Short Story
I had to write Built This Way after watching sincere, intelligent people do everything “right”- show up, work hard, make progress, only to get pulled back into old patterns.
It wasn’t a lack of effort. It was that they were swimming upstream against how humans are actually built.
This book explains why lasting change can’t come from insight or willpower alone, and offers a practical way forward: attunement
With a clear, systems-based map of how habits form and patterns persist, you’ll learn how you can finally create change that lasts.
Built This Way
WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK
I got the idea for this book while working in residential treatment.
I watched sincere, intelligent people work hard to change. They showed up, did the work, and often made real progress—only to find themselves pulled back into old patterns once they returned to their lives. It wasn’t because they didn’t care or weren’t trying. It was because they were swimming upstream against how humans are actually built.
Lasting change doesn’t happen through insight or willpower alone. It requires capacity—and capacity develops slowly, by working with the systems that shape us: our nervous systems, emotional patterns, relationships, and the stories we live inside. You can’t grow a different brain in a few weeks, and you can’t override biology with effort.
I wrote Built This Way to explain why change is so hard—and to offer a grounded, humane way forward. When we stop trying to fix ourselves and start working skillfully with how we’re built, real change becomes possible.
WHAT’S THIS BOOK ABOUT?
Built This Way is a practical guide to real, sustainable change—grounded in one central skill: attunement: relating to yourself, others, and life situations with acceptance, care, and a wish for a higher good.
From there, the book offers a clear systems-based understanding of change—how habits form, why patterns persist, and what actually helps them shift. You’ll explore how the nervous system and mind work, how stories and stress shape your experience, and why growth requires meeting discomfort rather than bypassing it. The book also addresses shadow patterns and development—how to expand capacity without skipping steps or forcing outcomes.
The goal isn’t self-improvement. It’s learning how to work skillfully with how you’re built, so change can emerge in a way that lasts.
WHAT’S INSIDE
📖 Chapters & Core Ideas
Introduction: Built This Way
Why change is hard—not because you’re broken, but because human systems change slowly. A clear orientation to working with the World, Body, and Mind as a unified whole.
Chapter 1: The Effauses and Caufects of Healthful Change
A systems view of change—what must be in place before better outcomes can reliably arise.
Chapter 2: The Three Transcendentals
Beauty, goodness, and truth as orienting values that quietly shape perception, choice, and action.
Chapter 3: All About Karma
Karma not as fate or punishment, but as cause and effect in motion—how what we do, think, and reinforce shapes what comes next.
Chapter 4: Bewegungsmuster
Learning to see habits, symptoms, and struggles as moving patterns across time, space, and interconnected systems.
Chapter 5: The Mind System
What the mind is, how it functions, and how patterns form—and, importantly, how to influence them.
Chapter 6: Disrupted Development
How early disruptions echo later in life, told through story to cultivate understanding rather than self-blame.
Chapter 7: Is Your Story Making You Sick?
How stress, narrative, and coping strategies shape our inner world—and how to relate to them more skillfully.
Chapter 8: Slaying the Dragon
Thresholds, healthy aggression, and the courage required to meet what growth actually demands.
Chapters 9: Chasing Shadows
Making the unconscious conscious through shadow work, honesty, and re-authoring inherited stories.
Chapter 10: Raising Your Window
A developmental view of perspective—using the apartment-window metaphor to show how growth expands what we can see, feel, and hold.
Epilogue
An invitation to keep practicing attunement over time, choosing skillful responses over reflex reactions, and remembering that meaningful change is less a destination than a way of living.
Practices you’ll actually use (examples named in your materials)
- Attunement practice (World / Body / Mind) and repetition under stress
- The “Why?” exercise (mapping plausible causes/conditions)
- Beauty scavenger hunt + pattern naming
- Pennebaker journaling, sensitivity self-assessment, threshold guardians, compassionate communication
- Boundary awareness, daily review, and stages assessment
- “Pirtle’s Practices” for shadow and integration (trigger ID, role reversal, ventilating shadow safely, etc.)
THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU IF….
You’re stuck in repeating stress and health loops
If you feel like you keep repeating the same loop, it is usually because you cannot change what you do not notice in real time. Your system keeps reinforcing the same inputs. What I want to give you is a lever you can actually use. Attunement becomes that lever. Notice, name, breathe, accept, redirect, then repeat, until the pattern starts to loosen and a different outcome becomes possible.
Your inner story feels like reality
If your story feels true, and it is running you, I want you to know that story and appraisal shape stress and coping. You can get trapped on the same narrative floor. I will help you learn how your story interacts with stress, so you can cross thresholds with courage and clear boundaries instead of staying stuck inside the same script.
You’re carrying the downstream effects of disrupted development
If you are thinking, “My past is over. Why am I still paying for it?” I want you to understand that early disruption can echo later as stress and illness. Empathy and understanding can reopen possibility. Through a systems-based understanding, I will help you reduce shame and increase agency, so repair becomes possible.
