Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that you are having a beautiful day. I hope that the sun is shining and the birds are singing. I hope that the wind is at your back. I got a great show for you today with a very unique original thinker, an author, a coach, a mentor, and so many more things. The one and only Shea Cuino. And I just want to, I wrote this little intro for you and I just want people to hear it because I think it's beautiful and it has a reflection of you. And in the symphony of life where each note carries the melody of existence, there emerges an author. whose words resonate with the timeless rhythm of human experience, Shea Kuinu. Through the pages of his transformative masterpiece, The Glorious Dance, You're the Music, I'm the Song, Shea invites readers to embrace the exquisite harmony of self-discovery and personal growth. With the pin as his instrument and the pages as his stage, Shay orchestrates a symphony of wisdom, weaving together personal anecdotes, insights, and transformative strategies into a captivating narrative. Each chapter unfolds like a melodic stanza, inviting readers to dance to the rhythm of their own existence and embrace the beauty of their unique journey. Shay, thank you for being here today. How are you, my friend? I'm doing so good. I like that intro. It carries the appropriate theme of the entire book itself. So thank you so much for that. Well, I got a feeling that the book carries with it the wisdom and the sort of trials and tribulations of your life and the lens through which you see the world. And before we get into the book, man, maybe you could tell people a little bit more about yourself. Like, where are you from? How did you start finding these insights? Or maybe you could start off wherever you like. Yeah, for anyone who can guess the accent, I'm from Nigeria. I moved here a couple of years ago, not up to a decade to the U.S., that is. But over the years of my experience, well, of being this character called Shea, one of the things that has come... rather interesting for me is exploring different identities. By that I mean, I went to school to study medicine. I somehow found myself a software developer. I owned a startup back in the booming.com days. I started a company myself where I was doing a lot of web development, applications development. I got into UX design. At some point, I left all of that to start Highlife, a website where at that time I was conducting a lot of personal experiments. And those came as more or less cues from self-help books. Like I'd read a book and say, hey, I'm going to practice every single thing that I learn in this book and document it. And then I would allow my email subscribers to read follow me through that journey. So in a way, I was making people that subscribe to my website to be my accountability partners and to see if there was some truth in what I was reading. Somehow that led me into becoming a coach. And now what I do is I am an agile coach and I coach software teams and organizations and leaders into seeing redefining value rather than output. So that's something that I've enjoyed. At the same time, in between here and there, I had a well, I have a photography business that I've run for almost five years now. At the same time, I'm an oil painter and a watercolor artist also. And now I do a lot of work in hypnotherapy. So I've found it's kind of easy to, in quotes, switch identities. And I think the interesting thing for me was learning or finding out that who we are is a made up concept. And so as time went on, I started to understand or to see clearly that sometimes whatever we want, we sometimes think that it's something that we cannot achieve. And so in our belief of what we can't achieve, we actually more or less repress ourselves and then stay in this feeling of misery, right? So somehow I started to question every single thing. I started to notice also that in the experience of human experience, there's always a search for the final happiness, the final straw. You know, when I get this thing, I'm finally going to be happy. Or when I... when I get this job, finally, I'll be happy. Or when I make this amount of money, I'm going to finally be happy. But in my experience, every time that I go to that thing, that I said would make me finally happy. Then there was a new thing that pops up that makes me want to finally be happy. And I realized, oh, that's kind of an illusion. And so in the ups and downs of life, in the chasing and grasping and holding and finding out this wasn't actually the thing that will bring me happiness. I found out that's actually the game. That's literally the game. So I can enjoy every single thing. So even when it comes to finding love, losing love, that's still part of the game. So a lot of that reflection is what then led me to writing The Glorious Dance. It's amazing to me. And I think it speaks to this idea of transformation. And we see it... I think once we begin to see this type of transition in our life, we begin to see it everywhere. You see it in the world. You see it in yourself. You see it in your relationships. And you see it... You can't unsee. It's one of those things, once you see it, you can't unsee it. But that can kind of be an isolating incident, right? Because when you see it and you start trying to explain it to other people, they're like, you're just crazy. You're just this. You're just that. And all of a sudden, you get to hear all the excuses that other person says about themselves, right? It's kind of crazy. What do you think? Oh, absolutely. And talking about once you see it, you can't unsee it. I think to add to what you just said and what I said earlier, for me, eventually it became very obvious that there's the experience of being and then there's being, who we are, and those things are two, it seems like two separate things, but most of the time we're so drawn into our experience, so much so that if we start to really look at who we really are, who we really are, then we see that we are not our experience, which is eventually we see that we're not our thoughts and we're not our bodies. So we're this thing that's not what we thought we were, And so that begins to, you begin to understand what duality is. And then when you see that, you can't unsee it anymore. And that's kind of what I was, that's a lot of what, one of the things that I pointed out in my book. Because, you know, in observing, like, okay, I'm not my body. Of course, if I lost my hand, it's just the hand that got lost. I'm still me. I'm still fully me. If I lost my limbs, I'm still me. I just lost what I called my limbs, right? And so by the time you start asking those questions, you begin to see, oh, okay, so I definitely am not my body. You know, then you start to ask a lot of us get caught up in the fact that we think that we're also the mind. You begin to realize, oh, okay, so I experience thoughts, they come and then they go. And also from the emotional space, I'm happy and, or I feel happiness. And then I feel sadness. I feel contentment. I feel, you know, longings and desires. They all come and then they go. So that's not me. There seems to be an observer of all these experiences. And it's that scene of that observer. Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it anymore. Yeah. It makes, this process of growth seems to make relationships beautiful, but at the same time, dangerously beautiful. You know what I mean by that? Because they're so beautiful, but you realize you don't really have control over the relationships. And that's where it gets a little bit dangerous for you because you may change who you are. You may revert back to this idea of less of a growth. And especially if you're in love or you have this, a lot of times we see families not work out or something like that because one person's growing this way and one person's growing this way. And while it's beautiful, It's dangerous. It seems like it's dangerous to me. Cause like, you don't want to lose the thing you love, you know, but on some level, letting go is losing part of yourself. But does that kind of make sense? I know it's kind of out there, but does that make sense? Yes. Oh, totally. In fact, this, this is kind of in line with some of the conversations I've had in, I've had in recent times. It's, um, I feel like at some point when one begins to see this subjective, objective experience of who we are, we begin to learn that my choices, my preferences, or if I should put it in a different way, the things that I seem to have preferred, the things that I seem to have, who I am, Um, from an objective, uh, perspective is not something that I necessarily created. So for instance, if I somehow, um, if I somehow get more drawn to the color yellow, you know? was there a me that decided I must love yellow, you know, just the same way as a black man, there was no choice of being a black man. They're, they're just these, these, these, should I say magical or, it's like, I don't want to use the word dance yet because I've already used that a lot, but there's this, it seems like these coincidences that make up who this essence is. But then it's the same thing for others. So then because others are their own magical formations, I can love them the exact way they are without necessarily demanding that they change. And that is exactly what I feel like love is. just recognizing the beauty of everybody. You know, even, of course, we're going to have situations where we say, oh, you know, this person, you know, is a really bad person. They have this pattern or the X, Y, Z, name it, whichever negative pattern. But there's a recognition that there's nobody that's necessarily choosing exactly who they are from a from a patterns perspective. They're just these beautiful combinations of events that make up each individual person. So we can love everybody so deeply, right? Once again, without the need to change anyone. But I find that the moment we can see ourselves or others so clearly, then we begin to change. I love that. This idea of patterns and the way in which patterns seem to permeate not only our life, but nature in itself. If one can recognize any type of pattern, you can begin to recognize patterns in yourself. And when you're good at recognizing patterns in yourself, then you can recognize your patterns in other people. And then you can recognize your patterns in group settings, in nature. And all of a sudden you realize, whoa, we're all part of this pattern or dance or you know sometimes people see them as signs but or or codes maybe but I think in some ways they're all part and parcel of each other right a code a sign a symbol a pattern what's your take on that oh I want to say that um to me it's also very obvious that every single thing that experience has formed is a mirror it's Our entire reality is made up of mirrors that are reflecting and bouncing off of each other. So how I perceive somebody, for instance, and this is I think I wrote a little bit of this in Chapter 8 of my book. But how I perceive somebody is a reflection of something in me. And that itself, that thing that's already in me, that was reflecting off of, was a reflection of something else that created that particular signature in myself. And so every single thing becomes a reflection of every single thing. And this is not even about... I was telling someone this the other day. This isn't even just about human beings, even in the physical things. I remember reading Kaverly Morgan's book, The Heart of Who We Are. And she had this exercise where she says, pick up an object and in a stream of consciousness style, just write and write about what that object is saying. And I remember I was at work I was on my lunch break at the time I was reading this part of the book. And then there was a twig right beside me and I took the twig and then I just started writing about the twig, you know, about how, you know, it feels like it's falling off the tree and it's, you know, it's feeling a little irrelevant as it dies off and all of that. I kept writing. writing, writing, writing. And in her book, she doesn't tell you what to expect afterwards, you know, but by the time I finished writing and I, you know, flipped through the book and she explained what that was, it was, oh, in the narrative of the book, it says, okay, now see how you are describing yourself. And I read that and I was like, yes, this is exactly what I've been thinking about my own identity. So now what I was doing was really projecting myself onto a twig. And so in a lot of ways, this is exactly what we do with every situation. First of all, every individual that comes across our way, then every situation that we find ourselves, we always just reflect ourselves in it. And it's so beautiful to watch. That is an amazing exercise. I can't wait to do it when I finish here. It's such a great way to have nature speak to you. I often talk, I work a lot in the world of psychedelics and I speak to so many interesting people and they have these third person types of ideas that happen. They get to see themselves in a new light, a new dimension, a third person for the first time. But we often talk about the language of nature. And I think that that particular exercise, the idea of learning the story of the twig to you, in some ways you could say that's the twig talking to you, or that's the earth talking to you. And it's so... like cathartic in some ways to get that out because we carry it