Let's just,
uh, e it's, it's a pleasure to see you again in the flesh.
Yeah.
And um, and I don't know if you can see me because it's kind of dark where I'm
at, but you can see the, the silhouette of me as I, as I sit here, uh, in late in
the e late in the morning, uh, in my bed.
Just for anyone who's interested.
Um, good to see you.
What do you, what's you were just describing to me,
I'll just kind of jump in.
You were describing to me the oneness of the universe, but before we get
into that, what's new with you and what's, uh, what have you been up to?
Yeah, so, I mean, working like crazy at this new job, you know, it's a new job.
It's a new boss and that's something I wanna talk about later because I recently
had like a bit of a personal crisis.
Uh.
With my boss, and this happens, I think this happens all the time.
I've talked to my friends and I've heard about this a lot, and you, uh, actually
sat down with me and you engaged in this sort of work that really brought
it home for me and helped me understand something that I think a lot of people
can say both without actually feeling.
And, and that is that, you know, I think this is also the base of a
lot of philosophies, like the stoic philosophy that's very popular right
now, which is I found myself reacting to my own thoughts about something
that was going on at work and not necessarily what's going on at work.
And you really did help me figure that out, and you led me through a process
that got me there, which I think is really tough for a lot of people to do.
I think it's worth sharing.
Not, you know, not so people can actually go do this.
I think it requires a little bit more.
Mm-hmm.
Detail and thought than that, but just raising awareness
that it is possible to do it.
And I was in a pretty bad spot, and through careful exploration and
learning and trusts, I think I was able to get out of a really bad spot.
And, you know, uh, as we've talked about before, right?
Like, you know, we're both married, we have a busy home life.
I have a baby at home.
Um, I have a 7-year-old boy.
And so there's already enough going on.
And I think men specifically, men specifically, just, we
don't, for of all, we don't take time talk about our feelings.
I think a lot of men feel like that's not useful.
Yeah.
Oh, I'm, you know, venting, I guess maybe, but this is, this wasn't venting I vented.
Right.
Which is,
which is helpful, but it only gets you so far because then you're left
alone with your thoughts sometimes when you make your thoughts.
Kind of leave your mind and you express them.
Sometimes you can hear Yeah.
That they're not quite right.
But you, I think it really takes an emotional maturity talking to other
men born in a similar situation.
And so anyway, I, I think that's, I mean, I honestly think that's something
that our podcast is about, which is
Right,
what it's like to be a man, um, of a certain age in a certain situation.
Yeah.
You know, what does, even young men who might want a family and kids, but think
that there's no point to it nowadays.
Um, I think that's who this podcast is for.
That's, I mean, that's who it's made by, is by men in like a, a
very sincere inquiry, um, wanting to make sense of the world.
Um, but anyway, yeah.
What, what, what is the podcast about, Kevin, if you wanna
give it a couple minutes.
I'm timing it.
By the way, it would've been so confusing of all the podcasts I've done yet.
This is the most interesting podcast so far.
So maybe that's a good thing.
Um, I do think, you know, first of all, thanks, uh, glad I, I'm
grateful that was helpful for you and thanks for bringing it up for me.
We ended up doing that instead of the podcast last time.
For those who are wondering why we haven't recorded recently.
Uh, and also we've just been busy.
I think it's been, um, um, bad timing in many ways, but, um, uh, yeah, you
know, I think that, uh, we were talking last time about, I think we've been
talking about politics a lot Yeah.
In past recordings.
And I think I, I was thinking last time we spoke about like, what should
we do with this podcast that our gi you know, like the, the, we certainly
both appreciate politics and the world affairs and I don't wanna
necessarily like get rid of all that.
Uh, 'cause we are interested in that.
But also we have a, another aspect of our, uh, maybe our connection over
the years, which has been kind of pH philosophy and, and also the fact that
right now we're living lives, as you said, that are, uh, similar in their
context of, uh, what we're going through.
And, and then there's a whole issue of, you know, what does it mean
to be, you know, a male in your, in your forties with children, you
know, marriage, all that stuff.
And, and what, and so that was kind of what we started with this podcast.
Uh, and it would, it would be interesting to kind of get back a little bit
on that track and explore that and, um, because I think there are a lot
of pol political podcasts, right?
I mean, there's tons of that stuff.
Um, but this is, and, and people who are more
familiar with the actual mechanics of American politics than we are.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, totally.
Um, so anyway, that, that sounds good to me.
I like kind of the direction of going back to that and, um.
Why not?
Uh, because there's a lot of, there's a lot going on on the outside of, like
you said, externally in our world, but there's also a lot going on on
the inside of us, of each one of us as a whole kinda universe in itself.
And it would be interesting to, to kind of explore that, um, anyway,
and um, yeah, there's a lot to talk to kind of, uh, chew on there, so.
Cool.
Yeah, I like that.
And you were talking about the oneness of it all.
I didn't want to cut you off.
Do you still, uh, no, no, of course.
Have anything in there you'd like to?
Yeah, you
know, so I think, you know, just to kind of segue, you know, to me I just,
I found myself in a spot where just my home life required so much attention
and time because I met my wife in Latin America, and then we have our
7-year-old, and then we had a baby, and then we moved to the us and then we
moved to Indonesia, where I am right now.
And you're
busy.
I, I, when I was single, I had friends.
Yeah.
Uh, and, and, and I still do have friends.
Here're my friend, but I stopped hanging out with my friends.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Right.
And I've moved around my entire life.
So I'm used to having friends that I just kind of connect with on the e email
messages, maybe a phone call every now and then, and they're good friends.
I'm the kind of person that has a small amount of just good friends.
I don't like having a ton of friends 'cause it's, it feels like work to me.
That's true.
But then I just realized, you know what, actually I haven't really connected to
friends and I do miss, there is something to be said for men talking to each other.
Right.
I think that's a really important part of the life I want.
If it's not for everyone, I mean, that's fine.
But for me, the idea is there are men out there who are in
the exact same position as us.
And
you
actually socialize much more than I do.
You're, you're, you have like a, the small town kind of atmosphere, which
lends itself really great to knowing your neighbors and, and socializing.
Right.
I'm a little jealous, but at the same time, it wasn't
until I tried, it just happened to happen, you know?
But yeah, I'm saying,
well, you, you put yourself in the position for that to happen.
And so for me, the idea is there must be other men out there who, to
me, it's, we are exploring themes.
Some themes we're familiar with, right?
For example.
Doing kind of psychological spiritual work.
We've dabbled you, I think, have dabbled in, in, in quite a few things.
You're not an expert, but you're, man, you're good enough to get me to
a better place, and maybe you are for some of our followers, or at least
point them in the right direction.
I have tried so many different things for psychology and mm-hmm.
Spirituality that I think it's a useful conversation that other people can listen
to, to get pointed in the right direction when it comes to politics, you know?
Yeah.
Like you and I, you and I do not have politics that are easily defined.
True with the, with the current polarization.
I'm not a MAGA guy.
I'm not a woke guy.
Mm-hmm.
And neither are you.
No.
Uh, and and I think, and I think this is another thing about men in this
era, what does it mean to be a man?
You know, what does it mean to be a good man?
What does it mean to be a good father to two, uh, to two children?
What does it mean to be a father to a boy?
What does it mean to be a father to a girl?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
What
does it mean to be a good husband?
These are all things that, like, even just a question can
be triggering to some people,
right?
If you say, what does it mean to be a man?
Some far left, hyper progressive, sensitive people might take that as,
oh, this is gonna be one of those, like, what is a woman kind of things where
you're trying to sell me on some sort of toxic masculinity, Andrew Tate style.
