Dhru Purohit Show - How to Break Free of Feeling Tired, Lazy, Lost, & Unmotivated with Prince EA

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

This episode is brought to you by Birch Living Mattress and Lifeforce.  In a world where countless individuals are dealing with depression, disconnection, and suffering, it's essential to pause and introspect: What robs us of our joy and happiness, and how can we have the courage to let go of the things that no longer serve us?  Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with Richard Williams, better known by his stage name Prince Ea, to discuss the power of stillness and being to get clear on your purpose and how action, service, and taking pause can help you step into a life that brings you the most joy and happiness.  Dhru and Prince Ea also share how their spirituality helped them connect to their gut instinct and pivot to lead a life of fulfillment. They also share their personal journeys of awakening and the stories, teachers, and reminders that continue to guide them along the way. Prince EA is a spoken word artist, international keynote speaker, and civil rights activist from St Louis, Missouri. He is the host of the newly launched podcast Sauna Sessions and has accumulated over 1 billion views on Facebook alone and even more on a combination of other platforms. Prince Ea’s messages of compassion in the form of content-heavy spoken word poetry have earned him global recognition as a social influencer on a mission of creating both internal and external peace in the world.  In this episode, Dhru and Prince dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): -The Hungry Ghosts and how they rob us of our happiness (1:28 / 1:16) -How hip-hop changed Prince Ea’s life and awakened his spiritual side (9:23 / 6:11) -What gets in the way of us listening to our gut instinct (22:22 / 19:57) -The Rule of 100 and how to use it to get clear on what you want to achieve (24:43 / 21:51) -The little joys that made Prince Ea pivot his career path (41:00 / 38:15) -Dhru’s spiritual background story (49:36 / 46:52) -How action, service, and being present help us awaken to our life’s purpose (54:45 / 51:24) -The origins of Prince Ea’s podcast, Sauna Sessions (1:01:13 / 58:36) -The power of pause and why its good to take breaks (1:12:12 / 1:09) -Examples of things Prince Ea has changed his mind about (1:20:04 / 1:17:46) -The contrast between doing and being (1:27:23 / 1:24:36) -Final thoughts (1:38:15 / 1:35:33) Also mentioned in this episode: -Prince Ea’s podcast Sauna Sessions -Sign up for my Try This newsletter here For more on Prince Ea, follow him on Instagram @prince_ea, YouTube @PrinceEa, Twitter @PrinceEa, and his website, princeea.com. To get 20% off your Birch Living mattress, head to birchliving.com/dhru today. Right now, get 15% off your first purchase of Lifeforce at Mylifeforce.com with code DHRU. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What robs us of our joy and happiness? And most importantly, how can we have the courage in life to let go of the things that are no longer serving us? If you're interested in these important questions, today's episode is absolutely for you. Welcome to the Drew Proet podcast. Each week, we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is Richard Williams, better known as his stage name, Prince, E.A. Prince E.A. is an American rapper, spoken word artist, and civil rights activists from St. Louis, Missouri. And he's the host of the newly launched podcast, The Sona Sessions. He's a familiar

face for anyone, old and young, with a news feed. He's accumulated over a billion views on Facebook and YouTube for his incredibly positive and uplifting content. His messages of compassion in the form of content-heavy spoken word poetry has earned him global recognition as a social influencer on a mission of creating both internal and external peace in the world. Stay tuned for a powerful, uplifting and thought-provoking episode with Prince EA. Prince, welcome to the podcast. I want to jump right in. Talk to us about hungry ghost.

Ooh, okay. And how do they rob us of our happiness? Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Okay, you're going big. you're swinging for the fence Yeah, so basically based on Buddhist tradition

There are these things called Hungry Ghosts And they roam around And they have, oh man, if you look up pictures Of these like Google image Hungry Ghosts and you'll see they have these big bellies These kind of shriveled up ghosts

Big bellies but they have skinny necks Very skinny necks And tiny mouths And so what this signifies is they have this almost insatiable appetite. They're so hungry, but they can't fit anything into their mouths because it's so tiny. They can't actually get it down. And so I love this metaphor because it's kind of like a lot of people in our world today. We search for material happiness.

We search for accolades. numbers and awards and they never truly fulfill us. So we're on this quest and it's like this elusive butterfly. We never actually catch it. We never actually satiate it. We never, we never get that. So we roam around looking for the next thing. Looking for this will be it. This will be it. But we never actually get there. Jim Carrey has a very famous quote that I often recite. He said, I wish everybody could be rich and famous. everybody so that they could know that that won't make them happy. In our world today, we're often presented with these ultra fancy lifestyles and lives that we aspire to have.

And it's interesting when you get there, you're like, is this it? Because it's never actually the material good that you really want. It's the peace that you want. There's this guru. His name was Papa G. He gave this amazing, amazing metaphor. He said, okay, imagine that you wanted a microphone. You wanted this microphone. This is a sure mic. It's an expensive $1,000 microphone. You had an old busted microphone. And you just, you dreamt of this sure microphone for years. You really wanted this mic. The sound quality is going to be amazing. You just wanted this thing in your hands. And then one day you finally got it. And you were so happy. Now the question is, did the microphone make you happy? Or was it the release from craving the microphone that made you happy? And oftentimes we confuse that there's nothing in this, Mike.

There's no vitamins. There's nothing in here. So we confuse the object for what we really want, which is the peace from all objects, the stillness, the happiness. You know, when we go to sleep at night, some of us like myself, we invest in the best beds. You know, I'll get the best mattress. I think in Portugal, in my house in Portugal, got like an emma mattress. I did all this research and finding the bell.

What's the best mattress? You know, you got the purple mattress. What's the best one? So that we can go to sleep and go to a place where nothing exists, not even ourselves. We're not there. We're not there to experience sleep. Somebody asked you, true, how did you sleep? Good.

I don't know. You weren't there. So how can you say good? The ego, the eye totally disappeared. This is what I think everybody is looking for. And we confuse the objects for that deep happiness. And what happens is we wind up climbing a ladder, a ladder of success. And when we get to the top, we realize it was leaning against the wrong wall.

Talk about that. Talk about that in your own life. In my intro, I've shared about all the accolades you've achieved, how you went from being a dismissed student that teachers overlooked to getting a full ride into your university, to graduating with honors and achieving all this success on social media awards, Bloomberg, you know, saying your name from a podium. etc, et cetera, et cetera. Two million followers on social media,

26 million followers plus through all platforms. Did you ever come into a moment where you felt that your ladder was on the wrong wall? This episode is brought to you by the Birch mattress by Helix. Our modern world is filled with newsflash toxins and they can wreak havoc on our well-being. But what if I told you there's a way to return to our ancestral roots and transform your sleep quality or at least get close to it.

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Wow, I think many times in life you have to kind of reevaluate that. And yeah, absolutely. So for me, it's, you know, I started my career as a rapper. You know, I wanted to be the best rapper. I was writing every day. I mean, I grew up in North St. Louis. So a lot of people who are not familiar with St. Louis, St. Louis is by FBI statistics, the most dangerous city in the U.S.

I lived about, was it, nine minutes from Ferguson where Mike Brown was killed. So St. Louis is not the best place to grow up. Coming up in the educational system, I never felt seen. I was in the back of the class, like a potted plant, you know, just there, not really engaging with my teachers. My teachers, I don't think really cared about me either. And that's how it was until high school. And I found my favorite teacher ever. This teacher was engaging.

They made me curious. They were exciting. They had me, you know, going to the library to research more, more about the topics that they were covering. And I tell people this and I say, who's your favorite teacher? My favorite teacher was hip-hop. Hip-hop music. It changed everything for me. It not only changed my life, it saved my life.

