
S5e12: Neil Strauss – Healing as a Path of Honor
11/10/22 • -1 min
You don’t want to miss this episode with Neil Strauss, ten-time New York Times best-selling author, contributing editor at Rolling Stone, and a former music critic, cultural reporter, and columnist at The New York Times.
Neil did the Hoffman Process just before the pandemic hit in very early 2020. In this conversation, he weaves together pivotal moments of and insights of his Process with his deeper life insights. Neil talks about how doing personal healing work is often stigmatized. For him, doing healing work such as the Process is something important to share with others, something to wear as a badge of honor.
In this conversation, Neil and Drew cover a lot of territory on relationships, healing, writing, and the creative process. A prolific writer, Neil generously shares his writing process in depth. He shares how all four aspects of our Quadrinity can inform the creative process. Listening to this conversation is almost like taking a short writing class.
Toward the end, Neil turns the tables on Drew and asks Drew questions. Be sure to listen to the end for this fun back-and-forth between them.
More about Neil Strauss:
Neil Strauss is a ten-time New York Times best-selling author; a contributing editor at Rolling Stone; and a former music critic, cultural reporter, and columnist at The New York Times where he won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for excellence in music journalism. In 2018, he was honored with the Los Angeles Press Club’s Journalist Award for his Rolling Stone 50th anniversary cover story, “Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow.”
Coaching and mentoring have always been a passion for Strauss. His love of learning and teaching propels him to speak at conferences around the world. He formed an exclusive, high-level, international personal growth, networking, and mastermind group called The Society International in 2011. The Society International continues to grow as a one-of-a-kind global group of like-minded people. Neil personally mentors its members, comprising award-winning artists, international entrepreneurs, tech CEOs, professional athletes, and visionaries who defy categorization.
Neil resides in Malibu, California. You can learn more about Neil here and here.
More about Neil’s Writing and Books:
Hollywood hails him as one of the most sought-after ghostwriters in town. His books include The Dirt with Motley Crue, hailed by Q magazine as “the most unputdownable rock book of the year, or possibly any year,” while Publishers Weekly cited The Long Hard Road Out of Hell with Marilyn Manson as “possibly the highest-selling rock biography of all time.” A feature-length film of The Dirt was recently released on Netflix, directed by Jeff Tremaine, which propelled the book back into the New York Times bestseller list. His recent book collaboration, Kevin Hart’s I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons was both a #1 New York Times bestseller and topped the most downloaded audiobooks list at the same time.
In his own books, Strauss is renowned for going undercover to explore controversial subcultures. The Game and Rules of The Game, for which he went undercover in a secret society of pick-up artists for two years, topped The New York Times best-selling list and were #1 on Amazon. He then completely revamped his perceptions of dating and relationships when he went undercover to explore trauma, healing, and intimacy disorders with The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book about Relationships. In this best-selling book, he explores the hidden forces that cause people to choose each other, stay together, and break up.
As mentioned in this episode:
Letters Neil received from Process Graduates:
In the Process, students write letters to express gratitude to those who have supported them in their healing journey.
You don’t want to miss this episode with Neil Strauss, ten-time New York Times best-selling author, contributing editor at Rolling Stone, and a former music critic, cultural reporter, and columnist at The New York Times.
Neil did the Hoffman Process just before the pandemic hit in very early 2020. In this conversation, he weaves together pivotal moments of and insights of his Process with his deeper life insights. Neil talks about how doing personal healing work is often stigmatized. For him, doing healing work such as the Process is something important to share with others, something to wear as a badge of honor.
In this conversation, Neil and Drew cover a lot of territory on relationships, healing, writing, and the creative process. A prolific writer, Neil generously shares his writing process in depth. He shares how all four aspects of our Quadrinity can inform the creative process. Listening to this conversation is almost like taking a short writing class.
Toward the end, Neil turns the tables on Drew and asks Drew questions. Be sure to listen to the end for this fun back-and-forth between them.
More about Neil Strauss:
Neil Strauss is a ten-time New York Times best-selling author; a contributing editor at Rolling Stone; and a former music critic, cultural reporter, and columnist at The New York Times where he won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for excellence in music journalism. In 2018, he was honored with the Los Angeles Press Club’s Journalist Award for his Rolling Stone 50th anniversary cover story, “Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow.”
Coaching and mentoring have always been a passion for Strauss. His love of learning and teaching propels him to speak at conferences around the world. He formed an exclusive, high-level, international personal growth, networking, and mastermind group called The Society International in 2011. The Society International continues to grow as a one-of-a-kind global group of like-minded people. Neil personally mentors its members, comprising award-winning artists, international entrepreneurs, tech CEOs, professional athletes, and visionaries who defy categorization.
Neil resides in Malibu, California. You can learn more about Neil here and here.
More about Neil’s Writing and Books:
Hollywood hails him as one of the most sought-after ghostwriters in town. His books include The Dirt with Motley Crue, hailed by Q magazine as “the most unputdownable rock book of the year, or possibly any year,” while Publishers Weekly cited The Long Hard Road Out of Hell with Marilyn Manson as “possibly the highest-selling rock biography of all time.” A feature-length film of The Dirt was recently released on Netflix, directed by Jeff Tremaine, which propelled the book back into the New York Times bestseller list. His recent book collaboration, Kevin Hart’s I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons was both a #1 New York Times bestseller and topped the most downloaded audiobooks list at the same time.
In his own books, Strauss is renowned for going undercover to explore controversial subcultures. The Game and Rules of The Game, for which he went undercover in a secret society of pick-up artists for two years, topped The New York Times best-selling list and were #1 on Amazon. He then completely revamped his perceptions of dating and relationships when he went undercover to explore trauma, healing, and intimacy disorders with The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book about Relationships. In this best-selling book, he explores the hidden forces that cause people to choose each other, stay together, and break up.