'cause Andrew Tate has a answer for that question, right?
And so any answers, and, and he, he has answers.
And so, but like we, I don't know.
In the so-called manosphere, where are the conversations being had by
normal men who can actually sympathize, empathize with most men out there?
There's stuff like the All In podcast, which these like rich techie guys who are
into politics and they have a very set political agenda that has morphed into,
you know, survival and abundance mode.
I get it.
Right.
You know, and, and I think you, you know, Joko, Nik, David Goggins, those are, those
are guy guys to hear some great messages from, but like ex-Navy Seals, you know,
that part of the manosphere, which I actually really like that I listen to the
genre in podcast and Joko Nik and David Goggins, and, but that's not who I am.
I'm not those people.
I love hearing their encouraging words and then talking to people that they
have access to is fascinating, but not everything they say, you know, makes
me, doesn't, doesn't really apply to me.
Even to tell people that you listened to those podcasts, that
they knew what those podcasts were.
Would invite judgment, which is really sad to me because we contain multitudes.
We all do.
Right.
And where can a person go to have a conversation that is based from a, I'm
not trying to convince you that the answer is maga, I'm not trying to convince
you the answer is social populism.
I'm not trying to convince you that the answer is all women are men's property.
I am.
I'm here to have a conversation that other people can be a part of.
Maybe if we actually do get people to listen and big enough numbers, we can even
invite people who listen onto the show.
Be a, like, literally be part of the conversation.
Yeah, that'd be amazing.
I'd like that.
Anyway, so I mean that's, I think that's part of our, our
value to the dialogue is cool.
We are normal guys in this situation.
Family, husband, neither political polarization end
really defines who we are.
None of these ideological movements.
Define who we are, and we wanna have a conversation about how can a man
like us move forward in the world, have conversations with other men,
and even if you don't agree, what with the result they've gotten to the,
the logical end that they've reached.
Mm-hmm.
Um, you can respect it and by talking to each other you can change
your mind, which is a lost art.
Right.
Um, you know, I think the powers that be are not eager to convince you that
changing your mind is healthy or good or respectful because there's a lot
of people out there who benefit from you, not changing your mind anyway.
Yeah.
Well said.
So I think, I think that's the podcast.
And I think this idea of oneness that you helped me connect to is part
of it because I was having a tough time at work and my default is to,
I'll share it with my wife because I like sharing things with my wife.
She knows me very well and she gives me insight and comfort,
um, and equal measures.
She helps ground me because at the end of the day, I come home to my
family and that's what matters to me.
But at the same time, it's nice to talk to a, a man who has the same experiences as
me, who also knows me for quite some time.
I think actually you might be one of the people who's known me the longest.
It's like I worked 20 something years.
Right?
Oh
yeah.
That's a I was just thinking about that.
It was, i's been a while.
Yeah.
Our friendship is old enough to rent a car.
Well, so, so I, I brought this work.
I dunno how quick
you're, by the way, that was a, that's good.
I, I brought this work problem to you, which is a very typical man thing.
Right.
And you didn't put me through the like, oh, don't be sad.
Oh, okay.
I didn't think about that.
I will not be sad now.
Thank you for that excellent advice.
No worries.
You actually took me through a process which I would love to share with people.
But the end result was, I realized, 'cause you, you know, I, I told you
a few days later that it, I talked to my boss after we talked and
it was insightful and it worked.
And a lot of the things that you, you had said would happen, happened.
And then you told me something surprising to me, which was
actually that inspires me.
Like it makes me reevaluate some of my own beliefs.
And you know, it's kind of like this fractal geometry.
'cause when you said that, it made me think, oh wow, I
thought Kevin was this guy.
I'm sorry.
Kay.
Fuck.
EY Herman.
Mm.
Um, I thought, Kay was this, I thought you were this kind of guy who was just
so certain of these kinds of things.
And for to hear you express doubt and then motivation from what happened
to me made me feel really good.
It made me feel like, oh wow, it wasn't a one way street.
No, you got something out of helping me.
Which makes me feel like, I think like a lot of people, I don't like asking
for help because then I feel like it.
I don't know, indebtedness.
I feel like I'm taking something away from you that I now owe you.
It's weird, but this shows me that when you helped me it helped you.
Absolutely.
When I asked for help, it also gave you the opportunity to offer
something you really wanted.
Yeah.
And to hear and to hear you say it a similar situation and that
you got something out of hearing.
My end result reminded me of something that you hear a lot.
'cause I think we've, you and I have both, having lived in California, walked
through some pretty spiritual woowoo Buddhist circles where people give a lot
of lipe service to a lot of the, a lot of the suppositions of Eastern philosophy
about the universe being all one thing.
This non-dual world where really you're connected to all other people
on earth and all other things.
It's one reality living out a thousand different identities.
It's really easy to repeat those words and make it sound like you're enlightened.
Yes.
Good point.
But it's rare to experience that.
And when I say experience it, I mean like there's a moment where it's ineffable.
You don't, you don't have to say it, you just feel it.
It, it's, it's real.
And I felt that when you helped me and you told me that hearing
about my journey helped you.
Mm-hmm.
It
reminded me we are all just one.
We're all one life species.
I mean, we're all connected.
And that, that's not, to me it's peaceful.
Mm-hmm.
Because inside of me, I have a war going on inside of me, there's conflict.
So just because we're all the same life.
Force on this planet.
Does it mean that, oh, it's all peace and love now?
No, of course not.
I supposedly am one life form.
I am one person with a name and a credit card, no social security number.
But in my own head, there's a lot of conflict and doubt and hatred there.
I say and love, it's everything.
But that same thing that's in me is all over the earth amongst humans.
It's like humans are like a one colony of life bound together into, into one
thing, like a Portuguese man of war.
Have you ever seen those things?
The, yeah, they look like jellyfish, but they're actually several different
la um, organisms put together into one being Oh, interesting, that floats.
The tentacles are each one different animal and the thing they're attached to.
I'm not a Portuguese man of war expert, so if that's why you've come here,
you're gonna be a little disappointed.
Another marine.
Or like that tree from Avatar or like those trees in the Amazon that are
all connected through a root system.
Right.
You know, just like you could lose a finger and still survive, humanity
can lose what, a few thousand million people a year and still go on.
Right.
So I think this lens credence, this is like one of the rare times
I've actually experienced that.
Yeah.
Like the things that happened to me also happened to you.
Yeah.
We're
all, we're all, we're all connected.
Um, it doesn't mean there's peace on earth.
It means that we're just one thing.
And, and to me that's an amazing feeling.
It feels like zooming out.
Yeah.
And, and seeing the world.
And to me that connects to a lot of, I think a lot of values and moral
issues speaking of our podcast.
So for example, when I think of.
The topic of men's rights, right.
You hear a lot of men's rights activists talk about, well what about men?
Men are suffering too.
And then a lot of women hear that and they think, oh, okay.
You're gonna completely invalidate women's rights by doing that.
And the answer is no.
You can talk about men's suffering and women's suffering at the same time,
because if men aren't doing well, women aren't doing well and vice versa.
Totally.
'cause it's all just one thing.
You cannot have the human race without, um, these genders.
If it's true that there's only two genders, who knows?
Let's not even touch that
one.
Right.
But anyway, that, that was my spiel about like your help and what it did for me
and how it connected me to this, what I thought was an esoteric spiritual idea.
But I actually felt it
when we had
that session.
And it's fleeting, right?
It's hard to connect to.
Sure.
But it, I, I thought it was great.
I mean, w what, what's your take on it?