with us and we don't ever say out loud or better yet, write down the true reflections of it. Because it's hard if you don't have something to reflect back to you. When you're looking into a mirror, be it a twig, be it your bathroom, be it your partner, your kid, a com, whatever. Like it's such a wonderful way to begin how to speak in relationships to yourself, to other people. That's a beautiful exercise, man. Thank you for that. Oh, it's such a, in fact, these days it's been such a, just having this clear understanding has been such a good way to see myself within relationships, whichever form of relationship, whether it's a romantic relationship, a relationship, a conversational style relationship with a friend, or even with relationships with my coworkers, sometimes, obviously, there's going to be the narrative that goes on within the thought space about, oh, you know, this person talks so much. You know, wow, why can't this person just shut up, right? And we don't see that that's... actually a reflection of yourself but you say oh well I'm actually very quiet so I don't yeah I'm not talkative it's like wait have you seen like your thoughts are just so talkative right now So everything is just this, it's a, I described, one of the poems that I wrote in a particular chapter of my book, I described our experience as a kaleidoscope. It's just this colorful, but patterned, yet varied, all of our experience is varied in that way that it makes it actually beautiful. It is beautiful. It makes me wonder why, Like it's one thing to do work on yourself and to go through different exercises and begin to understand the best way to communicate and provide meaning for yourself. But you're working in some group dynamics. That's got to throw a few different dimensions in there because while you may be able to communicate to a handful of people in that group a certain way, different personality types dance different. You know, you got... Maybe you got a guy like me with no rhythm trying to dance. And then you got this beautiful Spanish dancer over there that's doing the flamenco. So how does your understanding of language create harmony in group dynamics? Is there tips and tricks to help with that? So I think what shows up for me when it comes to group dynamics is, number one, like with almost everything these days for me, there seems to be a unique signature of patterning that happens within a group dynamic. And in a lot of ways, especially me being, as part of my job, I do a lot of facilitation, but it's always interesting to see what comes out of every group dynamic. Now, any trained facilitator knows that you're a neutral party. You don't necessarily create any agendas, but allow the group to create its own agenda, what I find is the moment I decide to try to create any form of control within a group arena, I mean, relatively speaking here, I begin to lose, lose the beauty that's trying to emerge from that particular dynamic. So what I, as a facilitator, one of the things that I do when I get into any group is to, first of all, see what's emerging in the group. You probably will find that person who's very rowdy or who wants to suck all the air out of the room, you find out that person, that one person who's very quiet or you find out the directions, the conversations are going one particular way for anyone who enjoys like I do enjoy work, enjoys working with groups. What you then do is find Find what the group actually, what's coming up for the group and how they, as a group, will want to take whichever conversation or whatever they're in the group for and then find a way to then rally everybody around that particular goal, so to say. And in so doing, it's not me trying to control anything. It's the group. finding their own voice. So it's, in a lot of ways, it's how I see, I don't know what they call it with, these birds are sterlings. They have the, what do they call that thing where the loads of sterling birds are like in flight and then there are patterns in the air. Um, uh, what is it called mutations? I can't remember the word for it, for the pattern when they, where they, they fly together. Um, I can't remember the name. I'll probably remember before the end of, of this podcast, but we begin to see when these birds are flying all over this, their patterns that emerge, but there's not necessarily one bird that is saying, Hey, let's create this pattern. You know, nature and life itself just creates that pattern for itself or as a dance for itself. And so within a group dynamic where things begin to devolve is when whoever is a facilitator is not able to help everybody to dance together. It's one of the reasons why in an orchestra, a very good orchestra will have a conductor because it's not that each player doesn't know how to play their notes. But an orchestra knows exactly how to direct each of the pieces or each of the parts so that the whole thing is a beautiful melody. It's wonderful. I think there's a... I think that there is a course of study called semiotics and that speaks about the way in which nature forms patterns. And it makes me think of those birds moving in this elegant pattern when they're migrating or when they're swarming or even bees, bees do it too. And you can see the bees swarming together. Like that is language. That is a living language speaking to us. And I love the way that you, you go straight from the, the pattern of the birds, even the birds that fly in the Y shape to cut down on the stuff. Then you have an orchestra. And in our lives, when we're in good relationship to everybody, we have harmony. Harmony seems to be a great word to explain all these things. I feel like we're just... beginning to be at a point in the human condition where we can convey meaning to each other right and it seems like so many people are coming to this conclusion of okay now I know that the per the way this person is treating me is a direct reflection of me that's how I notice it in there like I'm excited for the future maybe you could speak to the idea of meaning in conversation. We've talked a little bit about how that which we see and notice in other people's behavior is a reflection of us. But maybe you could talk to the idea of meaning. How can we have more meaningful conversations instead of talking past one another, like side monologuing? Yeah, by the way, I just checked to find out the word. It's murmurations, when the birds, like hundreds or thousands of birds are flying together and creating patterns. It's called murmurations. Anyway, yeah, to address what you just mentioned, And begin to see from an absolute perspective that when the mind, when we understand the nature or the character of the mind, we begin to see that mind creates meaning. And