Dhru Purohit Show - Breaking Free from Tribalism and Celebrating Nuance with Africa Brooke

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

This episode is brought to you by Cozy Earth and InsideTracker. We’re living in an extremely divisive time, where many people want to put a clear label on other people and topics. This makes it easier to file them under something we either agree or disagree with and takes the effort of thoughtfulness out of the process.  But this approach isn’t serving us well. It limits us from discovering common ground and changing our minds. It only leads to more close-mindedness and more division. Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru talks to Africa Brooke about breaking free from tribalism and learning how to exist, and even celebrate, being in the gray area.  Africa Brooke is a globally recognized consultant, coach, speaker, and writer who specializes in helping people move through self-censorship and other forms of self-sabotage. Her work takes a close look at the complexity, mess, and glory that is the human experience, and she makes a strong case for why we need to accept discomfort as an essential part of the growth process. In this episode, we dive into: -Celebrating and living in the gray (9:17) -Why we can’t project our opinions and viewpoints on other people (13:52) -Understanding how people arrive at their thinking (22:57) -Africa’s sobriety journey (32:54)  -Examples of how self-censorship shows up in our lives (1:08:52) -Cancel culture and collective sabotage (1:15:07) -How outrage can be a very useful tool (1:21:08) -The power of discernment and why it’s a valuable tool we can all benefit from (1:32:21) -How polarization is dividing us (1:34:26)  -Acceptance and holding multiple truths (1:40:42)   Also mentioned in this episode:   -Beyond the Self Podcast - Episode 18 - Do you know what you stand for?   For more on Africa Brooke, follow her on Instagram @africabrooke and through her website, africabrooke.com. Listen to her podcast, Beyond The Self, here.  For more on Dhru Purohit, follow him on Instagram @dhrupurohit, and YouTube @dhrupurohit. This episode is brought to you by Cozy Earth and InsideTracker. Cozy Earth are the most comfortable, temperature-regulating, and nontoxic sheets on the market. Right now, get 40% off your Cozy Earth sheets. Just head over to cozyearth.com and use code DHRU. InsideTracker provides detailed nutrition and lifestyle guidance based on your individual needs. Right now, they’re offering my podcast community 20% off. Just go to insidetracker.com/DHRU to get your discount and try it out for yourself. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was feeling immense pressure to always pick a side, to always say that I am anti this, or I am pro this in every single situation. I felt that the pressure to pick aside was so intense. Welcome to the Drew Perot podcast. Each week we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds and wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is someone. I've been looking forward to interviewing for quite some time, Africa.

Brooke. Now, before I tell you a little bit about Africa, I want to tell you why I invited her on this podcast. Now, this idea that everything in the world is black and white and that there's no room for gray area, there's no room for nuance. This very idea is ripping our world apart, in my opinion. Now, this type of thinking, I call it tribalism. That's the idea that my side is right and your side because you are the other quote unquote is wrong. It doesn't matter if you have a good point or an interesting idea to share or fair criticism on even something that I believe. Because you are the other, again, the other, I'm not going to hear you. In fact, I might work really hard to cancel you. Tribal thinking is best summed up with this phrase. You're either

with us or against us. And if you're against us, you better watch your back. Now, the thing is, there's power to believing in something. I want everybody to stand for the things that they truly believe in. And there's many things that I believe in that I stand for. And when I come across new information, when I come across an interesting perspective, when I come across something that broadens my horizon, I'm also willing to change my mind. There is a power of, in changing our minds. Now, I would go as far as to say that changing your mind

can be a superpower if you let it. If you let it. And how we step into that superpower is we step into the gray area. We step into the nuance. We don't see things as always black and white. They're right and they're wrong.

I'm right and they're wrong. They're right and I'm wrong. We see things for what they are, which is there's often a lot of layers. There's often a lot of nuance to it. Now, we can all fall victim to tribal thinking, myself included, which is why I think it's so important to surround ourselves with other open-minded and nuanced thinkers. Now, Africa is one of those individuals that I see as a nuanced thinker who I want to introduce my podcast audience too. A little bit about Africa. Africa Brooke is a globally recognized

consultant, coach, speaker, and writer who specializes in helping people move through self-censorship and other forms of self-sabotage. Her work takes a close look at the complexity, mess, and glory that is the human experience. And she makes a strong case for why we need to accept discomfort as an essential part of the growth process. If you've ever changed your mind about something, If you've ever seen the value of opening your horizon and broadening your horizon and letting different types of thinkers come in and share ideas and perspectives that you previously may not have considered, I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. Now, before I welcome Africa in, I want to share something with you that I wrote recently

that I posted on social media. And it's about being a better friend. If you're my friend, I want you to challenge how I think. I want you to help me see what I can't see from my limited viewpoint. And even though it might be tough, I promise to stay open-minded, especially when I think I already have things figured out. As your friend, I promise to speak up when I have a valuable perspective to offer. I won't do it to be right.

I'll do it because I know what, I'll do it because I know, that dialogue helps us both grow. I'll do my best to be both kind and direct, and I'll apologize when I fall short. Most importantly, above all else, even if we disagree on something, I promise to always see the humanity and goodness in you. I hope you enjoyed that,

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That's D-H-R-U to get your discount code and try it for yourself today. That's insidetracker.com slash dh-R-U for 20% off. The link is in the show notes. Definitely check it out. Africa, welcome to the podcast. It's a pleasure and an honor to have you here. I've been a fan since I come across your work and I'm excited for today's conversation. So I'd love to actually jump right in.

Before we get into your story and we have. have a little bit more of a conversation. I was thinking about this podcast, and one of the things that I wanted to get a chance to do that I love with your work is your work for me is a vehicle for freedom. And the ideas that you present, I feel, help individuals, including myself, step out of the weight and baggage of certain ideas that we may not even know that we were caring. And so it's a beautiful opportunity for self-reflection. And one of those principles that is fundamental to that that I was sharing with my men's group this morning is this idea of celebrating

and living in the gray and actually looking forward to the gray, appreciating the gray. So I'd love to kick things off by having you read actually one of your most recent writings, which is very firmly in a line with this. And then maybe give me a little bit of a director's cut in terms. of what you were thinking about when you were writing this post. Yes, I'd love to. I'd love to. So it reads, it's never been more important to accept that most of us,

I'd argue or exist in the gray area. The in between. The case by case. The I don't sit neatly on any side. The, I need more time to think about this before I respond or react. The, I have no opinion on this. The I've changed my mind. The context matters.

It is possible to honor the gray area and stand for something. Powerful. Yes. And you know what? These are actually words that I wrote nearly two years ago. And I wrote these words in my journal. And actually, the opening line for that journal entry was a question. And the question was, when did I become so rigid?

in how I view myself, the people around me, and the world that I walk in every single day. And at this point in time, I was feeling so much frustration because I had come to the realization that I was feeling immense pressure to always pick a side, right? To always say that I stand firmly on the left, to always say that I am anti-this or I am pro this or I am with you and I'm not against you in every single situation. I felt that the pressure to pick a side was so intense and I won't be the only person that felt this more than ever in the summer of 2020. And at this point in time, and I'm sure we're going to, we're going to dive into this the more that we speak, but I hadn't really realized just how much self-censorship had a

grip on me, just how much it had its claws on my shoulders. So these, These are words that I didn't just sort of write and put out into the public sphere. These were very, very private. These were, it kind of felt like a secret, me saying that I'm not doing this anymore. I don't want to play this game anymore. I don't have to pick aside. I do value nuance. I do value context.

I, you know, as a Zimbabwean immigrant living in London, I don't over-identify with any political party. You know, I've never lived my life thinking that every decision that I'm not. make needs to be the kind of decision that someone on the left would make or someone on the right would make. I was just raised in a way where I have to value the gray because of how uncertain life is, because of the different environments I was in. So that's kind of the short version of the backstory of why I ended up writing those words. And the reason why I shared them a couple of days ago and the reason why this is a message that I'm really passionate about now, because I do see that we are in a time now

more than ever, where people are so afraid to say, you know what, I don't have anything to say on this. You know what? I need more context before I express outrage. Or if someone says, actually, I do agree with what that person on the right is saying. Well, I do agree with what that person on the left is saying. Or I'm more in the middle. People are terrified. So this is a message that I'm really, really serious about putting forward because it's one that offered me relief when I first needed it two years ago, but it's one that really, really offers people relief because they no longer feel as if they're sort of going through this thing alone. So that's kind of the mini backstory of that share. One of the words that you use that I just love is relief.

And relief to me is peace, peace of mind. When we have peace, we can also see things for what they truly are. When we see things through a filtered lens, often a lens that we didn't necessarily choose knowingly, we sort of inherited or we picked up from our society, group, tribe, it brings a lot of stress because we can only see the world through that layer and lens. I want to share a story with you because I know you said you wanted to make this conversational, so we definitely make a conversational. A few years ago, I was invited to go to Kenya by a group of entrepreneurs that I'm part of a group with called Summit. And as part of the trip, we were visiting and spending time with this modern hunter-gatherer society tribe called the Samburu,

who were cousins of the Maasai. And I was excited because I was born in Kenya, but I had not had a chance to spend a lot of time there. And this was an opportunity to go back. And as we arrived and we were meeting with the village elder, one of the first things that this gentleman did, who was so welcoming, so living in both worlds, spoke very fantastic English and also was very firmly like this was his tribe and he was trying to preserve their way of life. He said, I'm so excited to invite you guys in. And I want to also remind you that our society, our way of life, the things that we practice over here, it can be very easy under the Western eye to immediately pass judgment of how we do things, to immediately say, how the hell could you allow this to happen?