I mean, I'd like to do, I'd like to get your thoughts, but also
talk a little bit about Yeah.
What you, what you helped me do.
Um, it was to me something that I wish more people had access to.
I mean, including men.
'cause I think it's harder for men to be honest about how
they're feeling in, in, in the
moment.
Mm-hmm.
Or ask for help.
I mean, I hadn't done it for, um, I hadn't done that.
So it was called The Work by Byron Katie.
And, and maybe some folks have already encountered it, uh, or heard about it.
I think Tim Ferriss has talked about it a few times on his podcast and,
and other such people at that level.
Um, anyway, I, I used to go to her, um, live workshops a number of times
and, uh, would watch her do this.
And, uh, I started getting to her maybe 2007 or oh eight Ra and Katie.
And I just liked how, I guess I always liked how clean her teaching was.
There was no.
Mythology, there was no religion, nothing.
It's just pure questioning.
So you just question your thoughts, really.
And um, and yeah, she's not intense
either.
She's very, very gentle, grounded.
There's no showmanship, which is very, to me, was, it's, it, it
helps you get centered, I feel.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and she's quite trippy.
I mean, if you, if you enjoy some of the insights and, and like that
you might, you know, there's a book out by her called, um, A Thousand
Names for Joy, which I always enjoy.
It's a fun book to read because like the first part of it starts
with like her mother's dying, which is kind of a heavy subject.
But, um, it's the most beautiful description of someone dying.
It's just like this.
Beau, it's like a poetry of just like, I'm helping my mother.
She can't move all this stuff.
And it's just immensely beautiful.
And, um, there's a lot of those kind of things in there that are just weird.
It is just different way of looking at the world.
Anyway, I, I, um, but I hadn't done it.
I, I will do it usually sometimes when I'm having like, a crisis of
my own with my family, family or business or something like that.
And I'll just kind of do it by myself.
But I hadn't done it, um, you know, with anyone for years.
And, um, it was helpful for me because really what happens is I don't, I'm
not giving you my advice as a, I'm just kind of walking you through this
process and you're basically, the, the idea is like you're coming up with the,
with the responses and with the answers through that process and in a way.
It's like, you know the answers before you start, you just find them.
I dunno if that makes sense, but it's like you already knew the
answer before you began the process.
You just didn't wanna look at it.
But it was there.
We lied to ourselves.
You know?
It's like, it would be like, I mean, this is why Buddhist Koans, those Buddhist
riddles, where apparently by solving the riddle, you, you can give the answer.
The answer is, is just words.
Mm-hmm.
But
it's the process of coming up with the answer.
That you feel something, you experience something because you just, we all know
what the end result is designed to do.
Mm-hmm.
The end result is, hey, you feel better now if, if it was enough just to
say, Hey, you feel better now because you realize this is all made up.
And then I say, oh wow, I feel better now 'cause this is all made up.
Yeah.
I can even say those words.
Yeah.
But if you don't feel them and experience it, it's pointless.
Yeah.
The process you took
me through in the work.
Yeah.
Uh, which is ki which Byron, uh, Katie Byron's thing, but you, I think it's a
daily tool that you just use so well.
Mm-hmm.
And I, I even know about the tool.
I have read about it, I have attempted to do it.
And it's just one of those things where.
Sometimes you just need someone Yeah.
Who knows you and knows when you're lying to, to walk you through it.
So, but you're right.
It's the process.
It's not the end result.
Yeah.
And I,
and that's why doing it to yourself might be kind of hard.
I wish I was good at it enough to help you, uh, do it.
But you're, I mean, I think you have a really great working.
Um,
I've done it a lot and I do it, I have done it with myself a lot actually.
And I think that maybe that's helped me get good at it.
Um, but I've also just gone to her things enough times or listened to her enough
times where I, it's like I started a kind of, uh, maybe I've rock that part
of it, but I, it doesn't mean that just 'cause I've done that a lot, it means
that I'm thinking this way all the time, which is, which is interesting.
I'm not, I'm, I'm actually as mesmerized until I do the work and,
you know, and that's the only way I've found myself to wake up from
some of this stuff is, oh shoot.
And one of the examples, I think, I don't know if I gave this example to you.
But I might as well because it's, we're talking about men and, and all this stuff.
And, um, so stop me if I have told the story, but one of the biggest things
that I had in the, maybe the past five or six years was, um, I would get into
these fights with my wife about sex.
And, um, I was always, and I, I was usually the one in, no, I was always
the one instigating these, these fights.
And I would have the thought, you know, she should initiate sex with me.
I like mm-hmm.
I like that.
It's when, when she has, it's incredible as a man, you know,
you're, it's a wonderful thing and um, yeah, I should feel
vri haunted.
Yeah, exactly.
It's, it's the best feeling.
And so I, I'd somehow come to the conclusion 'cause I liked that,
that it should go both ways.
And you hear these things kind of like in.
General psychology, like it should be a two-way street.
You know, these phrases?
Mm-hmm.
It should be a two-way street.
And then you say, that's true, that must be truth.
And you start to develop a judgment about that and you're like, oh,
okay, well, that this is not fair.
So I had worked myself up into this idea that this wasn't fair.
That I, you know, I should not be the only one initiating.
It's not fair.
It should go both ways.
For years, I had been, this is, gosh, I must've been going on almost 10 years in
our relationship or more, and we would have these big fights and then, you
know, she would say something like, well, you know, I'll try, I'll try harder.
And then of course I'd be disappointed that no change was happening.
And anyway, I was, I remember one night I was, um, seeding after maybe
one of these fights, and she was like, well, I'm gonna go to bed.
I, you know, I, I don't what to say anyway.
I'm sitting there alone and I'm like, okay, well this is a time,
maybe I should do the work on this.
And I start to do the work.
And I, I, I think, well, okay, she should initiate.
And then it, you know, I get to this point where I realize I turn it around.
I'm like, wait, I should initiate Well, it's like, well,
yeah, I do initiate though.
I'm the only one.
And then as I thought about it, I was like, wait, I, I'm the,
I'm the one who wants this.
I'm the one who wants the sex.
She's flying either way.
So if I'm the one who wants it, who should be the one initiating it?
Well, I guess it should be me.
Right?
And it was just such a, it seems so obvious when I say it now,
but it was just such a thing.
I had never put the two to two together.
I was like, oh, wait, I'm, if it's what I want, why am I asking her to do this?
And then I went further and realized, you know, she's.
Here I am with a, with a woman who has been always open.
You know, whenever I initiate most of the time, she's very open to that.
She's fine with it.
And here I am bitching and complaining, like it's not, that's not enough.
When I know that there are relationships in which a man will
initiate and a woman will say no.
I know that's even fairly common.
Yeah.
And here I am with a woman who will say yes, and I'm a bitch about it.
I'm being a, a spoiled brat, and I'm demanding that she does more.
Shoot.
It's not enough.
It's not good.
It's the whole life.
Mm-hmm.
It's never good enough kind of thing.
And it was a real like slap on the face and a real awakening that, um, once I
saw it clearly, which I had to see it.
I couldn't talk myself into it.
I had to just see it, you know, it's like I had to get through.
I think the, the value of that process, that it forces you to see
the truth instead of you telling, talking yourself into the truth.
And again, once I saw it, I just dropped it.
And I have to say, like I've, it's been like four or five years now, and we've
never had another fight about that.
Um, because I just, it just, I could not bring myself to, to have
an argument about something where I didn't believe in it anymore.
I was like, well, I don't believe that she should be an initiating,
so why would I argue about that now?
So it's, that's, yeah.
