Speaker 1 (0s): All right, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to the TrueLife podcast. We are here with the one and only Kevin Holt. He's a bit of a world traveler. He's an author. He's got some fascinating stories that we're going to talk about. One of them might even be about becoming a fake priest. I'm not quite sure what's happening here, but a Kevin Holt. Thank you very much for taking some time to spend with me today. Why don't you introduce yourself?

Speaker 2 (29s): Thank you for that. Stellar introduction. Introductions are always tricky, cause I'm not really sure what resonates most with whoever's listening to, but, and what level I should talk about the who I am question, but most people want to know where you're from and all that. So I go with nationality. I'm a Swiss national, but having American root system as well. My mom's American that was Swiss and I've lived most of my life outside of the U S I lived in the us from the age of like four to 20.

And then I've spent my adult life living in Spain, Japan, Taiwan, Switzerland for about 10 years. And I now live in Bali. So I've been, I like the term vagabond. I'm somewhat of a vagabond. Her took that from the book by Ralph pots. Vagabonding is excellent. So yeah, I've been sort of a, I'm someone who moves around a lot, nomadic creature, but slow travel. So I'll pick a place and I kind of stay there for probably way longer than it should, but that's, that's how I travel.

So people look at me like, oh, you're so well traveled in. And I go, well, actually, I'm not that well-traveled with compared to a lot of people I know that have visited a hundred countries or whatever, but yeah, that's a little bit about me.

Speaker 1 (1m 49s): Yeah. It's, it's such a great education. It seems to me that I know when I've traveled, I've not only found out a lot about the country that I'm traveling to, but I think I have more found about how ignorant I am or how, how the, the place where I'm from is different. It's weird how traveling can do that for you and almost be a great education. You must have had a fascinating upbringing traveling around so much.

Speaker 2 (2m 16s): It's a interesting thing that I like to do. I discuss in my book a little bit, the idea of how to change perspective and I wouldn't, I mean, you can use the term ignorance if you want to, but it's just, when you're in something it's really hard to get a perspective on it until you exit it. And you have a bird's eye view and you look at it from afar and that's been the case for me because I did most of my schooling in the U S system, although I wasn't back and forth to Switzerland. So I have some multicultural exposure, but it wasn't until I really left and got that bird's eye view that I got to see some of the things that I both appreciated about my host culture and my home culture, rather than some of the things I became critical about.

And I think that's really the main thing that travel did for me, but I think it applies to any, any situation, whether it's a family life or career or whatever, it's just hard to, to see it for what it is from inside. And I there's another guy I talked to quite a lot about this and he raised an interesting point in that. How do you know the culture that you're born and raised in is the one that's for you because he's gone elsewhere and he's found that he's treated much better by the people in the new places he's gone to.

And he resonates much more with the way that they think. So, yeah, for me, I just felt like I've taken bits and pieces from all these different places. And I, so I've kind of homeless in a way, I suppose, home every home at home, everywhere and nowhere.

Speaker 1 (3m 54s): Yeah. It reminds me of the old joke where there's these two young fish and they're swimming in the water and they're just going through their day. And then this older fish swims by him and he's like, Hey boys, how's the water, the older fish or the younger person, like what's water. Like you don't know you're in it until you were exposed to, to it. Like, you don't know your own holes cultures a certain way until you, like you said, you leave it. And all of a sudden you go, oh, that's different. You know, it's, it's, it's different over there.

Speaker 2 (4m 21s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (4m 22s): Do you

Speaker 2 (4m 23s): Think about your, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, your first,

Speaker 1 (4m 27s): Do you think that maybe this traveling and seeing the world from a different point of view from having relationships from different perspectives was part of what inspired you to write the book?

Speaker 2 (4m 42s): I don't know. I mean, it's just, it's part of my story. I never really set out to write a travel book though. So, I mean, I do talk about some of my travel stuff in the, in the book as to using an example of something else. But yeah, I would say that it definitely contributed to a lot of the ideas that I've accumulated over the years. And the one thing I will say about it though, is, I don't know, it's, you can become lost.

Some people really need that sense of, of identity to wherever they're living and their, their home culture. And that's, so sometimes people like to glorify the whole travel thing and I love it, but I just want to give anybody listening a little grain of salt with it. Like you can, if you're too, I'm, I'm pretty open. And so sometimes I might be too open to new ways of thinking culture. And then you kind of, you sort of like lose to some extent what your core is and I'm okay with that.

But I think it can be disorienting for, for many people. Yeah. So that's sort of leads into the whole identity topic, which is something I like to write about and think about a lot. So the travel in that sense has impacted my ideas regarding that.

Speaker 1 (5m 58s): And just for everybody listening, the book is called young, successful and miserable, and it's by Kevin Holt here. It's a fantastic read. I've, I've read, I've read through it from front to back, but I've gone back and looked at certain sections that I felt kind of called to me and even spoke to other people about it. And again, for those listening and watching the book is, in my opinion, it's really well done. Kevin, I I'm thankful that you wrote it and I'm thankful that I'm talking to you. It's not only a book that you can read from front to back, but it's one of the books where you can just kind of find a chapter that like, oh, look at this and you can dig right into it.

And not only can you read it, but you can interact with it in that there's sections for you to almost do like a workout in, if that kind of makes sense. Is that when you, when you decided to write the book, did you know that you wanted the book to be interactive like that? Or is that something maybe you do with your journaling or is that just some way you look at life? Or how did that come about?

Speaker 2 (6m 53s): That's a great question. And thank you for your comments about the book as well. I'm glad you enjoy it. And I want to get back after this question. I want to ask you what, what resonated with you and like what some of your takeaways were, but you know, how, when people say that sort of the muse takes over, I do. And I don't wanna put myself in a category of some like brilliant writer, cause I'm not right. I've written one book that turned out pretty okay. And I like it, but I don't think I actually set out to do anything with it.

And it just sort of almost, almost like a ha I vomited something up and in a very short period of time, that was just, it was just an accumulation of honestly, a lot of anger at some of the structures. I found myself in the extent to which I accepted it when I shouldn't have. And also just a lot of things that I've learned from myself and things I've learned from others. Like I had a lot of teachers and it just sort of came out all like that. And I had done courses like that, where you do some self work.

And I think just in the writing of it, I thought, oh, it'd be cool if actually I put something in here where people could maybe write it out and, and go deeper into it. Cause that's, I mean, in my opinion, the best way to do deep dives is just to write it out by hand. And a lot of self-help books that I've read in the past, they don't necessarily provide that to you. That just you just listening to the author's words and that's great. But if you actually have the time to stop it and write something out for yourself, it can be more impactful. So I want to ask what you like, what resonated with you when reading it?

Speaker 1 (8m 29s): Well, the, the part that really I was, I was reading the first couple of chapters and then the part that really made me stop and put the book down for a minute and go, man, I'm just like this guy or I've been through, this was the part that you began talking about, how you had been at a company for awhile and you realized the, the company architecture, and I'm not talking about the building. I'm talking about the framework for inside the building. You talked about how it kind of seems maybe the opposite of how it should be.

And then you did a little deeper dive on digitization and how digitization has gone and stripped service. It's stripped the idea of, of making something great for the illusion of something better. And that kind of hit home with me. And I was like, you know what, there's all these people living this illusion. And I, the way I did it, I looked at my work where I work at and I work at a multinational corporation. And over the last say, 15 to 20 years, I've noticed that the level of leadership has gone from people, thoroughly understanding the job and wanting to provide a great service and a great product to someone who's willing to maybe undercut the foundation to give the illusion of productivity.

And I mean, I could kind of hear the anger in your voice a little bit. Like you're like, this is not how it's supposed to be. There's all these people that are, you know, working 12 hours, but they're not really working. And they get mad at me cause I can come in and do it in five. Yeah. And so that to me was the first part of the book that really resonated with me. There's more, I have more as well, but can you talk a little bit about what it was that maybe inspired you to write that or lack of inspiration that inspired you to write that?

Speaker 2 (10m 23s): I suppose there was a few things. One was just the feeling of lack of agency in a lot of my career decisions. And that would depend on whoever's your manager at the end of the day. Like sometimes I was, I think at that, when I wrote that book, I had just quit a job or had a very bad manager who didn't know anything about delegating and how to have people give people autonomy over their work. So that was from a situation of not having as much autonomy as I wanted.

And also you mentioned the illusions and it was I'm very much, I believe in merit, you know, like doing a good job showing up and being honest. And it just seemed like too many of the incentive structures were based on pretending. Yeah. Like you said, the illusion or the illusion of we're doing something great or we're making progress. Right. But actually you're just going in the same circle slightly differently every year and telling yourself that it's something new and it's, And I think I wrote in the book even I was trying to be a good guy at one point where I was, I was going to leave and I, I gave him like way more notice than they needed.

I think in Switzerland is one month notice at the time at that job. And I gave him like six months notice. Cause I already knew early on that this is not for me, I'm leaving, but they tantalize me for that. They're like, oh, well you gave your notice before the bonus gets paid out. So you're not getting a bonus. So I'm like, all right, well, it would been smarter for me if I just kept my mouth shut, screwed you over, took my payout and left and left you holding the bag with no time to replace me. So that's just one example where I feel like the incentives are perverse in a lot of, a lot of those situations.

I've had some really good situations. I don't want it to come off. Like I had this horrible work experience and had some great, great ones. And the last time I left was the hardest because I had the best experience and the team was amazing and I loved everybody there and we were friends, but I couldn't solve the whole hamster wheel thing of illusion of progress when none was really being happening, you know?

Speaker 1 (12m 28s): Yeah. Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. It, it, it seems to me and it kind of saddens me when you're, when you're with a company, when you're with a structure and you have adopted the people there as colleagues, if not friends and family that you really care about because you see them every day and you want them to be successful and you want them to be well, but then you, you, you see these rules coming in that are like, Hey, I've had, can I share a quick story with you? That'd be okay.