How the hell could you guys practice this way? How the hell could these certain gender roles be attributed in society? And I want to remind you, you know, that as a guest here, before you pass judgment, stay open-minded and see the full picture. And don't let your ingrain ideas get in the way of seeing the beauty that we can all get a chance to achieve together. And what he was referring to is that this particular tribe had a public, public-private partnership with the government of Kenya in that region where they were looking after elephants that were being poached. And they had an elephant sanctuary. And they were

focusing on educating their population and also giving them jobs to protect the elephants. Beautiful thing. Every single person that's out there is like, amazing, baby elephants. Like, let's save the elephants that are there. Along with it, as part of their education, plan and providing education to children, there's this, you know, they're entering out of one world and they're entering into a new world. And as part of their tradition and their background, again, just understanding that this is their history that's there, they had a practice that they implemented inside of the tribe that has been going on probably at least about 800 years. And it's, again, it's a horrific thing. And it's not something that we want to be having in

in our world. And it's basically female genital mutilation, right? It's the cutting of the female clitoris, as some Arabic groups do and different tribes that might be out there. And this was part of their culture. Now, we can have our judgments and opinions and our ideas about what that is and how we should write off that entire group and what that means, or we could understand that actually if we cared about this group and we wanted to form a partnership, it was really about providing more opportunity, more opportunity if they wanted for education, more opportunity for employment, more opportunity for capitalism and going on the journey with them. But if we get stuck to our Western ideas of immediately, this is wrong, which of course that argument could be there.

There's nothing wrong with somebody having that. But I'm going to use it as evidence to write off an entire group and cross my hands and say, I'm not participating in this. How much do we all collectively lose? Right. Right. And you know what? I'm really glad you shared that story because even as you were sharing it and the moment that you revealed the other side of that entire experience, I could feel myself being internally challenged. Why? Because I'm having to hold multiple truths about a group of people or about someone or about a situation. And I always believe that's a very, very good thing to be able to sit with that discomfort that comes up when you hear something that is kind of jarring to your soul because you filter

it through your own subjective experience, through your own awareness, to whatever education level you have, to whatever kind of societal rules that you have taken as part of you. and then you either, you know, have an opportunity to respond or to react or make something wrong. And we can all agree that there are things that we can all say objectively, this is not okay, this is wrong. And for me, as someone that has been a very serious advocate for people, for women and girls that have survived FGM. It's something that I'm really, really passionate about. These are stories that I hear all the time of people traveling and experiencing, you know, and finding out that this is something that very much happens around the world.

And at the same time, they're having to hold the multiple truth about the fact that that group might have been people that have fed them, they've looked after them, they've learned things from them. And something that I learn over and over again, which is what I'm also receiving from your share, is that regardless of whether we've used something to be right or wrong, whether it's objectively right or wrong, we cannot project our own worldview onto people. I've really, really had to learn that. I've really had to learn that.

And I think there is something happening right now. And I wonder what you think about this. I think that there is something that's happening right now in our culture where we forget just how vast the world is. We forget that there are billions and billions and billions of people. You know, that's as many consciousness is, right? So for us to feel as though we can just project our own worldview onto people, I think that's a very, very big problem.

And I think it is contributing to kind of the fear that people feel now and the inability for us to actually have productive conversations, for us to be curious about things, for people to learn, for people to have further discussion on issues. But I think that story, yeah, that story is a very, very powerful one because I hear similar things all the time. The details might be different, but I always hear, you know, people's expectations.

experiences of having to hold multiple truths. You know, that idea of we can't project our opinions and our viewpoint of the world on other people, people try all the time and it brings them stress. But as many people know, just like Ram Dass said in the past, he said, you think you're so enlightened, go spend a weekend with your family. And we can't even change our own family's mind, right? We can't even change our own family's mind, let alone a whole entire population set. Right.

Especially not with brute force. And unfortunately, we live in a world, regardless of what viewpoint people have, we're doing this in many aspects of the world through brute force. Through brute force, through shaming, censoring, canceling, we are trying to use it as a tool to change people's ideas. Now, if it worked, that would be one thing. But it often backfires. Most likely it often backfires.

And now you have two tribes that entrenched themselves in instead of having that honest dialogue and understanding. You know, my favorite thing is whenever I hear somebody say, I just do not understand how, fill in the blank, this other side could have this viewpoint. I just do not understand how people could be anti-vax. I just do not understand how people could be ProVax, this, that, fill it in. Every part of the world is experiencing. And I always say, and I have a smile on my face, I say, actually, that's a great place to start.

Let's start with that understanding. It doesn't mean that you agree. It doesn't mean that you agree. It doesn't mean that you condone. As you mentioned with the story earlier, you can look at things and say objectively, this is wrong. This is not the way to go about stuff. and that also doesn't mean that if you're not doing something about something, that you agree with it.

So starting with understanding, if you don't understand why somebody has the viewpoint that they do, we're practicing a version of laziness. It's laziness. We're relying on our tribal beliefs and ideas about how something should be. And instead, we're arguing against reality. And just like Byron Katie says, you know, anytime I argue against reality, I'm wrong, but only all the time. Oh, that's good. Oh, that's good.

That's brilliant. And you know what? A question that I always ask myself, and I always pose onto other people as well, came up as you were speaking, it's that we need to just start asking, how did this person arrive to their thinking? I think that's a much more useful question, right? Instead of, I don't understand how people can think like this, you know, that sort of shuts down that curiosity and that inquiry. Whereas if you sort of open it up and it's more expansive, I wonder how that person arrived to that thinking, right? It really leaves room for that curiosity and you don't have to be over attached to eventually agreeing with them or disagreeing with them, but it just leaves room for understanding. And I think that's something that a lot of people have sort of just started to push away or, you know, to just not remind themselves that you get to, you get to value understanding.

It doesn't mean that you agree or disagree. It just means that you tune into your curiosity because you're more likely to find more useful answers there. So that's, yeah, that's another question that came up as you were speaking. And I think actually something that I find is that none of this, even everything you and I are talking about today is a bit of. about having an answer. I think we're always seeking an absolute answer, sort of this very neat packaging of, you know, what should I do next? What does this actually mean? But I think we need more questions. I think especially in the time that we find ourselves in now, I think we need to be asking more questions. So just that question, I wonder how that person arrived to their

thinking. I think it's such a useful one. Even to turn it back onto yourself, I wonder how I arrived to that thinking. That's so much more powerful than something that's very sort of egoic and like an absolute, you know, and this sort of all-knowing. So yeah, I really like that. I like that. It reminds me of something that I had a mentor of mine. He was a Jane Monk originally from India who had very similar experience to the arcs in your story, which we're going to get to in a second. He was a Jane monk in India, and at the time, monks were not allowed to travel over water. They were afraid that if a monk would fly to the U.S., if they would fly somewhere else or come

to England or other places, that they would be corrupted. They would be corrupted by society. They would be corrupted by the temptation of women in like the more, like, very conservative Jane tradition, which is funny because the Jane tradition from India is a way, is very open. But naturally, all societies take things, hijack them, and make them their own. They didn't want them to be corrupted by food because they traditionally were vegetarian. So they didn't want them to start having temptation of eating other foods that are out there. So he had went through that firsthand.

And this was a gentleman that stood for peace. He was a contemporary and a follower of Gandhi in India and was a part of the movement of India's independence as a young monk. And had a lot of notoriety that he brought and education. that was there. But because he had made the decision to travel to the West, and he got an invitation from Harvard's Divinity School to speak over there, when he was leaving, this community, which was previously firmly in celebration of him, met him at the airport and was throwing stones at him and the airplane that he was about to board. Because all of a sudden, if you're not with us, you're against us. If you're not with us, you're against us, which is the classic line that tribes

use to keep people in check and not break out of the ideology. So off of that experience and many other teachings, he would share it. He said, you know, take somebody that you have, that you think that you're on the complete opposite side of some sort of thing, some sort of social issues, some sort of political voting, even in our world of health and wellness. Yeah. And imagine that I could sit you down in a movie theater. And in 90 minutes, you could see a fast forward version of their life, but you'd comprehend and see every situation they went through. You'd see how they were born, you know, them arriving in the hospital, their parents, you know, being there, raising them, the experiences, the maybe bullying and the taunting they went through, or the lack of that,

parents who were available, parents who were unavailable. You'd see every single moment of their life and the things that they experience from their viewpoint and lens, one of the things that would happen at the end of these 90 minutes, even somebody that would be completely horrific that society has written off, even if you don't agree with them. And that's totally fine. You don't have to agree with their viewpoint. In fact, maybe you double down on your viewpoint of what you believe in. You cannot argue that you would not understand them. You'd understand exactly how did this person become who they are. And with understanding comes a version of, empathy. Yes. I'd love to hear about how you think about empathy in your life with especially

as you've been writing and talking about these things that many people would deem how is it that you, Africa, a woman, a woman of color, of this background, this thing, that idea. How dare you say this. In the face of that, how do you practice empathy and see empathy in your own life? Yeah. Oh, that's a great question. And I actually had chills as you were speaking. I, for me, I'm able to show empathy, even when people, you know, are really confused about where I stand. Am I with them or am I against them? Oh, she's a black woman. So why she's speaking in this way, she's, you know, she's just all of these things that come up. The reason why I can show empathy is because I also went through a time where I had very