As mentioned in this episode:
Letters Neil received from Process Graduates:
In the Process, students write letters to express gratitude to those who have supported them in their healing journey.
Previous Episode

S5e11: Monique Petrov – Waking Up With New Eyes
Monique Petrov is a former All-American triathlete. She qualified for five Ironman World Championships and ranked among the top female age-group triathletes worldwide. Just three weeks before what was to be her ninth Ironman, a disastrous accident ended her career.
What brought Monique to the Hoffman Process? As she shares with Drew, the physical trauma she has endured would become emotional trauma, which would sneak into how she related to those she was most intimate with. Through the Process, Monique found the healing she was looking for. She found the playful, curious, loving, kind soul she’d hidden inside long ago. Since the Process, Monique now makes time for this fun-loving part of herself.
Listen in as Monique shares her story of the tragic accident that happened just three weeks before what was to be her 9th Ironman. Monique has been reluctant to share her story, never wanting the accident to define her. But today she shares all that she’s been through, the depth of her healing, and the incredible journey her life has been and continues to be. Be sure to listen all the way to the end. Monique shares her story about how she healed a big ball of shame in the Process.
More about Monique Petrov:
Monique had a serious accident three weeks before the Hawaii Ironman World Championships, which was to be her 9th Ironman. She was struck almost head-on by a van while finishing a long training ride a few miles from home. After six days in a coma, followed by six weeks in a hospital, Monique underwent eighteen hours of surgery to stabilize her vertebrae which burst upon impact. Suffering a traumatic brain injury, shattered knee, leg, arm, scapula, ribs, and blood-filled punctured lungs, she needed more surgery to piece her body (bones) back together. Monique had no idea how surviving this near-death experience would alter her life. The following thirteen months – and thirteen years – took her through a journey of recovery that has taught her more about resilience and strength than her entire career as a world-class athlete. Oddly, she forgave the driver almost immediately. It was herself she could not forgive because of shame. Splitting open more than her physical body, she eventually discovered it was the deep reflexive shame (which controlled her) or (within her) that needed to heal.
Monique Petrov is a former All-American triathlete. She qualified for five Ironman World Championships, ranking amongst the top female age-group triathletes worldwide. Monique had been a triathlon and strength & conditioning coach. She became a NICU (neonatal intensive care) nurse after her life-threatening accident. Monique has a passion for using her life experience and relationships as data. She examines them for clues – even amid anguish, isolation, loneliness, and shame. Looking for hope, inspiration, and the ultimate connection with one’s own self, while developing and emerging with a brand new level of self-trust and security to step forward more boldly in the world. She delves into her ongoing recovery. Monique shares how she was able to survive, heal, rebuild, and continually reinvent herself.
As mentioned in this episode:
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
2-Day Hoffman Essentials program
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk
Next Episode

S5e13: Anne Hockett – The Body Expresses What We Repress
Anne Hockett calls herself a gut geek and a lifelong learner – and, she is so much more than that. Anne’s story is a powerful testament to our spiritually human capacities of resiliency, adaptability, and deep capacity to return to trusting in the unknown and the knowing that comes from deep within.
Anne’s background is in public health and medicine. She is a proponent of western medicine. But when she found herself diagnosed with a major cardiac diagnosis and prognosis with little hope for a long life, she turned toward eastern medicine and alternative modalities. With these, she began to heal. Anne found herself with a new capacity for knowing things about people just by looking at them, things that one hundred percent of the time turned out to be true and supportive of that person’s healing.
Anne did the Hoffman Process in 2016. Through doing the Process, she found the ability to love herself. She left the Process with a deep understanding of who she was without the degree of shame she had around her shadow patterns. Anne tells us her experience of open-heartedness and lack of judgment during the Process allowed her to know them much more than simply as ideas. She now feels them because she received them during her Process. One other big result from doing the Process was solidifying her knowledge of her life purpose.
More about Anne Hockett:
For over four decades, Anne’s work has concentrated on the healthcare field. She has applied her work experience, research, and teaching skills in Asia to better understand how modern medicine and traditional, gentle, natural approaches can be most effectively integrated. Since 1983, Anne has worked in a variety of capacities with children and adults with physical and emotional needs. She specializes in the care of those managing cancer and heart disease, but her practice has broadened considerably over the years.
Before moving to Asia in 1989, Anne worked with the Ford Foundation, The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. She has a Master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Anne also has a variety of training and certification credentials in other health care and healing modalities including homeopathy, Bach Flowers, therapeutic yoga, plant-based medicine, healing breath work, meditation, guided imagery, past life regression, hypnotherapy, and Reiki. She’s years into a Ph.D. she might never complete in plant-based medicine and also halfway through excelled training in Functional Medicine. You can learn more about Anne at YouHealing.org.
As mentioned in this episode:
Shadow patterns
Rishikesh is a city in the Dehradun district of the Indian state of Uttarakhand, located in the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India.
Near Death Experience (NDE)
Other healing modalities explored by Anne:
Reiki
BodyTalk
Harvard Study on crying and good health
Anne’s exercise:
“In a world without judgment, what is the most self-loving thing for you to do, right here, right now?”
The Hoffman Podcast - S5e12: Neil Strauss – Healing as a Path of Honor
Transcript
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Hoffman podcast, the author Neil Strauss. Is with us today.
Neil written a bunch of books has been a ghost writer has been a New York Times author And I wasn't quite sure what I was gonna get because in his earlier life he had written a lot about dating and how to help men be better pickup artist he wrote a book called the game. But what I got when I sat down with him was a guy who was deeply curious, and
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