Dhru Purohit Show - How To Stop Fear From Ruling Your Life With Adam IN-Q

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

This episode is brought to you by Lumebox, Plunge, and AquaTru.  Embracing longevity involves nurturing creativity and immersing oneself in passions. Many believe creativity is only reserved for children, but today’s guest emphasizes that it's an essential aspect of life for everyone. Exploring creativity should be an ongoing practice, fostering awareness of what brings joy, purpose, and vitality to our lives. On today's episode of The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with IN-Q, award-winning poet and multi-platinum songwriter, to discuss the poems in his latest book. IN-Q delves into irrational fears and external influences that can hijack our minds and affect our well-being. Additionally, he explores lifestyle choices that can enhance or deplete our energy levels and underscores the significance of cultivating a mindset of gratitude. Dhru and IN-Q share their personal practices and beliefs on communication and relationships.  IN-Q is an Emmy-nominated poet, multi-platinum songwriter, world-renowned keynote speaker, and the best-selling author of Inquire Within. His groundbreaking achievements include being named to Oprah's SuperSoul 100 list of the world's most influential thought leaders, being the first spoken word artist to perform with Cirque du Soleil, and being featured on A&E, ESPN, and HBO's Def Poetry Jam. Through his performances and storytelling workshops, he's inspired countless audiences worldwide, live and virtually.   In this episode, Dhru and IN-Q dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): The newest poem on irrational fears (00:00:27 / 00:00:27 ) Using fear powerfully and not allowing outside sources to hijack our brains (4:00 / 4:00) The Neverending Now album, the prompts, and the awareness they can bring (12:40 / 9:29) IN-Q’s childhood (41:10 / 35:40) Happiness and Purpose (46:00 / 41:50) What gives energy (51:35 / 47:00) Lifestyle habits to preserve energy (1:03:40 / 58:55) A culture of gratitude (1:07:00 / 1:02:35) Dhru’s personal practice and Gottman Certified Therapy (1:12:35 / 1:07:00) Fighting the right way and communication (1:21:35 / 1:16:00)  Non-negotiables and normalizing not knowing (1:24:00 / 1:19:30)  Final Thoughts (1:33:00 / 1:31:15) Also mentioned in this episode: The Neverending Now Album Never Ending Now Poetry Journal Never Ending Now Album Spotify Never Ending Now Album Apple Music Never Ending Now Album YouTube Michael Latimer Gottman Certified Therapist  For more on IN-Q, follow him on Instagram, Twitter/X, YouTube, and his website.  Lumebox is offering my community $260 off their FDA-registered portable Red Light device! That's over 40% off! Go to thelumebox.com/dhru and get your Red Light device. Right now, Plunge is offering my community $150 off cold plunges and their core products. Just go to plunge.com/dhru or enter code DHRU to revolutionize your wellness journey today.  AquaTru is a countertop reverse osmosis purifier with a four-stage filtration system that removes 15x more contaminants than the bestselling water filters out there. Go to dhrupurohit.com/filter/ and get $100 off when you try AquaTru for yourself.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adam, welcome to the podcast, brother. It's great to have you back on the show. Thanks for having me, man. You know, we're diving in today to the power of poetry, words, art, to move us and recognize what's possible for us in life. And I asked you, if you wouldn't mind starting off with a beautiful poem that you've written that's in your new book. We're going to talk about this in a second in your journal. And that poem is titled Fear. you're more likely to be killed while driving to the beach than by a shark. In fact, you're 30 times more likely to be killed by coconuts or falling airplane parts, and Google says that's just the start.

Beware of bear attacks, fireworks, train tracks, bees, eating, drinking, sleeping, sex, ladders, subways, dogs, steps, all of these can cause your death. I'm surprised there's people left, biking, boating, cancer, smoke, lightning, striking, hunting stroke. Hippos are no f***ing joke, and chicken wings can make you choke or slipping on a bar of soap. Anything can make you croak. Lawn, mowers, trees, guns, snow, wind, rain, sun, many drown or die of thirst.

Selfies are the f*** worst. They're the worst. Falling backwards off a cliff for likes that you will never get. Fire, ice, poison, snakes, rivers, vows. valleys, deserts, lakes, knives, ties, all types of sports. They've weaponized our spoons and forks, cows, wheat, sugar, pork, obesity of every sort, which brings me back to shark attacks. Statistically, they come up short.

You're much more likely to be killed by popping out a champagne cork. That shouldn't stop our celebration. Put your glasses in the air. How about we toast to life and overcoming irrational fears? Now that's a cheers. I'm not pretending that there aren't threats, but we can't live our lives if we're this preoccupied with death. You cannot hide somewhere where time doesn't find you.

Anywhere you go, it will be one step behind you to remind you. The you are will not be here forever. We're just spinning on a rock inside the universe together. It's a treasure. So let's measure life by more than just our fears. It's the memories we make, especially when we are scared. It's the boundaries that we break and the risks we choose to take. It's the grace and our mistakes when we get humbled by a wave when it tumbles us

and pulls us under to an early grave. But we fight to reach the light just to live another day. And our fingers touch the surface and our lungs. can breathe again. And we look off in the distance and we think we see a fin. We should probably get moving, make our way to solid land. We should get out of the water, but not never swim again. That's beautiful, brother. I love that. Got to clap it up. There's a line in there, which is the reason that I wanted to start off with this. And I think it's going to be super relevant for listeners of this podcast. And if it's not, it's relevant to me. We can't live our lives if we're this

preoccupied with death. You know, when I think about a lot of the topics that we cover here, health, longevity, we cover them in the best spirits. And as part of that, we also acknowledge that, yes, we want to live a long, healthy life. And sometimes when people are new to the space, there's so much fear about everything that's wrong, especially when it comes to health, the toxins in the environment, all the different ways that your body can say, ouch, that a lot of what motivates people

is the fear, and that fear becomes distracting to actually living. And that's one of the things that came up for me when I was reading this, and I also heard on your album, which we'll talk about in a second, I just wanted to share that with you. Thank you.