Listening to, and so a lot of people hear that, and I'm like, hip hop, what do you mean hip hop? I listen to the radio all the time. And it's all about, you know, I got this money. You know, you got Meg, the Stallion, you know, talking about take money from your guy and, you know, twerking. That's hip-hop. That's not hip-hop. So hip-hop is more than the 25 songs you hear on repeat on the radio. So hip-hop, the origin of hip-hop, it was the voice.

for the voiceless. It was originally the MC's duty to convey messages, enlightening messages, uplifting messages about topics, mostly socioeconomic to the, to the listeners to inform them. This was the original purpose. So hip hop has five elements. Give you a backstory. So the first element of hip hop is be boring, right,

the dance, the break dance. And the second element is DJ, right? The DJ on the turntable. The third element is the MC. The fourth element is graffiti. And the fifth element, which a lot of people don't remember or don't realize. But the fifth element, according to like how hip hop was constructed, the fifth element was knowledge. It was knowledge.

And you look at the word hip hop. To be hip is to be in the know. Oh, I'm hit to that. I know that. And hop means movement. So hip hop, essentially, if you break it down, it kind of means intelligent movement. This was the structure of it. This was the formulation and the origin story of it.

So anyway, I get into hip hop, and it totally changed my life. It was my favorite teacher. I mean, listening to these rappers, mostly in the underground, speak about geopolitics and religion and science. And it was mind-blowing. I mean, it catalyzed a part of my brain that had been dormant for many years. You know, my fifth grade, Ms. Williams, wanted to hold me back a grade. She said I was mentally incompetent.

She didn't think I was good enough to go from the fifth grade to the sixth grade. I was slow. And, you know, I've gotten this a lot. You know, even my mom, she, I love her, and she hates when I talk about this because she denies it to this day. But she thought that I had some type of learning disability. And I knew I didn't have any learning disability. I was just spiritually malnourished. And hip hop was that avenue to awaken me.

And, you know, there's so many kids, unfortunately, that are deemed slow, mentally incompetent. But really what happened was they just haven't been awakened. That passion inside of them hasn't been awakened. The word educate means to draw out. It comes from the Latin word, educate, meaning to draw out. And I think the true role of an educator, not a teacher, I do, you know, I have a difference between those two. A teacher, there's 85 million teachers worldwide, but an educator, there are very few of those.

And the educator, they bring out the best, they bring out the gifts in that student. And so there's so many kids who are just kind of forgotten of kids where I'm from. side of St. Louis who don't get the opportunity, who don't get the luck that I had to find one of these perfect teachers. And so, you know, it changed my life. I began to, like I said, to spend time in the library, to study, to learn my vocabulary improved. I'm able to, you know, understand, you know, literal techniques and alliteration and metaphor and all of these different things. and I start to create music. So I go from being this depressed kid in the back of the class to this guy who's like,

man, he found his voice. He's starting to express because the opposite of depression, I feel is expression. So I was able to express what was always hitting within me in this quiet, shy kind of demeanor. And, you know, I started making music. I started putting it out there into the world and it was beautiful. I did this for many years. and, you know, I got in Vibe Magazine.

I did stuff with, you know, Grammy Award winning artists. I developed a little following, and it was beautiful. It was amazing. It was life-changing. But I had another pivot point happen. So, well, I always give credit to hip-hop because I think it's such a beautiful culture, not just a genre, but a culture that changed everything for me. it can also be very um very based on a lot of comparison so if you look at the mainstream artist

the comparisons it's also very ego ego comparisons right is i have more money than you i have more cars than you i have i have your girl with me i have this many girls i have this mansion so they're always kind of kind of comparing themselves to um to their peers and even in the underground it's it's It's not the material as much as it is I can put these words together better than you. I got better what they call bars than you. I can spit better lyrics than you. And, you know, that comparing mindset, it drove me for a while. I wanted to be the best.

And I felt like I was the best. But, you know, as they say, the comparison is the thief of joy. It's the doorway to suffering. And so I felt a lot of suffering when I started to compare myself. I would say, man, why is that person doing a world tour and I'm not? I'm better than them. So it created a lot of shame, a lot of self-doubt within me. And then finally, you know, I realized, man, I just, I don't know what the heck happened,

but I realized I just wanted to be happy. I just wanted to be happy. I just wanted to be fulfilled. and I was like, where is this thing called happiness? How do I find it? Where is it? Is it in that mansion? Is it in that that bends?

Is it in the Bugatti? Where is happiness? How can I find it? And I started reading everything I could about happiness, you know, positive psychology. I started reading, you know, I got my degree in anthropology. So that helped me to, to. see the human species as an organism and, you know, from a biological perspective. Okay, maybe it's the chemicals. Maybe it's the nutrients. And then I started reading, I started reading some of the

spiritual traditions that I think were really the eye-opener. I read every, every spiritual book that I could find. I mean, I read the Bible, the Quran. I read the Bhagavagita, the ribugita, I read the Tao de Ching. Every spiritual tradition, I studied the spiritual gurus. You know, the Eckhart Tole's, the Ram Dasses, the operas. And I found a commonality in what they were all saying. And it could most aptly be summed up from a guy named Wayne Dyer, who said, when you change the way you look at things, those things you look at change.

and I mean this is CBT this is R EBT this is the power of changing your philosophy about something your perspective about something was a big game changer for me a big eye-opener and so from that point on I didn't it wasn't about me trying to be the best rapper I wasn't trying to okay how can I be on the world tour how can I do this it was more so about how can I serve you know I went in deep meditation and I was like, okay, how can I share some of these insights, whether they're scientific or whether they're spiritual to people through my music, through my spoken word? And it switched to spoken word, which I basically slowed down everything so people could catch up.

And so it became more so about service than it was about self-aggrandizement. And that was a big thing for me. And this was, it was tough because everybody was like, Prince, don't quit. You've already, you've achieved so much. You've already been in the magazines. You've been on that. You've got best hip hop artists in St. Louis Award. You've been on the radio.

And for me, it was just about choosing true fulfillment, my definition of happiness, as opposed to what somebody else thought I should be doing. There's a story about Gandhi that I absolutely. absolutely love. When Gandhi was back in the day, he was organizing a march. And he had all the group around. And for weeks, they were organizing this march. They worked tirelessly. And the day before the march, Gandhi said, I'm not going to do it. And everybody around and was like, what can you? Are you a coward? I can you know, what do you mean? We worked so hard on this. And he said, yeah, you know, my commitment is to truth, not to consistency.

My commitment is to truth, not to consistency. He didn't feel like the march was in his, in his heart anymore. So his commitment was always to his heart, to truth, not to being consistent with something. And so many times in our lives, we're so consistent with something that's actually away from our true calling. And so for me, I got to that point where should I continue to just to rap, to do music, or should I find something that's closer to where I am at this evolutionary stage in my life? And I think we have so many points in our lives, I call them pivot points,

where we have to step back and zoom out and say, is this consistent or is this true to who I am? You know, there's a difference, I say, between a good idea and a good idea. and a God idea. And they say the devil's most powerful weapon is to give you a good idea. Because that good idea will keep you occupied so that you can never fulfill your God idea. You know, one of the reasons I love hearing stories like yours,

and thank you for that. And also reading biographies, autobiographies, is that no matter how different somebody else's life looks from the outside. When you hear the themes of what they went through, we're all living the same human experience. And in you sharing your story, somebody's listening today,

and they're a mom in Houston. They're a single dad that's living in San Francisco trying to raise their daughter. They're a young teenager in India who is excited because they follow your work and now they see you on my YouTube page, right? Whoever it is. And even though their life looks completely maybe different on the outside than what you've been through and what your life looks like now, the themes all resonate within all of us.