similar questions because I had brought into the idea that if you wear a certain identity, you are supposed to think in this way. You're supposed to feel these things. You're supposed to resonate with people that also speak a very similar language. If someone else doesn't mirror your belief system, if someone else doesn't mirror your value system, then there is something a little bit suspicious there. So I had bought into that very same rhetoric so I can show empathy because I understand what it's like to be in that position. So for me, even as you were speaking as well, I, you know,

and this is something that I've spoken about openly and I've had a chance to sit down and speak with this man. But I remember years ago when I first discovered Jordan Peterson, I, I, had already heard a few things about him being transphobic, just a lot of negative things about him. And I'm sure maybe some people listening to this will know exactly what I'm talking about, exactly what I mean. But I had never engaged with anything this man had put out. I had no idea that he was a professor. I had no idea that he had been sharing these incredible in-depth lectures for years online. I didn't know any of those things. I was told how I should feel about him. I was told that this person was essentially my enemy and that this person was so

far removed from who I was as a person, from the values that I had. And I made a very firm decision that I was not going to engage with this man in any capacity. And a couple of years later, when I saw a very out-of-context clip of him having an interview with someone, I had a really visceral reaction to him because I again of that sole decision that I had made about who this person was right and I remember that was one of the first moments and it was just a glimmer but it was one of the first moments that I started asking myself why am I reacting in this way when I don't even have enough information about this person but it was a very it was a very fleeting moment but I still decided that okay I know everything I need to know about this man. And about three years ago, when I started to realize that

a lot of decisions I was starting to make in my life were based on what I was told I need to believe, mainly because of my identity. That as a black woman, especially as a woman, I'm not supposed to like Jordan Peterson. I'm not supposed to like Joe Rogan. I'm not supposed to like any kind of man that thinks or speaks in a very specific way. And when I just started questioning all of these things, realized that I wasn't actually honoring the fact that I'm an autonomous adult. I wasn't honoring any of that. I was just in waiting. I always refer to it as in being in waiting, waiting to be told how you should feel, waiting to be told how you should think, waiting to be told when you should respond or when you should react or when you should use your outrage or when you should not use

your outrage, you know, when you should dehumanize someone in the name of, let's say, social justice. right so i went through all of these things maybe not in extreme levels in the way that other people might have um and if someone is listening to this and have been through that just show yourself a little bit of compassion because it always starts from the right place we want to do better we want to be part of progress we want to be part of positive change so i'm saying all of this to say that i'm able to show empathy to people because i know what it's like because i'm i speak as someone that has experienced that very rigid way of approaching the world where you make binary thinking your default, where you feel like you're not allowed to exist in the gray area, you're waiting for

external permission. So I think that's a part of it for me. And also my sobriety journey is the thing that holds all of that together. I've been sober for nearly six years now. And I really have met my shadow in the most gruesome ways, you know. So I am able to hold, you know, you know, you know, different truths, as we were talking about earlier, I'm able to hold multiple truths about people. So before I make an immediate judgment, regardless of how painful the external information I'm receiving is and how much of an attack it is on my ego, I've come to a point where I'm able to observe what I'm feeling and I observe my mind and I decide, emphasis on decide. I decide how I'm going to respond. And because I really do value respect and compassion and

empathy, I filter my response through those things, right? So yeah, so I think I've been able to sort of train myself into expressing empathy, even when it's really fucking difficult. And believe me, Drew, it can be a bit hard. But I do it, but I do it. And being sober helps, being sober helps. Absolutely. You know, you've been very open about your journey of sobriety. And I'd love to talk a little bit origin story. One of the first interactions that we had was on direct message, DM, as the kids call it. And you had replied back that you had listened to my interview with Gabor Matte and that you had enjoyed it. And we were both fan-boying, fan-girling over Gabor. And one of the central phrases that Gabor Matte uses in his work is he says, for anybody struggling with addiction and

alcohol addiction could be one, drug addiction could be one, but there's plenty of other addictions that are out there, shopping addiction, people pleasing, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. Ask why not, don't ask why the addiction. Ask why the pain. Can you talk a little bit about your upbringing and what pain was there that contributed to addiction? and secondarily, what perspective that brought into your life that shaped who you are today as a human being? Yeah, yeah.

Thank you for posing that question because it really is important. A lot of the work that I do today is driven by my journey of recovery. And I think it's very easy for people to see where I am now and the positioning that I have, the reputation that I have and how confidently I am, you know, how convicted I am, et cetera, et cetera, and to assume that it's always been that way. But I went through a very, very, very, very torturous time with alcohol from the age of 14 up until 24 when I finally got sober. And a little bit of a backstory, I was born and raised in Zimbabwe in the south of Africa.

And I was there until I was nine years old. and alcohol was a big part of my life, even from a very young age, because my dad was an alcoholic. He wasn't always, but from me being about six years old to nine years old, that's when he really, really fell deep into addiction. That's when he lost everything he had. And he took out a lot of that frustration on my mother and me and my siblings. And he was very physically abusive. And at the same time, when he was sober, he was the most charming.

sweetest, most incredible man and just so soft and loving. But when he was drinking, he could be the complete opposite. So a lot of the reason why today I speak so much about self-censorship is because I learned how to self-censor at a very young age, at a very, very young age. And for a lot of us, it does start in childhood or in your most formative years or it just takes one really big thing to happen to you on a deeply emotional level for you to decide that it's not safe to speak my mind. It's not safe for me to express myself in this way. So you always wait for the external to inform what you should say and how you should feel. And for me, from a young age, that was my father, because the environment was so uncertain and uncertainty was a

very, very big thing. We never knew what version of him we were going to get. So self-censoring was very, very important from my mother, my siblings to me. And when we moved to the UK, when I was nine years old, years down the line at 14, I discovered alcohol. And I realized that just by drinking, I could shut down all of the noise. I didn't have to think about the fact that I was an immigrant in a new country. I didn't have to worry about feeling emotionally disconnected to my parents because when you live in such an uncertain environment, it is all about survival. And I think there's a cultural component to how I grew up as well. There was no sort of, you know, I love you or sort of cuddling with my parents or anything like that. And I, again, I think there's a huge

cultural component to that. It was very much just about survival. Love was shown in the four walls, you going to school, you having the things that you actually need. So there was a huge emotional disconnect with my parents. But when I was drinking, I didn't have to think about any of that. I felt like the most confident person. I felt like everything was fine. And this was from the first time that I drunk at the age of 14. And my intention of drinking was not because it tasted good or, and especially when you're at that age, the intention is to get drunk. The intention is to have, quote unquote, fun is to escape yourself. But that became a pattern that followed me. up until 24 years old.

And unlike most people, I blacked out every single time that I drunk, every single time that I drunk because I had trained myself to binge drink. I didn't know how to just have one and to stop. And I had seen the exact same behavior with my father. And I've been very intentional about not blaming him for any of it because I did have choice. I did have a choice, right? But I just chose to drink in that way because it made me feel a certain way. But I had seen that same behavior before and I was replicating it on a subconscious level, whether I knew it or not. And between the ages of 14 up until 24 when I finally got

sober, I tried to stop drinking on very, very consciously seven times and I relapsed every single time. The longest that I went was about six months and I relapsed, three months and then I relapsed, a month and then I relapsed. And when I talk about these seven times, I'm not just talking about saying, oh, I'm not drinking anymore because I'm hung over. They were times that were so intense and I knew that something had to change. Otherwise, I'm not making it 25 years old. So they were very, very, it was brutal. It was brutal. It wasn't profound and, you know, sort of this, sort of this wise decision that I made because I really care about my health, it's because I was going to die.

I was going to die if I didn't stop. And culturally, people usually prescribe church because I grew up Christian. There's no such thing as, okay, we'll take you to rehab or let's go to AA or let's go speak to a professional. There's nothing like that. Nothing like that. You have to keep these things to yourself, or so I thought, you have to keep these things to yourself or you go to church and you pray it away. So there was no kind of support.

And at 24 years old, I finally, finally managed to get sober. And the thing that was different about this, Drew, and I've spoken about this so many times, is that I stopped shaming myself. I stopped treating this as if it was some kind of dirty secret that I had to just hold for the rest of my life and punish myself for it. And I've always been very interested in psychology. I've always been very interested in science and in reading and in hearing other people's stories. So I thought, okay, there must be something out there around this that can give me language, because I didn't have language for any of what I was experiencing. And then I found one of the first things I found was Carl Jung's work.

And I learned about shadow work. I learned about human behavior. I learned about self-destructive patterns. And I just started realizing, oh, my goodness, this is not. what I'm going through is not some kind of moral failing. Yes, there is responsibility that I have to take and accountability that I have to take and a level of discipline, but there's also something that is happening on a brain-based level.

So once I started to sort of move out of my own subjective experience and sort of lifting the shame and having more language and starting to share what I was experiencing, that allowed me to maintain sobriety because AA didn't seem like an option. Rehab, fucking forget it. So I needed all of these other tools from different places and I would listen to other people's stories. I started sharing my story openly online anonymously for the first three months. And then it's sort of just built from there and there.