Yeah, I think fear can be a positive or a negative motivator. And definitely out of balance, fear can become a toxin in and of itself. So we just have to make sure we're conscious of how we are using our fear to move into our lives powerfully. I feel like one of the biggest things that I did when I was younger, it's probably when I was like in university right before I dropped out. One of the biggest things that I did was I said, okay, I'm not going to watch. It's like for people who are trying to figure out the timeline. This is like 2004.

I said, I'm just not going to watch the news because there's no bigger perpetrator of the model of keeping fear alive for advertising than the classic sources of news that are out there, which are typically like cable news, 24-hour news. and I feel like that was one major thing that I did to unplug from the fear matrix. Anything that you've done in your life that you feel has been a big leap forward of not allowing other people to hijack that fear part of us, that lizard brain that we all have, but you kind of took away your permission for them to try to get close to hijacking it. I think just the awareness that people are trying to hijack it was, huge because for many years, I feel like I was unconscious to that. And I didn't realize how people were manipulating me and everyone with sex, money,

violence, violence, violence, violence, sex, money over and over again in different orders to keep us scared so that we consume so that we buy, buy, buy. and therefore distract ourselves from that feeling of a lack of self-worth. So just the awareness of that, I think, changed how I perceived advertising and what I chose to do with my time and money. Was there any way that when you unplugged from the news, you specifically saw it change your life in real time? Long before, like right now today,

the trend is like independent news sources, things have been popping up like the free press or, breaking points or, you know, different types of podcasts. Like the younger you go in age, the more that people are getting their news from like independent sources and that sort of thing. And back then, it was kind of counterculture to be like, oh, like, I don't know if the mainstream news is, like the best place to like always get the full story. So I was reading a lot of like slow news. I was, I would read slow news if I wanted to be, you know, educated. And a lot of times. times I felt like if I really need to know about something, one of my friends will, you know,

talk about it. I'd much rather have, I'd much rather study philosophy. That'll probably studying philosophy, reading classic books, that'll probably give me a better perspective of what's actually going on in the world. What's that quote? You know, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Yeah. Right. So I think moving to just being in a place where, like, advertising and TV just wasn't always on in the background. and just getting used to silence. I remember going to Friends House. This happens when people are watching

like sports games especially. And in between the sports games, you know, just people leave the TV running. And so it's an ad. That's just natural. I remember being very particular about like, oh, yeah, watch the sports games. And then I just have the remote at my friend's place

and I'd hit mute when the advertising would come on. And I remember one of my buddies saying, something feels weird today. So things feels weird. I don't know what's going on. I'm like, it's probably because there's more silence that we can actually hear each other, talk, whatever. There's not this advertising that's going on in the background

that's just filling the space. Right. And giving everybody the normal comfort that, you know, fake comfort that it does. Yeah, I just think it was just living in a quieter world by not constantly being surrounded by the advertising that comes with, you know, cable news. I think it's interesting that you were inspired by slow news. and then in many ways that's part of what you do now is slow news.

You give space for these longer, deeper conversations about people's personal lives, but also their perspectives on the world. Yeah, it's a different conversation. I mean, today we're so lucky that there are so many more places that we can all go and listen to where we can learn about the things that we're actually interested in. That's like the beauty of social media podcasting in this new generation and age that we're in. I want to give a little bit of context. You know, you read this incredible poem.

It's a collection of poems that are part of this album that you have out now. Would you mind sharing a little bit about it? Yeah, so the album is called The Never Ending Now album, and it is a collection of spoken word from me. Intimate conversation between me and my wife, which I can share more about a little bit later as the conceptual through line for the album. And then beautiful composed piano. from this woman named Isabella Terso and some light strings.

So I say all of that to say, I'm really proud of it. I'm happy to be promoting it. It's a very vulnerable piece of art, but it was really healing for me to create it, and I hope that it's healing for people to listen to it as well. Well, one of the reasons I asked you to set the stage a little bit is that part of you putting your art out into the world is that this album also has a journal.

I'm holding it in front of me over here. For those that are watching on YouTube, you can check it out. It looks super beautiful. And at the end of each poem, there are spoken word poem. There are prompts that are there. And the whole idea is,

what does this art make you feel? What are things? What does it bring up? And so I just wanted to read some of these questions here for the audience. And I might even answer, answer a couple, just to kind of give a little bit of perspective on it. So one of the questions inside of here for the poem, Fear that you just read and performed is what's the biggest fear

you have in your life right now? And I'll answer that. And maybe you could answer that too. Yeah, please. Right? It might be useful for the audience. I would say that, you know, you shared something earlier, which you said fear can be a positive and it can be a negative. and it's up to us to make sure that just like anything, we see it as a tool. I think temporarily fear can be a tool in the positive direction. Usually in my life, it's not a long-term ongoing tool that helps me perform in the best way. Usually fear is going to be something that's going to keep a negative pattern alive. It's definitely unsustainable.

It's unsustainable. Or it's sustainable. You'll just pay the price for it. Exactly. Right? It'll manifest in the body as disease or whatever. So in a positive way off this question, what's the biggest fear you have in your life right now? It's a negative that was turned into a positive.