One of the questions that I hear for people as they start to navigate and they get moved by hearing these stories like yours is I'm having a hard time actually hearing my truth. I'm having a hard time listening to my gut. Everybody says, listen to your gut. Find your truth. Go for that God idea instead of that good idea. What do you feel gets in the way of us hearing that voice inside of us? You talk about the noise. The noise versus the signal.

I think one of the things that gets in the way is what we talked about is the distractions. that we see in our lives, you know, we can, we're inundated with so many distractions on a daily basis and we never, we never asked the true questions, the deep questions. Why, why am I here? What am I doing? What is this? This is a mystery. How did I get here? What is this? I mean, these are the questions and the mind can just, I mean, that's what the world, everything in the world, the distractions on social media, they just keep us focused so much on the outward. And so it's so important to find those moments where you can pause, those moments of stillness and meditation.

So I think what really gets in the way is, again, it's climbing that ladder of what you think you're supposed to do or what people said you're supposed to do, whether that's the ideas that you, your parents gave you, you know, they want you to achieve something or your friends or even the ideas that you have in the ego. And this is why they say the longest journey a person will ever experience is the seven inches from their head to the heart. And so to tune into that heart is super important. And it comes with quietude, with silence. I think there's so many techniques and I can share them on how you can find that thing. One technique I call it the rule of 100.

So what you do is you get a piece of paper and you write down 100 things that you want to accomplish in your life. Accomplish, do have experience 100 things. I want to, I don't know, go to Portugal. I want to own a dog. I want to start a podcast. I want, and you list all of these, I want to get married. I want to, you list all of these out, 100, 100 things. And you say, okay, if I could just achieve 50 of these things, what would they be?

So you cut 50 out. And then you say, okay, if I could just achieve 20 of these 50, what would they be? So you keep 20. and then you go 10 and then you go five and then you go three and that you know process of elimination will allow you to come into focus on what it is you truly want to desire and I tell people every day you should be doing something to push the needle forward in those top three things you might not achieve all 100 but you will have a happy life if you could achieve those three so I say focus on those three There's a guy named Brady Ellis, Brady Ellison.

You heard this name before? I haven't know. He's a famous archer. I think he's the best in the world. I mean, 100 yards away, he could hit a bullseye, and the next shot he could split the arrow on that bullse. He's great. He's amazing.

And I tell people, you know, me, I used to do archery when I was a kid, when I was a little boy with my dad. But I think, do you do archery, Drew? Nope. I think within, if I work with you for an hour, I could have you hitting the target with more accuracy, more precision, and more consistency than Brady Ellison could on his best day, provided that we blindfolded Brady Ellison.

And turned him around a few times so he didn't know which way he was shooting. And you say, Chris, that's silly, dude. How can a man hit a target and he can't even see? I got a better question for you. How can you hit a goal that you don't even have? So that rule of 100 will get your goals exactly what your heart is meant for, those top three. Another one I do, another technique.

And this one has to do, I mean, it's a famous technique. It's been used by philosophers for thousands of years. The Stoics used it, the Greeks, the Romans. They used to have a skull on their death side. And that skull represented a concept called memento mori, remember that you would die. So this is another one. So, you know, when you talk about somebody, I don't know what to do.

I don't know. When you start to consider the shortness of life, it can really bring you into a place of an egoless desire. So when I create my videos, I say, okay, Prince, I used to do this. I need to do it again. But I've created my most powerful pieces like this. I say, Prince, if this is the last video that you're ever going to make, and then it's curtains, you're done.

What are you saying? And what came out of that was, I sued the school system. I am not black. Stop wasting your life. I mean, I sued the school system. I think it was half a billion views. It was one of the most viewed.

videos on the whole internet the year came out. And I say this not to impress you, but to impress upon you that when you really go deep into your heart, into that place that isn't ego driven, you start to shine. You go on what Joseph Campbell says that called the hero's journey. And when you're on that journey, you get helped by invisible hands. They can't. come out to assist you. But you have to, you have to have to have the courage to say, okay, I'm not, I'm not doing this for anybody else. I'm doing this is, this is what I need to say. This is what I need to do. And I think great things happen from, from that. And I'm, I'm living proof of it. So there's, there's so many different techniques out there that you can,

that you can use to, to find out. what it is, yet your thing is. But I think action is also important. Because even you say, Prince, okay, what if it's not the thing? What if it's not the thing? Say, okay, well, maybe it's the thing that leads to the thing. So I think just following that journey and realizing that you're always in the right place. Because there's something beyond this thing that a lot of scientists are so obsessed.

with studying this thing that is actually in control, that is actually guiding us. And I think when we could surrender to that, that all is well and unfolding as it should, great things happen. There's an amazing story. It's a story about a king. And the king, he had this very close confidant, very close, very wise. a very wise guy who would always inform him what to do. But he would always tell him, he said, king, all as well and unfolding as it should.

That's what he would always say. And so the king's other confidants, they didn't like how close he was to the king. They were jealous of him. Why is the king always asking him for his advice? Why doesn't he ask us? So one day, the king, he was getting a haircut. And the barber, he was cutting his hair. And something happened to barber, he got distracted and he nicked the king on the neck.

And blood started coming out. He had this big, big leaves leaking everywhere. He had to get stitched up. Well, the king's confidants, they, they knew, okay, this is our moment. This is our moment. So they waited until this, the king's closest confidant was near him.

And he said, what do you think about the king's accident? What do you, what do you think? They knew what he was going to say. What he always says? He says, well, all is well and unfolding as it should. And the king got mad. He got upset. He's like, what do you mean?

I almost died. We all is well when unfolding as it should. Guards, guards, guards, take him to the dungeon. Take him under the jail. Put him and lock him up. The king was pissed. So later that day, the king, he,

he's like, I got to blow off some steam. So he takes his horse. He wants some alone time. So he says, everybody to stay here. I'm going to just take him off while. We're going to ride. So the king, he rides. He rides, he rides.

He rides. He just gets in flow. He gets. to the zone. He goes so far. And pretty soon when he actually becomes aware of where he is, he's like, oh my God, I have rode to where the cannibals are. So there was a group of cannibals that lived on the outskirts of the kingdom. Well, as he came to this recognition, he looks around and this cannibal comes up behind the king and grabs him, takes him off of the horse, throws him down, and they wrap them up they tie them up so later that evening the cannibals they take them to

a fire they're going to roast them the day had been some very auspicious day they needed a sacrifice to their gods and they were like okay we got that was perfect this is this is very divine and auspicious so was there getting the king ready to be roasted one of them looks at the king's neck and they see a scar they say oh dang it we can't sacrifice him he's impure he's not worthy of our gods let him go so the king he's like oh my god that was close so he right he goes back to the kingdom and he realizes that his closest confidant was right he was right he was It all was well and unfolding as it should. So he goes to the dungeon and he says, guards, guards, let him out.

Let him out. I must speak to him. So he goes into the jail and he says, oh, my God, you're not going to believe what happened. You're not going to believe this. I took my horse and we rode out and I saw the cannibals and they picked, they took me off the horse and they tied me up and they were going to sacrifice me. But they saw the scar that was on my neck. You said, you said all was well and unfolding as a should, and you were right. They didn't sacrifice me because of the scar.

You were right. Thank you. In the confidant, he looks at the king, and he says, oh, that's good, king. But that's not all. He says, what is it? What do you mean? I'm so sorry. I blocked you up.

I'm so sorry. Says, yeah, that's not all. He says, okay, what, what? Who is your companion who usually accompanied? is you on your horseback rides as you are. He says, that's right, King. And if I was there with you, they would have captured both of us. Yeah?