You know, just one simple example, but I, I think there's been
many times where I've done that.
You know, my daughter, I was, I'm kind of working on this, where she'll
do something that I don't like, a behavior, and then I'll get into an ar.
Maybe I'll have an argument or we'll have some tension about that.
I'll feel guilty of a day or so later.
Then I'll do the work on that and I'll be like, okay, she shouldn't have
whatever to me, she shouldn't said this to me or talked back to me, whatever.
And then it's like, I go through the work and I'm like, wait,
she should have done that.
And I go, okay, why should she have talked back to me?
And then I can see all these amazing things that were valuable, what she said,
like maybe it's building her character.
Maybe I needed to hear that 'cause I was being a jerk.
And it's this very like, oh, it's, oh, I get it.
Yeah.
I see why she should have done it.
So it's, but I do find that it is something you just have to keep
doing over and over again if you really want to, um, to shift it.
And, and, um, if you don't, which I, there's times where I just don't do it
at all for months or, or so, and, and I don't, you know, it doesn't help.
So, so it is a very much like, you know, you get what you
put in, um, kind of thing.
But yeah, I'm glad I, I'm grateful you liked it.
And so to me, I, I just, a couple things that kind of.
Made me think when Yeah, you, you know what the, right, so like you go into a
process, for example, I'm, you know, so I'll talk about my thing vaguely a little.
Yeah.
Which is, you know, I'm at work and basically something happened
at work that made me look bad.
This is my, you know, this is my version of events when it happened, something
at work happened where, you know, this other external team that I work with
on something, I had a bad experience.
That external team, the head of that external team wrote to my boss with a, a,
a series of very sc things about me that I was not my experience of what happened,
but it goes directly to my boss who I'm already having kind of issues with.
I think that my boss doesn't value my work or think I'm any good.
I often question whether or not I belong doing the job I do,
whether I'm worthy of it or not.
'cause my background isn't a traditional background for the work I do.
And so after this incident, and there's an email that came out,
and my boss immediately responded without talking to me first.
And I just felt like, wow, my boss thinks I'm trash.
Wow.
I don't belong here.
I can't believe she wouldn't even talk to me first before responding to this
set of outlandish, spurious allegations.
And then I just felt terrible.
And I also felt like, wow, did I really do all the things
this person is accusing me of?
Am I terrible?
And now she's exposing my boss to this, you know, surely I will
lose my job and I'm terrible.
And my boss thinks I'm crazy and terrible.
And she will, this will only confirm it.
And oh man, I'm, I'm just the worst thing ever.
And it's funny because that really stressed me out and I
know the answer is, okay, , and because there's two things, right?
One is I'm experiencing stress and anger and anxiety, and this is over a weekend.
'cause that email came out over a Friday.
I'm expre, I'm experiencing stress and anxiety, um, and anger.
All, all these things.
I feel inadequate sometimes when I feel inadequate.
I don't feel like sharing things with my wife.
'cause I want her to think I'm amazing.
But then I, I re, I re I remember that one of the things that makes
me amazing is that I can share these things I'm not afraid to.
And she's the kind of person who can see that she values, that she values a man.
She thinks a man is more, is, is more powerful, is stronger.
When he admits vulnerabilities and is not afraid to, the fear of looking
weak to her would make me look weak.
Hmm.
And so she's my partner for a reason.
She's my wife for a reason.
I'm with her because she values that I am that way, and she sees it as attractive.
So, you know, I shared it with her and she's, you know, I mean, she's
trying to make me feel better.
It's like, no, like I'm sure it's not as bad as you think, or blah, blah, blah.
I know the answer is okay.
I need to like, not be stressed out about it.
I need to not feel anxiety about it.
That's on the emotional side.
On the other side of things, on Monday morning, I'm gonna walk into work.
What do I do?
It's really hard to do the, Hey, I'm gonna walk into Monday.
I'm gonna walk in on Monday morning and I should do something.
It's really hard to think about that when I'm experiencing the
stress and anger and anxiety.
It's, it just muddies up the thinking.
It doesn't allow you to function well emotionally or mentally.
Mm.
I brought that to you and, and it's funny 'cause Yeah, I know
what the end result I want is.
Yeah.
It's me not feeling the anxiety or the stress and it's brainstorming what should
I, what I should go do on Monday morning.
And once you helped me realize that I was responding to my own thoughts
about the situation and took me through this process, I could then have a
different set of thoughts about it.
And I think that's the thing you were talking about when you said
you knew the end result was gonna be, I like initiating the sex.
I should Original thought is.
The original thought is, I don't like that.
I'm always doing it.
She should.
That thought turned into.
You know what I like initiating it.
She doesn't have to, nothing changed like materially.
Right.
And, and wouldn't it be nice if there was just like an AI chat prompt box
where you could just program yourself to think something differently?
Right.
Well, that's what this is.
That to me, that's what the work is.
It's you accessing a backdoor command, uh, you know, uh, a, a
backdoor, uh, command console mm-hmm.
Where you're literally typing in the code needed to change your thoughts.
And that's why you have to go through the process is 'cause Yeah.
You know, the end result.
Right.
But you
have to delete the old thoughts.
That's a good point.
By
questioning them.
Mm-hmm.
And then you have to put in the new thoughts.
You program them in by spelling them out very clearly.
It's the scaffolding that goes around the new thought.
Right.
To create it and build it up.
That takes work.
Yeah.
And that's why it's called the work is because you just can't get there by
someone telling you it's going to be okay.
Yeah.
I think that's a process.
And I mean, maybe we can just go over it really quick, right?
Like, uh, so I brought those things to you, right?
And the first thing you told me was, okay, well let's tell me what happened.
Okay.
I met with this, uh, university team that I'm doing a project with,
they're external to my organization.
The students thought that I was harsh and mean and denigrating
to them and disrespectful.
It was a big misunderstanding.
They just were silent the entire time.
And I kind of rambled to fill the space in and I thought I was
being very helpful in giving some feedback on a product they made.
Now, without judging it, this product.
Was, it was sloppy as inconsistent.
It looked as if no grownup had looked at it.
And these are college age students in their twenties, anywhere
between freshmen to senior level.
There's like five of them.
It was it, you know, I could tell that no professor was guiding
them and they have a professor.
And so I kept trying to get them to kind of come back to this idea
of, you know, maybe we need to work with the professor more.
And they're like, oh no, no, we don't.
And I'm like, look, I'm sure your professor must care or
else they would be doing this.
They read that as me saying, oh, he, he's saying that our professor doesn't care.
Yeah.
And so that was in the email.
They, the professor said to my boss and me, he said that, I don't care.
How dare he, he denigrated their work.
He said it was sloppy.
And then I tried to, um, use young people talk.
I said.
That they should touch grass.
But what I meant is they should reference a good source to kind of
ground truth what they had written.
'cause it was wildly inaccurate.
But I didn't wanna tell them that.
Well, apparently touching grass means when someone who's on the internet
and kind of a loser who doesn't know anything about the real world, you're
telling them to go out and actually touch grass, get to know the real world.
'cause you're such a shut in loser.
I did not know that.
And I should have looked that up.
And I have younger nieces and sometimes I use words they give
me and I should not do that.
Uh, well, so anyway, all of that added, just tell
' em, uh, six, seven, next time.
That's supposed to be six,
seven.
So what added Right?
And then you asked me, well, so that's what happened, right?
And I told you, and then you asked me, okay, great.
Now what are your, let's look at one of the thoughts.
So one of the thoughts I had that was stressing me out, and there was
basically three, the three thoughts were.