outside of mind, there is no meaning. And so I'm still talking very absolute. I'm still going to go back to the relative. But from an absolute perspective, nothing, there's literally no meaning to anything. In fact, I have, I think it was my first chapter or maybe the introduction of my book where I talked about, you know, just meaning and where meaning comes from. But it's very obvious that the mind wants as part of the nature of the mind, it wants some form of control. And for control to happen, there has to be some kind of meaning. And without meaning, what we see is, or without the mind, what we see is there's no meaning. Now, that's on the absolute. But when we can see the absolute, we realize that there's actually no meaning. The only thing that's creating meaning is the mind. So when we are in relational situations, right, we can create meaning, but those meanings are not, I would say that they're not as concrete as the mind makes it to be. And so, because they're not so concrete, it's easy to honor what we have created as meaning, knowing that if it changes, I'm still able to create new meaning. And if that also changes, I'm able to create new meaning. And there's nothing, in fact, this is one of the reasons why I feel like one of the biggest lessons that we can in our earthly experience that we can ever learn is surrender is letting go and letting go is really realizing that there's there's never been anything to hold on to and so in any situation when I see I'm creating meaning for something can I actually let go of that meaning and in letting go of that meaning I can I can feel free to create another meaning and enjoy it. But I can hold it the way if I saw a butterfly and I held the butterfly. I'm not pressing and holding the wings. I'm holding it lightly so that it can fly wherever it wants to. So in not seeing meaning, we can actually create meaning. And that is freedom. And we can also let meaning go and create it again, however we choose to do it. yeah that sounds very freeing and it sounds it sounds to me like that is a beautiful way to try and observe yourself but sometimes the pressures weigh in so much you know people that maybe you lose a job or maybe you broke up in a relationship we the my if the mind creates meaning it's always Why this? How come here? What happened to this thing? There's all this inner dialogue that's going in. And I think surrender is a great way to begin to understand all that inner dialogue. If I were to surrender to my inner dialogue, does that mean holding each one of those thoughts for a minute and letting it go? What's the relationship between surrender and inner dialogue? Yeah, this is a really good question. You know, for, interestingly, coincidentally, I had, I think the third chapter of my book is called The Dance of Thoughts. And I say it's for us to understand letting go and surrender. We have to understand how the nature of thoughts. Oftentimes, obviously, everybody experiences thoughts in one form or the other. You see, you know, everybody can experience without a doubt say, oh, you know, I have these thoughts that just came through my mind, right? The moment we realize that thoughts are coming from nowhere and disappearing to nowhere. They're created by nobody and dissolving on their own accord. They have nothing to do with me. They just come And they go. It's when we see this so clearly, we can begin to see that when we hold on to anything, what we are doing is just holding on to it. first of all, a belief. But a belief is just, I would say, is a coagulated thought. That's a thought that has repeated itself so much that we grab onto it. And what is everyone grabbing onto it, onto a thought, is just another thought that says that thought is mine. And I think the craziness and the lunacy, so to say, in how we think We deal with thoughts is like I'll use the analogy of standing by the side of the road and seeing cars passing as cars are passing on the road. If we begin to say that car or that car is mine and this other car is mine and this other car is mine. That's literally what we do to thought. And then we see one car and then we grab onto the car and the car is going and then we're pulling it and holding it. That is stressing us, right? And that's exactly what it is to hold onto something. And you say, this is mine. And I'm going to hold on to this. I'm going to hold on to this. I'm going to hold on to it because it's mine. And the car is trying to go. And we're like pulling the car. And then we say, oh, yeah, I'm stressed. What's causing the stress? He's still holding on to something. And the whole idea of letting go, he's seeing that none of this is essential. None of our thoughts are essential to us. So letting go is literally stress. I mean, there's no better way to say that letting go is about actually letting go. And so every faith, every major faith tradition has something to say about letting go. In Christianity, for instance, you want to commit things to God and let go of your cares, right? It's everywhere in all major faith traditions is the fact that we need to let go of all that we're holding on to. Yeah. It's a wonderful point because I know so many people, myself included, that get stuck. There's a good quote that says, get in your head, you're dead, because you just have these thoughts. But there is a sort of a weird paradox there because we often hear people that we look up to or people that are held up by society or people that we read about that we admire, they talk about having this dream and pursuing this dream at any cost. And so that's Some people tell their story about even when the chips are down, I held on to my dream. That sounds a lot like holding on to a thought. But then there's belief in there. There is momentum in there. It's a strange sort of relationship. And I'm wondering if you could somehow give us a roadmap between letting go of our inner dialogue but still holding on to our dreams. So one thing, before I go into dreams, I think I'll talk about goals, lead that to dreams, and the holding on to dreams or goals or the letting go of them. To me here, it's very obvious that goals are just a thought that we hold on to. Now, in all of this, I want to say that there's nothing inherently good or bad about holding on to something. It is, if it causes you to suffer, then why hold on to it? If it causes you, if it doesn't cause you to suffer, then it's something that's pleasant. It can be pleasant if you're holding on to something, but it's not causing you to suffer, right? But every goal, it's so clear that every single goal It's just a thought that is called a goal, that we hold on to and we call a goal. Now, do I have goals? Well, I don't have as concrete goals as