And they would have sacrificed me instead of you had you not lock me in jail. All is well and unfolding as it should. I love this story because it's, it shows a sense of trust. a sense of trust. How many times in our lives have we wanted something so bad, craved it, not gotten it, and realized, oh my God, what a blessing to have not obtained that.

Beautiful story. To piggyback off of that, definitely the lessons and joy that come from and the realizations of getting something, not getting something and being thankful for not getting it. The job that would have taken you to a different city and you wouldn't have met your husband, wife, partner, the route that you didn't take that would have led to a potential accident, whatever might be.

And on the flip side, there's also the joy of getting something, even if it was driven by ego, which we all have. Ego is not all bad. There's some element of it that has some temporary protective measures to keep us alive. And then getting that thing and realizing,

going back to what you originally brought up, that this isn't all that I wanted, even though I wanted this. My ladder was on the wrong wall. Or I obtained some, element of being known, notoriety, maybe some relative version of wealth, where I finally got that job and was making X amount of dollars a year. And that in itself, even though it's good, wasn't the thing that brought me to happiness. And I think that I would wish, just like you

shared with the Jim Carrey quote, I would wish for both of those things for all of us, because those are some of the greatest teachers in life. I had a mentor of mine from the spiritual tradition, the Jane tradition. Yeah, I'm familiar. Half Jane is my mom's side. And his name was Gurdiv Chitubamaji. And he had so many great quotes that I've shared on this podcast over the years. But one of the things that he would talk about is that there's a reason why so often we think

if we finally get the right partner, husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, and we finally make the amount of money that's there. There's a reason why those two things are often and then status and notoriety from the general public being known. The number one thing in America right now that kids want to be is a YouTuber. They want that status. They want people to know them. That's not all bad. Obviously, for a lot of those kids, if you really push them, they want to be known for good things. So I don't want to write it off as a bad thing, right? You're a YouTuber. I'm a YouTuber. You have a billion views. I have like maybe two. 20 million views.

Still, nonetheless, when society places those things and says that, and we're all part of society, so we're part of that circle, right? So it's not a blame on other people, that when you finally get those things,

you'll be happy. Great, I want everybody to get some version of those things, so then we can move on to the stuff that actually matters. And when we move on to the stuff that matters, we actually can individually ask herself, what genuinely, what are the small things that I've overlooked for years that genuinely bring me joy? And yes, we need to earn enough to meet our obligations in life, put food on the table, maybe take family members if we're taking care of family members, provide for others.

Okay, great. Yes, let's fulfill those duties. We don't want to make nothing, right? Maybe it's not popular to quote Kanye West anymore, but I was a big fan of his in the early days. And I'm still a big fan of the music. It was all part of my sort of getting into conscious hip hop in the early days. Most Def, Talib, Kanye, Common. And there's this lyric from one of his early albums, having money's not everything, not having it is. Right? So we don't want to be on the extreme of either one of those. So I do want people to have the ability to provide themselves. And then the question then it becomes, what are the core basic things that just, genuinely drive joy for me.

And just because that's not your version of joy, just because that's not your story of joy or your story of happiness, that's okay. Tell me about those simple things for you. What are those simple things for you that bring you joy and have been part of your pivot of maybe moving to a new country?

Taking a different approach with your content, having this next act in your young life of how you want to show up in the world. I love that Kanye quote. Thanks for sharing that. Y'all was a big Kanye fan too. Midwest, Kanye, common. I mean, Kanye has some bars, man, back into the college dropout. He's still, I don't know what's going on with Kanye these days.

He's suffering. He's suffering. Yeah. I think he's got a new girlfriend. and she's kept them quiet. So maybe that's a good thing. Leave it up to the women to bring some balance into the life. Yeah, maybe.

Maybe. Yeah, so joy, wow. Joy for me is definitely different from happiness. So I always define happiness is, let me just break the word down, what happens to you. And if you live your life, find a meaning. from what happens to you, creating yourself worth from what happens to you, you're going to be miserable. But for me, joy is always here. You know, I never studied Jainism. I know a bit about them. I know they're actually, what is it, the only religion that never have a war. They, you know, I hear

stories of how some of the monks, um, they walk very gently on the earth and they, they actually walk with a broom in front of them so that they don't accidentally step on, uh, any, any, any, any insects. Um, they have this deep compassion for life. I think some of them only eat food if it drops from the tree. They won't even take it from the tree. It's got to drop. and it's beautiful, just that that connection to it. And, you know, I've learned, learn many things. And I think, I think when we talk about joy, it's the recognition of that connection, of that deep. Almost even, it's not even a connection because it's already there.

So I ask yoga teachers this all the time. It's actually kind of sad. It's really sad that they don't know, but I asked them, what's the Sanskrit definition of the word yoga? You've been teaching yoga for 10 years. I don't know. I never thought about it. And I'm like, why?

You never thought about the meaning. Like, we get so caught up in the poses and the postures and this and that. You never read Patangeli. So the word yoga It actually means union. It means to yoke or union. And yoga, the postures, the asanas, this was the baby step. This was the first step.

You weren't supposed to end there. True yoga is to take it off the mat into the world. To recognize that you are already unified with the divine. So when I talk about joy, the greatest joy that I can ever experience is that recognition of the connection with the divine. The greatest joy, greatest joy. I've been blessed to have the, whether it's material things or homes or, you know, accolades awards. You mentioned a billion views. All of it is cotton candy compared to that deep connection with the self, with the divine.

There's nothing that he can even come close. So for me, experiences can be beautiful. And I know some people say, don't spend your money on things. Spend them on experiences. And I think that's the next step. but there's another step after that. It's going to a place of finding out who is the experiencer, who is the witness, who is the observer within. This is the ultimate teaching of, I think, pretty much every spiritual tradition when you get down to it.

So my journey, I think, has been a very blessed one. I've been able to move to a different country and live on a farm and grow my own food and have animals. And I got like 10 acres of land. And I walk around barefoot. And I got a gym. I got a sauna. I got an ice bag. I got all the tools.

Just to interrupt you real quick. Sorry to stop your flow. Did you know that that was something you wanted? Was this on your list of 100 goals? Or was this something that came to you later? the idea specifically of, hey, I have a vision. I want to grow my own food. I want to live on a farm.

I had this life that I want to live. Was that something that came to you when you showed up in Portugal? Was that something that you knew all along that you were being drawn towards? It was on the list. It was on the list. Absolutely. I mean, I wrote down my list. It's like get a farm, right?

When I was a kid, I was like, man, I always want to live on a farm. Now I recognize having a farm is pretty hard work. So I'm like, eh, I'm like, eh, maybe I'm like 30 years too early for the farm. But, you know, I experienced it. It's interesting. I learned a lot. But, yes, dad, it's getting a dog. I grew up with dogs.

I bred dogs when I was a kid. I actually was when I went to university, I started with my degree in veterinary medicine. I wanted to work with animals. So I have this passion for animals. So that was on the list, getting the dog and having animals on my farm. So absolutely it was on the list. But at the top of the list, that number one on the top of the list was to achieve unbroken awareness,

unbroken awareness or enlightenment. And that, I mean, first of all, I don't think a lot of people get that calling. but if you do I think it's a beautiful one they say there's only two mistakes in the spiritual journey

one is not starting and the second is not going all the way so for me that's number one and number two is to on my list this is very I guess I can share the whole list But the number two on the list is actually to try to awaken as many other people as I can.

Because, you know this as well as anybody. All the Harvard studies, the Harvard grant study, the 80-year study, they invested over $20 million. Okay, what's the most important factor in a human being's success? It's the relationships. It's the love they have in their lives. So for me to cultivate community and having close relationships, close connections, and also serving is that, talk about joy, that brings so much joy and peace to me.