And then I just took everything into being more objective, less about me, really finding out about human behavior. What is actually our capacity for change? Why do we keep ourselves in self-destructive cycles? How does self-censorship play a part in this? is self-sabotage really what we think or is it self-protection? So I started just learning and over the past six years it's just evolved in the most incredible way. But that's that sort of where everything started and what leads me to be doing what I do now. One of the things that you shared and it's an incredible story and I thank you for being so open about it and having the courage to talk about it.

And as you say, it couldn't really be anything otherwise because if you didn't do it, you might have died. That's how serious the situation was. Still nonetheless, it takes that courage to step in that direction and share. One of the things you mentioned was you stopped shaming yourself. And I think about that classic quote, which is what we resist will persist, what we accept, we go beyond. An interesting parallel that you shared is that you also, there was these two ideas, going back to the gray area. There's these two ideas that you're holding that are both there. One, you have choice and to some extent we have free will and everything like that, right?

We can make the choices that are there. But there was also to let go of shame, we have to also understand that we can be a product of our environment. And that means that your dad and his own struggles, could have contributed to that. Yes. Like you, was he doing it intentionally? No, he's just doing the best that he can in that situation. So it's interesting for me to hear that both you weren't blaming your dad, but there was this recognition that your environment, for sure, played a role.

And so it's almost like what I'm extracting from that, and I'd love to hear your thoughts in this, is that the less we are to blame others, the less we are to also blame ourselves. which makes it easier to step into letting go of shame and having more understanding, which is a major part of our healing. Any thoughts? Yes. Yes. You've just articulated that perfectly because something that I've really learned,

not just from my personal experience, but speaking to thousands upon thousands of people, is that when you really do stop externalizing and just looking for someone to place the blame on or a system or a situation, again, you can accept. the contributing factors, right, without completely just externalizing everything. When you do that, it really puts you in the position of being a sovereign being. You remember that actually, I am an autonomous being and I do get to make my own decisions. I do have choice. So yeah, that's something that I really, really have learned that both things can exist at the same time, just like you said, I can fully accept that because of the things that I saw when I was

in my most formative years, they were embedded into my subconscious, and I saw a certain way of being, which started to replicate itself in my teenagehood and adulthood, and at the same time, I can think, okay, well, what part did I play in this? Because only when I realize what part I've played in this, can I take responsibility? Can I make amends? Can I take accountability? And by doing that, I get to move on. And that is so important, I get to move on. Because if I I hadn't accepted that reality of my father being the way he was, but he's not entirely to blame for who I am now as an adult, then I was able to actually free myself and then decide how I want to proceed. So I think it's more freeing than we realize. Yes, it can feel, it can be very difficult

actually to look at what part you have to play in something, which is why I think a lot of us resist it, which is why when we feel that initial discomfort of having to look at yourself, in a way that is not so pleasant. We sort of just feel the, what I call the initial ouch. We feel it and then we just decide that someone else needs to take this. I can't hold this. But if you just hold it for a little bit longer and you decide what you're going to do now that you have this information,

it's so freeing. It is so, so freeing. I think about like the law of responsibility. And the law of responsibility says that, If we had a part in something, it doesn't mean that we were the cause of it. It doesn't mean that everything that happens to us in our life is completely of our own doing. There are injustices. There are circumstances.

There is, it's a very small percentage of the population. You know, largely humanity is good and wants to make the world a better place. But there are people that carry out violence on individuals. and it's the toughest thing in the world to reckon with that. Separate from those items, the law of responsibility says, if I had a part in it, if I played a small part in it, that means that I also can play a part in changing it. And when we let go of that blame, especially for ourselves,

you know, I often, anybody who wants to see the butting of heads, you know, just has to log onto Twitter and you can immediately jump into any butting of heads or arguments that are between any sides, whatever sides you want to pick on, whatever political debate that's there. And so much of it is an argument over who's to blame. Yes. Who's to blame of something?

And the challenge that I see with a lot of empathy is essentially we think, think that when we find out who's to fully blame for something, not that people don't have a part to play in things, then that's the path to freedom. But when somebody now has the blame, we've given up our power to them because now they're the only person that can do something about it. If they were the one that caused it, then they're the only person that can do something about it. And when we get stuck in blame, actually, that ends up coming with a lot of depression. That ends up coming with a lot of fear.

Because now, if I played no part in it and it's everybody else's fault, and that's not just with societal issues, that's with our health, that's with our finances, that's with so many aspects that we're all just living and experiencing as human beings, we one day wake up and say, well, I can't do anything about it anyway. So I might as well just be miserable. Yes, yes. So you sort of become a victim in your own experience. And I also wonder if a part of us always knows that we played a part. I think a part of us always knows that we played a part and we spend so much mental energy, spiritual energy and physical energy denying that we've played a part. So I could see why that would fuel things like depression and just anxiety and stress. and maybe even, you know, something that I think of as a low level of paranoia because you know that you've played a part in some way, but now you have to spend all of your energy sort of hiding that reality. And I think I definitely found myself doing this a little bit when I first realized that there was a problem on my hands with alcohol and, you know, other drugs were a part of it as well by this point. But I was really denying just how bad it was. And because of how old I was at the time, being. in my late teens, early 20s, it's kind of seen as a rite of passage, especially where I am

in the UK where the drinking culture is huge, right? It's sort of seen as if it's just a phase. You know, I didn't go to uni or anything like that, but when you're that university age, college age, it's just seen as, yeah, it's normal. Everyone does this. But I knew that there's actually nothing normal about this because I'm blacking out every single time. I'm losing up to eight hours where I have no idea what's happened, no idea. I've been on autopilot, waking up with bruises, and I have no idea how this has got onto my body, waking up in strange beds, really not remembering, have I had sex with this person, or have I not? Me knowing, having all of this information, very real information, that was telling me that something, something isn't quite right

here. But I was in a deep state of denial and I spent so much energy, so much energy holding on to that denial and concealing the reality of what was happening. And I found myself externalizing and passing the blame in very different ways. The blame wasn't even towards my father. It might have been towards my mum because she's not realizing that something is wrong, maybe because she wasn't around enough in my childhood, because she was trying to move us over to the UK. So we had to live with different relatives. You know, I, so I say all of that say, I do think on some level a part of us, because just the supercomputer that we are as human beings, I'm not able to believe that we're

able to really just completely 100% convince ourselves that we haven't played a part when we're fully aware that we have. That's powerful. That's super powerful. I think about a few things as you're bringing that up. I think about, you know, I'm not sure if you're in communication with your father or to what extent, you know, as you started a journey into your sobriety journey, what, of anything, and you may not know, were some of the circumstances that played a role

in him ending up to be the person that he was? Do you know anything about his upbringing, his parenting, how he was raised at all? Yeah, very, very good question. And so he actually passed away in 2004, 2004. It was alcohol-related as well. And I'm in the process now of writing. I'm writing quite a lot, really wanting to understand my own history, where a lot of my own patterns come from, et cetera.

So I'm speaking to different family members. But something that I'm really hearing about his upbringing is that he had a very, very good upbringing. He had a very good upbringing. When I think of him, the memories that I do have of him before the last three years of me being in Zimbabwe with him, I remember him just again, being such a sweet man, such a funny man. And when he was with his siblings and my grandma and my grandfather, they were a very close and warm family. Although drinking was a very big part of how that family bonded is something that I now know. But again, other people will tell you that they were very happy drinkers.

So it's interesting as I sort of unpick all of this information and speak to different people because there's no sort of dark history that people would expect when someone goes through something like that. Or if there is, it wasn't something that was apparent to most people. So yeah, that's something that I am finding out a lot about as I continue to write and just try to, not even try to, as I intentionally humanize my father again, to not even see him as my father, but to just see him as Maxwell, he was just a man, he was, you know, a baby, then he became a toddler, then he was 14, and then he was 21, and then he got married, and then he was trying to figure life out. I'm really trying to focus on seeing him in that way, separate from being my father,

but as I track his own relationship with alcohol and how other people experienced it, nothing, nothing was quote unquote wrong, if you will. Yeah. No, it's an interesting insight because it's just starting with an open-minded question. And there's multiple layers, right? There's the trauma that people grow up in. And in this instance, you're not necessarily seeing that there was those elements in the same way that, you know, you were raised in. And then with this podcast being largely a health podcast, I mean, one of the things we talk about is that our genetic lineage, our ancestry, our unique makeup, they all play a role in how certain things.

impact us. I come from an Indian background, South Asian. We know that South Asians genetically tend to be more carbohydrate intolerant. We know, for example, Native Americans here in America, where we have, you know, Native American populations in different states and some on reservations that are there on traditional tribal land, we know that because, in a way, the Native American DNA has not had as much as exposure to processed foods. alcohol, certain drugs. And there may be more things that we've just learned about in the future that that population set is a little bit more predisposed for certain addictions.

So there's so many different factors that play into a role. And I think that is one unique and exciting thing about what we learn about in the future that, hey, we might learn from a young age, awesome. You're an individual that might be more prone to addiction. But guess what? we traditionally see that as bad, there's always a good that comes with that. There's always a good that comes with that drive. And I'd love to hear about that in your life.

How has it been that some of the same things that might have been the drivers that are pure drivers? All drivers at their core are pure. In one instance, they found alcohol, right? But now in understanding them and in a way, getting a better control of your superpower, now those drivers, those same drivers that brought you to alcohol can be brought you to something else. What do you think some of those core drivers were that are inherently pure inside of you and part of your superpowers in a way? Oh, that's good.