Speaker 2 (12m 56s): Of

Speaker 1 (12m 56s): Course. So I remember being at being at work and there was these problems with production. And so I took the, my idea to the, the center manager at the time. And I was like, you know, I see what we're trying to do here, but it seems to me, we'd be much better off if maybe we streamlined. And, and we relocate all these different routes. I worked for a trucking company and they wanted the actual driver to come in and go, okay, well we just want more production.

So we want each driver to do, you know, roughly about an extra hour every day. And so my idea was like, okay, I get it. Like I have stock in the company. Let's all be more productive, but wouldn't it be more productive if we relocate the routes and we changed all the routes, cause they haven't been looped in like 20 years, we could shave off time. It'd be more productive for everybody. And you could get a streamlined product, better service and everything. And the guy has looked at me and he's like, I don't know how to do that. And I'm like, okay, no problem. I know how I can help you. And he's like, no, that would, that would take too much time.

I was like, okay, wait, wait a minute. Wait. So you just want these guys to do it. But you, as the leader, you, you don't want to do it. Like you don't want to hold yourself to the very same standard that you're trying to get other people to hold to. And he's like, you know, I don't want to talk to you anymore, but that's just one example that upsets me because I care about the place I work. I care about the leaders and the, the employees. And I think that if everybody is willing to hold themselves to a higher standard, that everybody is going to be better off because of it.

So that was my story about that. Thanks for letting me share that.

Speaker 2 (14m 32s): Yeah. It's another example of this thing of, of like you say, illusion, it's almost like honesty is penalized a lot of the time. And I remember there were very many situations where I'm speaking out like the most recent one, I was like almost yelling at people. I was like, guys, this what? We've invested a ton of money in this technology, get it. And you've sold the world. Like, it's the best thing ever. I get it, but it's not going to work. And I was the one that was closest to it. I was like trying to integrate these two tools for like two years.

And I'm like, this is never going to work. There's fundamental flaws in the software. You can't get it done. And, but no one wanted to hear it. So like, I would tell my boss and then he is still his hierarchy, right? I mean, there's a kind of open, open culture there, but it's still important. Messages often get filtered through a channel from down to up and whatever the guy in the bottom says, isn't necessarily what the person that's thought hears. Right. Because everyone in the middle is playing this sort of yes.

Men game, unless you have really good leaders, which are rare. So then I'm saying this stuff for years. And then when I resigned to the big boss who was my old boss, he acts like he's hearing it from the first time. And I'm like, I've been telling everyone around me, like having shaking people, like we gotta do something is not going to work. And then, you know, it was so lack of communication is another thing. And when you S when you see a good leadership, it's really nice because there's so much bad leadership.

And, you know, I have had some fortunate to have really good leaders. And so I, I do appreciate when I see it, but it's pretty rare actually, that they're really open, honest communicators out there.

Speaker 1 (16m 13s): Yeah. You know what? I had this idea, let me know what you think about this. When you said that you guys were creating this technology and it came to your understanding that it didn't work. I kinda think that that is exactly what's been happening in our world for the last 20 years. It seems to me that, you know, boards of directors, CEOs, people at the top have been sold this bill of good of technology, like, okay, this is going to make everything more productive. We're going to have these self-driving trucks. We're going to have this new technology that's way better.

And it's going to alleviate, you know, workforce, it's going to, it's going to create tenfold production. But it seems to me that a lot of the technology that's been sold as a method of solving problems, hasn't come to fruition. And now we're seeing these problems play out because people try to implement it and it doesn't work, but they've already bought it. They're already committed to it. And so they're rolling it out anyway. And it seems to me that in doing so, we've lost the very knowledge that has got us to where we are.

We've lost the people in leadership that start at the bottom and work their way up. And I'm just curious if you see that as maybe an isolated, a couple of incidents, or do you think that that could be the thin red thread that's woven its way through the world in which we live today?

Speaker 2 (17m 31s): Yeah, that's a, that's a really great observation. And I think that that's probably, I can't speak for everyone else that I had, you know, I was working in jobs like this because I've only been in one particular industry, but I've seen that exact dynamic play out across the industry, which is why I kind of left the industry. Cause I'm like, well, this is happening at my job. I know what's happening at these other companies. So where am I going to go? Because it's all the same and I'll take it a step further. I think that that problem you mentioned is probably a huge reason for why people are resigning in droves or they're miserable at work now more than ever, because what was sold as something that's supposed to enhance productivity and create growth, actually, for most of the people that, well, I was like middle management and below, but like at those level of jobs, it just, it makes it into more drudgery because it takes away your creativity.

So I mean to use an example from my work, I used to do a lot in Excel and I quite like Excel because I'm a logically oriented person and I can think of little formulas to optimize my work and view data the way I want. And then there are problems with that though, of course, with doing everything in Excel. So then they bring in software as a solution. Problem is now you've got to do it that way. You can only do it the way the software allows you to do it. So you have way less autonomy over how you control your work. And then will kept happening to me is it took me twice as long to get the job done because someone, I could just do an Excel.

I had to do this roundabout way in the software and it just ended up being more boring and took longer. And then of course you're evaluated on your productivity and what they gave me made my productivity goes down. So I don't know for me, it was okay. But a lot of people struggled, you know, they worked longer and they were just more miserable. And so, yeah, it just, hasn't really the, what they've sold it as hasn't really come to fruition as, as you said. So I think that's, yeah.

I th I think, do think I mentioned, I forget the exact quote on using the book, but I think it's pretty funny, like some drudgery, soul eating drudgery or something with each wave of digitization.

Speaker 1 (19m 46s): Yeah. That's the part that, like, that was the first part that reached through the pages. Like, listen to this. I was like, oh, I love this guy. That's exactly what I was thinking.

Speaker 2 (19m 55s): And of course, like you said, they've already invested millions. Right. And then no, one's going to listen to me because it's a message they don't want to hear. So as long as there's someone higher than me, that's saying, oh yeah, yeah, we're doing great boss. They're like, okay, we can forget about that and continue, you know, and they know people are going to come and go anyway. So they kind of don't care to some extent.

Speaker 1 (20m 14s): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it seems to me that that's, when you begin to see a lot of creative accounting happening. Oh yeah. This is totally productive. Hang on. I'm going to switch this to a zero, you know, and then, and then everybody loses. I,

Speaker 2 (20m 27s): Or they defer the cost to another quarter. I don't know what they're doing with it.

Speaker 1 (20m 32s): Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20m 34s): And then of course the willingness to like, actually go, oh crap. Like it's not going to work. Let's scrap this investment and start over and invest in another few million. It's not popular and leadership to report losses or lack of profit, you know?

Speaker 1 (20m 49s): Yeah. No one ever wants to admit they're wrong. But the truth is, if you don't admit something's wrong, it never gets better. Right. You have to be willing to be like, okay, I made a mistake, but if you do that, you're going to get fired. So what are you going to do? You're you're just going to extend and pretend until, until you, you know, make, tend to, it works. I guess.

Speaker 2 (21m 10s): I mean, they kept promoting me. So I'm like, w I mean, I'm talking shit all the time and you still let me get away with it. Like, so you're not listening to me, but you're not getting rid of me, like, what is the situation? And then they kept trying to put me on stuff. That's oh yeah. We can put Kevin on a hill, fix it. And then after awhile, I realized it's not fixable, so,

Speaker 1 (21m 28s): Right. Yep. Yeah. It's when they, when you seem to me like a person who genuinely cares and wants to help people, and I'm stoked, there's people like you in, there's probably people, hopefully there's more people like you in buildings and in companies and in board rooms around the world, because we definitely need it. I wanted to ask you, do you, like, you have some interesting stories, almost a trifecta of death that came your way. Like you've been, you've had these crazy experiences near death experiences that I thought were, you know, hopefully everybody has at least one in their life where they come to this road to Damascus moment.

And it seems like you've had three of them. Can you share maybe one or two or three of them about what happened and what, how do you think it changed you?

Speaker 2 (22m 17s): Well, I'll yeah. I think the second one is, is good to share cause there's sort of a background to it. Okay. So you've had three, as you mentioned, I had a near drowning thing. And then the one I want to talk about is the heart attack the year after. So yeah, that happened when I was 19. And what was interesting about that? There's a backstory, which I don't think I wrote about, but I was at a crossroads and basically one route was traveling and one route was going to this business school where I was, and I don't want to give them more details, but basically they're incompatible.

So I was doing summer session because I was taking summer courses. And it was like a week before the last exam I had to take. And if I aced that exam, it would have got me into the business school. At which point I would be confronted with that choice. Okay. Do I do that? Or do I do this a couple of days before? Out of nowhere, I have a heart attack. It's like 10 in the morning, I'm eating cereal. And like I'm by myself in the apartment that I was sharing. And I have all the telltale things, you know, I've had the numbness in the arms, it was in both arms.

And I was like, man, this is, this is weird. But it can't like, it can't be heart attack. Like, that's insane because I was in super, I was in awesome shape. I was playing competitive racquetball for the school. You know, I was in the gym every day. I was playing two or three hours a day. I was swimming. I was lifting, was all kinds of stuff. I was like, no, I can't be. So I laid down for a while and then I started getting this, this arrhythmia and I could like palpably, hear it. And then I was like, well, I feel like an idiot, but I going to have to go to the hospital. So I drove myself to the nearby university hospital, which is about 10 minutes away, by the way, terrible idea.

Anybody listening don't do it. I was too embarrassed to call 9 1, 1. That's a stupid reason to drive yourself to hospital or having a heart attack because you can lose consciousness and die. All right. Luckily I did not. So I got to the parking lot, check myself in and I went to the lady there and I said, Hey, I think I'm having a heart attack. And then she said, well, are you doing exams right now? And I said, well, yeah, I actually have an exam in a couple of days.