I used to have in the past. But yes, I have goals. I mean, I had the goal to be on this podcast today, right? Now, what happens in a situation where you say, hey, sorry, we can't make the podcast today or I find out there's something wrong with my timing or whatever. It's something that can be let go of. So it's the same with dreams. We can have dreams which are essentially a goal, right? When we have these goals that we create, yes, there are people who would say, yes, I have held onto to this. You can hold onto a dream and hold onto it There's nothing wrong with that unless then it makes you suffer. So I've been in situations and I've heard people in situations where they are holding on to some kind of goal and things are not really looking up for them. They're getting far away from that and they're still holding on, holding on. And in holding on, they're suffering. They're depressed. They are, you know... cutting off their relationships with others because things are not looking up. But the question is who created it? Isn't it still you who created it? So can you just let go of whichever it is so that you are free to be who you actually want to be? Now, obviously, I also find that there are people who have held on to dreams and, you know, chase their dreams to the detriment of other things. And in achieving their goals or their dreams, they found out, oh, okay, well, I've achieved it, but I'm not as happy as I thought I would be by achieving this goal. So I'm going to create a new goal that I'm going to chase. And I think it's in understanding, once again, the nature of thought. How thoughts are fleeting. Every single thought, every thought creates an emotional response or a desire. And when we hold on to these things, we're holding on to something that's actually illusory. Something that's literally not real. Now, there's still nothing wrong with holding on to anything. But as long as we're holding on to it and it's causing us to suffer, then why not just drop it? Why not just let go of it? it because none of I tell people like in 100 years nobody would know that you ever existed so what's the point like I i don't even know the names of my grandparents So it's like, I don't even know if they appear to me right now. I don't know that they are my grandparents. So it's like we hold on to these. There's this grasp of goals and desires that sometimes we do this to the detriment of the life that's unfolding right in front of us. here and now, that in grasping and holding on to this, we actually lose this beauty that's unfolding. It's so well said. I was speaking with a a lovely woman who was a death doula for a while. And she would go and sit with people that were, maybe they didn't have family, but they were definitely only had a day or a few days left. And in that conversation, I had asked her, what do you guys talk about? What are people telling you? And I could tell that she held their comments in confidence and in high regard, but she had mentioned to me, well, They're not talking about, I wish I would have worked longer hours. They're not saying, I wish I had a Tesla. They're not saying that I wish I would have done all these things and made more money. What they're saying is, I wish I would have had better relationships. I wish I would have spent more time with people I cared about. For me, that sounds a lot about this idea that we're here for a little while. And while you have to do things to make a living... are there things that you can do that are more meaningful for you and those that love you that enhance your relationship? And maybe that means making less money. Maybe that means letting go of some possessions or letting go of, I got to have five cars and a six car garage, you know, like maybe it means letting go of some of these things. And I guess that leads me to this question of how, You have a unique perspective for multiple reasons, but I'm curious as to what your perspective was when you move here to the United States. Is it something that is more focused on this idea that it's important to be important? You have to have these dreams. Is there a difference between where you were brought up and then coming here and seeing things? I would say that the most significant difference, apart from, I mean, infrastructure and things like that, the most significant difference has, for me, maybe in Florida, here where I live, that may be the case. Maybe it's different in other places I haven't lived. But the people tend to be more individualistic. Um, so for a very long time, I didn't even know, I just knew my neighbor's cars. I didn't even know what they looked like. And, um, that, that was a, a bigger contrast. Um, that was a bigger contrast for me, um, like back home, my I don't even need to know my next door neighbor. He just would knock on my door and ask me for salt because he's cooking right now and he needs salt. I think that was the major difference. coincidentally, um, around the time I moved here, I'd started to have, um, a different, um, understanding of the human condition and in seeing the human condition, I could see that from a, uh, humanistic point of view, um, it didn't matter whether I was in Nigeria or here in the U S, um, humans tend to, um, humans have a generally have a drive, should I say, a selfish drive. And when I say that, I'm still talking about the egoic state. There seems to be more of a, here in the US, for instance, there's still, there's the, oh, I just gotta work my hours so that I can go home and do all I can do for my vacation. I travel to Hawaii for my vacation. And it's just myself and my family. Every other thing doesn't matter. Back home, it seems to be kind of like that, but in a different, manifesting a different way. But in still seeing the human condition, it's also obvious to me that there's that one thing we all love to love, you know, whether it's ourselves that we want to love or it's We all want to be in some kind of relationship to others. And that's something that unites all of us. And it's kind of obvious because in essence, in true essence, we're all one. And that's that oneness. could manifest itself. And when it loses itself, it loses itself and manifests as greed, as selfishness, as seeing only one perspective. But when it finds itself, it finds itself as everything, as all and all of us, as one indivisible entity, so to say. I love that quote. We all want, we all love to love And like, isn't that what people are looking for? Like the most angry people that you see, like, ah, yelling. Like that person needs love so much. Like they don't have it in their life and they're so upset about it, they're going to yell at you because you did something wrong and it's your fault. It's so crazy. It's