You want values, meaning, and moral trajectory again
If you feel cynical, unmoored, or numb, I want to bring you back to what actually shapes your conditions. What you amplify matters. Beauty, goodness, truth, and karma are not abstract. I will walk you through practices that re-orient you toward meaning, responsibility (not blame), and pattern literacy, so you can find your moral trajectory again.
You’re ready for shadow work and perspective expansion
If something in you keeps showing up as “symptom,” and you are tired of being run by it, I want you to know that making the unconscious conscious is a central part of the spiritual path. No one gets to skip floors. I will guide you through shadow integration and stages work, so you can expand compassion, raise your window, and become more skillful with your emotions and relationships.
WHAT PEOPLE I’VE WORKED WITH SAY:
“Dr. Pirtle’s shadow work coaching has been transformative for both my personal and professional life. Through his guidance, I’ve developed a heightened ability to attune to myself, others, and the situations, which has improved every aspect of my life. His insights are practical and profound, transferring seamlessly to any domain, even those you might not expect. For example, while he’s not a golf coach, his coaching has even helped me improve my game by strengthening my focus and self-awareness. I’m a better version of myself because of his coaching. I can’t recommend working with him highly enough.”
— John Lund, CEO, Business Strategy Coach, Serial Entrepreneur (Nebraska / Arizona)
“We had the pleasure of hosting Mark Pirtle to train our leaders, and I can’t recommend him enough … If your team needs alignment, bring Mark in—you won’t regret it “
— Bob Lambert, General Manager, Carte Hotel (San Diego, California)
“I attended Mark Pirtle’s men’s retreat, and it was truly transformative … I gained valuable insights into my own struggles and left with new friendships I know will last. The retreat setting was serene, and the hospitality was outstanding. “
— Alex Hsu, Investor, Father, Seeker (California)
“Entrepreneurship demands constant shifts from macro to micro thinking, requiring presence in the past, present, and future all at once. Working with Dr. Pirtle has transformed my understanding of my mind, myself, and what it is to live with “skillfull awareness. “
— Cristina Burgess, Founder Augustina Luxury Boutique (Toronto, Canada)
READY TO JOIN?
If your answer is YES, choose the tier that fits you, commit to the practice, and help bring Built This Way into the world.
When you learn to show up with acceptance and caring intent, attuning becomes second nature—and your stories lose their power as the grip loosens.
This is what the work buys you: more emotional and spiritual expansion, and a steadier capacity to respond rather than react.
This book is my offering toward a wiser way of being human together.
SELECT YOUR PREFERRED TIER BELOW
📚 Presale Book Launch Tiers
Tier 1: Founding Reader Circle – $50 | Unlimited
This tier contains everything someone needs to begin practicing the core teachings of the book.
Includes:
- Pre-sale copy of Built This Way (personally signed)
- 13-Month Guided Meditation Program
- 44 guided meditations
- Complete instruction manual
- Teaches skillful meditation, working with pain and strong emotions
- Supports shadow work and access to more advanced states
- Gradually weans listeners off guidance so they become self-led meditators
- Meditation Starter PDF: Begin at the Beginning
- Recognition as a Founding Reader supporting the book’s launch
Tier 2: Attunement Session – $110 | Unlimited
For readers who want a personal point of contact as they begin working with the material.
Includes everything in the Founding Reader Circle, plus:
- One 30-minute private “Ask Me Anything” session with me
- A focused, conversational space to ask questions about the book’s ideas, practices, or how to apply them to your own life
- Support in clarifying where to place attention, what practice might serve you now, or how to work skillfully with something you’re encountering
- Session scheduled at a mutually convenient time for us both
This tier is for people who want a bit of personal orientation—without committing to a longer program—and value direct, human contact as they begin practicing the work.
Tier 3: Practice Cohort – $250 | Unlimited
Live class begins April | 6 weeks | One class per week
For readers who want to move from insight into embodiment.
Includes everything in the Founding Reader Circle, plus:
- Live 6-week online class
- Weekly sessions integrating the book’s ideas through practice
- Teaching, guided exercises, and real-life application
- Live Q&A
- Session recordings for replay
This is not a book club.
It’s a practice space for people who want to live the work.
Tier 4: Deep Work Circle – $500 | Limited to 6 people
For those who want personal accompaniment while engaging the deeper material.
Includes everything above, plus:
- Three 50-minute private shadow work sessions with me
- Sessions scheduled over several months to allow integration
- Focus on working skillfully with pain, patterns, and developmental edges
This tier is for people ready to engage their inner work with care, honesty, and support.
Tier 5: Founding Patron Circle – $1,000 | Limited to 10 people
This tier is about stewardship, not perks.
Includes:
- Everything in the Practice Cohort
- Signed copy of Built This Way
- Founding Patron acknowledgment in the book
- Invitation to a private Patron Circle call
- A handwritten note of gratitude from me
Founding Patrons are helping midwife this work into the world and signaling that it matters.