And I think I've shared this with you previously, but I'll mention here on the podcast. The fear of aging parents who one day won't be here. I have, today's my mom's 70th birthday. Happy birthday, mama. Shout out to Darsna. We threw a big party for. for her down in San Diego a week ago. It was beautiful. My mom's 70. My dad turned 75 early this month. They're still young. They work on their health. They're surrounded by kids a lot. My nephew and

niece. And naturally, we're all not going to be here one day. And having such a beautiful relationship with my parents and truly feeling like I won the lottery when it comes to my parents, yes, they made mistakes. They got angry with us just like, you know, other parents would get angry with their kids. But there was this deep awareness of parenting at a time where I think a lot of parents didn't really have that awareness. And I don't know, they weren't out there necessarily like reading self-help books or other things. I think in particular for my dad's case, he was raised by parents who also had a deep awareness. And my mom actually had the opposite. She was raised by a super loving mother and a father who was trying his best, but a deep sense of

narcissism was kind of running the background noise and the patterns that were there and most likely had a very challenging upbringing. So having these parents who were there who raised me, my sisters, and just like I've all so thankful for, I worry about what life will be like when they're not here. not just for myself and probably less so for myself. I worry about what life will be like for my nephew and niece who are so attached to them, that so look up for them. And I worry about their ailing health, but where I've used that fear as a positive,

and my whole family has used it as a positive, is that we've used it as to number one, not feel regret that we didn't spend as much time with our parents and have the experience. that we want to them, want with them. So we're very intentional as a family of like, what are the experiences we want to have this year? What are the things we want to do together? Not because, oh my gosh, one day our parents are not going to be here, but hey, let's celebrate and let's make special how unique and grateful we all are with each other. And let's live life to its fullest. The other thing that comes in is that we've all leaned in largely with the help of my older sister and my brother-in-law, who's a cardiologist, Dr. Neil Patel, we've really leaned

into our parents' health and help them understand through education, not through force, of what certain habits look like, like going into the sauna on a weekly basis. My dad and my mom, for the first time in their life, getting into resistance training. You know, we push them in a way and encourage them by showcasing them what we see for them as the best for themselves, but we're not overbearing in any kind of way. And mostly we inspire through our own action. It's a lot of them asking us, like, hey, I'm interested in this. do I do that? So is it the biggest fear that I walk around and I think about every day? No,

but I don't think a biggest fear has to be that per se. I think a big fear could just be something that's the next essential thing that you just think about. So yeah, the idea of aging parents, not being here one day and also the same time too, knowing that it couldn't be any other way, right? That's the circle of life that has to happen. And it's up to me, my wife, my sisters, their families to keep all that legacy alive that our parents brought into our lives. I love everything you said. And just for more clarity, you know, the biggest fear is just a trampoline for people, you know, biggest in quotation marks for them to turn in on themselves and see something that immediately sparks them. Because if you start writing in a place

that sparks you, the rest of the poem will almost write itself. You just have to give it enough time and space. What you said was a poem. And so what I would invite you to do is create a piece around that. All you have to do is before you start, have the intention of writing a poem. So you say to yourself, I'm writing a poem. And then you have to not try to make something great. you have to purposely not make something great so that you can make something true.

And what you said was so beautifully authentic and vulnerable and sweet. And it showed the full arc of that fear for you, for your family, and for the future. But you also reflected that it has motivated you guys to be more present and to love deeper and to love harder. So if you create something that becomes a poem and the story is outside of you, you now have the option to see the story as separate from you, which gives you more space and empowerment over the fear. And then you could decide to read it to your wife. You could decide to read it to your parents and open up a deeper space for conversation,

for emotion, and for connection. And that's part of why one half of it is creating and the other half of it is releasing, being witnessed so that you can fully see and be seen. That's beautiful, man. I really love that. And yeah, I'll take you up on that. Yeah. I had a small taste of that.

And I'll share it here is that last year, I mentioned this to you previously. I've talked a little bit about it on my podcast, but I haven't done a full in-depth breakdown, even though a lot of people are very curious, maybe one day I will. I've had a lot of the top researchers on psilocybin, psychedelics, MDMA. From a therapeutic standpoint, they've been on this podcast before, like Dr. Roland Griffiths, who had the pleasure of meeting many years ago. He passed away, I believe, last year. And he was the researcher at Johns Hopkins that was known for bringing back into the sciences,

the ability to research against psilocybin for its therapy. benefits and a lot of different things, including end of life, people who have a deep fear. These are terminal cancer patients was one of their studies who were given psilocybin, and they had a deep fear about dying and how a medically assisted psilocybin experience, essentially for the vast majority of them, removed that fear, connected them to a deeper sense of oneness. they've done some other studies about how psilocybin with cognitive behavior therapy help people quit smoking, smoking cessation, which is one of the hardest things to do.

Nicotine is so addictive. And this drug literally help people get off of nicotine. And then six months later, you know, a large percentage of them were still off nicotine and smoking cigarettes. So my parents, you know, they listen to episodes every so often. And they had heard a couple episodes. and I had shared with them that I met a group in Hawaii, in Maui, and I was very interested in doing a guided experience.

And my dad called me a couple days later on, or I was down there visiting them in San Diego, and he said, I think I'd actually be interested in that if it's open. And so along with a couple of my best friends and my wife, my parents signed up for this four-day guided psilocybin retreat. We weren't on psilocybin for four days. You know, there's a whole sort of beginning process, other thing, and it's one, one ceremony. You're just nonstop psilocybin.