She was like, oh, okay, well go talk to the charge nurse. Then she'll check you in. So then I go talk to the nurse. And then of course, if you've ever been in a hospital in the U S or any kind of clinic, they check you in, they ask you to rate your pain on this infamous scale of one to 10 or whatever it is. So I don't know if I deluded myself into hearing this or her misheard or whatever, but she said, please rate your pain on a scale of one to 10, one being no pain, 10 being the worst pain you can imagine. So I don't know if she exactly said the worst pain you've ever felt or the worst pain you can imagine, but I heard worst pain you can imagine.

And I've got a very vivid imagination. So I'm like, okay, what? The 10 is like being burned alive or some medieval torture, flaying, splaying with skin off me or whatever. So if that's a 10, this is like a five, right? I mean, it hurts, but it's not anything compared to that. So I'm mark five. Well, okay. Go in the waiting room. So I go in the waiting room and like 10 minutes go by 20 minutes, 25 30. No, one's coming to get me. And I'm like P like pale, I'm shaking. And I'm like almost, almost losing consciousness.

I can barely keep my, my conscious, my eyes open. So then I managed to drag myself back over to the desk again. I was like, I know this. And so it's been like an hour and a half now, since I've had these heart attacks symptoms or close to that, and I finally get myself, you know, I'm like, look, I know you think I'm stupid, but I really think I'm gonna have a heart attack. And they're like, oh yeah, they were just looking for you and whatever. So they, they bring me into this hallway. It's a little makeshift bed. And they, once again give me anti-anxiety medicine.

Cause they're still operating under the assumption that I'm worried about my exams. Right. So that does nothing. Right. So there's another 20, 30 minutes. Or like, I'm just sitting there like, oh, like just like being constricted, like there's a vice around my chest can be very well, you know, and all this pain and stuff. And they finally do the scan and I come back from the scan. They're like, Hey, we think you had a heart attack. I was like, yeah, I know I've been telling you that for almost a half an hour. And then they gave me the thing that it's like, nitroglycerin that they put under, you put it under the tongue and that just opens your arteries.

And then it kind of went away. Like the pain went away and literally five or 10 minutes. And then I was just like walking around as if nothing happens. So they thought I smoked crack. And that was there. They're like, did you smoke crack recently? No, no. Crystal meth, anything like that? It's like, no. So it's just, I dunno, it's, it's just this fluke thing that I suppose anyone can have. I mean, it's very low probability, but basically an artery just randomly spasm closed and cut off the blood flow to my heart.

I'm telling the story because it's entertaining. But the backstop of the story is that once I got out, once I got recovered, this decision tree was like crystal clear. There was no doubt that, oh, it's I know it's a travel thing. I'm going traveling. Like I'd had no more interest in that business school thing. I ended up taking the test, getting in any way, but I was like, I don't care. I've already decided. So it's an extreme example of, I think we have this a lot. Like a lot of people have this. If you are aware to it, where if you have this sort of fork in the road of life, if you put the question out there, sometimes you get answers in, in ways you're not expecting.

And I think that was kind of what this was. It was like th the travels, the heart, the heart path. And then the work is like the logical mind path. And then it's like heart attack, Hey, pay attention to your heart. What do you really want to do? You know? And then I looked at it and I was like, oh yeah, that's pretty clear what I want to do. So then that's, then I've gone to Spain, stayed there. I was supposed to go for a semester and abstain, like over a year, I got a job there, like bartending, just like, had the best time and had no desire before that to really go traveling.

But this, this experience gave me that, that travel bug. And then after I was like another six months, I had to go back to graduate and then I just left it and took off. I went to Japan after that stayed in Japan two years, Taiwan, five years. Yeah. So that really opened up a whole chapter really of life. I don't know if it's hard to say, because it's most impactful when these things happen to you, but even then they don't last very long.

It's, it's really only, you know, for a few years you have this, this incredible gratitude for life and that you survived and that you can still breathe and stuff. But I think after a few weeks, you're kind of back to normal. So it really requires reinforcement, you know, just maybe every day, do a little bit of that kind of death awareness that you could die anytime and just try to get at what you really want to do. So that's my takeaway. The other takeaways I've had from these experiences is just how, like anything could change like literally at any time.

And what you think is you're so comfortable with and secure and that's yours and you can hold it. It could be gone anytime. And I've had a lot of different episodes, not only these stories, but a couple of other things that have happened where literally boom, everything just sorta changes very at a very short time. And I think what it has done for me is allow me to allow me to sort of surf in the wave of, of uncertainty more than I otherwise might have been able to.

I think that's my main takeaway from all that.

Speaker 1 (30m 11s): Yeah. That's an incredible lesson because the truth is the only certainty we have is this false sense of security that we build around us. Like it, things can happen and they do happen a lot. And in some ways, as horrible as tragedy can be, it seems to me, it can be looked at as a gift once you've gotten through the pain or you've gotten through the grieving process because it clears away all the detritus and it clears away the, like the bullshit, you know, like you said, it was like, here you are struggling.

And like, I'm going to focus on getting in this school because it would mean all these other things. And your heart's like, nah, man, like your heart was literally not in it. You know what I mean? I wasn't in it. And so I thank you First off. Thanks for sharing that story. And thank you for putting it in the book because that's what I got out of. It was, yes, these things that we feel are tragic are usually events in our life where we're at a crossroad where we've been thinking about something and our body's not in tune with our language or our brain and our body that mind body connection is severed.

And you know, the, the world will grab you by the hand and pull you a certain way when hopefully when you're making bad decisions, hopefully you listened to it, but you could have chose not to listen to that, but they don't go to this business school anyway. And you know, you, it might've been two more heart attacks before you decided that maybe you were going down the wrong road there.

Speaker 2 (31m 46s): I did end up circling back to, to the business world. So I was like, oh, I can do. Maybe I can do it later. You know? And then I went to business school much later and then got into that world.

Speaker 1 (31m 55s): Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31m 56s): It's funny though. I wrote about the migraines. I started having those around the business school the second time. I'm like, I'm just out for the first time thinking about that. I was like, wow, okay. Maybe, maybe they're like, Nope, this still isn't right. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (32m 10s): It's like, how do we get through to you?

Speaker 2 (32m 12s): Yeah. Not listening, stubborn child. This is the universe trying to tell you something.

Speaker 1 (32m 19s): Yeah. Tap on his head a little bit. He hit him in the heart, get him in the head. Let's see what,

Speaker 2 (32m 22s): Yeah. What can we take from this guy? When is he going to finally get it?

Speaker 1 (32m 26s): He's a tough one.

Speaker 2 (32m 28s): He's stubborn one.

Speaker 1 (32m 30s): But on the flip side of that too, you learn that you can push through your comfort zone and get things done, you know? And on level, when you tell me that story, how you doubled back, it makes me think that the deal you struck with yourself, okay, I'll travel now, but then I'll come back. A lot of people would never follow through with that. So, you know, depending on how you want to look at it, you know, I think you can look at it in a positive way. Like yeah. When I traveled, I learned and then I doubled back and was true to myself because I made a deal with myself to go back to it.

Speaker 2 (33m 3s): And I kind of, I found a way to double back without sacrificing the travel, which I think is difficult to do. But I got lucky because I did, I did have going to business school, like at the master's level, but I did it in Taiwan. So I was still like in Taiwan, living there and like, oh, I can get this education at the same time. And then I moved to Switzerland where I'd never like lived in as adult before and started my career there. So it was still like a new environment. So yeah, I was sort of managed to do it like that. So I was very lucky, I think.

Speaker 1 (33m 34s): Yeah. It

Speaker 2 (33m 34s): Was responding to the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (33m 36s): Yeah, absolutely. How did you find, how have you found being educated in one country and then applying for a job in another country? Do you find that the country that you're applying for the job in tends to look at your credentials from another country on a positive note? Or do they look at it through maybe a little bit of a lowered brow?

Speaker 2 (33m 56s): Well, I'm not sure, but I think, I think Switzerland is Europe versus us is a bit tricky because I find that in the us, people are much more open. They're much more open to you bringing an experience to potential job. That isn't necessarily what you studied for the last 10 years. Right? So they, they might give you a start in like sales. You've never done sales before, but in Europe, specifically in Switzerland, everybody is hyper specialized. And as another interesting like road, we can go down about generalization versus specialization.

But there, it was probably not an advantage because they had so many people where they had been doing that exact thing for so long, like in every industry. So it's kind of hard to break into quite honestly. And it was also the, the trap of being overqualified for stuff or under, under, under experienced, but overqualified, which is silly. Like there's a lot of job ads out there that for entry-level work, they want you to have five years experience. So it was like, how does that make sense? Yeah.

So I ran into that quite a bit and I'm somebody who was like, I don't need to start here. I mean, I'm new to this place. I just give me any job. I'll work a temp job. Yeah. But even temp agencies were like, Hey, you got a master's degree. This there's nothing here for you. I'm like, I don't care. Like I need to eat. Right. I need an income. So this is a little bit different mentality there.

Speaker 1 (35m 21s): Yeah. I have noticed if, if we backtrack just a little bit, I've noticed that a lot of the new books coming out. Well, a lot of the new books that I've been reading, even like, I think your book is this way. And I think a lot of the new exciting fields or interdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, interdisciplinary

Speaker 2 (35m 44s): Interests,

Speaker 1 (35m 45s): And prior to the last few years, it was this incredible hyper specialization where people that are on the extremes, they're almost not even talking the same language, you know, it's so in depth. And so I know the left pinky finger fingernail, but it's way different than the pointer finger now. And so it's easy to see how we've gotten so separated from each other when in the same field there is, you know what, it reminds me of this.