I mean, to really know that you've made an impact in at least one person's life that the world is different because you were here. Man, I mean, it doesn't get better than that, does it? It doesn't get better than that. And sometimes we have to go through a lot of zigzons bags to get there. When I was younger, I had this very belief-based approach to spirituality.

And I thought of it as like, I need to get there. I need to get somewhere. I'm here and I need to get somewhere. Yeah. And often that belief-based approach was riddled with also imagery of idolizing, monks and people from my background in tradition in India and the Buddhist background and the Buddha and different teachers

in the spiritual traditions, Mavir, Krishna, etc. idolizing them and putting them on a pedestal and having this vision of like, man, maybe like one day I'll be able to like live in India and like just meditate on a mountain. And then I met and spent some time with some, former monks, people that were trying to teach people,

householders, lay people about maybe the most spiritual thing you could do today is be a little kinder to that person who cut you off in traffic and not honking them. Maybe the most spiritual and beautiful thing that you could do today is to cook food and cook a meal for your wife. That's great. And share some gratitude with her. Be a little bit more compassionate.

to your kids. Let's, yeah, okay, fine. Maybe the mountain version is something for some other people. And in particular for me, I always thought, I don't wanna get a job in corporate America. I don't wanna do the rat race thing, other stuff. And I didn't know that there was this whole of life of, oh, you could start a podcast, you could be on YouTube,

you could start businesses, other things. So I thought, you know what, I wanna run away from being a computer scientist. I wanna opt out of corporate America. and I want to go towards being a monk, or at least pursuing a spiritual path, maybe volunteering at an ashram. I grew up my life, growing to ashrams and Indians, things. And then one of the monks and teachers that I met,

he said, dude, if you don't like corporate America or the corporate hierarchy, I do wanna tell you just so you know, being a monk and being a part of a monastery sometimes is the most corporate thing out there. You have this idolized vision of what's out there. I want to tell you, it can get very, very corporate and even monks themselves can forget about the true nature

of why we're here. We can get caught up in, and this is him talking from his own life experiences, we can get caught up in the slopes and the Stavans and the memorization. You know, my last name is Purohit. In an Indian tradition, Purohid means priest. It literally means a priest from the Brahman tradition.

And I come from this long lineage of priest in my background. who would show up at events and situations to, you know, honor sacred ceremonies. You'd call the Puroit, the Pandaji, to do the ceremony of your wedding. You'd call them to do, you know, bless your new house that you had in to ward off, you know, evil spirits and bad omens and things. Wow. That's your lineage.

That's my lineage. Wow. And it's a beautiful lineage. And I so appreciate coming from that lineage. And like all lineages, just like you were talking about hip hop, there's always the left and the right. There's the positive, the meaning, the well-intention, the deep essence of what it is. And there's always the other version of it, like anything, the duality of life, the corporate nature, the hierarchy, the, hey, only Brahmin's can read and we're going to prevent other

people from reading because we want to maintain control. And that's everything. Everything in life has the beautiful version. That's the deep essence and truth. And everything has something that got off track. And it's in the nature of humanity. to pursue something with well intentions in the beginning, get off track, realize you're off track,

have it one of these big pivot moments that you talked about, and realize humbly that maybe this wasn't the thing that I wanted all along. Yeah. Or maybe I've gotten caught up in this whole belief system instead of just focusing on serving other people. I was bringing that up, Partly just to share a little bit of context of my background while we're in this conversation, but also the part that I always have resonated that your videos, you know, right before you came

here, I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I hadn't been following you on Instagram because I've been watching your videos since they've been coming out on YouTube. You know, you have those moments. I'm not super active on Instagram. Yeah, me either. And the thing that I appreciate about what I've heard that you've shared about your approach to the spiritual journey is that okay we can have different ideas and things and yes it's important to maybe study the text at different times in our life but at the end of the day it's also

about action doing and service and why I think that's important for me to mention the context of this conversation and I'd love to hear any kind of commentary you have on it is that sometimes loving the life that you have right now is also realizing that your life right now is the deepest opportunity to practice any version that you have of what your spiritual journey can be. That's a beautiful one. Say it again for the people in the back. Your life right now and showing up in your life right now, it doesn't mean that your circumstances are perfect. It doesn't mean that maybe you don't have the job that you don't want. You want to have better circumstances. It doesn't mean that you may not want to earn more money. It doesn't

mean that you might not want to change some little things here and there. That's all part of it. But the life that you have right now is the opportunity to practice your spiritual truth and express your spiritual power. We don't need to get anywhere. I really credit, and I had the fortunate pleasure of meeting him many years ago, I really credit the work of Eckartole as being a big shift for me. Oh, that's it. Reading the power of now, the idea of spirituality, which is a monk meditating on a mountain

with his legs crossed and this and that and waking up in the morning, facing the east, and all these rituals and rules that I had that I thought, man, if I could only do this, this would be me being more spiritual. Those were all just thoughts. They were all just stories. And then I realized, wow, it's actually just being present

in this conversation and listening to my mom who might have had a tough day and being for her in that moment. Wow. And not immediately jumping in, telling her how she has to be and how she has to not be. And then maybe afterwards, just giving her a little bit of a hug and saying, I'm sorry you had a tough day.

I'm here for you. That the littlest, tiniest interactions that we all have on a daily basis was my biggest opportunity to step out of my life primarily being driven by ego and actually stepping into service. A lot of people are like, oh, I'd love to dedicate my life to service. and that's some grandiose vision of being there for a cause, dying for a cause that's out there. And listen, hopefully they find that if they want that thing.

I don't want to take that away from them. There's lessons to be learned in pursuing that path. But we forget about the tiniest of little moments. And listen, brother, I'm preaching to the choir because you talk about this left and right. But my audience doesn't get a chance to hear me talk about as much which is why I had you in the check. Sometimes the choir needs to be preached too.

It's just a reminders. Thank you for sharing all that. Yeah, it really comes down to that. I mean, if you don't get it here now, there's no other time where you will get it. It's here. It's all here. It's this moment.

And how far is the journey from here to here? There's a quote I got on my wall in a place in St. Louis. It's from a guru named Nisar Gadada. He said, and Eckhart is a big fan of this guy. By the way, he's done talks about him. Nisaradada Maharaj, he said, having never left the house, you have been searching for the way home. Powerful.

It's here. It's, I mean, be here now. This is it. You know, the Ram Dass book, love how he came up with that title. He was, um, he was in India and people who don't know Ram Dass. He's amazing. He's super, super powerful, um, spiritual leader, teacher, ex, uh, Harvard professor got booted out of Harvard for experimenting with like psychedelics with his colleague, Timothy Leary. But as he went to, he, so he went to India, he studied with the monks and the gurus and, um,

He was struggling. There was a point where he was struggling. And he asked this guy, he's like, well, I don't get it. I don't, I just, I don't know how to get there. And the guy, he's like, like, dude, just be here now. And that ended up being the title of his book. That's it. This is, this is it.

And how do we be here? The breath, the breath is, the, the, breath is, the, doorway. I created this meditation. I call it the now meditation where you just say the word now, now, now. In India, you see people, they recite the word ram. They say ram, ram, ram, which is the name of God. Even when Gandhi, when Gandhi was killed, he had so much presence that his last words were ram, rom, rom, wrong, wrong, when he got shot. And so I created this meditation. I call it the now meditation where you just recite that mantra. Now, now, now, now, now, now. This is it, this mystery of now.

It's so fleeting. It's so, it's so magical. This, this, this miracle. It is a miracle. I mean, how can it not be? I can it really not be? I love the, you know, the Buddhists, they say, you know, come back to the beginner's mind, the beginner's mind.