Tier 6: Group Leadership Intensive (SAAQ-Based Retreat Experience) – $5,000 | Limited to 6-12 participants
This tier is about stewardship, not perks.
This offering is designed for intact teams, leadership groups, or cohorts who want to move beyond surface-level development and do real inner-work together—work that improves how people think, relate, and lead under pressure.
The experience is structured around the SkillfullyAware Awareness Quotient (SAAQ), a developmental assessment that helps individuals and groups see the patterns shaping their behavior, blind spots, and growth edges—clearly and compassionately.
The engagement unfolds across three structured contact points:
- Live Orientation & Preparation (1 hour | Zoom)
I begin by hosting a live virtual session with the full group. This call introduces the purpose of the work, establishes shared language, and offers clear guidance for completing the SAAQ assessment. It also sets expectations and creates psychological safety for the work ahead.
- Individual SAAQ Assessments (Completed Independently)
Each participant completes the SAAQ assessment on their own. I personally review and grade all assessments, preparing individualized insights and themes that will inform the in-person retreat day.
- In-Person One-Day Leadership Retreat (6 hours)
Approximately one month after all assessments are completed, I travel to the group to lead a full-day, in-person retreat.
The day includes:
- A guided walkthrough of individual and group SAAQ results
- Training in meditation and mindfulness for emotional regulation and clarity
- Perspective-taking practices to improve communication and decision-making
- Shadow-work frameworks to identify and work with unconscious patterns
- Integration conversations that connect insight to real-world leadership challenges
We conclude the day by establishing 90-day individual and group goals, along with a simple accountability structure to support follow-through and sustained change.
Logistics
The $5,000 fee covers facilitation, assessment review, preparation, and retreat delivery
Travel, lodging, and meals are the responsibility of the host group
This experience is well-suited for groups who recognize that meaningful change doesn’t come from trying harder, but from learning how to work skillfully with how people are actually built. This tier also provides each member with a signed copy of the book, the 13-month guided meditation program, and the attunement one-pager.
MORE ABOUT MARK PIRTLE
I am an integrative coach, speaker, and author. I help individuals and leaders bring awareness to the hidden patterns shaping their health, relationships, and effectiveness.
I am President of Anu Experience, LLC, and the creator of SkillfullyAware®, a practical framework for building self-awareness, emotional agility, and values-aligned action under real-world pressure.
I am affiliated with the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, where my work aligns with whole-person approaches that bridge behavior change, nervous system regulation, and lived experience.
I have designed and delivered curricula in the health and wellness space, and I am known for translating complex inner-work into clear, usable practices that people can apply immediately.
My writing focuses on the upstream causes behind stuck patterns, and the tools that help people shift them with honesty, compassion, and precision.
I am currently developing the SAAQ (SkillfullyAware Awareness Quotient), a diagnostic tool designed to help people identify growth edges, blind spots, and practical next steps.
I would love you to follow me on:
Check out my website for more information about my work.
📚 Frequently Asked Questions
Why are you crowdfunding this book?
I’m choosing to crowdfund to build a supportive reader community from day one — your support helps fund editing, design, printing, and much more!
What do I receive when I support your presale?
Depending on the reward tier you choose, you’ll receive signed copies, bonus resources, live session access, or personal acknowledgments in the book.
What will appear on my credit card statement?
You will see ‘MANUSCRIPT’ reflected on your credit card statement.
When will I get my Perks and Packages?
Books (Ebook, Paperback, Hardback) will be delivered in Spring 2026.
Other perks, depending on what you ordered, could be released before the book is printed and published. I will reach out to you when each perk is ready for delivery. I will be regularly communicating with you after the campaign to keep you updated.
What are the Risks and Challenges?
I’ve already written the first draft of my manuscript. I have a publishing timeline in place and a team lined up to support editing, design, and distribution.
The main risks are:
- Timeline shifts during production or printing (I’ll communicate transparently!)
- Supply chain or shipping delays (especially with printed copies)
During revisions, I will engage with you regularly to keep you up to date on my progress.
Can I purchase multiple times?
Yes, you can order multiple times.
Are preorders refundable?
Preorders are non-refundable. However, you may transfer to another individual at no charge.
When is the deadline to support your presale?
See my social media posts for timeline information.
PRESALE PERKS AND PACKAGES
| Name | Donate Amount | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Angie Newton | $110.00 | January 26, 2026 9:09 pm |
| Laurie Gilreath | $500.00 | January 26, 2026 7:24 pm |
| Tim McGill | $110.00 | January 26, 2026 6:39 pm |
| Harry Nelson | $5,000.00 | January 26, 2026 5:43 pm |
| Krystn Wagenberg | $500.00 | January 26, 2026 5:39 pm |
| Frank McDowell | $1,000.00 | January 26, 2026 5:37 pm |