It reminds me of the idea that there's more numbers between zero and one than there are between one and infinity. If you think about that for a minute. Yeah. Because there's 0.0 1.00 1.0001. And there's smaller numbers, you know what I mean? And so that, that seems to me to be like specialization, like we can, we can break it down so fine that you need a super special microscope, but at some point in time, you got to pan back and look at the big picture I'm going, okay, we've lost it here. Let's let's, let's get back to whole numbers here and figure this thing out.

But what, what was, what, what is your take on the special hyper specialization versus the big picture?

Speaker 2 (36m 56s): Well, I'm glad you brought that up. Cause I was, I was just thinking about this before we started talking that I actually, there's a, there's a great word in German called of the word. Fuck means specialization. Idiot means idiot. So we have so many people hyper-specialized, but as you said, they only see this little fingernail and they lose, lose a whole big picture. And you see that in, I mean, you just look at the, like, COVID a vaccine debates.

You can't, unless you have a PhD in this, like one little traunch of medicine, it's almost like your opinion. Isn't valid. Like you're unable to draw inferences from other sources and tie it to what you've already known. And that's an interesting way of stifling debate. On the one hand, on the other hand, we're not getting anywhere because we just have these people talking in their echo chambers and no one else is allowed to participate. And that ties into kind of what we were talking about before with, with the work culture.

I think work was a lot more interesting when we were generalists because you weren't necessarily just doing bookkeeping all day long every day. You might've been doing a little bit of that, a little bit of a customer support, a little bit of, you know, a lot more variety in your work. And I love those, sorry, there's a plane driving a flying overhead, but I like the stories from three read these books, like not thinking grow rich, but of that era in the 1930s, forties and fifties. And you had the sense of, of anything was possible.

If people would just walk up to Thomas Edison's company and say, Hey, I'm Mr. Nobody, I want to work your company, Mr. Edison. And he's like, okay, here you go, sir. I gave you a chance and it doesn't happen like that anymore. So much. And there's so many barriers, artificial or otherwise in the way of that. And it made, I think it made white collar work much more boring, much more like a, an assembly line. If you think you're so specialized, you're just doing this one tiny piece of the process.

And I've, I've always been the opposite way. And I always felt my whole life, like I was side, he was telling me I was doing something wrong because I've always been super general and have all these different interests from different areas, but that didn't translate so well into the career world. Right. You know what I mean? I

Speaker 1 (39m 17s): Know exactly

Speaker 2 (39m 18s): What, so I don't really know the solution, but I think being more general is good, but then there's the argument of, well, we, the more we specialize, the more wealthy we become, right? It was all, all the Western economies are around really specialized labor. So I don't know if there's a way to do that. Maybe we do need to lose some, you know, wealth or whatever to figure it out. But I don't really know how we navigate that. I hope we can figure it out.

Speaker 1 (39m 42s): I think it's going to happen. Like I think it's happening now because when you so specialized, you, you no longer have a difference of opinion. You only have the opinion that was taught to you by the guy who knew the person who was the perfect specialist. So everyone has the same blinders on, and that's why we can't solve problems. It's like, we're gonna go to these professionals. That all think exactly the same. Okay. Well, you're going to get the exact same solution. And when you said that, you know, when we S when you gave your example about Edison, or even your life that you lived as a generalist, that allows you to see the problem from a fresh set of eyes, like it's, it's like if you ever have a problem, and then you're like, I can't figure this out.

What you go to sleep and you wake up the next morning, you can figure it out. Cause you got this fresh idea on it. You can see it differently. We need that same sort of problem solving method from, from different angles of life. And that, that should be what diversity is. Diversity should be a difference of opinion. It shouldn't be okay. We need a, this person we need to, we need this kind of a person, that type of person. But I want us to all think the same. It's back to the illusion of diversity. Just because people look different and have different gender.

It doesn't mean they think different. And in fact, if we take all these different colored people and put them in the same institution, okay, now you have a bunch of different looking people that all think the same. It's not nothing's happening like that. You have to get people from different walks of life. And it just seems to be a natural filter process to filter that out. And I think it gets back to the people don't want to be wrong. So let's hire people that will do what we tell them and think the same, but we're running from the very thing that would free us, I think.

Speaker 2 (41m 18s): Yeah. You see that a lot in, in the corporate world too, because you know, to get a corporate job, usually you have to go to a four year university for a universities, tend to be somewhat conformance in how they want you to think about things. Yeah. So then you get into a group of, you know, peers already at that level, and then they'll go to the same companies and yeah, they could be from whatever background, any kind of ethnicity or race, but they they've learned to think and look at the world through the similar lenses.

So you don't really have that much diversity anymore. And it's also the, when we're talking about generalists, who are the people that used to be idolized, you know, you think about the Vinci, you know, the Renaissance people, the Vinci look at all the things. The was a good at. He had like 15 different, amazing abilities. Cause he was so all over the place and the, the founding fathers of the U S they were all like really diversely educated people.

And it's like that exposure to different ideas that ends up being the driver of a lot of like the best inventions and innovations. I think rather than somebody who's just doing one thing and not looking at anything else. So we sort of lost, we lost creativity. I think overall, by going down this route,

Speaker 1 (42m 40s): You know, there's, there's a parallel I see between what we're talking about and like your book. And that is we try to set it up the way where if you think about a P like an engine, like there's a bust in a boom, like a piston goes up, it goes down and it explodes. And then it comes back explodes and it comes back the same way the tide of the ocean goes out and then it comes in, it goes out, and then it comes in. And the same way our economy has a boom bust cycle. We expand out and then we cut and then it collapses and it expands back out into collapses.

I think specialization is a form of expansion because it's like, it goes way out the same way you would take an ink bottle and smash it against the wall. And all the ink would fall out and it'd be these little spirals and stuff, but it's still the same ink. The way I see your book written is like, there's this premise. And then you go and you, you've traveled to Spain. You've expanded to Switzerland. You've expanded to different relationships. You've expanded through these near death experience. And then you bring it back. And so I'm often lately, I've been seeing this pattern in good books like yours and in life and in the world in which we live.

I'm wondering, do you see patterns like that? Not only in your life and in your writing, but throughout the world you live.

Speaker 2 (44m 2s): I do. But I want to ask you a question about what you just said. When you talk about the patterns of expanding and bringing it back, what do you think of the idea that our artificial delaying of the, bringing it back over the last few decades due to fed monetary policy, people pumping more stuff into the system, delaying exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (44m 25s): Oh, it's feudal. Like, there's no way, like you can't, it's like, it's like the tide goes out. And then I, I draw a line in the sand and try to catch the way the water it's like duty. It's not going to work. It's like a sand castle and you can pretend, and you can, you could pretend the emperor is wearing clothes, but there's nothing those people can do. Like there's going to be

Speaker 2 (44m 43s): Radical.

Speaker 1 (44m 45s): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and the more you delay the truth is, I don't know. I don't think it'll work, but maybe if you dug a deep enough hole, it would catch the water as it came back. But I don't think you can stop the cycles. You may be able to delay them, but are you really delaying it? Or are you just causing pain in different areas?

Speaker 2 (45m 5s): Right. That's what I'm suggesting. Right. Because we've been, it's been delayed for so long, and then it's given rise to all these ills that we're talking about right. Over a specialty. Cause we're not bringing it back. They keep putting it off. I mean, eventually it will. I mean, probably in our lifetimes maybe very soon. Who knows?

Speaker 1 (45m 23s): Why do you think they're doing that?

Speaker 2 (45m 25s): It's the same thing. Like in the company it's, it's, it's also, it's politically driven who wants to be responsible for the great pullback, right? Nobody, nobody wants to be like, oh, that happened on my watch. No way I'm going to kick the can, man, that guy's going up, this like hot potato. And I just feel like they they're, they keep playing hot potato so they can extract where they need to in fast enough time, then you hope the other person that comes in and does it, but they're playing the same game. Right. So it just keeps going on until, until it hits that critical mass where you can't do it anymore.

Which I don't think is that far off, to be honest.

Speaker 1 (45m 59s): Yeah. Do you think that we're as guilt? Like, do you think we're as guilty as the people in positions of authority? Like, am I spy? We, I mean guys like me and you doing a podcast right now, they get up and do their thing or are we just as guilty as the people in positions of authority?

Speaker 2 (46m 15s): Probably. I mean, most people don't really want to do anything about it because it's uncomfortable, right? Yeah. Yeah. I like my, my comfortable life and you know, all the stuff at my fingertips and food delivered to my door or whatever. I don't want to go through periods of famine and, and unpleasantness, but it's going to require something like that. So yeah, we just, we all put it off either physically or psychologically, I think. And we just, in our minds, we just feel like we, I mean, how old are you?

May I ask?

Speaker 1 (46m 47s): Yeah. 47

Speaker 2 (46m 48s): Also. Maybe not the extent that I have, but I've pretty much only live during good times. Right. If you think about, okay, there's been a couple of recessions and the.com bubble burst and maybe the one, 2008, but we haven't had any, any real pain. And we've just had the good life, at least in the west. And we just have this expectation. That's just going to keep going and that we're never going to have to pay that reckoning. So kick the can in the next generation, that's what people are kind of doing.

Speaker 1 (47m 16s): Yeah. I, I, the silver lining that I try to pull up over myself is that in times of radical change, there's radical opportunity. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll become a multi millionaire or Robin barren or, or one of these Carnegie individuals. But it does mean that you have an opportunity to ride that wave back in and you can change who you are with greater intensity and flow.