You know, the expert is one thing. He sees a few ways to do something, but the beginner sees many ways. You know, come back to that no mind in Zen, the motion, no mind. In the Christian Bible, they say you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven until you become again like a child. One of my favorite books is called Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Clean up your own mess. Don't hit people.

when you're angry or or you're irritable taking nap. Taking that, man. Well, you mentioned something, which is a great opportunity to talk about something cool that you're up to right now. Sona Sessions, which is a new podcast that you've started. And I've been really enjoying it. And one of the reasons that I feel like I wanted to talk about it right now in the conversation is that the time that we live in is actually a really beautiful time. The time is always beautiful.

The time is always now. But in particular, this intersection that we have where we're learning so much more about the body and how to take care of it and how much what you do to the body you do to the mind and the brain and what you do to the mind and the brain, you do the body, this interplay.

Yeah. That's why one of my favorite quotes from a guest on this podcast that's been on here a couple times, Dr. Andrew Huberman, he says for most people, the way to quiet the mind is going to be through the body. And when I was listening to your sauna sessions, right, where literally we'll link to it in show notes, people check it out, linked to it on YouTube as well, you're interviewing top experts in different fields and a lot of people in health. which I have a couple questions about that

and your journey into health and some of the things have made the biggest difference for you if you wouldn't mind sharing. You're interviewing them in a sauna. Like you both got towels on and you're sweating. And first of all, great concept.

Thank you. Right. Great concept. But this idea that I think in the past and even India itself as a country has been guilty of it, so much emphasis that, spirituality and even other religions, religion, that the way to there is purely by belief. That belief itself was the thing that was going to make you there or have you be favorable

towards your God or gods. And belief is important for a lot of people and belief is one aspect of it. Also, taking care of your body. in addition to reading the spiritual text, if that's something that draws you in, is actually one of the best way to be honoring if you believe in a higher power to the creator that brought you here because they gave you this body.

If you're eating junk food, if you are overcome by the daily addictions of soft drinks and other things and I have so much empathy for you, you're being disrespectful in a way to your body. And it's a lot of, harder to be nice to the people when you're sick. It's a lot harder to be of service to people when you're sick. It's a lot harder to show up for your family when you're sick. And still people

get sick and we want to all give them compassion. I'm just saying the honest truth, which is it's a lot harder to show up for your goals and dreams in life when you're sick and when you're unhealthy. So when I was listening to your sauna sessions, I was feeling like this is an incredible format because not only you guys talking about deep, meaningful conversations, similar themes we've brought up here, but also this aspect of the best of what I see in the West, which are how do we take care of this temple? What are the best ways that we can use light therapy to address pain?

What are the best superfoods that are out there to help us fuel our body? Because yes, it's the spiritual and the belief and all that, but it's also the practical of taking care of the body. And that was kind of the realization that I had when I was listening in. Give us the backstory of how you came up with it and how those worlds merged together of conscious poetry that's there to make a difference for people, but also intersecting the practical aspects of helping people

learn how to take care of their body. Yeah, wow. Great insight, great question. How did it come about? So yeah, big fan of the sauna. I've done sauna over a decade. I'm a nerd, you know, I'm a research nerd. You know, I got my degree in biological anthropology,

graduated at the top of my class. I read scientific journals as much as I can. So, you know, for me, I just try to find a way to what little things can we do to have big impact in our lives? And for me, I've discovered the sauna. So you got the dry sauna. You got the infrared on the show. We do infrared sauna, which heats more so your skin as opposed to the air.

And it's just so many benefits for it. And not only the health benefits, which are numerous, we could list them out, but also the fact that what I noticed when I was in a sauna at like a local club, I would have conversations with people. deep conversations and we would actually connect, you know, so it's like this, this, this environment that can create a new friend. You know, I found myself when I'm sweating with somebody, it's kind of like you're going to war with somebody and they're in there with you. They're taking the punishment with you. And it just, it builds a bond, it builds a connection. Some of them the best friends I have, we met inside of a sauna. You know, then we start talking. We start playing sports together and it just it builds a community so when I came up with the idea I was like okay

I'm I'm weird like I try to do stuff that's never maybe maybe it's been done before but I haven't seen it be done before um so I just try to experiment with with new ideas have fun you know when I pitch the idea to uh series XM we're like okay how we're going to do it how are we going to prevent the microphones from not melting and how we're going to keep the audio quality you know you know, up. And so we rigged the sauna. We've got holes coming out. And it's infrared as opposed to dry.

And it's amazing. Every, everybody who comes into the sauna and has the interview, has the whole experience. They're like, man, this is the best podcast I've ever been on? Because it's like you get the, you get the endorphins, the dopamine comes out. Like, you get that self-care experience. And you're talking about something that you're passing. passionate about too. So after the sauna, so we do 20 minutes inside of an infrared sauna, and then we do another 20 or 30 in more like a spa setting. So we drink either spring water

or coconut water with the, you know, the nice little bamboo straw, and we put our feet in like a bath with Epsen salt, and we got the robes on, and we just continue the conversation. So it's a beautiful, beautiful format, super exciting. Like I said, everybody who's been on absolutely loves it. And for me, I've been passionate about, I like habit stacking. You know, I'm a big fan of habit stacking. So, you know, if I could stack a few, what that is, if I could stack a few habits on top of each other at the same time, then the effects are just exponential.

So, for instance, an idea of a habit stack could be you go for a walk under the sun, you're barefoot, you're listening to a podcast or affirmations, right? So you've just, you've added so many, you've added the vitamin D from the sun, the earthing, the grounding, you get that energy. You're also filling your mind with good, positive, healthy, pure ideas. And in one sitting or one walking. So I love that. I'm a big fan of that.

Obsessed with health, obsessed with optimization. And we've had some tremendous guests on. All of them are my favorites. The ones that stick out for me, like I had. Yeah, give us a few that stick out and maybe some, something that you started incorporating into what you did, even if it was a question or perspective. But, you know, this is a health audience.

So they would love any kind of tips that have been meaningful for you to. Yeah, wow. Well, I had, I had Darren O'Lean on, who's like the Super Food Hunter. That's right. Yeah, have you had him on here? Yeah, yeah. He's amazing. And, you know, he talked about his book, you know, Fatal Conveniences.

And, man, he just dropped some knowledge on the things in our lives that we don't see or just aren't aware of but are actually creating toxic hazards in our lives, whether it be the laundry detergent that we use, the soaps that we use, the candles that we use in our homes, fragrances, yeah, stuff that is really, I mean, you know, the evidence seems to be pretty clear on the carcinogenic effects of some of these things. And he said that a lot of these companies, unfortunately, they just don't care. It's kind of like, as for forgiveness, you know, later. If something happens, we'll figure it out later. So just, you know, Sean Stevenson came on. He dropped some knowledge. I had Jack Cornfield on. I don't know if you had, you know, Jack,

he's an author, Buddhist teacher. So, yeah, it's just so many, and he was, like, he was great because some people I'm I don't expect them to to want to go into the sauna you know because they got the image they want to be you know like some of the some of the women are like oh I don't want to get the makeup messed up and but everybody's just been like they've been soldiers jack came in he had his hat on you know he's in the 70s uh it's so it's been incredible it's been an incredible experience and the biggest part selfishly is just the fact that I get to connect with some people I look up to. This, from the outside of creating this new project that you have, Sona Sessions,

it seems to having kind of followed you a little bit, come also after taking a little bit of a pause of the total output. You're still living your life. You're still doing things. You still have friends. You're probably doing dinners. You're attending to your farm. You're still creating stuff.

The outward output of total content might, be a little bit lower, but you're still creating nonetheless. And why I want to ask you about what a pause means to you and the power of pausing? Because again, somebody may not be going through the same circumstances as you. Yeah. But there's a lot of things that we've all gotten good at doing. And we might find ourselves at a crossroads that, hey, even though I'm good. Yeah.