You know, my boss is kind of being a bitch right now because my boss responded
without, you know, talking to me first and wants to hand over the project to
someone else because I'm so terrible.
Then second related thought was my boss is, uh, so that first thought was, you
know, my boss throwing me under the bus.
The second thought was, um, my boss thinks I'm shit.
Right.
Um, because she thinks I can't handle this.
And the third related thought, an increasing order of catastrophe
is she's right that I am.
Shit.
I don't belong in this job.
I, I will probably lose this job and everyone will think I'm a loser,
and then I'll have to find another way of providing for my family,
which is a terrible thought to have.
And you took me through them one by one, right?
Um, so that first thought of like, oh, wow.
And, and I think let's just do this one thought.
All the other thoughts went through similar things, but I really wanna
get into this dialogue with you.
Uh, the thought was my boss throwing me under the bus 'cause
she wrote an email back right away.
Yeah.
Saying I'm really sorry that your students had that experience.
This is not, you know, how our organization operates, you know,
his colleague is more than happy to kind of step in and take over.
We can have a phone call and discuss it if you like.
We wanna make sure that you guys have a good experience.
I read that as you know, I believe you, must have done these terrible things.
He's such a terrible person.
I believe you.
And now we're gonna bring in his coworker who's much better than him for the record.
My coworker is actually much better at this job than I am, but, uh, my coworker's
been doing it much longer than me.
Uh.
You said it doesn't feel
good to feel to, it doesn't feel good to no.
To believe that that's because of the, that you're incompetent.
Right?
And, and so in that moment, when you're hearing, when you're reading this,
what's interesting about this process is it sort of breaks your, it starts
to try to break your strong assumption that what you are believing about
the situation must be fact, right?
Because in, in your mind, initially there was no question about what
the intention of this email was.
It was clearly that she believed you were not competent or whatever.
Right?
Or she was, and, or, or that she was throwing you under the bus.
She was throwing you under the bus.
Is the, is the thought.
There's no question in your mind at that moment when you begin
that, that's what happened.
It's just reality in your mind.
And that's why.
And then the ramifications of all that are, are very stressful.
I. And I think that this process, yeah, you know, the ultimate, like you said, the
ultimate goal is to make you distressed,
but it's not even, it's interesting enough, it's not even trying to get
you to, to believe the opposite per se.
It's actually trying to get you to be open to the opposite, which is a
very interesting distinction because
mm-hmm
you can then once you're open to both possibilities, you become
very flexible and you become okay with almost either one.
Um, for instance, like with the sex thing I was saying, um, in my
experience, it's not that I don't, it's not, it's like, okay, I would come
to the conclusion I should initiate.
It's not to say that I now believe 100%, I should always a hundred percent initiate,
and I'm now don't ever want to go back to the possibility of her initiating.
I would love that.
And when it happens, it's wonderful.
And I still prefer it actually.
I actually, I can acknowledge I that is awesome.
But, but I also don't know if that's actually good for me all the time.
It may be actually, if I look at why, why is it good for me that I initiate
90% of the time and she initiates 10?
Well, when she does that 10%, it's so much more treasured by me
because it's such a rare gem for me.
And so now I can see the value of, of, um, of that in a way.
Maybe if I had it all the time, I would just not appreciate it.
So I, mm-hmm.
But, but I still, it doesn't mean that I now have it, it's almost like pulling
you away from black and white thinking.
'cause now I'm not thinking always, you know, it should be,
it should be equal or whatever.
Anyway.
Um, so it, back to your thing in your mind initially, the, the temptation is to
believe that she threw me under the bus.
This is the as, this is the baseline assumption I'm going to.
To, to think and act from and it Yeah.
Prob because it's true.
Right.
And then, and then to actually push against it and say, but is it true?
Initially it feels so like stupid.
Like, what are you talking?
Of course, it's true.
It's plain as day.
Yeah.
No, I mean, and that's the thing is you, you said, you know, I
mean, I'm paraphrasing here.
I mean, this isn't, you know, no one's gonna listen to this and
then be able to do it right after.
But hopefully this makes a great argument that people should look into this.
Hmm.
And, and things like it.
This isn't a commercial for the work work, it's just what?
Right.
Exactly.
Because I mean, I think you and I have had access to a lot of things like this, which
is basically, um, their distinctions.
Mm-hmm.
Distinctions are tools of the mind to get you to say, oh, this is this
thing, this is this other thing.
Mm-hmm.
How you make distinctions in your reality is programmable.
And it's a choice.
It doesn't feel like a choice, but it's a choice.
Yeah.
Good point.
And so I, for example, right, just to kind of not focus on the
work, even though that's what we use in this particular case.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Um, I did something called landmark education, uh, for those that have
heard of it and know it as a cult, it has, you know, things that I
experienced that were cult-like, but it's not a cult because you could
just stop whenever you want and cults.
Don't really have that kind of policy.
Very true.
And
I, I stopped going and I survived.
That's right.
Also, I didn't have to.
Also, I feel like, uh, an important part of cults is weird haircuts,
and I did not have to get one.
So like you did not
have Yes.
You know, I'm just picking something at random.
I feel like there's, you know, as, as far as cults go, it's
missing a lot of the key aspects.
Yeah.
I would say the clothes, everyone I've known, they didn't even touch
the
clothing thing.
So that's another, everyone
I've known who's done it, including my sister by the way, who's now
going back after a few years, um, has freely left for years at a time and
then maybe, you know, either never gone back or gone back either way.
And that is not indicative of a cult where, um, they kind of Yeah.
Are known to hound you for the rest of your life.
Um,
they have a. I haven't gotten an email from them in forever.
They have a or, or, or they don't like me.
Oh, good.
He is gone.
Yeah.
It is fine everyone.
No.
Um, so Landmark Education is another one I was really big into, but I did not do
any of the seminars of the Power of Now.
Right.
Alright.
Um, yeah, I, I read Alan Watt's book and I've listened to a
lot of his audio recordings,
which those aren't, and now the ai, uh, uh, YouTube videos.
I assume you were listening to a lot of those.
Yeah, well, I,
I, I've heard of them.
I haven't watched a ton of them, but like there, there are
recordings of workshops he did.
So it's kind of like being a fly in the wall during a workshop.
Yeah.
He used to do this cool thing called I'm God, ask Me Anything
Interesting, um,
way before Charlie Kirk did.
Uh, and so, uh, although, I mean, I think that was a very useful thing.
He did the like.
Let's
enter into a dialogue.
'cause I wanna prove my point.
Yeah.
Alan wa did the exact same thing.
I think it's a very powerful tool.
It invites people in to be part of a conversation.
And so it's kind of like aropa dope.
It's kind of like, oh, okay, I'm gonna, I don't feel threatened.
I don't feel like you're gonna argue against me.
But the inquiry is the argument.
Um Right.
The
Socratic method to some degree, do you think?
Yeah, to some degree.
Yeah.
Of course.
And, and so to me it's like, uh, there are way a lot of ways to do this.
You can read about stoicism.
Yeah.
'cause Stoicism has this idea that you can't control what happens, but
you can't control how you react to it.
Mm.
And so, to me, the work is just like kind of one thing of many things that
are useful, but we're just talking about this 'cause it recently happened.
Yeah.
Anyway.
You told me.
Right?
Like, okay, let's get that one thought.
And you have to, and I think that's where having someone who knows
what you're doing really helps.
'cause you can't, and also doing it by yourself sometimes
you could cheat yourself.
Yes.
Because sometimes you wanna make things easier for you.
And this work is hard.
It's
not easy.
You can't wiggle out of it.
So, so that's it.
You can't wiggle out of anything.