If you go with it. And for me, like I've been a ups driver for 25 years and I've, I've been lucky to travel around the world. I love reading and I've, I've found myself over the last, ever since COVID hit like a fundamentally it's fundamentally changed me, who I am like I've been able to, I always like helping people and I try to volunteer when I can and, and, and help people. But when COVID hit, I decided, you know what, I'm gonna start a channel. I'm gonna do some podcasting.

And today I'm talking to you and I do. You're an awesome person. And I book is awesome. And I've spoken to other people who were really cool when I've gotten to learn so much more. And I've created all these new relationships because of the great pullback because of the recession, because of COVID. And I've my wife and I's relationship has become better. And she's gotten to work from home a little bit and it's, it's, you know, fundamentally changed the way we spend money. Cause we don't have a whole lot of money anymore. And, and so I think that to see the change and try to build a dam and not change is few tiles.

But if you can kind of understand a little bit, or at least see the direction, things are moving, then you yourself can move with it and you can change and use it as a catalyst for that change. So I think that there are some silver linings, if you're willing to accept a little bit of pain and just know that pain is change and that we're always changing. So you should embrace this pain and embrace this change.

Speaker 2 (49m 24s): Yeah. It sounds like you're talking about developing resilience and just at least mentally, perhaps financially with ties or whatever, and just to be able to respond to what comes,

Speaker 1 (49m 35s): What's the, what's the alternative, right?

Speaker 2 (49m 38s): Holding on, you know, come down with the shift to that, but you're not sure many people do

Speaker 1 (49m 46s): Well. I think, I think we've probably both done it before and we know it doesn't work like that. You know, when I was, oh man in 2010, my son died. And for me that was like, it took so long. You know, I held onto that ship for as long as I can because it meant death and I didn't want to hold on and I couldn't let go, I'll die. If I let go, my family would die. If I let go, I can't let go. I'm the dad. I'm, I'm the husband. I can't not let go of this and that, you know, they, everything died.

Relationships died. Part of me died. My relationship with my wife almost died last. I, I lost my kid. Like I lost everything. Yep. And as, as you finally let go, you begin to understand, you know, maybe there's a gift here and I know that sounds so fucking crazy, but

Speaker 2 (50m 45s): No, it doesn't sound crazy at all. I fully agree with you.

Speaker 1 (50m 48s): You know, again, I learned like that's what that is when I learned the purpose of tragedy, the purpose of tragedy is because there's something bigger than we can understand. There's something bigger than we can comprehend. And the purpose of tragedy is that something, this bigger fours believes you. It shows you, Hey, this is going to hurt really bad, but I'm going to take you through it. And when you come through the other side, I think you're strong enough to come out that aside and help people that it's going to happen too.

So I'm going to give you the sight to see it happening. I'm going to give you the sight to see the abuse before it happens. And then I'm also going to give you an interest you with the privilege of helping those people get through that event, because you can do it because I chose you to do this and you start, I started thinking like, God damn. If somebody loved me and believed in me enough, call it God or Gaia or Buddha or Mohammad, call it whatever you want. But there's this force that loved you so much.

It caused you the worst pain possible because it knew that would change you because it knew that you can go help other people. And that's what I learned. Okay. Let go. I know you can't let go. And so now when I see other people that are white knuckle in it, I'm coming over to you. I see you. Hey, Hey, what's going on? What's up with these white knuckles, man. What do you do? And just let go. I can't let go, Jordan. Yes, you can. Like, I think that that is what allows you to change. Like you, part of you has to die, so something can grow back.

Part of you must die so that you can move forward and it's very painful, but it's necessary.

Speaker 2 (52m 27s): Yeah, totally. There's something in, I mean, I've never lost a child. I imagine that's pretty much the worst experience possible, but I've gone through other things where I think it just teaches you that you just have to surrender. I mean, sometimes you just feel like completely helpless in the, in the, in the face of the, whatever this mystery is like, it can give, it can take away whatever you can lose everything at any time. And I have like been to that point to where I'm just like, fuck, like, like not, I give up, that's a little different,

Speaker 1 (53m 4s): Right.

Speaker 2 (53m 5s): Kind of, you know, kind of like, alright, you know,

Speaker 1 (53m 9s): Surrender is such a great

Speaker 2 (53m 10s): Word, surrender to it. And whatever happens happens, and you do learn to be thankful for it because you do through that death and rebirth. And on the other side of it, I'm sure you experienced as well. But when I went through, I went through like a depression, maybe about two or three years ago. Like after my wife left me and then some other stuff happened and I'd never even come close to feeling depressed before. And this thing just like caught me and I got wrapped up in it. But when I came out on the other side of it, I was like, I felt like a whole new person.

I just felt like this sort of indestructibility inside having gone through it and okay, that didn't kill me. Like I can survive this I'm good. You know? And then you sort of, for me, it was a natural kind of let go even more after that because it sort of taught me why maybe I don't have, maybe I don't have anything, but as long as I've got what's in here, you know, as long as I got my health and you can't, you know, I can't take anything else away. That's the way I felt anyway.

Speaker 1 (54m 11s): No, that's it. It's brilliant. And once something like that happens to you, you can see the lessons that are trying to be taught by antiquity. Like if you read a lot of the old scriptures, like you look at Abraham, like sacrificing his son. If you look at like the Aztec culture, there's all this talk a sacrifice. And what, what if those are metaphors for like, you know, you must sacrifice everything. And when you do, you can learn something new. Like for me, going through these incredibly painful loss, be it a wife, a child, a job for some people, you know, it's, it's this loss that allows you to identify with the lessons of the past.

There's always talk about sacrifice, but you don't understand sacrifice until you've lost the thing that you thought you couldn't live without. And now all of a sudden you realize, not only can I live without it, but I'm better because of it. And it's so hard to come to that because it's so hard to square that to square. That is like, how can I be better that I lost this thing that I love more than anything in the world? How can I possibly be better? But that's probably a pretty good meditation for people think about, can you be better if you lost the thing that was most important to you?

Like a lot of good can come from thinking about that. Maybe maybe four grams of mushrooms and that thought for awhile while fundamentally change the way you see the world.

Speaker 2 (55m 44s): Yeah. This is where, yeah, like you said, psychedelics have had traditionally ancestrally had a huge role in reminding people of this because I don't know, maybe everyone has to go through something like this in their lives. I don't know. There might be some blessing people that never do, but I suppose you can anticipate it through some psychedelic practices and especially the one that does it for me the most is, is Iowasca with the, the mile skull, sweat lodge.

Well, it's, it was like, it's brutal. I can be brutal. The one I've done it with the, the shaman I went with, he he's re he's like relentless with this, with the sweat lodge. And he actually makes us drink it and then go in the sweat lodge and stay in there for like three hours. Whoa, it's intense. It's intense. And you feel like you're going to suffocate. You don't have water. There's just, you're always aware of death.

Speaker 1 (56m 43s): Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56m 43s): And you're not really going to die, but it just, it feels so intense. And it's so hot in there. Like it's hotter than any song I've ever been in. And you get to a point, like I remember a few times where I just literally was on the dirt in sort of child's pose and like complete surrender. I was like, I can't even sit, like, I'm that defeated? And the only way we could get through it sometimes just through seeing these powerful songs. And there are times where like, you're on the, you're on the break. I'm like, well, I can't take this anymore.

I'm going to die or whatever. And then there's something in there. Some little power or will, that's like, no. Right. And then you start, you start getting pumped up and you start with the drums. And like that brings you back, you know? And it's almost like you, you, you look at death and you're like, no, and yeah, it's a really powerful,

Speaker 1 (57m 34s): That is awesome, man. Have you, have you done that a couple of times or

Speaker 2 (57m 39s): I'll ask, I've done probably maybe nine or 10 times. Wow. Not every time with the sweat lodge, but probably like maybe four, like that three or four. The first one I was like, I didn't even make it, like they, they went through four rounds and I didn't know that. And after one round was like 15, 20 minutes and I thought it was over. Like I was literally, I can't do it. And they're like, no, there's three more. I was like, oh, I'm out of here. I had to leave. Like, I believe I could do it.

Yeah. It's, it's really intense, but worth it. And it does feel like a rebirth. You come cause you go in naked. First of all. So you go in there and then you go through this kind of death episode and then you're literally crawling because you've got no strength. You've just been dehydrated. You've got an effects are still on. You're like crawling out of this thing that looks like the womb of the mother earth. Wow. The other side. And then you kinda like, you know, you're cold and you know, naked and a ball kind of just like, you've just been born again.

It's, it's, it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (58m 42s): That's as that's pretty close to two, I mean, it's, that's, that's as close as you can come to being reborn. It's just a full shutdown and reboot, you know, But I think there's a lot of power in there. I think that, you know, when you, when you come to those crossroads, you see, you see the world differently. I mean, you, you, Maybe you, and it makes sense if you start looking back at indigenous ways, like there's a, there is a process for becoming a man.

There is a process for becoming there's a Rite of passage. You know, if you think about, just think about that language, a Rite of passage, like when you go to the birth, that's a Rite of passage. When you climb out of the sweat lodge, that's a Rite of passage. And maybe that's something that in the Western tradition, you know, we have failed to do, like our Rite of passage is like graduating call, Hey, congratulations. You graduated college. But yeah. Was that a near death experience? Did you become a man or did you become a woman or, you know, it's not the same type of Rite of passage as the rites of passage that have been in folklore and in humanity since the beginning of time.

Speaker 2 (59m 54s): Yeah. You go out and your book was called terrorists, Tara sacred. Right.

Speaker 1 (59m 58s): Terrible, terrible, exactly what it's about.

Speaker 2 (1h 0m 1s): Yeah. That's a, I mean, you talk about that quite a bit about the, the absence of ritual, especially for men, I think. Yeah. Because men seem to need it more because women have the natural one, they get their period and it's like very intense for them.