And it was, it was truly one of the most mystical experiences in life. We came in with such deep intention. It was organized incredibly. This isn't like, just like a weekend thing that we were doing. We all prepped. We were, we were guided for it. We brought a sacredness into it. And where I was going with this is that both my dad's,

dad and mom had such a beautiful experience, such a beautiful experience on the day of the ceremony when we all drank, you know, the mushroom drink prepared with orange juice to kind of like uptake into the body. And there was a live band that was there playing all these traditional sacred songs from different traditions. And they were playing some songs from the tradition that I come from, the Hindu Vedic tradition. And my parents like literally like lit up. And much later on in the day after we all had our own journeys and we kind of came down. It was like 10 p.m. And I joined my dad at this fireplace outside in this beautiful landscape, this seven-acre

property in Maui. And we were sitting outside and we were just connecting about our experience. I was sharing, getting back to where I was starting off with this, I was sharing with my dad almost it felt like some poetry about how going back. to my fear that a lot of what came for me in the journey was I actually felt like I was witnessing both the birth of a future family for me as well as grieving the loss of my parents, as well as hearing from, you know, my ancestors that like everything is okay. It's all meant to be. This is all the process. And if it wasn't for your mom and like,

I'm not going to go into the whole thing here, but I was sharing with my dad. I mean, you can go as far as you want. I'm interested. I'm sure other people are as well. I was feeling the sense of at the end of my journey. There was a lot of ups. There was a lot of downs for those that are interested. I came in wanting to have a pretty big experience, wanting to go deep because I felt

very comfortable there. So I had what is considered quite a large dose. It was a five gram dose that was there. They called it like a hero's dose, whatever. and me and my brother-in-law both did that, but I felt comfortable in that space to do it with these individuals that were guiding us through it. It really was like a guided, true experience.

We were fully supported. And I was sharing with my dad that at the end of it, this sense of feeling like every fear that I have of maybe one day my dad not being around or not, you know, some regrets of I wish I spent more time with my grandfather when he was here and I was too young not to know to spend enough time with him. And, you know, I even had these regrets of like, oh, the few times that I like snapped at him when I was younger, right?

Which, you know, he probably never remembered, you know, my grandfather. But like I was carrying on to that and I needed to let it go. And the conclusion of it all was everything happened for a reason. And I really felt it. And it's all happening for a reason. And you are playing a part in that essential reason. I was sharing with my dad. And when you were saying, like, using this prompt to like write a poem,

that's what came up for me. I was like, you know what? I never really wrote that down and to turn it into an actual poem and to read it to my parents, I'm sure they would really appreciate that as a gift. I definitely think they would. And I hope that you do it.

And I hope that you read it to them and I hope that you read it to me as well. I mean, it's one of the reasons that I created the journal around the album is I wanted to scale the storytelling sessions that I've done in person for 25 years so that I didn't need to be. be there to facilitate. You don't have to be a poet to write poetry. You just have to be a person

and you have to choose something that's moving and meaningful to you. And it can be a really transformational experience of energetic and creative alchemy. I want to read one more of these questions and get kind of, you know, what prompt it brings up for you? If you don't mind, I can kind of turn it to you. So off of the idea of what is your biggest fear, so if you wouldn't mind answering that same question. And I'll give you one of the follow-up of these. One of the questions is, where did this fear come from? Is it rational or irrational? So a combination, you know, one, two question. So not that I'm going to keep double-clicking on the album in the journal, but definitely the album is a very big fear for me to release it. When I created it, I created it in my own

And always when I'm starting to make a poem or a project, I'm the first person in my audience. So I'm not thinking, what do other people want to hear? What can I monetize? What will be successful? I'm just thinking like, I'm curious about something. I want to follow that breadcrumb trail. And sometimes I lose interest halfway through. And then sometimes I follow it all the way to the end.

And once I followed this album all the way to the end, I listened to it. and at the end of it, I was like shedding tears. And it felt very complete for me to have brought this into the world. And I wasn't sure that I wanted to show it to anyone else as a product. I wasn't sure that I wanted to get anybody's judgments, criticisms, even compliments. I didn't want to externalize my or its self-worth. and I was perfectly okay with it just existing and nobody needing to listen to it. And then I decided to send it out to five people.

And my criteria for releasing it was if one person out of the five got back to me and said, hey, I listened to this and it really resonated with me. And you telling a vulnerable story about your life made me think about the stories in my own. and was healing. Then I would be like, all right, I'll take the hit. I'll put this out. And very quickly, that was the reflections that I started getting back. So I decided, all right, I'm going to put this album out.

And then I started thinking, well, maybe I should create this accompanying journal so that people can not only listen to the album, but they can do the creative work themselves. because all of the poems on the album have themes, and the themes in the end are supposed to lead you to infinite possibility and hope so that you have a new opportunity to live your best life and having creativity as a new outlet and a tool for stress release, for peace, for presence, for compassion, and for empowerment. And so I partnered with passion,

planner who's like a leader in the space to bring this into the world as a separate but connected piece of art. And it's beautiful what they helped me create. The design I think is really perfect, the way that it leads you through creating your own poems exceeded all of my expectations. But that doesn't mean that the fear isn't still there for putting it out. You know, I teach other people what I need to learn. So I go around the country and the world performing, you know, public shows, private shows, workshops, and I give people the opportunity to be vulnerable from a place of strength. And so then people automatically assume, oh, vulnerability is easy for you. And it's not. You know, I have to fight to be vulnerable. I have to fight to open up my heart.

I'm probably more naturally suspicious because of how I grew up. But I also know that there is so much magic in vulnerability. And over and over and over again, when I've been willing to open up to people, to life, I have seen that it makes my world and the world a better place. You know, when I think about that, what comes up for me is that there's so often in life that I don't know how I feel about something until I try to put it together. And when I think about these prompts and I think about the intention about this journal, I think about so often I'll feel, let's say I'll feel stuck about something. And we all have our shadow side of how we deal with being stuck. Some people hide. Some people. some people get distracted, various sorts of things.