That's good. And that's something I'm definitely going to be taking away with me so I can really think about this. Because I've never thought about that question. I've thought about so many different things and worked with so many things. thoughts and questions, but I've never thought about that specifically. Let's see. You know what, Drew, that question is so good that I don't want to force an answer. So I'm going to get back to you and let you know because that I'm getting full body chills because that's something that I've never thought of and it feels quite immense right now. Because I think, not even I think, I know that by

answering it, I'm going to have very powerful language that I can pull on every single day and when I make decisions and when maybe I don't feel as strong in my sense of self or when maybe my sense of self needs a little revamp or when I'm doing something new and challenging and I have a lot of those things coming up. So this is something that I want to be very intentional about answering. Oh my good. Thank you for that question. Absolutely. And you take as much as time and we'll have you back on the podcast one day. And if you have an answer at that time, we'd love to hear about it. Yes. And you'll be getting a voice note from me. The moment that it comes, oh, you'll be getting a voice note.

Oh, that's good. On a very light level, on a very light level, one of the ways that I've seen this in my life is that I had a proclivity at a young age, being a young entrepreneur, starting to see some success. I saw that I have a proclivity to spending. I have a proclivity to spending and I'm more liberal with my budget, which in many cases meant I wasn't even keeping a budget. I wasn't even looking at my bank balance. I wasn't looking at those things. And I always thought of that as being a bad thing.

I always thought of that as like, I'm not disciplined enough. My dad is a CFO and a financial wizard and this is what he lives and practices and breeds. And growing up, he taught us all about this, and here I am doing the opposite. I'm bad. I'm wrong. How could I be doing this? And when I would sit in meditation and reflect on, okay, what are these drivers underneath for me, just in that small instance to share on this topic, some of the things that came

up were I liked providing freedom to other people. And how it often would show up is that I would like. I would like, I found, and not that this is good or bad, sometimes it can get out of control and that's where things go straight. But when we budget for it appropriately, that's a beautiful thing and you get recognized. I found that when I could take care of situations, when I would just tell people like, hey, this is what's happening. These are the experiences we're having. And by the way, I'm taking care of it all. And I perceive that to be one of the good things that came out of that was everybody was more in the moment.

Everybody was more in the moment. They could enjoy. They were more flexible on their time by not having this constraint of who's going to pay for this, how are we going to pay for it, what were we going to do, what were we going to get a chance to experience. And I saw that, wow, that's a beautiful thing. That's a beautiful thing to want for people to create an environment for them to be fully present.

Now, in my own limited languaging and thinking, as a young entrepreneur, I falsely, attributed that to the money. But really it was the curation of the experience. And that could happen just with tea at my home and having people over and playing a board game. Yes. And when I stopped making that driver wrong, I started to see that that driver is inherently part of who I am. I can't not be who I am.

I can't not be a caring person who's thinking about other people. who's wanting to create that freedom for us all to be present and enjoyed together. That's just fundamentally who I am. I can't make that wrong. The expression of that is not doing my checkbook any good. So out of a lot of pain on a mild version, okay, maybe I want to do things differently and look at it. But part of that is let me channel that driver for me in this unique situation so that it actually is honoring my boundaries, honoring the constraints, and actually, you know, allowing people to both benefit from it, but also me to benefit from it in a way that makes

sense. So that was one unique thing that I saw on a very tiny level where something that I wanted to make myself wrong for, I actually held in and said, no, this is actually beautiful and it's pure. And if I go even one step deeper, a lot of that needing of wanting to be present and people to be present with other people came from actually being young and feeling like I was constantly moving around. My parents moved to a lot of different cities as we grew up as my dad was climbing up the corporate ladder and trying to provide a better life for us. So we'd get uprooted, we'd move to a new city and I was always the new guy. And as the new guy, you're always trying to figure out how do you fit in? How do you make friends in elementary school, middle school, high school, other things?

and I realized that I had to figure out hacks. And one of the way that was my unique hack that was just trying to avoid pain and get pleasure in my life was, okay, if I became the guy that did things for other people or was the resourceful guy, then I got love, then I got, you know, protection, then I got friends, then I got people in my life. And naturally, the pain that comes with that is that when you're not that anymore, you don't think that you have value or you think that that's the only way you have value. So that's just a little bit of a preview into my own life and the journey that, again, your story, the person that's listening today may be completely different than my story and Africa's story. But we all are living through the human experience and getting trapped into these narratives that then we later hopefully get a chance to question and reflect. on and see how they were serving us in certain instances and maybe not serving us in other instances. Oh, I love that. That is such a brilliant example and illustration because as you were speaking, it unlocked what one of my things are. So thank you very much for that. So something that I

used to do quite a lot, especially when I was still drinking. I would say this was mainly from the ages of 17 up until getting sober at 24, is that I wore one of the ways in which I was able to really continue this denial of what was really happening and what was really happening to me internally and the results I was starting to see externally, whether that was losing people, not being able to stay in a job for longer than a month, feeling that I had to move from group to group to group because eventually they're going to find out that I have a bit of a problem. so this is no longer fun. Africa is there something deeper happening here?

So I was constantly sort of moving in groups so that I wouldn't get found out. So one of the ways that I was really able to just carry this denial and dress it up is that I created a party girl persona for myself. And I really thought the only way that I could connect with people, the only way that I could be desirable was if I was drinking and partying and everything else that came with it. And I found that when I was drinking and when I had really just crossed the line of still being

conscious, but I'm not too, too far gone. I'm just in the sweet spot, you know, everyone sort of has their sweet spot where they're still kind of good. I felt that when I was in that moment, I could be a fantastic communicator. I could get into a room and immediately connect with people. I could feel their energy. And, you know, I could bring people together just before we started recording, I called you a connector.

the kind of person that brings people together, you see how people will kind of fit and you want them to sort of meet. I was that person when I was drinking. So, and just so many other things, so many other, you know, character marks that I really thought were important. But what I was doing is that I was giving alcohol

and drugs all the credit. Because in sobriety, I realized that actually I am those things anyway. Those things that really manifested themselves in an extreme way. And maybe sometimes when I was drinking, I sort of would overdo it in some kind of way or it would feel sort of inauthentic because I'm trying too hard off or whatever it might be, my own blind spots. But I realized that those things, I didn't have to give alcohol the credit. I was those things anyway. I was a good communicator anyway. I could be charming, but I was,

I can also be shy and that can coexist. Very good at bringing people together. You know, my mind works in a very quick way. If I see a problem, I can kind of see the strategy straight away. You know, just all of these things that I gave alcohol credit for, that in sobriety, I was able to realize that I have those already. Now I just need to feel confident enough to tell myself that Africa, you are those things without needing to drink or smoke or to snort something to feel like you, you can access them. So I would say those are sort of characteristics and ways of being that maybe express themselves in a way that might have seemed dishonest because I would be in a fucking blackout and then I don't remember that I was charming or I brought people

together or that I'm supposed to be somewhere, you know. So, but in sobriety, I was able to really reclaim those things and not give alcohol the credit. So that's something that came up as, as you were speaking. But again, I'm going to take this away with me and really put language to it because I think it's a very powerful exercise, even for anyone listening, I think it's a very powerful exercise so you can reframe some of those things and start to actually use them to your advantage because it reminds me of something that I realized about three as into researching what self-sabotage is and wanting to really understand it on a scientific level but also a spiritual level. I realize that for the most part it is self-protection. We're just doing it in a way

that is not really useful in a way that is not sustainable for the long term, but it is self-protection. So I think that exercise you've put forward speaks to that. Thank you. I want to pivot over to self-censorship. And as I understand, you're writing a book about this topic. Yes, yes, I am. I'm going to start off the basics now that we've really warmed the audience up. Tell us about the basics of self-censorship and what are some examples of how it shows up in

our lives, especially for people who don't think of themselves as censoring their thoughts, ideas, or questions. Yes. So a lot of us would be familiar with the term censorship in general. And we usually, immediately when you hear the term censorship, you think of the media, you think of corporations, you think of things that are usually so far removed from you. But there's an element of censorship that we all experience consciously and subconsciously and subconsciously, that's self-censorship. So in the simplest way, that is when you withhold

your ideas, your opinions, your thoughts, and your expression out of fear of being ostracized, of being rejected, of being abandoned, of being punished, or the language that we all know, cancelled. Right. So self-censorship is always from a place of fear. So it can also manifest as you agreeing with things that you don't actually believe in. So a lot of the time, it's not just about you not saying anything at all. You might find yourself agreeing with things that you actually don't believe are true, but you do it to keep yourself safe. You do it so you belong. You do it so that you're not the outsider. You might find yourself hiding your political opinions. So maybe you will never tell anyone what political party you actually support because maybe that comes with a lot of

negative associations. Maybe that comes with a lot of weight. And again, you believe that by putting that out there, you're going to be abandoned, you're going to be rejected. And it can also look like denying reality, which is something that I'm really starting to see in society happening right now, where we can all see certain things happening, we can all see the information is there, we can maybe see the contradictions, we can maybe say, actually, no, this doesn't make any sense. So I don't quite agree with that. Or this was said before, but now this has been said, what's actually happening here, even just general questions. So what happens is that because we're so afraid of what will happen to us if we step forward, we self-censor and we play into this

collective denial of reality. So those are just some examples of how self-censorship shows up. And, you know, some of the most common things that I hear actually from people as to why they self-censor, because I think these examples might help actually just bring this picture to life is, you know, people say things like the bigger that my following gets. So this is usually people that are online because I also mainly work with public figures and entrepreneurs and people that do have a public facing brand of some sort. The bigger my following gets, I find that I censor myself and start to share according to what I think the audience will accept.