beautiful at the same time. If they could just take a moment and like, I know that person because I used to be that person. I probably still am at times, you know, but I catch myself. I'm like, wait a minute. I must be missing something here. If I'm that upset about something, what am I really missing? But, you know, it's because I think that's what it comes down to. It sounds to me if we if we give some sort of like metaphors or analogies on the level of maybe culture is the music, you know, and it's a slightly different tempo, slightly different beat. And we as individuals are trying to find harmony. And that is is that a good analogy? Or I know you have some beautiful analogies and some metaphors and the way you speak. Maybe you could break it down for us a little bit better. Yeah, I want to say that it seems very obvious to me that just we experience individually, we experience, like I said, we experience thoughts. And from a collective space, I would say there's there's a pattern of thought. It's so difficult for me to articulate this, but I would say there's a pattern of thought. And so it's obvious to me that there's a, I'll use the word, there's a universal mind that drives everything. And that begins to shape as culture. So culture, like for instance, nobody, I can say that nobody wakes up and says, hey, Let's start culture. This is culture number one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. So now cultural number one is this, this, this. Now, have you all heard, have you all read this? Now our culture starts. But culture begins to morph and create itself. And it creates itself by itself. with no necessary entity that's creating culture. So in a lot of ways, it's one of the reasons why I would still say that culture has to be, we have to respect everybody's culture. Why? Because first and foremost, nobody created any culture. There was no single entity that created any culture. And so when we see each and every culture as different as they are, and we respect each and every culture, we can see how to... how to dance with culture. So as an example, I'm a Nigerian with my own culture, right? I come into the space and there's a culture, you know, it's totally different from culture here. As an example, as a Yoruba man with my culture, if I see my mom, I lay down flat on the ground. Like my chest is on the ground when dancing. when I greet my mom to say good morning if I saw my mom at a shopping mall that's the same thing I'm gonna do get on get straight on the floor right that's my culture and we're back home that's um That's seen as normal. Nobody is going to be like, oh, that's weird. But over here, obviously, if I do that in public, people are going to be like, and I mean, when my mom is over, I would do that. But people are going to be like, oh, that's weird. But I can still respect other people's culture and say, oh, yeah, me laying down on the floor to say hello to... an older lady you know in the in the parking lot is kind of weird right so I can respect that back home I could not call anybody that's older than me by their first name you know well that's culture here and I can respect that you know so um for me I think um Going back to analogies, I think the way I see culture is it's the big mind. When we have the small mind, each individual has a mind manifested in where you have thoughts. Those thoughts shape character and they shape how we manifest in this world from a bigger group. setting culture becomes the big mind and manifesting the conversations and the dialogue that we have within the threads of that dynamic. It's brilliantly said. There's something wonderful to me about awareness and dimensions. And I don't think we speak about it enough. I think when you start just this particular example of being aware of someone's else customs allows you the humility and the ability to see something you've never seen before without judgment. And like, that is a different kind of awareness. Like, oh, hey, this is a different kind of greeting. Instead of like, that's a weird thing. We should do, hey, come here, get away from that guy. Get away from that girl. You know, it's like, this is something different. We should talk to them and figure out why they do that. What does that mean? What is the reasoning behind it? And now all of a sudden we have this rich tapestry of language between us where we're beginning to be almost in another dimension. You know, it's another dimension of conversations, another dimension of thought. And when you can cross dimensions like that, things begin to open up. What is your take on awareness and dimensions? Um, I would, um, I think I would go, in fact, this, this would probably segue me into going again, once again, absolute going more on the absolute, um, perspective here. Um, and I would use the word awareness as, um, as a gateway of sorts. Um, I find that who we really are is, um, is what is aware of our condition? What is aware of all of this? And because who we are is not something that can be pinpointed because I mean, if I, there seems to be an essence here and that essence is aware of this essence. And so with, if I can understand what that essence is, I begin to see that every other thing that I'm aware of is, the word I'll use here is it's, It's a beautiful mystery. So like just being, it's what are the chances in this freaking world that I'm speaking with you on a podcast? It's a mystery. Everything is a mystery. And what are the chances that I am where I am right now? It's just a mystery. What are the chances when I step outside, you know, somebody's walking in front of me all, everything that appears to, that seems to be an appearance. In fact, just seeing, the ability to see is a mystery. The ability to hear is a mystery. Everything, like meanwhile, what we're seeing and what we're hearing, they're just waves. I mean, if we're still talking relatively speaking, they're just waves translated by different types of organs in different formats. right? What exactly is sound? We're having a conversation and, you know, in our conversation right now, there are a bunch of things that are happening. There's me inflecting with my vocal cords, air, and it's creating sounds that we're not even necessarily focusing on, but something in the mind goes and translates it into meaning, you know, and then We are here nodding and enjoying the conversation. That is itself a mystery. And that mystery is, if I describe it this way, it's mysterious and it is beautiful. And that beauty for me is all of life. So from that viewpoint, I feel like every other thing, our conversations about culture, what happens in culture, what happens in conflict, even with conflict, every single thing is awesome. There's so many