But when something stuck, creativity is the perfect tool to at least deal with it and have it in front of you. I always think like the scariest monsters in the films are the ones that you can't see, right? Think about anything, any kind of scary movie that you've watched. When you kind of can see it, but you can't, your imagination can run wild.

But when you can actually use something to put your ideas down on a page, It could be something you're afraid of in the case of this poem fear. It could be something that you're happy about and you're afraid of facing. I know a lot of people that feel, man, I can't get too excited or happy about this thing because I'm going to jinx it. Or I don't get happy things or positive things that come to me. So I see art journal, these prompts that are here as an opportunity to get anything that's stuck inside of you, which we all have, to get it out in the open. And then it's less scary, whatever that thing may end up being.

Yeah. And the other thing is when you share it with somebody, you realize how much we have in common. And then you're like, oh, wow, me sharing something that was scary for me to share makes me feel less alone. And the other person gets to see the mirror of their humanity in your story. it's really like a special process a lot of times people contain these modalities for mental and emotional health to yoga and meditation and breathwork and all of those things have been really special strategies in my life for becoming a happier healthier person but for me creativity has also been one of those strategies. And it's really unfortunate. People tend to leave creativity to the

professionals. Once they become an adult, they feel like, well, if I'm not a singer, I shouldn't sing. You know, if I'm not a poet, I shouldn't write poetry. If I'm not an actor, I shouldn't pick up a scene or do a monologue. And I guess I'm here to give people the invitation and also just the permission to play, to use creativity as a tool for better mental and emotional health. And you can do it through the Never Ending Now Poetry Journal, but you can do it through anything. You just have to decide to do it, step outside of your comfort zone and try something different. You might be surprised at how meaningful it is to you. You know, there's an old idea that you ask, you know, kids in kindergarten, who's, you know,

who's good at singing or take something creative? like who's good at drawing, everybody raises their hand. And then every grade you go up, you know, all the way into high school, barely anybody's raising their hand except for the person who thinks that they have some sort of innate creativity that's there. And it's so unfortunate because I think about how many people in my life that are adults feel like they're looking for the, they're looking for the external thing to drive creativity for them.

They want a job. that they get, nothing wrong with this, but to be the source of creativity. Like I want to be inspired by something else. I want this other person to inspire me if somebody's looking for a new relationship. And again, there's nothing wrong with having external things inspire you. But when it's only external

and you don't know how to turn on that little flame inside of you, you become limited. And I feel like it drives a lot of feelings of being stuck in life. Often when I hear somebody feeling stuck, anything creative that they can do to bring back agency, and for me, often that first step

is just even getting out in nature. Nature is inherently creative by design, not just out of beauty, but out of function. It's the most functional way is to have that creativity inside of that. So yeah, I just think that so many people who are looking for something externally maybe they're actually looking for what is some methodology or system that can help them light

a little bit of that internal flame to drive that spark pilot, so to speak, to get their creative flames and juices and really joy for life going. Yeah, I totally agree. And I use nature as well. I mean, nature is definitely medicine for me, partially because nature isn't judging me. It doesn't have an opinion. I can just kind of like be with it in life. And I think that lack of analyzation about life,

but the presence of being in life is something that allows me to relax a little bit more and drop in deeper. You know, when we were on the topic of biggest fears, I was talking about my parents. And we're also talking about the power of art and poetry and spoken word. and just writing to help us process and sort of contextualized feelings.

I listen to the album. By the way, it's available. Like, people can listen to it online, right? Yeah, it's available now. We put it out for a mental health month. Yeah. Which is a tip of the hat to the unfortunate and exponentially growing global mental health crisis that we're experiencing,

everybody being more connected than ever and more disconnected than ever. Yeah. You know. It's so true. So we have a link to it below. You can check it out. You can listen to it. I listen to it.

When you first sent it to me, it's beautifully intimate. It really just feels like I'm getting a chance. Like we're eavesdropping on this beautiful conversation between you and your wife. Right? And when I'm listening to it, I'm imagining you guys almost like laying down in a sunbed with some like sun coming in. and you're kind of just talking and you're looking up to the sky and she's asking these great questions. And one of the areas that she's like asked you a little about is like, and that kind of comes up

inside of it is your upbringing a little bit about your relationship with your parents, in particular, your dad kind of comes up. Do you want to talk about that for a quick second of just like the context for it? Because I actually feel like you talking about in this instance, you're chatting about your dad and you've written some poetry about that as well too. We all have relationships that are there. And we all have had relationships that maybe have gone not the way we want, sideways.

People maybe don't have a parent, a father figure around, whatever it might be. And hearing the way that you were talking about it and processing it on the album, even though I haven't gone through that exact same sort of experience with my father, it really made me have a deep, not just a deep empathy, for people who have, but it brought up other relationships where I might have had a similar pattern that was there. Yeah. I mean, it was interesting when you were talking about the medicine journey with your family. One of the things I was thinking is that's so beautiful that you felt open enough to go into that uncontained, uncontrollable spiritual and human experience together.

Because let me tell you, there is no world where I would have ever gone through. that with my father. There is no world that I will ever go through that with my mother. And that doesn't have to do with love. Yeah. You know, it just has to do with relationship. Yeah, my dad wasn't around at all. My mom and my father were not married or anything like that. So they didn't have like a real connection. And I didn't meet him until I was 15. years old and there's a complicated story that I don't go into on the album in terms of like how we even got in contact in the first place. I was a secret to his side of the family. Like, you know, I had two siblings that were boys and two siblings that were girls, so four

altogether, half that I never met and didn't know that I existed. And his new wife didn't know that I existed, but I knew that they existed. And that's a very strange way to grow up to know that you're a secret. And it brings up a lot of like self-worth issues that I had to kind of go through. And I didn't have anybody that I trusted enough to talk about those unresolved thoughts and emotions that were just continuing to play on repeat in my head during my childhood. But it's interesting because the poems that I create are meant for presentation. At least if I decide to present them, they were meant for presentation. But the conversation that I have on the album with my wife was not meant for presentation.