So that's just one of the things that people share quite a lot, regardless of level. I hear this all the time. Another reason is that people are afraid that they'll lose their job, their income, their clients or their followers. This is really huge. So what they decide to do is to either they sanitize their message or they just do not say anything at all. And they start to detach themselves from either their platform or from their colleagues

or from their friends. So they just sort of retract instead. And some people say things like I self-censor because I feel like I don't have the relevant identity to have an opinion on this. So because I'm white, I shouldn't be speaking about this because I am a cis male or a cis woman. I shouldn't speak about this. Or because I am black, I shouldn't speak about this or my opinion should be this instead of that. So instead, people self-censor. And ultimately, very simply, it always comes down to the fear of abandonment and the fear of rejection, which I, and I really have to, you. I really have to be able to.

to make this clear, which if it's something that you are experiencing, I want you to know that it's not irrational. It's not irrational because we are in such a tense time right now where people are seeing what happens to people that step forward. You're seeing people actually getting ripped apart in comment sections, you know, whether that's on Instagram or on Twitter. We're seeing what happens to people when, you know, something they've said is misrepresented or it's taken out of context. But it's really important that we don't make those things. the absolute truth of what happens when you choose to express yourself. So those are just some examples of how self-censorship sort of presents itself in our lives. I love your thoughts as somebody

who's very avid writer on social media. And now, of course, as I mentioned, you're working on your book. And we'd love to have you back on and talk about it when it's ready to be shared with the audience. We were chit-chatting a little bit before the interview got started. And today's episode, whereas we're recording the podcast, is with Cal Newport. And he talks a lot about social media and it's influence on things. What are your perspectives of how social media does and doesn't reward us or maybe train us to put out maybe the most sensationalized version of our ideas that, in a way, it's rewarding us to take out the context of how we fully feel about something?

Yes, yes. And you know what, when I was listening to that episode and you were both speaking about this, I was just saying yes, yes, yes, because every single point was so accurate. The reality is that even though these platforms were not designed to bring us where we are now, where the level of division, polarization is just so insane, especially in the Western world, especially in the Anglo sphere. It's so intense. And we're trying to have very, very complex discussions on platforms that don't allow for that to happen. On platforms where it's, you're rewarded for dehumanizing someone else, you're rewarded for your outrage, right? Because if you are someone that is talking about unity or bringing people together or, you know, anything that is nonviolent, anything that ties into nonviolent communication, that doesn't really get the clicks. That doesn't get the attention.

that doesn't get the follows. So you're sort of incentivized to really just bring, to really just bring the sort of shadow parts of yourself forward. And I think a lot of people then end up buying into that. And that, I don't know the science behind this, but I think that triggers something really primal in us where we're sort of drawn to the negative. We're sort of drawn to the outrage.

So the cycle just perpetuates itself. But I really don't think the platforms that we're finding ourselves on are essential, you know, in trying to have these conversations. I think they just train us to be even more disconnected. Because when you think of what we all know is council culture, for example, which I prefer to call collective sabotage, because I think that's, to me, that's more precise language to describe exactly what is happening.

And I actually had a bit of a list here so I can mention some things of what fall under that. Shall I read it to you? Please, please. Okay. So my definition of collective sabotage is it's a group's conscious or subconscious effort to act against their own best interests. And what falls under this for me is anti-social behavior, doxing, harassment, intimidation, cyberbullying, which could also be seen as cyber mobbing, virtual mobbing, which is something

that I'm really glad that a lot of people, a lot of research. researchers and professionals are really starting to study this area because it actually blows my mind that there's not enough data in research around cyberbullying in the way that we see it now. Public shaming, humiliation, reputation, destruction and ostracization. So these are the things that I see that fall under what we call cancel culture. But the thing is, when we just use the term cancel culture, to me, it's not specific enough. I understand why it can be important within context, because we've come to a point of really kind of intuitively knowing what it means. But I really don't think this is specific enough.

I think this is a form of sabotage. So what I've realized is that the more that we're specific in our language, especially when discussing our behavior on these platforms, really calling it what it is. It's anti-social behavior. It starts to feel more real. When we get more precise, you really realize, okay, there's something that really needs addressing here. And this kind of language is really useful because it's not for the left or it's not for the right or it's not for the pro or anti. It's just very accurate language to describe what is happening. So that's why when we, when I have conversations about self-censorship, which naturally lead into talking about cancel culture and just everything we're seeing play out, I like to be very specific with the language that I use

because I think it then invites people from all sides and people that don't even have a side, people like me. It invites more people into the conversation without it being an immediate with us or against us type of dialogue. But I think in talking about social media and how we've come to a point of not being able to relate to each other in kindness and not valuing healthy disagreement and talking about how ineffective these platforms are

to, you know, hosting these conversations. Yeah, I just prefer to be very specific about what we're actually talking about. And a lot of times it's a recognition of the system that we're being placed in. And that system can be social media. It can be traditional media. You had a really great quote that you posted on Instagram. It was many weeks ago, a couple months ago. And you said, keeping us divided is lucrative as far as far.

Yes. Yes. Talk about that. I wrote that. I think that might have been last year at some point. And I wrote that because I just needed to remind people that this division is not accidental. It's not accidental. There are a lot of people making a lot of money by keeping us at each other's throats because it also distracts us from really talking about the things that we need to be talking about. For example, and I mean, this would be a longer conversation, I think we have a huge class issue. Whether it's in the US or whether it's in the UK, I think we have a huge class issue. And we're not talking about that at all. We're not talking about it at all. And we need to be. We need to be finding out what's happening locally where we live. Most people would not be able to

tell you who their mayor is, who their MP is, some of the changes that are happening in where they live locally, right? Most of us have no idea the things that we should be concerned about. You know, how much energy prices are rising and how that affects the average family, things that actually impact us on a daily basis. But we're on social media in the fucking comment sections, on the infographics, just shouting and screaming into the void. And the longer that we stay on there, and you better believe at this point in time,

the average person is probably on social media. about five hours, at least a day, right? A lot of people are making money from it. And mainstream media, they get to decide how we feel. I think it's really interesting how most of us think that we get to choose what we focus on or what we're going to care about this week or what we're going to care about this month. But for the most part, for the average person, mainstream media, regardless of where you are in the world, decides what you're going to see and what you should feel when you watch this.

And as someone that worked in advertising, this is an area that I find so interesting. And I'm starting to actually spend my time really wanting to understand the psychology of media and how we consume it and, you know, how it's presented to us. Because there are people that go into a boardroom every Monday, briefing, and decide what stories they're going to put out, what you should care about. So in me writing that, keeping us divided is lucrative as fuck and really talking about that, it just allows people again to turn their attention from their neighbor to really just sort of break the trance just for a moment and to realize that there is something bigger

happening out there. You know, keeping us divided stops us from connecting and saying, hey, actually, maybe our outrage should be placed over there because something else that I always say is that outrage can be a very useful tool. It can be, oh my goodness, it can be a very useful tool, right? the fact that you and I, you know, people who are labelled as people of color, are able to exist in the West and to be at the point that we're in and to be able to walk into any restaurant without having to, you know, be told that you sit in the back because of your race.

There were people, many people that had to be very fucking outraged for laws to change, for us to have the rights that we do. So outrage is really important. But a lot of our outrage right now is misplaced and misdirected. And I think we really, really need to be reminded of that as often as possible without it being a conversation about left versus right or et cetera, et cetera. And that's what that message was about. And again, it's one that I put out often because I think we need that sort of, we need to have to snap out of the trance. And I think messages like that do it quite well.

So much of the recognition of the playing field, of the system that we're in that leads to a lot of this. polarization, which I'll get back to polarization in a second. I don't always think it's a bad thing. And I'll share my take on that in a second. But so much of that recognition of the system we're in comes down to the basics of awareness. I'm aware of my surrounding. I'm aware that I'm in an interview right now. I'm aware of my breath. I'm aware that I can notice things and pay attention to them and see what do I want to look at what do I want to pay attention to and me choosing versus flipping on the media or again social media and then now I'm focused on that now classically there's been so many philosophers and people and individuals that have talked about

you know developing awareness but since that's so crucial as a part of us waking up to the powers at play that maybe don't actually always want us to wake up, how can we begin to start taking steps in that direction and actually celebrating and learning to appreciate the gray and the duality, which is life? Such a potent question. And I would say there's definitely no one right answer to this. But I think one of the first things is to understand that that process of bringing awareness to something is often more uncomfortable than people realize. Because I think there's a very mainstream sort of self-helpy way,

kind of almost enlightened way of talking about awareness, as if it's this, you know, it's this really calming experience where you just realize something and then you make a decision. But actually, it's very uncomfortable to bring awareness to something when you've been so sure about who you are. You've been so certain in your worldview and your belief system and where you get your information from, especially, you know, for example, here in the UK, you'll have maybe some people that have been reading the Guardian newspaper for 20 years. All of their information is from the Guardian. All of their information is from the BBC. They trust these people, you know, and then maybe one day they're confronted with information that means that they have to start questioning certain things, that they have to change. their worldview. And by changing your wild view, you better believe that other aspects of your identity are going to have to change. So awareness usually means that people will experience so much

cognitive dissonance, which again, I shared with you the story about Jordan Peterson, about Jordan, Joe Rogan, and all of these are the people that I had just dismissed. And in having to sit with their work in good faith and to listen to them and to humanize them, that was a process of awareness, but it was very uncomfortable because I was experiencing so much conflict and cognitive dissonance. So I say all of that to say, it's really important that you realize that in that process of gaining awareness, of expanding your worldview, of breaking out of your echo chambers, which is also a part of this, right? You will feel uncomfortable, but that discomfort does not mean that you're doing something wrong. That discomfort does not mean that you have to pull the

plug and go back to what you know. So I think just, Just expecting discomfort in the process of cultivating self-awareness is really important, is really important. And I think what happens after can look so different depending on who people are. Maybe that also means that you just diversify where you get your news from. For example, there's a place called ground news who are very good at giving really balanced takes on what is happening. So it's not about left or right. They just give really balanced perspectives, journalists that actually care about the craft. And that's another platform.

