Don't Believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking Is the Beginning & End of Suffering

Joseph Nguyen is an American author and self-help specialist and is most famous for Don’t Believe Everything You Think. As is often the case with self-help authors, he provides very little information regarding his personal biography. His official biography states only that he has three cats, to which he is allergic. Instead, Nguyen puts forth a public persona that overlaps considerably with his writings and teachings. He refers to having worked as a psychotherapist, where he helped patients work through their own traumas and mental challenges, and having published art under his name, which aims to illustrate the difficulties of dealing with negative thinking. Nguyen also refers, albeit obliquely, to personal challenges with anxiety and negative thinking. He says that his writings began as an effort to sort through his own personal problems, and that he found clarity and decided to share what he had learned with others. 

Don’t Believe Everything You Think was a tremendous success despite finding little traction in major media outlets. It has been translated into dozens of languages and launched Nguyen as a public figure. His other books include Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds (2022) and Beyond Thoughts and Boundaries = Freedom: How To Create Boundaries That Set You Free Without Feeling Guilty (2023), which he advertises as the second and third books in the Beyond Suffering series. 

Like other self-help authors, he has also published practical workbooks, including the Healing Anxiety & Overthinking Journal & Workbook: Let Go Of Anxiety, Overcome Fear, Find Peace & End Suffering (2022) and The Couple’s Connection Journal: 33 Questions To Create More Intimacy, Understanding & Love With Your Partner (2022). He provides an online course on The Art of Creating, exploring the relationship between art and mental health. He is a prolific producer of content on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms, with tens of thousands of followers.