Speaker 1 (1h 0m 18s): Yeah. And they, their relationship with their child is just, it's so much more than at least in my opinion, like my wife's relationship with our daughter and our son is I'm jealous of sometimes because it's so pure. And you know, I once heard this quote that said the difference between a man and a woman in the relationship with their child is when your child's sick and the wife can't stop thinking about it, but the husband just gets up and goes to work and does a day, like, I can compartmentalize that, but my wife can't, she's like, we need to fix this.

Here's what she's got. She's got 1 0 2. I noticed she's sweating a little bit. Like she knows every detail and it's, it makes sense. Like she carried her in her body for like nine months, you know? So yeah. I, I agree. I think that there can be more rituals for men and there should be, and somehow that's been looked down upon for the last, maybe 30 years or so.

Speaker 2 (1h 1m 14s): Yeah. I mean, I'm starting to see it in Bali where I'm living now, where there's more and more of these men's circles. I don't know. Do they have those where you are

Speaker 1 (1h 1m 22s): Not, I'm sure they do, but I am not a member of any,

Speaker 2 (1h 1m 27s): Yeah, me neither. I've been to one before and I see the value in it, but it seems to be more and more that there are some things like that in groups organizing. They're more just talking sessions though. It's not the same as we're still missing that, that initiation right into manhood. And I haven't seen too many great substitutes for that in our society, unfortunately. And I think it's leading to a lot of lost men, especially when you hit our age.

Like I'm, I'm gonna be 40 this year where I was thinking about this a lot lately because my father died a while ago. So he died when I was 26. And you're talking about the relationship between mother and father. And I would S for me, at least, or I think maybe in general can say this, but I think I was tied to my mom a lot more as a younger. Right. And sure you see people on their death bed or dying in war, or they reach out, they call for their moms and their dads.

Yeah. But there is a certain age where I feel like the dad plays more of a role and I feel like we don't feel it till we get older. Yeah. And unless we've had that initiation or the, the wise elders, men in our community, we're sort of missing something, there's a void. And I haven't found, I haven't found anything to really address that other than Freemasonry, which comes close for you, make sure you comes close to that.

Speaker 1 (1h 2m 60s): Yeah. You, you had mentioned that you had, you had found out that your father had participated as a Mason and then

Speaker 2 (1h 3m 7s): Your father, your

Speaker 1 (1h 3m 8s): Grandfather, and all of a sudden, it's like you find this group of men that can be mentors to you that maybe knew some, obviously that shared path shared a similar passion to your grandpa. I think that there's something to be said about that.

Speaker 2 (1h 3m 23s): Yeah. And I, I like, if we're talking about Freemasonry, I got to put this like disclaimer out there because there's a lot of stuff I've seen about Freemasons taking over the world and they're the hidden cabinet behind the world, economic forum and all this stuff. My official statement is, I don't know. Okay. I don't know, or not, if that's true or not, it could be at the highest levels of the organization they get together and they plot things. You can't put that past any group of people, but all I've seen from my limited, I've only been a member for a few years.

And not recently because of COVID, I haven't really been to meetings, but all I've seen is a group of Sikh. It's like gentlemen school. It's like, guys, that generally seem to be good people that are trying to be better. That's what I've gotten from it. And they use ritual to teach certain things and there's a comradery and there's sort of that bonding thing that happens. And it's an imperfect substitute for probably what we used to go through and more primitive days. But I think it serves its purpose pretty well.

I'm happy to be a member. And I just wish there were more things like that.

Speaker 1 (1h 4m 31s): Yeah. Yeah. You know it, I remember as a kid watching the Flintstones and they were all part of the loyal order of the water Buffalo, and it seems like men are grandfather's age. It was more, it was prevalent that every town had a lodge of some kind, whether it was the moose lodge or the Elks lodge, or, you know, there's all these lodges for guys to get together and be like, Hey, I'm having this problem in my relationship. I'm having this problem with my kid or, Hey, I'm having this in the same way. That may be a young man that was indigenous to America would go to the elders.

We don't have that for young men. Now, like you might have teachers, but you don't have this area where you can, where it's easy to go and pick a mentor. I was lucky when I w I found some really great older guys in my life that I just attach myself to, and I got to learn from, and I learned a lot, you know, some of it was pretty painful, but there's something to be said about an older guy that can tell you, Hey, you're arrogant, little fuck you, you don't know what you're doing.

W how, why would you say that? You know, and like young men need that. Like, and maybe your dad can't do that for you. Cause you have a good relationship. But if there's somebody you admire that you respect and they can grab you by the collar and be like, you are such a dummy, what is wrong with you? Or it doesn't have to be negative. It could be like, Hey, I noticed you're doing this. How about this over here? But you know, I, let me just take one more shot at this here. My, one of my mentors told me a story about a group of elephants. And he said that he had read about this two young elephants that went to the zoo and the zoo had had them for like five years.

And these young elephants were two boys and they were going around the whole park, just crushing everything and tearing down fences and mowing down trees. And the zoo people were like, dude, I want you to do these elephants man. We have to put them down. We're going to ship them away. And so they, they made all these calls and they called this elephant park in, in Africa somewhere. And the guy said, no, no, look, they're just young. They're just young kids, men and young boys. You need to bring in an older elephant that cow show him what's up. So they brought in this older elephant and sure enough, within a matter of like months, they started watching the older elephant.

Like wasn't tearing stuff down that wasn't breaking things. And when one of the younger elephants would go and break this fence, I don't know if I'll walk up there and smack them. We're doing dummy. That's not what you're supposed to do. And you know, so it's, it's this idea of guidance. It's this idea of looking at someone who's been through situations and that's, that's the story behind mythology. That's the story behind the Homeric versus that's the Iliad, the Odyssey, the hero's journey. It's Joseph Campbell. It's, it's, it's there. And it's, it's almost like these things are smacking us in the face.

Like, Hey, you guys forgot, man, you got lead, but not, and that, I gotta be honest, Kevin, like in your book, I think that there's so much wisdom there. Like I, I gave a copy of your book to my nephew because I thought there was so much wisdom in there. So thank you for that. I, I, I think, and when I see your journey, I see you traveling and making these decisions about, okay, I'm going to travel here and then I'm going to go to business school or here's what I have. Here's, here's a guy that's running his way up through the corporate world and find some problems there.

And it goes out of his way to face the threshold guardian, you know, like it's so it's, so Joseph Campbell is to me, thanks for doing it.

Speaker 2 (1h 8m 1s): I appreciate those words. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1h 8m 3s): Yeah. I got 'em.

Speaker 2 (1h 8m 6s): We need more of, of those kinds of things. I dunno. Like, I think within every, or maybe not every man, but within a lot of men, we love our women. We love the homes we create. If there's some thing missing and it's maybe, cause we're somewhat feel like we're caged wolves or something, but there's something with like, we need that. And the just being around men, just being men, being men without filter, or without being told that we're disgusting or whatever.

Yeah. So I definitely think that we can do way better there.

Speaker 1 (1h 8m 44s): Yeah. What would that, how would that look like? I mean, would that look like maybe, maybe it might look like joining a men's club or something like that, but what, what advice would you give to maybe your self 10 years ago or 15 years ago to kind of fill this void?

Speaker 2 (1h 9m 2s): Well, yeah, I've done it with, with Freemasonry to a certain extent, but anybody who's listening, that's thinking they need something like that. If you can't find a men's circle, just try starting one and it can be just something amongst your friends, you know, it doesn't have to be any, any real formal thing, but you should make it somehow ritualistic or ceremonial a little bit. So a lot of the circles that I've been to, they do, you know, they, they do it at night.

They usually put like kind of soft lighting and they might even have, I forget what the word is for it. But you know, that piece of wood smoke that they, they liked the wood and then they kind of put it around you. I know I'm

Speaker 1 (1h 9m 46s): Talking to them or something or like a,

Speaker 2 (1h 9m 48s): It's a, there's a word for it. It's slipping my mind. But it's, it's literally a piece of specific piece of wood that they light on fire. And then it just makes, it just makes smoke. And it has a very distinct smell and they use it a lot in Iowasca ceremonies and things like that.

Speaker 1 (1h 10m 2s): But frankincense,

Speaker 2 (1h 10m 3s): No, no, I just, I don't remember the word for

Speaker 1 (1h 10m 7s): It.

Speaker 2 (1h 10m 8s): Yeah. But they, the solo do that and I'll make a little ritual out of it. Doesn't have to be anything elaborate. You don't have to bless people with crystals and stuff like that. But just the sort of set where we talk about psychedelics set, set, set, and setting, right. So it's sort of create the setting for a calm, a calm atmosphere that allows people to share whatever they got going on. And if that's you, if you're hosting it and you kick it off with whatever you want to talk about and see what happens, you know, it could be something that,

Speaker 1 (1h 10m 36s): Yeah, I think it goes back full circle to the boom and the bust and the, and the moving in and out of the tides. This, I think that you and I are similar in our nomadic nature, like we've picked up and we've left everything to go make our own way. Cause that's what we were taught to. Do. You guys make your own way, but now you're seeing the regression of the tide and it's like, okay, us men that were nomads, we've went out. We've discovered now it's time for guys like us to come back and share with people. Hey, here's what we learned. And may, maybe it's guys like us, that should be starting the men's group.

Maybe we are the closest things to our grandfathers. So it's up us to show the younger guys. Maybe we're the older elephants, you know, maybe it's our turn. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (1h 11m 18s): Yeah. And anybody thinking, watching this thinking, well, I don't have anything to share. Well, I guarantee you have something to share. Like you've been through something that other people haven't or interpreted your, your experiences in a certain way. And I think there's a real need for this. I think loneliness is just, people are lonelier than ever. And men are bad at making connections. I mean, women are amazing at it. When I see my, what my girlfriend does, she makes best friends with someone in 10 minutes is exchanging numbers and they already have plans to meet and stuff.