variables. And to get upset or to... To see it in a way, and I'm guilty of it, but I try hard to see it as the beautiful mystery all the time. I really look for that. To see it any other way is sort of almost an exercise in... in bravado or like hubris because you don't have, you don't know all the variables in the equation. This could be happening so that tomorrow is something wonderful set up. And if you read mythology from any culture or you read a good book, there's usually a character arc and the deeper that individual falls, the more glorious it is when the sun rises and you're like, yeah, they did it. You know, I did it, you know, and And so if you find yourself headed down towards the valley, I, I always try to reaffirm myself like, okay, sun's right over there. I can't wait to get over this next mountain and see what's happening there. And you know, there's something also interesting that happens when we talk about the beautiful mystery and we talk about in a way that gives credence to it being beautiful and mysterious is this idea of contagion. Like if I begin telling you about something in my life that I'm really excited for, and I do it in a way that isn't like braggadocious, but it's like, I can I tell you this thing that I'm doing? I'm really, I can't wait to talk to Shay. He's got this cool book out and he describes how he's dancing. And it's like this beautiful observation of life's beautiful mysteries. Like when I begin to do that, like there's this, there's something beyond language that transfers to the individuals, even if it's online like this, even if it's in the audience or knowing that someone's going to listen to this and smile and they're those guys are awesome those guys are crazy you know but there's something that happens that's beyond language that is contagious whether it's good or bad and I'm wondering what are your thoughts on that what do you think about this contagion of of the mystery from one person to the other via language and meaning and ideas and motions and clues what do you think it's um You know, I like analogies and everything. If we could imagine for a second, each individual is a wave or a puddle in this vast ocean. when there's a surge, when there's a wave in that ocean, it affects every other. Now, two miles away, the wave may not witness the effect of, or the ocean may not witness the wave of something that happened a mile away because of the length and breadth of that ocean. but it still does. We just don't know that it does. So as an example, within one part of the wave, there was a fish there that maybe just gobbled on something within that particular wave and he moved to another side of the ocean because he found something to eat because of that wave. And then two miles away there was an a bigger fish that ate that fish because well it came its path and he only came his path because he found food at that part of the way there's in every single thing we are all connected so um um in uh in nlp for instance I i am a licensed nlp or a coach and you know nlp we talk a lot about um uh, about mirroring. So if you want to, to create connection with someone, just mirror, you know, mirror the expression and all of that. And that's on a subconscious level, we begin to create, you know, um, we begin to create rapport with them. It's the same thing with, um, when it seems like when people express something that's beautiful to them, create some kind of rapport because we understand what beauty actually is. And I would then add to what you said about, oh, if somebody, what if the person is even braggadocious and we're kind of irritated by their braggacity? What is irritating us is still something inside us that is connecting to them. So in a lot of ways, it's still part of this the ebbs and flows of the ocean that is each individual, the wave that is each individual in this ocean called awareness or consciousness. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. She, this conversation is mind blowing to me. I, I, It's always such an incredible time for me to get to meet someone who sees the world in a way that now I can take part of their ideas with me and make my life. I can investigate these ideas and I can investigate some of the words they were saying, but I feel like I get to walk away with a new sort of a light perspective. kind of beaming on stuff I haven't seen before. And I, I love it. And I admire that in a way. And I'm truly thankful for that. And I think that everybody listening to this should take a moment to go down to the show notes and check out the book, this glorious dance. You're the music. I'm the song. Cause I think it just scratches the surface of some of the lessons and the, the lice waves that have been, that you've been fortunate enough to ride on. And you got a list of other things that you do too. So before I let you go, what do you have coming up? Where can people find you? And what are you excited about? Oh, I'll start with the last. What am I excited about? I recently started a sub stack. And part of what I'm doing there is I'm writing openly my next book, which well, I haven't finally decided the title of the book, but it's really about the art of contemplation. I found out that there seems to be a, especially in the spiritual community, there seems to be a push for meditation as a practice. But I found out that contemplation itself is something that's broader than meditation. And having a hobby, having a contemplative practice is something that is so beautiful. But I found out that when I started experiencing or going into a lot of contemplation and realizing a lot of things, I wish I had the tools to help guide me. And so for me, seeing that I didn't have the tools, what I'm trying to do is come together to um help anyone who's within this um journey so to say to um to help them enjoy the art of contemplation and so what I have started doing in on the substack is just writing a bunch of articles that can help and guide people in their contemplative practices but um so right now the major thing I'm working on is is the book it's probably going to be out sometime this next year this time next year um is when I i think I'll I'll be done with this so I plan to also write write a few chapters on substack uh openly so that people can also start reading um reading there so that's um that's my my that's that's the real highlight for me What is the address on Substack? Oh, it's my first and last name.substack.com. So sharecreator.substack.com. Or I think there's a direct link on my website, sharecreator.com. That has all the links to my everything, to my socials and my Substack, my projects. So... It seems to me like you're one of the people at the forefront of this idea about building in public. You