So maybe you just do a little bit of research to see what other platforms you can get your information from. It could also look like going through the process of going into your mental bin and seeing who have you discarded without actually listening to their work or, you know, making your own mind up about how you feel about them. And you're not doing any of that so you can eventually agree with them or disagree with them. But actually, just sit with the information that you're receiving, just in a very objective way, feel the emotions that are coming up, but allow them to just be there and then

make an informed decision, right? And then continue to just listen to people that challenge you a little bit. But I think the very first thing you can do is to realize that discomfort is inevitable. I so appreciate that you're talking about that discomfort because we want things to be romanticized and easy and we're in the movie and we're sitting. on top of the Himalayas and we have that lightbulb moment. Right. But some of my best moments have been when I've asked myself tough questions like, no matter how big or small, what's an example of you dehumanizing somebody recently?

I'm a human being. I fall into the traps. And is there a way that I've talked about a person, a group, a set of people? in a way that's dehumanized them. Right. And instead of focusing on the action, focusing on my tribe versus their tribe. So can I think of something recently where I've dehumanized somebody? And then as a follow-up, once I've gotten cleared with that, can I give myself a little bit of

compassion for understanding that, okay, in this moment, for a combination of reasons, you know, my brain was focused on the negativity bias. Yes. I was temporarily hijacked. My ability to look at things clearly was maybe filtered through a lens. All right. A little bit of self-forgiveness, a little bit of compassion, a little bit of empathy for myself. And now, how do I look at the situation on the outside of that?

Or how does my behavior? You know, we often talk about not judging people. You know, we often, you'll hear that praise. Like, don't judge somebody. Don't judge a group. You know, our human brains as, you know, this podcast first started up and it was solely focused on the brain. And we interviewed a lot of different experts.

And one thing that's clear is that the human brain is a judging machine. And I'm not just talking about people situations. It's looking up at the time right now and saying, okay, great, judging based on the time. You have this much time left with Africa. So be mindful of that. It's looking at colors. It's looking at smells, taste, sensations, other things. And we're constantly judging.

What we're really saying when we say don't judge somebody is your brain is going to judge. We have our natural biases. We have our backgrounds. We have our preferences. we have our taste, that's always going to filter in to where we are. It's really, can we hold onto our judgment and not turn it into a story? Yes. Our brain is going to judge.

But now, based on that judgment, can we hold onto it for a second? And not turn into a story. And the only way to do that is to question it. Is that true? Is that true? Hey, this group is always doing this. They're terrible. Okay?

Is that true? Can you find any example? in your life of that not being true. One of the things that happens in my industry is, you know, it's a lot of focus on big food, right? Big food and big pharma. And one of the things I've been trying to do in my episodes is talk about there's, of course, layers to that. Many of us have family members that are on SSRIs or insulin or this or that or whatever other types of drugs that are there. And those are life-saving treatments for those individuals that are there. Can we recognize that That's a part of it.

Can we recognize that even though we want to demonize big corporations and there are nefarious tactics and shady tactics and there's corruption, those things are there. But to write off an entire group, some of those companies, it's an internal battle like a family inside. It's the younger generation coming in. And I say younger, not to write off the older generation, but more youthful minded. So it could even be somebody who's 70 or 80 years old. That's at these corporations.

It's trying to have a different perspective. and they're fighting. They're fighting for the people inside to say, I don't know if this food is making people any healthier. And it's like a dysfunctional family, which many of us have our own versions of that. We see the arguments internally. And just because our dad, our mom,

our brother-in-law, our sister-in-law, has a different viewpoint than us that doesn't mean we're going to write them off entirely. Right. Because we see them as who they are fully. So even asking ourselves, there's tough questions of where have I demonized a group, a person, a situation? Where have I written off a group of people? Can I sit with that and see, okay, that's my bias that came through?

Can I give myself a little bit of empathy? And now what do I want to do that I have that reflection on the other side of things? Yes. Oh, so good. And you know what? I'd even add as well that that grace that we show ourselves in that moment and I really hope we would to train yourself to extend it to other people. I think that's where people find the kind of challenge

because it's so easy to say, yeah, I'll extend grace when someone is agreeing with you or maybe they're quite close to, you know, yeah, dishing out the grace, right? But when you find someone that is so different, you know, in terms of beliefs, in terms of what they value, in terms of what their position is. And again, remember, understanding does not mean agreement by default, right?

I think the challenge that one can give themselves is to really try and extend that grace. And it doesn't mean that you don't have any boundaries. Because I think something that someone might say to what I'm saying is, okay, so, you know, if someone is a murderer or if someone is a pedophile or if, et cetera, et cetera, we kind of go to the extremes when we hear conversations like this, right? Something that I always say is you get to have boundaries. You get to have your boundaries. because again, understanding does not mean agreement.

And I love what you said about judgment, Drew, because it ties into this. We hear the word judgment and we immediately think that it's something negative. But actually, discernment, right, which I think is something that we all need is the ability to judge well. I think when it comes to things like self-censorship, when it comes to things like really passing through the information that we're given by mainstream media on social media, when you see a headline with no context, but that headline gives you a sort of, risk or response and you want to react, discernment is so important, the ability to judge well. Because you are allowed to say, actually, I don't think this person is right for me. Or I think this person is wrong.

I think this person is right. I think that's important. We need to be able to judge well. So I think a word that would maybe sit better with most people is discernment, which is basically about judgment. So I really like what you said about judgment because it's something that we do need to get better at because it does allow us to be better communicators and it allows us to decide before we externalize information. Is this appropriate? Is this not appropriate? Which is what I call a social filter

because sometimes we think we're just self-censoring and I get this all the time with my clients and people I talk to. I'll ask them, okay, exactly where would you say you're self-censoring? And they give me examples and I say, actually, that sounds to me like it's more of a social filter, which is a very useful thing because there are things that you should be able to say, you know, and it's a thinking skill that we all use, but there are things where maybe it is inappropriate for you to have an opinion. Maybe it is not okay in this moment in time because you don't know enough to contribute to this. Maybe it's actually better for you to say, I don't have anything to say about this, right? So I think a social filter is very important and to be able to use that well, you do need to be

able to judge the situation and the environment and the audience and all the other factors. So I love what you said about judgment. I wanted to come back to polarization because I said I would mention a little bit about my thoughts on it. Yes. Yes, yes. One interesting thing that I'm seeing right now, just in looking at the reality, you know, you and I both use social media.

There's so many tools that are out there that are, we also, you know, I don't know about you, but there are many media sources that I'll pay attention to to get news and other things and I'll dip in when it's the right time and I'll take a break when it's the right time so I can focus on the things that matter in my life. So nothing is inherently that good or that bad. They can be taken for good or for bad and they can get out of control and they can contribute to these systems. But one of the things that is talked about a lot is about how polarization is a bad thing. And that polarization is dividing us. It's this thing that's going on that's there that didn't exist before that is causing this friction.

Now, there's so many layers to that that are well over my head that I won't go into. But one of the things that I will reflect on from my own personal experience is I've never seen more people emerging into the gray area. And whether or not they were there before or whether or not they arrived there because they're seeing the friction that's happening from one side or another, they're speaking up. Now, some people could say it's the minority. Some people could say it's few and far in between. But nonetheless, I see more and more people across every sector that are either feel

the burden in a good way. If I don't speak up, then who's going to be another voice in this place? Because I have the unique background, the unique experience, unique circumstances, the unique knowledge in this time where I can speak up or maybe I have the unique background. the courage to be able to speak up right now where somebody else may not have the courage. And I think that's one thing that often gets overlooked when we toss out the word polarization is that we're missing that some of the good that's coming from the friction is those individuals like yourself who are emerging and would have they emerged if we didn't have some of the

friction that was there. And that's both my commentary and also an opportunity for you to chime in any way that you want to. Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that position so much because again, because I find it so important for certain things that I experience internally or externally, for there to be language to it so that it feels more tangible. And that's what you have just done. Because I don't think, and I'm sure there are many examples of this in history, because we tend to think that this is the first time this is happening. You know, this is out of nowhere, this level of division has never happened before, you know, I would argue that there's been much bigger examples of division in our history, right? But you're so right. That we're trying to be solved with swords

and guns and many people died. Right? And we're just doing it on this like that, right? Yeah, getting our feelings for the case. So I think we don't have it as bad as we think. But you're so right. I think there has to be friction, there has to be adversity, even when I sort of just take this very quickly back to my journey of getting sober or anyone listening where they've had to really take themselves through something, you need that adversity and friction to shock you back to life. So you can really be in a position where you have to decide what it is you stand for. You have to decide how you're going to proceed. You have to get uncomfortable.