Guys don't do that. I don't know if it's like, you don't want to be thought of as gay or something or I don't know what it is, but guys just don't really give it, but they want it. They want it like almost all guys love to be invited to things, but they don't want to do the inviting.

Speaker 1 (1h 12m 1s): Yeah.

Speaker 2 (1h 12m 2s): So the committee, you know, excuse me, I've got a cough.

Speaker 1 (1h 12m 6s): Yeah.

Speaker 2 (1h 12m 8s): So yeah. Why can't it be whoever's listening and just be you, you can be that person to reach out. You'd be surprised who shows up.

Speaker 1 (1h 12m 14s): Yeah. I think there's something to be said about influence and, and relationships and, and learning and yeah, it's sometimes I think about it from like a, a war standpoint, because that's what guys do. If you look at the way, like even colonialism or you look at the way battles are fought, like you send out the, sometimes you would send out like recon to go and check everything out and then they would come back. And it seems like if you look at our world as a giant war, all our societies, like as a giant species of war, like we've gone out across the globe and we've sent people out there to fight and conquer.

And now we're all coming back to talk about, okay, here's what I learned. Here's what we're doing. And it just seems like a good strategy to do Kevin

Speaker 2 (1h 12m 59s): Answer your question. Yeah. Well, yeah, just like, what have you, I mean, you read a lot about this kind of stuff. Probably more than me in terms of ritual and things like that. Have you read anything interesting about past rituals like that men would do for other men in certain cultures that stuck out in? Yeah,

Speaker 1 (1h 13m 18s): There's a really good book called black elk speaks. And it's about this medicine man. And he talks is I feel silly. Cause I don't remember exactly what tribe he was from. However, he speaks a lot about the indigenous experience and what it was like for him in, in a weird sort of way. He was someone who, he was like the last medicine man from his tribe and he was reaching, but he was taught by an older like his grandfather, not his father, but his grandfather.

And so he was the guy that was given the keys to the rituals and the ideas and the book is so beautiful and so inspiring, but also so sad because he's saying I got no one to give the keys to, that's why I'm writing this book. That's why I'm telling these white. That's why I'm telling everybody here's the keys. Which one of you will hold them. Here's the keys. Which one of you will have the courage to stand up and do this because here is what happens when no one has the keys society around us falls.

It doesn't matter that I'm an Indian. It doesn't matter what tribe I'm from. What matters is that we forgot the way to treat ourselves. And so when you ask me, if I have read about men's groups, this was the ultimate man's group. It was this guy who came out and is telling the world like the time is now, here's the keys. Here's me, you know, an Indian guy writing a book. I got, we have oral traditions, but I'm trying desperately to reach out to whoever I can and using these methods that you guys use.

So that's the one that comes to mind when I think about ritual and he spoke about a similar sweat lodge and he talk about the transformation of ideas and the way he spoke about ideas was through a similar type of trip that he had about, you know, seeing the Eagles, seeing the animals, seeing his, his connection to nature, which I think is a big part of a man's group is our connection to nature. And the world we live in today, a man is defined by how much money he makes Amanda's defined by his consumption patterns, but nothing could be further from the truth.

I know tons of men that make tons of money, they can't even run a mile. What kind of a man is that I'm not trying to be rude or disrespectful, but if you, if your body is at a point where it is breaking down, but you have tons of money, you should rethink what it means to be a man. You should rethink about some of these decisions that you've made, because it's probably not too late. How can you throw a ball with your child? If you have millions of dollars, but your arm doesn't work, you know, you've spent all your money big.

And I think you read about this in your book, you spend all your time working for an entity, a corporate person that doesn't care about you. You put all your time and your money and your, the best times of your life when you're a young man and you can be with your wife and you could be with your kid outside at a picnic or hiking or surfing or snorkeling, you're at a corporate boardroom talking about how do we give the illusion of productivity?

That's not a man's group. Dammit. That's not a woman's group. You should be out there doing something like whatever it is, having your hands dirty in the garden. But yeah, when I, when I CA thanks for asking that question, cause I love to rethink of that guy's story. I'll send you the book. It's everybody can agree on audio book. Yeah, yeah. Read it. It's it's awesome. It's, it's something that will fundamentally change you if you let it. But I think there's tons of stories out there. Have you read some other rituals and things about men's groups?

Speaker 2 (1h 17m 13s): There's an interesting book called iron John, a book about men. However, I wish it would be more specific. So that's, that's kind of why I asked the question. Like, I hear a lot about these, these rituals and what men used to do for other men. And this book, it talks about there's one thing that they do and it involves pain. It's like the wound and yeah. It's I want to do it justice, but check out that book, they talk about the wound.

So part of the, these initiatory rights involved, I think the administering of a small wound to the boys and I can't remember what it's supposed to be symbolic of, but I think it's served as a reminder. And that was a key in, in all, in a lot of them.

Speaker 1 (1h 18m 2s): Yes. Shared pain. Share,

Speaker 2 (1h 18m 3s): Check that one out. Iron Joan. It's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (1h 18m 7s): Yeah. I think in the book, I think it's in black elk speaks where he talks about the ceremony that the boys would go through and it, it seems almost barbaric. Like they would cut them and hang them. So they were almost dead, you know? And, and there's other stories about them dancing in the sun until they get to the point of dehydration and they fall, like, that's the point? Like you have to go till you almost die. It's it's that, that death, like the simulated death that men go through.

And then you understand another man only when you have seen another man in his worst moment, and you have been through a moment like that. Can you identify with that person? And like, like the same thing we were talking about how, when I, when I watched, when I went through what I went through, that's how I can see other people going through it. That's the same thing. When you've been through terrible things. Now you have this ability to see other people going through it. Like, that's what makes you a leader?

That, that that's what can make you a leader. That's what can make you a man? Is that the shared tragedy is like, yeah, you went through it. So guess what? Now you can go help other people through it and you can save them in a way you can be the guy that when, when, when someone's down on the ground, they're crying because they've lost everything. You can be the hand that walks over to him and pulls him up. Like, I think that that

Speaker 2 (1h 19m 32s): Is fine.

Speaker 1 (1h 19m 34s): Yeah. Hey, pick

Speaker 2 (1h 19m 36s): Th that literally, but in a tough little Fenway,

Speaker 1 (1h 19m 40s): That's one of the things that, that my mentors have done for me is like, I'm crying like a baby sometimes. And they're like, Hey, congratulations, man, you did it. You're like, what? No, you don't understand. I've lost. Like, yeah, no, no. I do understand. And congratulations now you're one of us. And it's like, oh, oh, I, this is a graduation ceremony. And that, that comes back to the wound that, you know, a lot of warriors, or even if you look at football players, don't like have a brand on them. Like you think it's probably something dumb.

But to these people that went through a ritual, they went through a sacrifice where they seared this thing into their skin and all of them have it. And all of them have a story about how they got it. It's you know, maybe it's a story about your first love or the first I, I tell my nephews, you're not a man until you've had your heart broken. Let me hear your story. Well, who's the person that broke your heart. How did it happen? And if you, I hope everybody has that story because that is a Rite of passage. Like, Hey, congratulations, you made it through, you didn't kill yourself.

You didn't kill the other person. You know, you made it, congratulations. It hurt. Didn't it. Well, now it, now I got good news and bad news for you. The good news is that no one's ever gonna break your heart like that again. And the bad news is no one's ever going to break your heart like that again. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. I hope it was beautiful because he ain't going to happen like that again. I hope all those times where you thought that this person was the most beautiful thing in the world, hope you embrace that because now you're scarred. Nothing can grow there.

You grow up. Something will grow there, but it won't be the same, man. It was pure. Wasn't it beautiful. Think about that person, man, and find in your heart a spot for them and always remember them. Remember the good parts and remember the bad parts. But that's the ceremony like every day is a ceremony. Life is a ceremony. And if you can see those rituals, you can get through your day with passion, you can get through it and be like, ah, this is, Kelly's get out of this happening to me. And then you'd be like, oh, you know what? I'm pretty lucky. Look at this thing. You can, you can see it. And I was telling this guy yesterday on my route that I do, you know, sometimes life will throw you life.

Nothing hits harder than life. But sometimes when you're having the worst day, something beautiful happens. And for me the other day, there's this little kid on my right. He's probably a four little Japanese kid. And he like, I've known him since he was two. And he didn't even speak any English or when he was two, you know what I remember? Last year, all he could say was yep. Yep. And I would hit the kid runs out. When I, when I put my truck, he runs out of his house and we look in for me waving and I'll come over and start talking to him. Hey man, do you have a good day today?

Yep. You want to see the back of my truck? Yup. You're going to eat lunch today. Yup. Hey, who's your, do you like race cars or trucks? Yep. That's all he can say, but it's so damn cute. And like, I see them look at me and like, he's still a knackered by the truck and his parents will come out and like, but it just, it just hit me. Like, God, man, I'm so focused on how silly are things I don't like, but here's this new life in this world. And he's so excited that he just wants to interact with life. And it, it makes me look at my life and be the thankful for I am.

And when I see, you know, something that w because my kid died whenever I see a little kid, especially the little boys, man, like I miss my son, man. And I made a promise to myself. Like every time I see a kid, that's my son. When that kid runs out, that's my son. When I see a mom holding their baby, that's my son, too. I'm going to try to do something for him. I always try to bring a little toy or a magic trick or something like show him. And a little part of me gets to imagine for a minute, Hey, that's me and my son, that's me and my kid. And so this kid gets to live his life and I get a little something out of there, but that's a ritual because of what happened to me.