And so you said, well, you know it, what, what proof do you
have that that thought is true?
And then at the moment right, I'm feeling, I'm feeling it's true.
I try to rationalize it.
I do believe humans are emotional animals first.
We are emotional beings.
Mm-hmm.
We can, we've developed logic as a tool for survival.
We can use logic just like you can use a car to deliver meals on wheels.
You can also use a car to run over people.
And so, uh, and so this brain of ours is just like this
amazing tool that feels things.
It also can think things.
We tend to feel things first when it comes to really exciting moments.
Seeing a naked woman.
I'm not gonna think, I wonder when was the last time she saw a dermatologist.
I might get there eventually, maybe after.
Um, but yeah, so to me it's, it's like,
okay, how is this true?
And I thought, well, of course it's true that my boss threw me under the bus.
Look at this email.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
She references my colleague, she apologizes, she already
hates me, which I know that.
And then you said, well, okay, but is that true though?
And then I said these things and you said, well, you are describing to me
the email and it doesn't seem like she's throwing you under the bus.
She nowhere does she mention your name?
Nowhere does.
She said that you did this thing wrong.
Nowhere.
Right.
And even if she did, it would be a different conversation.
Mm-hmm.
But.
This, in this case, the facts.
You know, you said you left, you kind of showed me, you kind of saw a little
fissure and you cracked it open with a crowbar, and you're like, there's a
case to be made that that's not true.
And you got me to see that in the moment.
And I think that's the hardest thing to do in the process.
And that's why you really need a partner who has your trust and credibility,
right?
Um, you need someone that you trust, um, and love.
Uh, and I love you, Kevin.
Uh, you need someone you trust and love because they're gonna disagree with you.
And we sometimes take disagreement as a sign that they don't trust or
love you, but if you know they trust and love you and you trust and love
them, and that disagreement is fine.
Mm-hmm.
And so.
That's the hardest part.
Now you could also see an expert and now, well, you don't trust and love
them, but you trust them because they're an expert and you're convinced of that.
Sure.
So when they disagree with you, you will take it seriously.
Right.
So basically what's missing there is that kind of trust.
And so when you said, well, I don't really see it.
I didn't get offended that you didn't see it, I'm like, wow, maybe you're right.
Hmm.
And so my wife also said the exact same thing, but she didn't really
read the email and she didn't ask me for a breakdown 'cause
she didn't wanna make it worse.
She didn't want me to like got it, relive it or whatever.
But the training kicked in.
And I think men are more likely to ask for details and facts.
I think women are more likely to see those as attacks on your version of the story.
I know that from experience, or at least that's how it
sounds wise.
I mean, sometimes that's how I can do's how
that's how my wife works.
Yeah.
So maybe, I don't know if, I wouldn't say wouldn't never that always
know what she's doing.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, so anyway, so you got me to question that.
That's what happened.
And so you made a very lawyerly case against it.
And then I, I, you said, is there any evidence to the contrary, and
you didn't directly go there, right?
You, you say like, well, is that true?
And then, you know, it was kind of tough at first and you said, well, is there
any way to know a hundred percent true?
Is there any way to know that?
A hundred percent.
And the answer is almost always going to be no.
'cause even if she was in front of me saying, I'm gonna throw you under the
bus, even then you're like, well, that's just what she's saying in that moment.
Right?
Kick it.
Have a gun to her head.
You know, we don't
exactly but that.
But once again, listen, argue about what's not there.
Right.
What we had was the email and you made a very good point.
You are like.
Hey, well, you're not gonna call her up.
You're not gonna email your boss right now.
So you have no way of knowing that to be true.
Yeah, true.
And that was part of the stress, that's part of the anxiety I wanted answers.
Right.
I wanted to talk to her in this emotional state I was in.
So you got me to question whether or not what I was thinking
about what happened was true.
And then you turn it on its head, right?
And you ask me, well, what's the opposite of that?
And the opposite of that is, oh, my boss is protecting me.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
And it's really hard to say that.
And I think the more emotional you are in the moment, the harder it is to say that.
And it was, I'm telling you, it's really difficult, but you can get there
because if you're dedicated to the process working, okay, well let's, let's
just explore how that could be true.
So I'm not saying it's true, but let's just take that antithesis.
Let's see how it could be true.
Let's investigate, let's look for clues.
And to me, that's what a, that's a very powerful step because now
you know, you tend to find facts to prove what you're already thinking,
right?
So you, you take advantage of that process by changing the final thought.
You don't have to believe it right away.
You just, you put up the scaffolding.
Mm-hmm.
You built up the scaffolding, Hey, this is the shape we
want the final thing to be in.
Can you find any evidence that it's true?
And so we looked for evidence together.
And in the email they didn't, you know, my boss didn't blame
me directly in the email.
Um, she responded right away, maybe to avoid me stepping in and making it worse.
Maybe she realized, you know what?
This professor who wrote this email is nuts.
I'm just gonna calm her down so everyone can have a good weekend.
I was able to think of enough ways that, that is true.
That I'm like, okay, it is quite possible that she thinks she's protecting me and we
talked about this and then I talked about my boss and how she is, and you're like,
actually, yeah, I could see that too.
Maybe she's not really good at communicating it, it, but maybe
now that you are calmed down and you know, and, and there was a
lot more steps by the way, right.
You told you you had me.
Yeah.
And this is a, and this is a, this is a process that is used in hypnotherapy.
It's a process that's used in neurolinguistic programming.
Yeah.
If anyone's ever tried that, which is you get the person to talk about the
feeling and give it a shape and a sense, and you put a physical location to it.
You tie it to the body, which gives a person an ability to find it.
And if you can find it, you can do things to it.
That's the key.
And so you talked about what is the emotion, where does it come from?
What does it feel like getting me to experience it again?
'cause you have to have it right in front of you to be able to examine it.
And then what does it feel like to think this other thing, which
is, wow, my boss is protecting me.
And just saying that and thinking about how that was, and we're
talking about something that was like two weeks ago, even now.
I felt like a rush of
Hmm.
Relief and of like, oh wow man, I'm so lucky to have this
boss who wants to protect me.
Hmm.
And you went through all the other thoughts I was having.
You know, she thinks I'm shit.
She thinks I'm terrible.
I don't belong in this job.
We went, we did this exact same process with the rest of those.
And then after we did that, you talked to me about, okay, well let's talk
about what are you gonna do on Monday?
And with this new clarity of thought, with the anxiety and stress just dissipated.
It was like, oh, you know what, on Monday I should go in there.
I'm not even gonna try to defend myself.
But I could do that because I didn't emotionally feel attached
to the criticism anymore.
Got it.
And it's like, oh, okay.
I'm not even gonna defend myself.
I'm just gonna say, Hey look, you know, obviously the session with
the students went really badly.
It wasn't my intention.
I wanted it to go well and it didn't go well.
And I regret that.
And I'm sorry about that.
I don't think I did anything wrong.
But that's not the point.
The point is we need to move forward and you know, we as an organization don't look
good because of it, and I wanna fix it.
And if that means, um, I'm, you know, I'm perfectly willing to apologize
to the students and to the professor.
And the apology isn't, I'm sorry, I did a bad thing.
The apology is, I really regret that you had that experience.
Yeah.
It wasn't my intention.
And just the fact that you had those thoughts meant that
I didn't accomplish my goal.
Right, right.
And um, you know, I regret that because.
Ideally you guys would come away feeling the same thing I do, which
is appreciation and, uh, joy, that we're doing this thing together.
Hmm.
It's given me something to think about and to kind of recalibrate.