Even though this is meaningful in some way, the way I'm doing it is. is starting to feel like it's inching towards maybe a good idea instead of a God idea in your example earlier. And it's not that I want to get rid of it completely. I just might need a little bit of a break. So I can birth my next project. No different than an artist who's taking time between creating albums, living life.

So new material starts to show up for them. What does pausing mean to you and when was it clear for you? And I'm using this term because you used it in a video. So I might have the wrong terminology. So please feel free to correct me. At what point in time did you know that, hey, I need a little bit of a break so I can bird something new. You know, when you mentioned the good ideas and God ideas, I was just thinking,

somebody said, never get too good at something you hate doing. or it'll make you do it for the rest of your life. And I think it is easy to get caught in that. So for somebody that's listening, if what you're doing is not in complete and other harmony with who and what you are deeply, it could be good to break. And everybody's break can be different.

Some people might want to go for a retreat. Some people might just take a retreat, you know, for a weekend in their house. for me a pause the pause wasn't to even birth something new it was more so to just to get in touch with with just an authenticity you know i do things in the personal growth and development space and I know that it's easy to to not walk the talk, as I like to say. And I see people in the space that don't necessarily walk the talk.

And it's easy to fall into that where you, something that once gave you freedom. And you were doing it for pure, reasons you become a slave to it you become a victim to it a prostitute to it and so for me it's like it's kind of like when i pivoted from rap you know is what i'm doing the most fulfilling thing i could be doing on this planet you know maybe maybe the most fulfilling thing i could be doing is you know planting seeds you know it's it's like you the world tells you that you need to be out there and kicking butt and go action do this uh and i don't i don't think that's necessarily

the truth the true path of the hero's journey um i think there's i think when you pause you surrender you stop you you kind of you what i like to do is i like to audit my life and see what information is actually coming in to it from all these different areas. And I like to just kind of put up a barrier from all the information and try to come into a state of stillness and depth and just ask myself, am I, and it's not even a question of doing because I got caught up in that in doing, doing, doing, doing, but you know, you got to be before you can do and do before you can have. The rose is not trying to be a rose.

It's not trying to emit a beautiful fragrance. It's not, oh, I got to chemically, it's just what it is. And so I think the highest attainment of somebody's life is not in the actions themselves, but it's in the beingness. and then the actions occur. They happen spontaneously from that depth of beingness. And I know this might be over some people's heads, but it's a, there's a space.

There's a, yeah, the only way I can describe it is a space that I think is necessary to take. You know, if you look at music, musical composition. It's the space between the notes that make it beautiful. One of the best meditations that I have ever experienced is to simply to observe the space in between the thoughts, in between the thoughts. And I think when you can kind of surrender to that silence, the doing just spontaneously occurs because it's just who you, are. It's just a part of you and you're not doing anything. There's no there's no intention.

I think intention can cause tension. Oh, this is my this is my intention. But when you're only, when your only commitment is to live a life of truth, oh man, that's rare. That is rare. No compromise. Just, just pure truth in every moment. Because, it's only the moments that matter. When I was walking on my farm in Portugal, when I was in this break, because I took about a year off, I was like, okay, I got caught into that trap.

Okay, what do I do next? I don't know people probably ask you, okay, what's next for you? What are you? What's next? What's happening? But when you can kind of just sit in the mystery of the moment and the now-ness,

the next takes care of itself. the Buddha he was asked by a disciple. He said, Buddha, will there ever be peace on earth when there's a universal consciousness awakening? Would that ever happen? And a Buddha, he said,

why are you worried about the future when you can't even stay in the present? The future is born out of the present. So when we can take care of the now, you don't have anything to worry about for tomorrow. This is it. This is the moment. I know it kind of keeps coming back to the same point.

But I think this is the panacea. I think this is the answer to so many of our questions and struggles and conflicts. It's just to come back to now and say, am I really walking to talk? Am I living a life that is true to me? I've heard you say on the podcast to a couple people on the sauna sessions, one of your favorite questions is to ask people like, simply like, what are they excited about? One of my favorite questions to ask people is,

I'd love to hear about anything in your life, especially in the recent, you know, history last couple years, they've changed your mind about. I don't think we talk enough about changing our mind. I don't think we talk enough about giving ourselves grace that we're a human being. I think we've all put a lot of pressure on ourselves. That leads to a lot of tribalism.

I'm with this camp or I'm against this camp because of what I think my beliefs are versus what I think their beliefs are. And changing your mind, just like quitting is a superpower. Wow. We learn in school, don't quit, don't quit. Winners never quit. And yet quitting often when you read these biographies,

you hear these stories of people that you look up to anybody, you see that there was multiple places in their life that they ended up having to quit because they felt that calling that they were meant to do something else. They were working on the wrong priorities. They were pursuing somebody else's goals and dreams. And often, whether it was just their family

or whether it was entire society, people looked at and said, you're headed down the wrong path. But they knew internally that that's the direction they had to go. So quitting is a superpower. And also changing your mind is a superpower. Anything that you can think of where you're thinking evolved

or you've changed your mind, something that you feel comfortable sharing with the audience. Yeah, wow. Yeah. Okay, let's see. What have I changed my mind? on. I think one thing that I, um, I try to, I try to do is to really live out, um, the scientific method and not come to conclusions. So I'm so open to, to updating my knowledge and information

if new and better information comes up, um, in my field. Uh, you know, I used to, I, one thing that's coming up, you know, regarding health is I used to, um, um, probably for about almost 15 years do intermittent fasting and you know I mean I was like okay I'll just tell people do IF you know religiously it's so good for you and it's great um but I mean now I kind of eat twice or sometimes three times a day um you know I still think it's important to focus on not eating than eating a lot of the time to give your body a rest. But I think I've definitely shifted when it comes to fasting.

Like I used to do ice baths a lot. Read some research about its effect when it comes to like, you know, protein synthesis. I'm like, okay, maybe, you know, if I want to grow, if I want to, you know, maintain and grow lean muscle, maybe I shouldn't do it as much. So I change that routine. when it comes to like making content, it's so important to stay up to date because I mean, I've been doing it for over a decade and I've seen algorithms change.

I've seen things shift. And a lot of people that I've worked with in the past, they kind of hold on to old ideas and old beliefs of what worked yesterday. And it just might not work today. So if there are any content creators, listening to this. I mean, one of the big ones that I had to shift was now a lot of the algorithms, they aren't really driven as much by, you know, the vanity metrics of comments or shares.

It's more so watch time. So this is probably good and bad. Well, probably more bad. But to create content that kind of keeps you, keeps you watching it will create more. success on these platforms, whether that's good for the psychology of people is one thing. But that's something I shifted. Okay, how can I morally and ethically create content and stories that keep the viewer engaged throughout the whole video? So I shifted my thinking on that. I think one idea also,

Also that I kind of just mentioned was, you know, I've been a doer kind of for a lot of my life. It's like the action was supreme. And just the recognition that when I said before, you really got to be before you can do and do before you can have. It's really about holding a frequency and a vibration more so than just going and doing. doing something. It's more so becoming that thing so that the doing happens effortlessly. Self-image is something that I'm constantly working on. Identity. I think it's, I just had a talk with a school district. It was a group of a few thousand educators. And I brought up the question that every, every teacher asks is, um, ask their students is, what do you want to be when

you grow up? What do you want to be when you grow up? And it's, it's so hard to answer that question today because we don't know what jobs are going to be available in 20 or 30 years from now. So you really have to focus on how do you cultivate a healthy self-image? That's the gold standard for success. Um, so it's, it's, it's not about the technical skills. as much as it is about becoming a lifelong learner, being able to question everything, look at things critically, analyze them, and constantly learn. So this is also something that I'm, for me, it comes through repetition of affirmations that I've started doing probably in the past few years.