You know, I had this moment and now I get to share that moment and recreate that moment for other kids. And that kid will never know that I think he's my son, but I do. And a part of him is, and you know, I get to be his dad. And I think that we can all have those experiences in life. If you're willing to go through the pain and you're willing to understand life as a ritual. And I, I, I wish that I could share this with other men that are going to go through this. And, and I guess that's kind of what I'm doing now.

So thank you for letting me do it

Speaker 2 (1h 23m 56s): One way, for sure. It's a beautiful story.

Speaker 1 (1h 23m 59s): Hey man, I, I appreciate you. Thanks for letting me share it, man.

Speaker 2 (1h 24m 3s): I guess a lot of it's just about bearing your chest. You know,

Speaker 1 (1h 24m 6s): It's so

Speaker 2 (1h 24m 7s): Hard to be down if you will, but

Speaker 1 (1h 24m 9s): Yeah, I'm right here. I remember remember, remember that scene in Forrest Gump where Lieutenant Dan's like, you call this a storm. I always think about that. Like when things get bad, you just be like, I ask this often

Speaker 2 (1h 24m 22s): Laugh at death. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1h 24m 23s): Yeah. And I sometimes, you know, you see people out, out and about people that you think might be crazy. You're homeless. People is talking to themselves and maybe they're laughing at the creator. Like, man, there's nothing. I'll be homeless forever. What is nothing?

Speaker 2 (1h 24m 38s): But I see. Imagine. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1h 24m 41s): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's probably not that way, but maybe, maybe I think you can learn from everybody. And whether it's you manifesting your ideas onto someone else, whether it's you seeing yourself in that other person. I think there's so much out there that, that you can learn from. If you're just willing to look at every situation, like a learning environment, you know, if you're vulnerable, like you said, if you put your chest out there, you probably didn't get smacked.

It probably gonna hurt, but I've been punched in the face a lot. I've been beat up a lot, you know, but I think that that's life, you know, you get, how else, how else do you know how far you can push it? David punched in the face enough times.

Speaker 2 (1h 25m 27s): And I think that's what the, from, we were talking about before. That's what the wound is. Right? You give all the men, they go through this experience in these rituals where they have a near death experience with it. Some of them like actually will poison boys to the brink of death basically.

Speaker 1 (1h 25m 40s): Wow.

Speaker 2 (1h 25m 42s): And they give them a wound. But so, so much of these wounds, we're just talking about, they're not physical wounds. Right. So if I see you've got a missing leg. Okay. I see, I see you had a wound, but if you do your emotional thing, you went through, I can't see it on you. So I think that's, I put that wound so that it's visible to other men and be like, oh yeah, yeah, you've been there. You know?

Speaker 1 (1h 26m 3s): Yeah. This, I think that this is a lot like the mystery schools. If you look back into the Pythagoreans or, you know, even the, the masons is sort of a mystery school and

Speaker 2 (1h 26m 15s): We have a death ritual by the way,

Speaker 1 (1h 26m 16s): Do they really? Yeah. What's that look like?

Speaker 2 (1h 26m 21s): It's basically, it's like a death awareness thing. Basically. You have your own desk and supported by brothers as you kind of like deal with it. It's yeah. It's good. Powerful.

Speaker 1 (1h 26m 34s): Yeah, of course. It's powerful like that that's these are the kinds of things that, and it's probably why it's probably the reason they want you to seek them out because only when you seek them out, do they know you're ready for the experience. Right? Like you can't just go and pick someone off the streets and be like, Hey, I'm going to take you in this, this ritual. But

Speaker 2 (1h 26m 57s): Yeah, you can't, you can't teach anybody that anything they don't want to learn. Right? Yeah. It's like when the saying goes, right. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear and then you've got to seek it out.

Speaker 1 (1h 27m 9s): That that says it all right there. It really is. It really is. And you know, I think that we're all that teacher and you don't know who you're talking to. You, you know, you don't understand the person across from you may be a high ranking official in some secret society you don't even know of, but they could be teaching you.

You know, it's weird how, like the teacher shows up, the teacher shows up and that means the student shows up. And that means that the teacher sees himself in the student and the student sees himself in the teacher. It's this transfer of knowledge. That's what ritual is. That's the understanding behind it is like, I'm going to show you these beautiful, horrible things. It makes sense. You know, and you're going to learn them. Congratulations. Whether you want to or not, I've chosen you, or you've decided that you've on some level, you've decided that you want these trials.

It's the same thing. I think it's the same thing with, with the, the Zen master, right? Like the, anybody who goes to a psychologist ought to have their head examined. But yeah, that's, that's the thing. I I've, I've heard some interesting Zen Colins and some interesting stories from people that wanted to go learn from a Zen master who was a horrible Zen master. Not that because they wanted that experience and like the guy's going to give it to you, you know, he's going to throw stuff at you.

He's gonna punch you in the face. Like, that's what you want. Like, you want that you went there,

Speaker 2 (1h 28m 58s): But they hit him with a stick or something.

Speaker 1 (1h 28m 60s): Yeah. Like they do all of like, that's, that's that Zen, like, you have it in you right now. You're already there. But you, if you want to go to the ashram and sweep up for 30 years, be my guest. You can do that. I heard a good story. I'll share it with you. It's that there was this Zen master. And he saw this promising young student that was, he would be at the temple every day and he would go and he would pray for five or six hours.

And one day the Zen master comes down and he sees this young student who's, who's praying and he's, and he is focusing and he's meditating. And the Zen master walks over to him. And he's like, what are you doing? And he's like, oh, master I'm meditating so that I can reach enlightenment. And the Zen master sits down next to him. And he sees this brick and he picks up this brick. Then he spits on it and he starts rubbing it with his hand. And he just rubbing and rubbing and rubbing and rubbing and rubbing and rubbing, rubbing, and rubbing and rubbing it. And as students like master w what are you doing?

And he's like, oh, I'm going to rub this brick until it turns into a diamond. And the student says, master, doesn't matter how long you rubbed that brick. It'll never turn into a diamond. And he goes, oh, so you do understand. And you walk away. You know what I mean? Like, there's, there's, it's beautiful, but it's tragic. But that's the same thing that like, there's showing you life. And some people need to have a master there to show them that.

And the master is trying to snap you out of this idea that you need him. Like, you already have it, but if you want me, if you need me to hit you with the stick, I will, I want you to get it. And to sometimes like, people, people mistake that stick for something else, you know? And they, they just stay there. And the more people stay there, the, the angrier, the Zen master gets, because he's not getting through to you and keeps coming him harder. Get outta here. You can't do it.

Speaker 2 (1h 31m 2s): And there was this thing people have about seeking authority elsewhere,

Speaker 1 (1h 31m 6s): Right? Yes.

Speaker 2 (1h 31m 7s): Yes. And we, our own authority at the end of the day, but people like the illusion of being under somebody who knows what's going on.

Speaker 1 (1h 31m 16s): Yeah. And some people never, whether through some people don't graduate past that a lot for a lot of people, it's hard. It's difficult to know that it's you, it's difficult to know all the good things that happened to you or you, it's difficult to know that all the bad things that happen to you while simultaneously not your fault at all. Like how do you square that? Like, that's hard, man. It's, there's no, there's you.

Right. And you reside in everybody else. Excuse me. It's all you, every person you see every event, it's, you know, all these books, like I'm looking at all these books in my library. I'm like, how did I write all these? You know what I mean? Like, it's

Speaker 2 (1h 32m 10s): Crazy.

Speaker 1 (1h 32m 12s): Yeah. Who wrote these? You know, and I, it's beautiful in some ways, isn't it? I I'm thankful, man. I, I would talk to you, Kevin and I, for everybody listening, the book is called young and miserable, young, successful, and miserable. And it's a fascinating story. We've only begun to touch on the first couple of chapters, but Kevin and I are going to be talking for the next few weeks about life, about the book, about how to make yourself better and rituals. And I'm sure we'll be touching on things that have touched our lives and in those around us, that we care and we love and, and stuff.

So that's what we got for today. I would go another hour, man. I got it. But I got it. I got it.

Speaker 2 (1h 32m 52s): Yeah, me too. And I'm also like, it's the low energy from the whole COVID thing. I'm sort of running out of steam today.

Speaker 1 (1h 32m 58s): Yeah, man. Yeah, me too. Me too. I really enjoyed this. Kevin. I enjoy talking to you and I enjoyed the book and I'm looking forward to our further talks. And I hope that people will take away from this. The feeling I have right now. I hope the people, I hope there was some things that we said that can help other people. Where can people find you? And what is it that you hope people take away from our conversation today?

Speaker 2 (1h 33m 22s): You can find me at Kevin Holt dot me. My book is there for, I think only audio and PDF is there. If you want the physical copy, it's on Amazon. I have no, no way to print them myself. I've also got a breathing course on that website. Just that the fundamentals of, of breath work pranayama. The reason I put that on there is because I feel like anybody who's trying to change anything. You got to start with your breath because it's so many things come from from your breathing and breathing correctly.

And if it really wants to surrender, like we were talking about, and that's sorta like, step one is you gotta go fix your breathing, but you can check that out there. And yeah. Basically anybody watching, I hope you hope you enjoyed it. I hope see something that we said resonates with you and makes your day just 10% better. Yeah. It's all right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1h 34m 17s): Yeah. Me too. I can't, I'm gonna, I got it. I'm going to take that course. I can't wait to, to download it and check it out.

Speaker 2 (1h 34m 23s): Yeah, I'll send it to you. Okay. Yeah. I'll reach out separately.

Speaker 1 (1h 34m 26s): Okay. Well hang on one second. I'm going to I'll end this broadcast and then I'll talk to you a little briefly and then I'll let you go, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to Kevin and I were totally blessed that you're here listening to us and reach out to both of us. We'd love to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (1h 34m 39s): Thanks again for

Speaker 1 (1h 34m 39s): Today. .