You know, we were having a very intimate conversation in the car, not a sunbed. Although that's interesting that that was where you put us in your mind. we were just chatting about an experience I had had during a medicine journey that I went on that was facilitated with the therapist. And I was sharing with her some of the things that came out of that for me. And one of the main themes was all of these frozen ages in my childhood that were trapped inside of me. And then I would get like triggered in real time.

and I would like go to sleep for a while. You know, I would catch amnesia and these different frozen ages would come out and make a mess of things. While you're in sort of this guided experience, you're saying you fell asleep? No, no. I'm saying that this was the theme

that kind of came to me while I was doing this guided medicine journey experience. And then I was describing that to my wife later and I was saying to her that, you know, sometimes I catch amnesia to my own life and these frozen ages will come out and cause some some external self-destruction and that it was something that I wanted to work on and she decided to like take out her phone and record the conversation and she told me she was doing it but we were already so deep into the

conversation that it didn't change the tone because I was just basically talking to my best friend yeah I didn't expect anybody to hear this I didn't even think I would ever listen to it. I was just in a flow. And she was asking me questions. And I was responding without thinking of how I would be perceived or without trying to be cool or without thinking of my in-Q brand or poetry at all. And then she sent it to me a few days later and I listen to it. and I realized, huh, you know, if I did decide to cut this up and put this into a larger body of work, it might be, at the very least, interesting. And so that's where it started.

I didn't, like, go try to get a record deal or anything. And I could have, you know, I could have, like, tried to find a creative partner or gotten an advance for this or, you know, I didn't want anybody else's hands. in it at all. It felt too raw and real for me. So I just like, you know, booked my own studio time, went in and finished the album on my own without any idea of what or if I was going to do anything with it. And then, of course, here we are. Is there a poem as part of the album, as part of the book, that comes up for you, that you're present to right now for where we are in the conversation? Yeah, yeah, sure.

We went to fear, so why don't we go to happiness and purpose? Yeah, love that. Happiness is not a point, it's a range. It's not a goal that we reach because it's constantly in phase. But if you stay inside the margins and you consciously engage, your happiness can find a balance on the razor's edge of change. The main problem is society has taught us that our happiness is something we can gain, something we can claim, something we attach to our names and we distract from our shame

and search for happiness outside ourselves perpetuating pain. But happiness is not a place. It's not a destination on the map. There's nothing that's outside of you that's going to show you where you're at. Awareness is a conscious act. My happiness is not an accident. I practiced it. I practiced it and practiced it.

I tried to master it, but life's too multifaceted. Besides, we'd all get bored without resorting to change. my point? Happiness is not a point. It's a range. If you don't know what your purpose is, tell me what your passion is. Don't know what your passion is. It's where inspired action is. It's what enthusiasm gives a manual for how to live. So if you still can't fathom it, simplify the catalyst. Tell me what your interests are. Help explore, what you're about. Don't know what your interests are. What are you curious about? Tell me what annoys you. Tell me what you love to hate. Now tell me what destroys you and use your voice to

go create, play in what employs you or find a hobby on the side. Nothing that you want to try. Imagine you're about to die. That would probably force you if someone tried to take your life and they were coming towards you? Would you fight to stay alive? I remember nights when I would contemplate my suicide. I'd lie awake, debating non-existence till the sun's rise. I was feeling forced too. I had to alchemize. Of course it had to course through. Now my dreams are actualized. God does not ignore you. Get over being victimized. What does time afford you? A paycheck is a compromise. Tell me what implores you. Are you down to sacriac? Now tell me what rewards you.

I'll point you towards the afterlife. Beautiful, brother. I love those. Those were two together that you presented. You know what I thought of when you read the second half about purpose? We have a mutual friend, Alex, the author of The Third Door. I always feel like I butcher's last name. Benayan, right?

Yeah. And one of the most popular clips that we ever released before in the podcast, podcast back in the day was this whole like purpose challenge. Do you know about this? It's like a 30 day purpose challenge. It basically, you know, so often in life, people say, I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what I want to do. And every day, what does it look like going back to these lyrics, tell me what your interests are. Help me define what you're about. Don't know what your interests are. Tell me what you're curious about. He has this little challenge that he shared with our audience.

And it was just every day, give me three things that gave you energy, something that you were curious about, something that you were drawn towards. And every day, write down three things that took away energy, that drained energy.

Do that for 30 days. And now you'll have at least a strong pointer in the right direction. So that was one of the things that came up for me in listening to the two poems you just read. Yeah, I love that. I mean, a lot of mental and emotional

and even physical health is about paying attention. And you have to train yourself to pay attention. You have to build the muscle of looking around every single day. And to yours and Alex's point, like notice when something is giving you energy, notice when something is taking away energy and try to do more of the things that give you energy and less of the things that take it away. Or at least if you can acknowledge the things that take it away. or at least if you can acknowledge the things that take it away but you think they're necessary,

you feel like you're doing them in a purposeful way. You know, so then it can take away some of the sting from feeling like you're wasting your time. And then you're not wasting your time. You might not like doing it, but you're doing it for a bigger reason. What about some of the things that give you energy, especially when it comes to creating art, putting out work? Because I'm sure it's not all rosy. creative process that's there. But what are the things that give you energy? What are the things that take away energy? I don't like being a CEO. I do not like it. The business side of stuff.

