The Movement
Our Mission
There is only one ultimate goal to this work – the goal of ‘less pain, more beauty.’ It is my belief, my hope that by helping people to address their own personal pain and recognise the beauty of the simple things in their life that we can together create a chain reaction of beauty in the world, breaking free of the social consensus of acceptable insanity and reactivity that dominates our societies today.
The Person
About Me
"Jordan Mangan is remarkably intact; the depth and duration of pain he has experienced in life would corrode an ordinary person's personality to such an extent that they would be permanently insitutionalised" - A psychiatrist
"Jordan Mangan is the example I give to my clients of what is possible in the face of extreme adversity" - A psychologist
"The shaman is not merely a sick man, or a madman; he is a sick man who has healed himself" - Terrence McKenna
I teach people that you don’t have a past, you have a story, and a story is only as powerful as how often you revisit it and how much you invest in it. Likewise things like your job, hobbies, relationships are symptoms of the conceptual self and not a true reflection of who you truly are. What I would argue you truly are is your righteous desires in the present moment. My desire, which has been consistent for some time now is just to work with the ideas of this work and propagate them out into the world.
We’ve all seen people starting up these sorts of businesses before – reheated self-motivation techniques, incessant social media posts about how great their life is going thanks to whatever they’re doing. There’s a palpable desperation behind it – a sick need for significance, money, attention from the opposite sex etc. I feel none of that. I’m not trying to get anything from anyone, I’m trying to share the gift of these ideas that have helped me so much, brought so much beauty and peace and purpose into my life in the hope that they can help others just as much. There’s no impostor syndrome here – I’ve poured over these concepts from every angle I can conceive of – if I don’t have an answer I’ll find one, that’s another reason I want to share these ideas, to make this philosophy as beautiful as it can be.
If you’re interested in story, yeah, the story of my life would primarily be one of overcoming great hardship, but all that’s done has made me stronger. I’ve had a cold shower every day for 5 years, for 2.5 of those years I also poured a bucket of ice water over my head every morning. With hard decisions, consistency and priority I have transformed myself into exactly the kind of person I always dreamed I could be. I’ve run a gardening business and been an employer for 10 years, I’ve been in physical fights, I’ve been a small-time drug dealer in Osaka, Japan, I’ve mopped vomit, shit and blood from the floors of Queensland pubs. I scored in the 99th percentile in national standardised tests, I read all 629 pages of 'The Power of One' in a single day when I was nine. The pain and powerlessness and overwhelming desire to overcome and find greatness in the main character spoke to me in the situation I was in back then.
I’ve lived with aboriginals in Far North Queensland, paying my way working as hot air balloon ground crew. There I fished in water so clear I could see each individual stone at the bottom of the river 3 metres down. I’ve always loved creating art – I studied creative writing at university, I’ve had a science fiction short story published, I’ve written and performed songs, poetry, I was a regular on the Brisbane stand-up comedy scene for 2 years, I’ve acted, as part of my business I've invented machinery. I’ve been married and divorced. I have two young children and I’m the best dad in the world – I have the drawings to prove it.
I’ve lead an interesting life full of joy and beauty and pain, and all that matters from this story is the qualities that got me through it, the truth of forgiveness in it and the good rules I’ve made as wisdom along the way.
Life is beautiful.