share your thoughts. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.