Your ego has to step to the side. And I really do think that's something that's happening as a result of how polarizing. we are. So yeah, yeah, I resonate with that so much. And I know that many people listening will as well. I think it's a beautiful thing. You know, when you see someone else have layered and nuanced thoughts about something without the primary motivation to attribute blame or to demonize, rather, right? And again, there's blame and there's responsibility. There's plenty of people that have a responsibility or play a part in contributing certain circumstances, right? There are companies. that pollute, there are individuals that mislead. There's times where people just genuine

in a human level get something wrong and it's an opportunity for them to own up to it, apologize and move on from there. So those things all exist. But anytime we see someone speaking up and having layered and nuanced thoughts about complicated subjects, which are my favorite podcast guest, yourself included, it gives us permission and courage to say that I can do this too. I can do this too. I can carry multiple ideas. And it actually is more of a reflection of how I feel.

Yeah. You know what? Yeah, this is true. And this, I can understand why somebody thinks it, even if I don't see that as my opinion or viewpoint, I can understand how somebody got there. And let me now have a more holistic dialogue. When I can have a more holistic dialogue, it's not about kumbaya. Even if you firmly believe in your viewpoint of the world, the best individuals that

persuade ultimately in this day and age that we live in are going to be people that can articulate how everybody looks at something. Let me tell you why this group looks at something and why they see it that way. Let me tell you why my best episodes are with doctors that come on this podcast and say, let me tell you why modern medicine doesn't see this as an issue and doesn't catch it. And let me help you understand how because you play a role in it by maybe eating a lot of sugar or doing this or whatever it might be, you actually have the power to change it. So even if you have a very firm viewpoint in the world, whatever that is, the better you get at holding two ideas or at least seeing two ideas that are there, the more likely it is

that you're going to be able to show people a pathway forward that actually helps them implement an idea and hopefully make their life better in the world a better place as well. Yes. Oh, that's brilliant. That's brilliant. And it ties into one of the very first things we were speaking about even before we started recording, just holding multiple truths. And as you were speaking actually just now, the word acceptance came to mind because holding multiple truths is something that we're doing anyway. Whether you accept it as true or not, we're contradictory beings by nature, by nature. And most of us probably don't even agree with some of the things that we thought a few months ago or a year ago, let alone five years ago or 10 years ago, right?

So just by understanding that and saying that out loud and really realizing something so simple, just being reminded of that very simple thing, it puts you in a position to be able to extend the same grace to other people, to be like, actually, you're just as complex as I am. You have so many things running through you in the same way that I do. You are presented with so many bits of information in every single moment. So, of course, you can't be held to this standard of perfection. That is just that no one can ever, ever attain. So being able to hold multiple truths about ourselves and other people is something that we do subconsciously anyway.

So it sounds like to me that one of the tasks is to just make it conscious and to accept it as a reality because it is. And I think that's a very internal thing that can be so empowering because I think a lot of the time when we have conversations like this, whether it's about self-censorship, self-sabotage and all of the in between, I think sometimes we think that it has to be a public declaration, that it has to be a public performance, that it's something that you have to post, that to show that you're, you know, an independent thinker, you have to post this thing. But actually, I think it's not even about that at all. I think that can be a byproduct of something that is much more meaningful, which is that very silent process of acceptance, which can happen at any moment, just in your own mind and in your

own home and with your partner and with your friends and even that person in the coffee shop where you're having a conversation about something and you express something, maybe something so simple that you didn't feel that you could before. So I'm a huge advocate for those very silent internal moments and I think acceptance is one of them. It's the simplest and most powerful of reminders and yet it's where we always come back to. So much of how we look at the world is how we treat ourselves. And I my heart goes out to individuals who are stuck in a place of being hyper critical with the world because it's often a reflection of the deep criticism that they hold towards themselves. They're the hardest on themselves. They're the most likely to beat themselves up.

Yeah. And we can't expect that we train our brain to be hypercritical to others. And then when we get home and we close the door after being out, that all of a sudden we're going to be kind and compassionate to ourselves. Right. That trained brain is now looking for all the faults, everything that we did wrong, how other people are better than us, what they have that we don't have. Yeah. Yeah.

And my heart goes out to everybody that's in that space. But if you're one of those individuals and I've been one of those individuals, Africa, you've been so honest about your story. You've been one of those individuals. Mm-hmm. there is the potential to step out of it. And sometimes we just need a little bit of a nudge and a reminder in this fast-paced world that it doesn't have to be this way.

And I want to celebrate you for a second because your writing is doing that for so many people. And the right experiences and backgrounds. And we were sharing earlier, I was born in Africa. I didn't grow up there. You being in there and being in multiple cultures. and having, you know, anytime somebody comes from multiple cultures and backgrounds, and that doesn't mean that you have to come from another country or you're an immigrant and other things.

It just might be that you may grow up in a small town or your family grew up in a lot of poverty and now you're in a different circle. You tend to have that outsider insider viewpoint and it gives you a unique perspective. And you see that the world is so much different than what you're necessarily being presented. And I feel that I'm so thankful for the background and the experiences. and even though there was so much struggle that you endured, that brought you to the place that you can see things that other people can't always see.

And you're willing to put your voice and your message out there, even in the face of criticism, because it's actually been a huge part of your freedom and that you want to give that freedom to other people. And I want to reflect back upon you that you're very much so doing that. So thank you so much. Thank you so, so much. I receive that, I receive it, I receive it.

And I have to thank you for all the, experiences that you have had because obviously they've led you here. And you reminded me actually that I came across your work maybe about a couple of years ago when yes, you were having a lot of conversations about the brain. So I've actually known of you for longer than I realized. So I think it's actually a very beautiful sort of reunion, if you will, that we then get to have this conversation in this way. And I'm very, very, very grateful for how open you are as well. And I can kind of feel a part two bubbling because there's so many things. So many doors have been opened.

And I'd really like to be able to further explore this conversation with you because I also want to understand the workings of self-censorship and all these other layers of self-sabotage just by stories and listening to other people. So I'm doing so much of that behind the scenes at the moment. And it's so rewarding to just hear people from all corners of the world of how they've experienced it different generations because again we think we're so unique and this is a very new thing but it's you know it's existed since the beginning of time um so i think there's there's more that we can definitely speak about when we sit together next time i'm game i'm excited and i'm game

africa you have a podcast we mentioned the book that's coming uh so we're excited about that you have a podcast as well would love for you to chat about that and if there is there an episode or a place to start. Should people go back to some of the early episodes that are there? Should they just start listening from the last one? Give a little direction. If somebody's looking to go deeper after this interview, what should they listen to? Okay. So my podcast is called Beyond the Self. What I would recommend is that my episodes really do build on each other, but you can pick anyone at random and you'll still get what you need from it. I would highly recommend to start with the episode, do you know what you stand for? And I believe it's one of the most recent ones,

depending on when you're listening to this, might be episode 18, but might not be. It's very good because I talk a lot about values. And I know that when we hear the word values, we just think of like a fucking corporation training, what are the company values, etc. No, that's not what we're talking about here. If you have resonated with anything that I've spoken about today, this is going to be a very important episode. Why? Because I think the reason that a lot of us are being swayed by the things that are happening in the culture, where we don't even know what we stand in, our sense of self is so distorted and it's so dependent on what other people say, on what your political leaning might be, on whatever movement or group you're a part of. And because we're in a time where we're seeing the

extremes of identity politics, a lot of people's sense of self is really shaken because they don't know whether they should express certain things because of their identity or make certain decisions. So it's a really, again, a very intense time for people. And I think the reason that we can be shaken instead is because most of us do not know what it is that we actually stand for. We wait to be told how we should feel, how we should respond based on where we lean on whatever a spectrum, it kind of comes with values that we just step into. But that means that we never really get to decide what it is that we actually want to take as a part of ourselves. So that's what this episode is about. It's quite challenging. It's a bit exposing, but there's also a lot of humor.

And I mentioned some of my own values and values that I thought I had, but I was shown by the results in my life that I actually don't value these things as much as I think, which is a very interesting exercise because so easy to say, oh, I value freedom, I value connection. But what are the results in your life actually showing you? How do you respond when other people fight for their own freedom, which is something that we're currently seeing? How do you respond to that? Do you value it as much as you think? Or do you only value it when it's with people that align with your beliefs, people that align with your way of thinking? So it's an episode that challenges you to get very honest and then everything else sort of falls into place from that. So I think it's a good starting

point. Beautiful. And I can see how that's so timely in this day and age where we're even talking about the values of free speech. Right. And people are having access to free speech. Well, what does that really mean in people's lives? And do we actually really value that? What do you stand for? What do you really stand for? We'll link to it. We'll grab the link and we'll put in the show notes. And if you like this conversation, please continue it by listening to Africa on our podcast. Africa, this was such a pleasure. I can't wait to meet up in person as the world is going to open up soon. Yes. And I want to acknowledge you and thank you for coming on the podcast and just staying true to the work and your message.

Thank you so much, Drew. I appreciate you and I appreciate your audience for taking this in. Thank you.