And I hope that we can, you know, like that.
And so when I talked to my boss about this and you told me something very
important, you're like, well, this thought that she's protecting you, go
in with that thought, lead with that.
And then that made me naturally not in a calculated way.
I actually felt thankful for that.
Right.
And I just assumed it's true.
'cause it's more useful to assume that is true than
opposite.
Right.
And so I went in there and I'm just like, Hey, by the way, I, you know,
before we get into all this about how to fix it, I just wanna say that I
really appreciate the email you sent.
I thank you for protecting me.
Thank you for calming her down and stepping in so I didn't
have to, 'cause I was furious.
And ICI see that you do that and this isn't the first time and I
just wanna say that I appreciate it.
Mm. You know, I wanna fix it.
And she was like, oh, wow, you get it.
And that, that blew my mind.
E even if she was lying, even if that was not true, just acting as
if that were true was so powerful.
And it, and it changed how she acted.
It changed.
How so she, did she
actually say, you get it?
Is that what did, what did she say?
No,
no, no, no.
But um, no, no.
Uh, she was like, she just like, was agreeing like, yeah, no, you know?
Got it.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
You know, it, it, it's okay.
Is my job.
Like that.
Got it.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Interesting.
And it
was, it's just one of those things, someone says something
that's obvious, right?
And she just agreed, like right away, she's like, yeah, of course.
She wasn't like, oh, what are you talking about?
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
So it's one of those, it's one of those things trying
throw to the bus
even.
Yeah.
I guess it didn't work.
Uh, 'cause even if she, let's say she was trying to throw me under the bus.
Well, she has to pretend she's not right.
Just her pretending she's not is already kind of like a small victory.
Right.
So either way, it's so funny to me, you know, and I, and I do
wanna wrap this up because if, if someone's not into this topic, this
is pretty tedious conversation.
My, my takeaway is this, don't believe the things you think about what happened.
Mm-hmm.
What happened to you and how you react are two different things.
And there are many ways, there are many ways to change your thoughts
about the things that happen, the work.
Um, Katie Byron is, is one way I find it very powerful and faster
and more grounded than a lot of the other things I've learned.
Mm-hmm.
Hypnotherapy works really well.
NLP if you're an NLP person, but it requires you to really read up on it.
NLP can be a quiet, esoteric practice.
The people who invented NLP were, if I'm not mistaken, um, actual
practicing like psychotherapists.
Oh, cool.
Okay.
And so it, you know, it was, I knew about it 'cause it was used a lot in,
uh, pickup and that's where, that's where I learned some of the tricks about it.
But then once I was very happily married and very happy with my
romantic relationships, I actually ended up using NLPO myself a lot.
Hmm.
Which is, I still use it at work.
Still used for.
Right.
What it used, it was
used for patients.
It was used for patients to, um, smoking cessation, uh, to curve, um, damaging,
um, habits and as a psychotherapy tool.
Absolutely.
Um, so anyway, or you could go to the landmark education,
you can go to the forum.
Yeah.
It is, it is three very painful days where you'll have to confront
and operationalize their concepts.
And that is a really, you gotta have a lot of.
Guts to do that whole program there.
People quit during the program.
Mm.
Because that's how hard it is to confront a lot of your longstanding, a
lot of your longstanding, um, thoughts.
But anyway, my my point is we experienced something together that
directly showed us that that's true.
And you can say it all day.
You want, you can read Marcus Aurelius and talk about it on your podcast.
Yeah, yeah.
But to actually, you and I successfully together destroyed non useful thoughts.
Yeah.
That's powerful.
We
created new useful thoughts and, and one of the, I remember one of the NLP, you
know, in the book, I think from Frog to Princess, I think it was the name of the
book, where the two, uh, psychotherapists, um, it's a transcript from a conference
where they went to, where they introduced the idea with other psychotherapists.
I mean.
People challenging them on all aspects.
They said, look, it's all made up anyway.
Mm. Why
not?
Pick the thoughts that are useful
there.
Go.
Yeah.
And, and, and, and I think it was, and it, landmark education did the same thing.
I'm not giving anything away here.
I'm not
Yeah.
Violating any NDAs and I, I'm paraphrasing, but that NLP, even
Zen Buddhism to an extent has things that sound like this, which is, you
know what, maybe this is all a lie.
Maybe the thing we're teaching you, we're showing you these methods,
these tools, maybe they're all a lie, but they're, it's a useful lie.
Right?
And since everything you live and do is a lie anyway.
Yeah.
Why not use this one that serves you
Sure.
And, and drop all the other ones.
E even Viktor Frankl, right?
Uh, yeah.
Man's Quest for meaning or Man's for meaning.
It, it, it arrives to the same.
You know, it describes the same problem.
Why define did so many
you define your reason.
You define your meaning, basically.
That's it.
Yeah.
Your purpose in life, which you define mm-hmm.
Is what makes life livable or it makes it a living hell.
Mm-hmm.
And
he went through the Holocaust and he was at Auschwitz and there were people
who simply, physically, psychologically, could not make it anymore.
Right.
They weren't killed, they died.
Right.
And what a terrible, wasteful thing.
And, and if that terrible set of circumstances that murdering of people
can be lived through psychologically, then you know, the time your boss
was mean to you probably can also be
Oh yeah.
Dealt with.
Right.
Well, not to compare suffering again, you know, that on a, we all kinda
know that on a, a skin deep level
Yeah.
Is getting to there.
And I, and I, um.
I would say that, um, yeah, any of these, any of these tools are there
to just kind of, I, I guess so.
I guess it's our attachment to stuff.
Anyway, IBL, I just blanked out what I was gonna say.
You're Victor Frankl thing, uh, pulled me into it, and I think it's a very
powerful, as you say, uh, he goes to this immensely crazy experience.
I mean, the first half of that book is jaw dropping every five seconds.
Oh my
God.
And just
and worth and worth, worth reading over and over again.
Especially given nowadays where people deny any of that actually happening.
Yeah.
Oh, I know.
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's in, it's incredible.
And then you're just, you just can't believe someone lived through this and had
anything positive to say about the world afterwards, but the value of that book.
Is, and the number of people that reference, I mean, every, it's almost
like a required reading for life.
Everyone's read the book that I know and, and has come away with
such, uh, powerful, uh, insights.
Um, but if you think about it, you walk into that, you walk into Auschwitz
with maybe a model in the mind of how, of what purpose is in life that
you've been fed by society and stuff.
And if you want, if there's any kind of machine that can rip that
model apart, it would be Auschwitz.
And then you're, you.
He walks out with a completely different understanding of what life is about,
and it's really, and it's really at the, it's, it's it, there's no mythology left.
It just strips all mythology away.
And now there's just the truth and which is.
You must create your own meaning.
Because, because there's nothing he could rely on.
There's nothing he can say, well, it's all about, uh, you know, God's
will or da da da will, or, you know, any, all that's just a story.
All that's left is just, it's me and what is me?
Is it the, is it the guy in a body, in this meat body or is it is me
something that we don't understand?
The unknown, you know, that, and you were kind of talking
about the oneness of it all.
Um, I had this thought the other day, which I thought was interesting.
I was listening to this book or something like that, and I thought
it was really resonating with me.
And I was like, wow, what a deep thought.
I'm so, and I had this weird, it was almost like a twist of the
thought that I had that I thought, yeah, this is a beautiful idea.
What a beautiful insight.
And there was a sense of like, this is my insight.
This is.
And it was almost like I create, it's almost like I created this insight.
It was like, oh, I'm so proud of my, of my insight.
And then I thought to myself, but I didn't publish this book.