Yeah, I don't like being a CEO. I don't like being a CMO. I don't like marketing my art. I don't like creating storytelling around storytelling. I love to create art. And I wish that I could just create art and not have to go out and sell the art. So I was on a podcast recently and the guy was like, how would you convince people to listen to this album? How would you convince people to get the journal? And I was like, I'm not convincing anyone of anything. I'm too old. I am inviting people to listen to the album. I am inviting people to get the journal. I am inviting people to go deeper into their own lives using poetry, you know, which is a genre they probably have never thought to use.

Yeah. Did this guy know you well? Because I feel like anybody who knows you well knows that there's so much around this. And it's like the best, quote unquote, you know, marketing is literally just getting a chance to have a conversation of just life, which is what we've done, you know, the couple times, even on this podcast, even today here. So I'm guessing the person maybe didn't know you that well is my guess. He's actually a really, really great guy.

His name is Max Lugavir. So I was happy that he asked the question because saying I'm too old was funny. And it was not anything I had ever said in the past, you know. But it was so clear to me in that moment, I was like, I'm so tired of being busy with how people might or might not perceive me. it's boring you know i just want to show up and meet people halfway the thing about controlling reality is when you control reality because you're scared of something going bad you also control reality and suffocate the potential of things going good in a way that is outside of what you imagined you know, so you don't leave room for magic in life.

So I just want to keep showing up over and over in my art and in my life and be surprised at what happens, you know. Yeah. I want to read a couple prompts here of the second poem that you had shared with the audience, just so they can get a sense, a little preview of some of these that are here after each poem. if you had to create a poetic mission statement for yourself, what would be, what would it be? What are your best qualities? What is your personal purpose? What do you think our collective purposes? What is important to you and why? You know, something else that came up for me for this question purpose, there was this trend. It was like 10, 15 years ago. A lot of people

were writing these very intricate purpose statements for their businesses. Like you have to have a purpose statement. You have to have a mission statement. And then you have your values. And I remember feeling like, okay, I feel like some of this I could do. But people would often ask me like, what's your personal purpose statement? And I would say, you know, honestly, like I want to hang out with people that I like, especially my friends and family.

I want to create economic opportunity together, you know, create career opportunity for them, right? Create the opportunity for them to grow in their career, create an opportunity for, you know, a happy customer and whatever business that I'm involved in. And I just want to have fun in the process. And I used to feel sometimes inadequate like that wasn't enough. Like it wasn't some, I'm going to change the world type of statement.

It wasn't some sort of bigger thing that was there. And the more that I've, gotten older, the more that I've realized that actually, that's like completely adequate. It perfectly describes my ethos and the way that I show up. In fact, trying to create something that looks like the right purpose statement for somebody else is exactly taking me out of my purpose statement. I want to do cool shit with people that I care about and people that I love. I've very lucky to work with a lot of my family members, including both my sisters and my dad. And that's, that's it. And in a tiny way,

if we could make the world a better place to the little corner that we're in, amazing. But I also don't have these ideas of grandiose that I'm going to change the world. I'm not saying that's right for somebody else. It's just that that isn't right for where I am. Does any of that make sense? It does, but I feel like you have

and continue to change the world. I mean, by just following your own bliss, by following your own curiosity. and some of that is generosity towards others, creating opportunities. Some of it is creating abundance for yourself. But you also mentioned a happy customer that whoever it is that you're interacting hopefully walks away from that interaction feeling better. That thing that happened between the two of you guys,

whether you were there or whether it was product, gave them energy rather than took energy away from them, or at least it was an even exchange and both sides walked away happy. I don't know what else you can ask for. You know, I think that is changing the world. There are, I guess, scaling opportunities, you know, and everybody has different things that draw their attention or different skills, different strengths and different weaknesses that, you know, They try to maximize the strengths so that they can provide value for themselves and other people in society. But I acknowledge you.

I honor you, man. I feel like you have changed the world and you continue to change the world. And who knows, a lot of the ways that you change the world you never even hear about. It's very small things in terms of how you interact with somebody can change how they interact with 10 other people. So yeah, I think to piggyback off of that, I'm not so, what's that, I think it's Goldie Meyer, she was the first female prime minister of Israel. She has this quote. It says, don't be so humble. You're not that special. Have you heard of this? Have you heard of this quote? It's great. It's such a great quote. I butcher, I know her first name was Goldie. I'll look it up. We'll put in the show notes.

It's Goldie Hawn. Gohody Hawn, right? Coming with the Zingers. So I'm not pulling one of those. You know, don't be so humble. You're not really actually that special. But it is actually what you're saying is that if you can brighten somebody's day, like, that's everything and that's enough. If you can take care of just the couple people around you, however big your circle is,

that is actually everything. We're that drop in the ocean, but that how you showed up there, that is the ocean. and it doesn't always have to be and it can be sometimes for people. Like if you can't realize that you're changing the world in that way, you often will miss the boat on your bigger way

that you want to change the world. You'll use your grand ideas or delusions of grandeur to treat everybody with disrespect because the ends justify the means. We all know people like that, that they're so wanting to change the world in some way or another. Yeah. They've forgotten about being kind to the waiter or their spouse or their kids

or whoever else is in their immediate orbit. I don't interact with people who are not kind to waiters. I literally, if I'm at a meeting or something and somebody's disrespectful towards a waiter, I will be overly kind to the waiter and apologize. and I'll kind of like decide then and there that I don't want to work with the person. Yeah. Or I don't want to continue on with like more of an intimate relationship or connection or partnership. Because I think really like how you treat people who can't help you is the mark of your integrity.

