A new book from Figs O’Sullivan
Proof of Work
From Fiat Life to Thriving in the AI Age
Proof of work is Bitcoin’s phrase: cost that cannot be faked. Energy actually spent, work actually done. And proof of work is what love requires: presence that cannot be faked.
Greenleaf Book Group Press, February 2027.
What this book is (and is not)
This book is
- Lived, not theoretical
- Personal and cultural
- About love, money and work as nervous system experiences
- Rooted in real relationships, real work, real repair
This book is not
- A self-help manual
- A therapy workbook
- A Bitcoin explainer
- A productivity or optimization book
What’s inside
The first half: from the outside in
It shows how the larger systems, the money, the algorithm, the culture, shape relationships. How strained relationships shape the nervous system. How nervous systems develop protector parts and survival strategies that make complete sense inside the conditions they were given. Not because people are broken. Because people are adaptive.
Every strategy you have ever used to survive, the performing, the collapsing, the numbing, the hustling, the tribal belonging, all of it was intelligent given what you were living inside. But when instability persists long enough, those strategies harden. They stop being responses and start becoming identity.
The second half: from the inside out
It begins with you. With what I call reflexive participation, the core practice this book is built around. At its simplest it means making yourself the subject of your own honest inquiry, so that you can take creative action that is true to your own organism and to what the moment is actually asking of you.
Then into sound money, a financial base that does not melt. Then into relationship, into what I call the sovereign us, because the human nervous system was never designed to do this alone. Then into vocation, work that your nervous system trusts enough to stay inside. Then out into the village, the people you actually live among. And then into AI.
Sovereignty is not something you start with. It is something that emerges. It is belonging to yourself fully enough that you can finally meet the world as it actually is.
From fiat to ground
Fiat living
- Short-term thinking
- Performance for worth
- Chronic anxiety
- Relationships without a future
- Meaning collapses under pressure
Ground
- A future you can trust
- Worth that does not need to be earned
- Nervous systems that can rest
- Love that can deepen
- Meaning built through proof of work
The nine Sovereign Grounds
Each ground has its own chapters: what the system does to you, and how you get your choice back. Together they make up the Proof of Work of Being Human protocol, the method behind Figlet Life Coaching.
Chapters 1 to 3, and 9
Self
The two coins, too much and not enough. The cast inside: protector parts with jobs, guarding the child. The Gatekeeper and the Friend.
The First Ledger
Body
The body is the first ledger of immutable truth. It records what was safe, what was unstable, what was repaired and what never was. Measure less, feel more.
Chapters 4 and 10
Money
The financial system as the not-good-enough mother. A mechanism, not your character. The four costumes of one money wound.
Chapters 5 and 11
Love
The Waltz of Pain. Repair, over and over. Come here to me. Letting love in, and the sovereign us.
The three provisions
Family
Yes, I am there for you. Yes, you are enough for me. And boundaries that are the same tomorrow as today. Repair the wound by not passing it on.
Chapters 6 and 12
Work and creativity
Working against shame, not for money. The Relentless, the Reluctant and the yo-yo at work. What is this work backed by?
Chapters 8 and 14
Attention and technology
The algorithmic mother who never says no. Fiat attention against sovereign attention. What altar do you kneel at most?
Chapters 7 and 13
Belonging
Friends, community and society. Fiat belonging, tribe over truth. Scapegoat, scapegoater, compliant witness. Invitation or verdict.
Being Fully Alive
Aliveness
Ecstatic living: being without a project attached. Places where nothing needs to get better, protected on purpose. The Wooden Floor: ground you trust is what lets you leap.
Get on the list
I’ll email you when the book has a date and when the next live program opens. Nothing else.
The chapters are being written in public on my Substack.
No spam. Unsubscribe any time.
The live program
A small group with me over several weeks, working the Proof of Work of Being Human protocol together on your real situations, ground by ground. The people on the list hear first when the next one opens.
Start Figlet Life Coaching tonight
You don’t have to wait for either. Figlet Life Coaching will run the loop with you now, on whichever ground is hurting. What Figlet Life Coaching is. Not sure which ground? Take the two-minute Ground Check.
About Figs
Fiachra “Figs” O’Sullivan is a couples therapist and the founder of Empathi. His work integrates attachment theory, shame, and the cultural implications of sovereign money systems. Born and raised in Ireland, his practice centers on helping people build relationships and lives on ground that holds, through real repair, not performance.
Proof of Work is a lived articulation of the theory beneath that work. More about Figs
Common questions
When does Proof of Work come out?
February 2027, with Greenleaf Book Group Press. The people on the list get the date first.
Is it a Bitcoin book?
It is not a Bitcoin explainer. It uses sound money as a lens on the nervous system, and it says plainly that nothing in it is financial or medical advice. It recommends no assets.
Who is it for?
The only requirement for this book is willingness. Be willing to be affected, to let something move inside you, to meet the younger parts of you who never had steady ground.
Reflexive participation comes from the teaching of Aftab Omer at the Institute of Imaginal Studies, where I trained.