I didn't, I'm not the one making the YouTube video or whatever it was.
I don't know what medium it was.
I'm, and then I thought even worse, and I haven't published anything.
This is the podcast.
This is as far as I've gone.
I haven't, I'm not a important person.
I'm not a teacher out there teaching this to anybody.
What, how do, how dare I assume that this is my teaching or
my ins my um, my insight.
And then the other thought came after that, which was, I think it's
because deep down I am that person.
I don't know.
It was just a weird thought.
Like it's deep down.
I am not that person, but I am.
The same consciousness of where that thought, that thought
came from and was birthed from.
There's this kinda deep pool of insight and because I know that's
deep within me, it's deeper than that person who who gave me the teaching.
And it was a very interesting kind of like a sense of like, wow, I don't
need to be the one out there, you know, writing books and, um, you know, being
interviewed on Oprah, I don't need that to feel an ownership of that insight.
It's, it was a very beautiful sense of oneness that I, uh, had for a moment.
And, um, yeah, I, I, I think what you're talking about, like, when, when
we did that together, it was very much a, it was very much a partnership in
that kind of experience a few weeks ago because yeah, man, I walked away
with amazing insights from that.
Just like,
wow, what,
what am I looking at in my world where I think, I'm so sure of this is how it
is, and then I, it just falls apart, you know, when I actually look into it.
Yeah.
How things are going.
And, and that's the thing, it's like when you're, when you see it
being done, you see it's possible.
Yeah.
And
then once you know it's possible, you wanna apply it to so many things.
'cause it's an amazing tool and it's kind of like, um, it's
kind of a little bit like magic.
It's a little bit like getting, it's like tickling.
You can't tickle yourself and sometimes you can't, sometimes it's really
hard to find your own insights.
Um, yeah.
I mean, you know, that's true.
There are drugs that will, drugs that will help you do that.
But you know, that's just one of the many tools, uh Right,
right.
Absolutely.
I like the idea of like, there's all these tools and, and to, to your point,
by the way, I, this is a quick, hopefully a quick story, but I have been dealing
with my, you know, what I've been trying to look at recently is my own anger.
I'm, I'm a, um.
I dunno how much I should, how much I give this credit, but I, I would
say that I, I am a typical Scorpio for whatever that's worth, meaning
that I can get very hot very quickly and then I'll forget about it.
I'm very, you know, I usually don't hold onto to grudges very long, but if I'm
in a situation where my kids are, are bothering me, which has been happening
more and more, um, as they get older and, and it's, and it's not them, it's, it's
just my sensitivities and my triggers.
Right?
Um, and so what I've been working with recently, I've got, you know, again, I
got mad the other day, what are my kids?
I felt guilty pretty much that whole day.
Look at, okay, I, I really got too mad and sounds for something
that shouldn't be, yeah.
Shouldn't be a, a big deal.
And so, you know, they were fighting with each other.
It was annoying, but it wasn't really that, did they, you know, did I
really need to react the way I did?
So anyway, I'm, I'm.
Thinking about this and, and my go-tos with this kind of stuff
is, okay, I've got a problem.
I've got a, I've got a, a habit that I need to fix or, or resolve or reduce the
answer to doing this must be that I have to go deep into my psychological, you
know, complex and start digging in and peeling back the layers of the onion.
I gotta get to the center of the problem.
Serious
work.
Very, yeah.
Serious work.
It's gonna be a long journey.
And I'm like thinking to myself, this is gonna be hard because I've already
done like 25 years of spirituality.
I, it's, and I still haven't gone there.
I'm still pissy, still angry.
And I, and I, you know, when I'm, when these blowups happen, I feel
like I'm not even able to control it.
It's just outta my control.
So clearly I've gotta go really deep into this onion.
I don't know if I can, I don't know if what the hope is here.
Anyway, I. I could have done Byron Katie, I could have done some of the
stuff, Buddhism, landmark, but I found this book in my Audible library, which
I hadn't read, called, uh, how to Stop Losing Your Shit With Your Kids.
Mm-hmm.
Written by a Plain Jane therapist, I think.
Not spiritual at all, just practical psychology.
And I thought, okay, well, I, I'm desperate.
I gotta, I don't think this will help me.
Pretty sure it won't help me, but it'll probably gimme, it'll gimme some corny
tricks to try and none of them will work.
That's kind of what I thought.
But I have to say it blew my fucking mind.
It, it gave me a whole new paradigm to the problem and it, it brought to
light and connected things that I hadn't even connected before in my mind that I
think I'm actually quite hopeful about.
Um, and I, what I, what's nice about it is the paradigm doesn't
require me to go deep into my onion to figure out what's wrong with me.
Yeah, it just simply requires that I notice that, and this was the noticing
that I didn't see, which was the times that I usually blow up are when
I'm undersleep overstressed and not taking good care of myself and my, and
basically I've allowed a combination of my environment and my body to be bad.
And if I can do, you know, the approach being, I have triggers.
If I can do something about the triggers, I should do it.
And if I can't do anything about those triggers, I should accept that that's
something I can't do anything about.
Instead of trying to get, you know, again, dig into the, into the layers
of the onion and this whole different concept of, of like, whoa, you know,
I could fix a couple of things.
I could get better sleep that's fixable.
I could probably, you know, find some supplements to make
myself feel a little better.
I could probably eat better and I could probably, um, you know.
Find ways to cool off so that I'm not stressed out.
Um, you know, one of her things is like, don't multitask.
I have a terrible multi, I love multitasking, and yet it stresses me out.
Mm-hmm.
So these things are, I was just impressed by how, in this case there's times
where it's useful to use something like the work when you're really
dealing with a question, you know, a thought that's causing you to stress.
And then there's just times where you have a habit.
And maybe that's not the right tool.
Maybe that's using the wrong tool for the job and the tool.
And this job to me seems to be, I just pay attention to how
I'm living my day-to-day life.
It's a very practical thing to look at.
And there's no like ahas,
oh
my gosh, I'm one with everything.
You know, it's nothing like that.
It's just very like, oh yeah, I should get better sleep and go to
bed earlier, which I'm not doing right now, but in general I should.
And, um, I love that there's a tool just like carpentry,
there's usually a tool for every.
Problem.
You know, that's so
well speaking for, speaking of getting enough sleep, et cetera.
Yeah.
I will let you get some sick.
Oh, thank you.
Because we're in different time zones here.
Uh, also my wife just messaged me saying like, Hey, are you done anything?
So,
and you should follow that request, I think if you're a wise.
Yeah.
So you're
right.
Exactly.
Like there's the, like, oh, I could turn this into like a deep spiritual issue
about men and women or turn Nope, nope.
It's just drop what you're doing and then come over.
And even if you're not helping that much, you're helping
just by being, you're helping.
Exactly.
Well, I, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go
do that.
Yeah.
I love it.
I will give you my hand off.
But anyway,
thank you.
Thank you so much just for connecting with me and, you know, thank you.
If there's anyone that this podcast is for, it's definitely me.
So, uh, I thank you man.
And then, yeah, no, and thank you.
Until next.
This has been fun and it's, uh, always great to, uh, to, uh,
chat with you about this stuff.
I think this is a good, again, good direction.
Um, yeah, you know, we, we, we riff on many interesting topics, so it's not to
say it's limited to this, but this might be something that I think other people can
relate to and, and hopefully they do, so.
Alright.
All right.
Uh, y Venezuela,
is it the true Repa homeland?
We'll find out, we'll dig into it.
We'll
find out next time.
Awesome.
Alright, sir. Have a great, great week.
Take care.
Bye.