know, even with the idea of High Life or when you came on and you were doing a sort of individual slash group social experiment where you were going on, hey, here's what I read. Here's how I'm employing it. You guys hold me accountable. And now you're rewriting that. in person, rough draft, ideas, boom, on Substack for everybody in the community to participate in. Maybe you could speak a little bit to this idea and the way that's transforming the world at large and yourself and your ideas in a community. Yeah, it's interesting. Now that you point that out, I'm like, oh yeah, I've seen a pattern in that. And I think that... As an agile coach, working with software developers, one of the things that I find to be so, so useful is building in small batches and allowing your customers to give feedback. So for anyone who doesn't know what agile is, the whole idea is, well, there used to be project management methodology called Waterfall, where if you have a project, it starts the first of this month and ends the first of next year. You only get to really experience that product by the end of the year when it's delivered. But Agile says, hey, instead, what we're going to do is Every two weeks, we're going to ship something to our end users so that they can feel the product. They can ask questions. They can give feedback. And then when they give feedback, we go back to the drawing board or we go back and refine that and then give you a new shippable increment. So for me, it's been so clear that that's a better way to deliver value. You want to deliver value as frequently as possible. You want to build in public. so that people can give you live feedback as you're going through that. So a lot of projects have failed because people were trying to build something in secret. By the time they launch it, it's like, I mean, now the world has moved past that. And yes, that thing was useful about three years ago, but things have changed. So for me, over the years, it's been really... And doing all of this as an expression of the essence that is here. I don't have anything to, I don't necessarily need to go behind the closet to do things and then come out to say, hey, guys, I've done this. This is what I'm working on. Here's some of what that is. What do you think? And then somebody is like, oh, that resonates. Or I don't get this. And I realize, yeah, I know you don't get it because even me, I know that I don't really get this. So I'm going to go back to the drawing board. I love it. I think it's building a better environment, a better community. You know, there used to be these ideas where people that were – building something privately would try to find a test audience or take a poll about something, but now just give it to them and see what they think. Cause you, you may think that your product is for a high end user in his fifties that, you know, that loves spreadsheets, but the truth is it might be perfect for a kid that's 22 playing Fortnite. And that might be the guy that has all the answers. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Or you find out, oh, you're trying to get it for that 52-year-old who likes spreadsheets. But really, he only liked spreadsheets because he could see things in bold font. It wasn't the spreadsheets, it was the bold. So now you miss that opportunity if you are going to build a second type of spreadsheet, but with small font. And meanwhile, all he cared about was the bold font all the while. Yeah. Yeah, and that alleviates so much problem down the line for a large corporation that's building software or has a new technology that ends up being obsolete by the time it gets to their bottom employees. This thing is junk. They've already spent a million dollars on it and cut their HR staff because they didn't think they needed it. Exactly. It's so funny to me. So I'm excited for the future. And I think that individuals like yourself and so many of us out there are really figuring out ways to provide not only redefined value, but to provide that new redefined value to everybody in the community. And that's going to make us stronger. I know times look tough right now, but it's because we're birthing something that is going to be incredible. And every one of us has... responsibility to take part in it the more responsible you are for your thoughts for your feelings for building around you the better world's gonna be man but let me just throw it back to you to give you the last few words on here if we didn't touch on anything or is anything you want to leave the audience with oh um well that's that's thanks for this opportunity to um leave the audience with something um I think the at the very core of it um I i find that um we've not paid attention to the process of thoughts, of the thoughts that we experience. As a matter of fact, some of, because of our misunderstanding of thoughts, we begin to hear and make statements like, you know, changing your mind. And it's like, oh, you cannot change your mind because what we are trying to say is, if I have a thought that says, you know, I'm a loser. So you change that particular thoughts to I'm a winner. And it's like, well, maybe you're not changing the thoughts. Maybe you're allowing that thoughts to go and you're identifying and recognizing who you truly are. And so you're recognizing who you truly are. You don't even need to change thoughts. But for you to even clearly understand that, we need to study and know what the thoughts we experience, what that is. And it's no wonder a lot of traditions would suggest meditation and all of that. But we've not, as a society, we've not sat down to examine the thoughts that oftentimes cause us to suffer. So I think the one thing that I want to leave with the audience is to actually spend more time to see the structure of thought. And the more we get familiar with it, the more we realize that none of our thoughts were essential to us. So in that way, we can pick a thought or let a thought go. And that is the freedom that we've all been looking for. Thank you. That's beautiful. I love it. Well, hang on briefly because I still want to talk to you just shortly afterwards about a few things. But to everybody in the listening audience, whether you're watching today or listening tomorrow, truly thankful for your time. Please go to the show notes. Check out Shay's book. It's a wonderful book. You're going to love it. And it's got a lot of cool insights. Check out his sub stack where he's building his new project. Be part of the community there. He's a fascinating guy. You should reach out to him if you're curious and pick his brain yourself. That's all we got for today, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you have a beautiful day. Aloha.