I used to think affirmations. I mean, that's kind of silly. It's kind of woo-woo affirmations. But now I really recognize that, you know, this is a computer. And if you don't program it, then the world will program it for you. Beautiful answers. You know, a couple of times this interview you've mentioned about the contrast between doing and being. And sometimes, and I've heard this from other.

folks, when I was younger, I would look at that and I would say, okay, got it. I got to do less and I got to be more. But knowing a little bit about your journey and who you are as a person, even though we just met, part of me also feels that it's not that you're saying that the doing is bad. You're saying when our life is only run by doing, it can have limitations because there's beautiful things that have come. You talked about the community that you grew up in. We have a mutual friend also grew up in that area.

Sean Stevenson, the model health show. You great guy. And he talked about his life growing up and how he lived in these two worlds because he had, being biracial, he had one of his family members that lived in sort of a more typical white Caucasian suburb. And what I believe was is his grandmother. Okay. And it was to that.

Dang, I didn't know he was bi-racial. I thought he was just light-skinned. Hey, that's new to me. I've been knowing him for 10 years. I was all was positive. I was positive. I feel like I'm not going to get that fact wrong. I've known him for a long time.

And then the other side of his family, you know, I believe it was his mom. I got to double check on that. But he's been open about this. You know, just trying to sort out her life, get things together. get things together and living in a community that wouldn't necessarily provide him with a lot of opportunities and he got to see you know what it looks like not obviously from just a racial

perspective but talking about uh what circumstances can allow people to value it's not that one group valued education more than another yeah but when somebody's not having to work three four five jobs yeah it allows some time to spend with their kids on homework, right? When, you know, the police are more likely to respond in a particular area or when there's drugs that are more common in another area that creates a certain level of safety

where kids can spend more time outside or you're more likely to play at somebody's house. Environment plays a big role, that's why we talk so much about your zip code is the biggest determinant of your success and your health. And of course, there's a lot of layers inside of that conversation. But going back to his sort of a little bit of a parallel is that obviously that drive that he got

from being part of one community and some of his friends saying like, why do you talk white or why do you say, you know, why are you speaking this way? That also that work ethic that came from being doing focused, that came from achieving in college, obviously brought something really beautiful to his life, right? And a lot of people have parallels in that story. So the doing side of you, even though it's very hard for any of us to constantly be in that place of quote unquote balance, as much as maybe you went too far in one direction, there's so many beautiful things that have brought to your life. What are some of those beautiful things that even though we don't want doing to always run how we operate? it does come with some benefits temporarily

and the goal is to pull back another way. So what are some of the beautiful things that doing is brought to you? If you would agree with that statement and if you don't, that's okay, please push back. I love you. Yeah, so the, you know, in order to really answer that question truthfully,

and this might be difficult to people, people to understand is actually there's there's no doer. There's a, and Eckhart will say this as well. I mean, there's, there's, there's a non-duality existence and things are just happening, right? So I get into these conversations with people and I try to tell them, okay. And feel free to challenge me on this too, because it's, it's, it's something that should be inquired. into. But I ask people all the time. And it freaks them out sometimes. I say, okay, can you, can you predict your next thought? What is your next thought going to be? They say, no, I can't. That's right. You can't because thoughts just happen. They just occur. Somebody said, thoughts are like

farts. They just kind of pop up. And so if you can't predict your next thought, and every action is born from a thought and who is the thinker? Is there a thinker? Is there a thinker? Actually here. There's a physicist who said, this might hit some people.

I'm going to say it. He said, the human mechanism has within it a mechanism that prevents the human mechanism from understanding its mechanistic nature. Say it again. The human mechanism, the human, has within it a mechanism that prevents the human mechanism from understanding its mechanistic nature. So when I tell people there's actually no doer, it's almost impossible because you have something

preventing you from seeing this mechanical thing just happening. Things are just happening. And then I tell them, I'm saying, oh, yeah, I get that principle. Okay, give me a little more. I say, okay, um, okay, what are you really doing? Um, you're not growing your own nails or you're not growing your own hair. No, it's just happening. You're not beating your own heart.

You're not breathing your own breath. Are you thinking your own thoughts? But what, what are you really doing? Where is this doer? Where is this? I, I liken the doer to that, you know, to that grade school kids. who never worked on the class project but took credit. He's taking credit for all these actions.

I'm doing this. I'm doing that. You can actually do a thing. So only when you get still through meditation can you observe this illusory doer, this ghost that really isn't there. And there's one meditation. I love and it says without using your thoughts

associations perceptions perceptions, emotions or memories who are you? And you just sit with that without using your thoughts associations, perceptions

emotions or memories are you a human being are you black are you a man none of that this is why when the Buddha was asked, sir, what, are you a, are you a saint?

He's like, no. Are you a priest? He's like, no. Are you a God? He's like, no. He's like, what are you? I am awareness. We're awareness, pure awareness.

So I had to answer that question truthfully. Now, on another level, I think the practical actionable steps of getting things done. Absolutely. I think it's important. I think we still have to play the game. Free will might not exist,

but it seems to exist. So we continue to play the game. And I think for me, wow, I look back at the old me and thank that person. you know i mean to to to just to have the courage to go another way um to perform in front of all the world leaders to rock out and madison square guard and do stuff like on a different level and you know connect with Oprah and it's uh because you because he had the belief in himself because he was somehow crazy enough

to think that there was another way. And I think you need that craziness. You need that craziness in life. You know, when my mom and parents were asking me, what the heck are you going to do with an anthropology degree? I don't know. I just, I love it. I just, there's something to it.

And that perspective allowed me to do what I do now. The teachings, the viewpoints, the skepticism, the open-mindedness, the humility from the scientific discipline. When I wanted to be a rapper, people laughed at me. I remember, you know, being in a car with my dad and my brother. I play them like my first song on the CD, they start laughing. I'm in the backseat. I'm crying.

I'm like, you know, it's like I didn't. I just kept going. I don't know. It's just crazy enough to think it was possible. I don't think in life you have to know you can do something. You just got to know it's possible. Prince, this has been fantastic. Thank you, man.

It's a pleasure to meet you. I enjoyed it. To know you to get a chance to witness your work over all these years. And the impact that it's made in small and big ways. And I thank you for coming on the podcast, brother. Yeah. Any final things you want to share with our audience? You're everywhere on social media.

It's not hard to find you. We'll link to all that in the sauna sessions as well, too. Anything final you want to leave our audience with? I want to share my gratitude. Thank you for having me on, you know, allowing me to speak to the audience that you've built and share my heart and share my story. that's really, you know, really grateful. And so I thank you.

I hope that we can connect on things. I can't wait to learn more about what you're excited about. And maybe I can have you in the sauna and we could chat more. And yeah, you know, I don't believe in coincidences. I don't believe that we're here just randomly. Maybe there was a word that was spoken that is going to, you know, sprout up tomorrow or 10 years from now or maybe somebody listening to. to this needed it.

But thank you for facilitating the space. And I appreciate you having me on. Appreciate you, my friend. Hi, everyone, Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe,

just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share it with a friend, share it with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter, and it's called Try This.

Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy-to-digest protocol of simple steps that you or anyone you love can follow to optimize your own health. We cover everything from nutrition to mindset to metabolic health, sleep, community, longevity, and so much more. If you want to get on this email list, which is, by the way, free and get my weekly step-by-step protocols for whole body health and optimization, click the link in the show notes that's called Try This or just go to Drew Perot.com. That's D-H-R-U-P-U-R-O-H-I-T dot com and click on the tab that says, try this.