It's so true. It's so true. I want to switch a little bit and kind of piggyback off a theme that we were sharing. You talked about the things. take away energy from you, right? Like being the CEO and kind of being the chief marketing officer, et cetera, I want to acknowledge you that you have such deep relationships of people that you've given your art and your creativity to over the years that, you know, I can imagine that one of the most effective and direct ways that also fits for you to be able to spread the message about your work

and the impact that can have for people and things like the journal that you're creating is simply going on these conversations. And, you know, you've been in. fight it on some pretty big shows. And it's not because you have some big PR company. It's because you've just developed these relationships and you've put your work out there and people are happy to have you on there. So I want to say that you've, you know, even though you don't like marketing, you're doing it in the best way possible, which is just being authentic in who you are and having conversations with friends that you have known for a long time. So I just want to acknowledge that aspect in you. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Can I just reflect back to you that I always enjoyed

all of our hangs and all of our conversations? and I deeply respect who you are and how you show up. So it's a joy for me. And I also like when I was thinking about promoting this thing, I was like, okay, I'm putting out this piece of art or these two pieces of art that is really about well-being. And I was like, I don't want to be like promoting this and then like negatively impacting my own well-being. Like, I don't want to be going around promoting this thing at the expense of my mental and emotional health.

So I've tried to be cognizant of that as I've been having these conversations and not be so agenda-oriented and just connect to whatever is happening. And in doing that, I've had a really, really amazing time. These conversations have fed me hopefully as much as they might feed others. anybody who is regularly in the space of creating, giving to the world, putting themselves out there, there's always a restorative aspect to like building back their energy, taking care of the energy, just as you were saying that when you're going on tour, you want to make sure this is not depleting to you and your own well-being. You know, you and I connected, when we first connected through Samay and our friends that are there, we really connected and bonded a little bit on the health

side of stuff. You know, you were making some big decisions in your life about health and like investing in your body, seeing your body as a temple, et cetera. What are some of the things knowing that, you know, this is a health podcast and I'm just actually genuinely curious. What are some of the habits, things that you've kept over the years that have helped you preserve your energy so that you can show up in the world the best way that you want to? Is some of the stuff that we've already discussed being in nature, meditation. I'm an avid meditator, breath work, therapy, moving my body through yoga, through boxing. And then going to the gym of gratitude every day and lifting weights, you know, as a strategy

to find the things that I'm grateful for rather than the problems. Because when I look for problems, it's a never-ending game where nobody wins. So I try to make sure that I'm putting my focus on the things that I can either make a positive impact on or the things that I'm super grateful for. I remember when you helped me on that health journey, I had been getting sick a lot. And I didn't know why. And so you were really generous with your time and your expertise and your resources. and you got me on all these different supplements after doing some tests. And it really like knocked that stuff out of my system.

But I also did a lot of like internal work during that period of time. And in retrospect, it's about six and a half years ago, maybe seven years ago, I was falling in love with my now wife during this period of time. And I think there was actually like, stuff coming up and out that wasn't easily put into a category. So I was going to Kaiser and they were like, we don't really know what's going on with you. I remember I was like having like I would, I don't want to like describe it, but I would like take a shower. I was having like these almost like energetic exorcisms that were coming out of nowhere from I guess a long period of

time of moving through this infection. And I don't know what the infection was, but I feel like there was a part of me that was opening up to real intimacy and real love. And it was scary for me to be witnessed and to fully trust another human being. And so thank you for that. Thank you for like helping to guide me through that period of time. And I look back on it with a smile because I feel really healthy and energetic sitting with you now. And the more that I have trusted myself, the more I was able to trust my relationship. And then the more I've been able to trust my art and just the world, you know. Wow. You whether like an emotional I know detox is overused, but you went through, you were going through like a healing detox.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I was. I don't know if it needs to be explained more than that, but I'm grateful for it. Yeah. You know, anytime somebody gets into a new relationship or is trying to create a new relationship, a new partnership, and, you know, you got married a couple years ago and met your wife. She's amazing. There's the creating the culture. inside of like the relationship of gratitude, of joy, of happiness, of these things that you've mentioned. It's one thing to be able to do it on yourself. It's another thing of like, hey, like, this is our kind of culture. This is our way of being as a now, you know, family, a partnership. Yeah. Anything that you guys do that's special that helps with that, whether it's formal,

informal? Well, I think that a relationship is about having clarity on what's negotiable and what's non-negotiable. And there's no right or wrong with that. There's only a right or wrong personally, and then a right or wrong in a relationship, and then a right or wrong within a family or a community or a society. For me, my biggest non-negotiable is I need to be able to fully trust my partner. You know, like, look at them across the room and be like, that's my ride or die. You know, like that they don't need me to be or do anything in order to be loved, that they accept me fully as I am for all sides of me. And then in doing that and unconditionally loving me, me, they give me the space to aspire to be a better version of myself.

And I try to do that from my wife as well with varying degrees of success and failure on a day-to-day basis. But we always have that space to discuss things and we fight to remain on the same page. Mostly when we're fighting, we're just fighting to know each other again. because every single day you wake up, you're a slightly different person and your experiences that you accumulate throughout that day will change you slightly tomorrow. When you decide to take the long walk with somebody and you say, hey, I am dedicating the rest of my life to being with you and building something together, you have to truly accept who the person, is in real time and give them space to grow into their lives.

So I think it's about clarity on non-negotiables and then remembering to just have fun, to laugh. I think it helps when you're really attracted to the person. But attraction fades or at least changes over time. And so for me, I'm not. never once been bored in a conversation with my wife, even when we're silent. You know, there's so much there. And I just like deeply respect and admire who she is, what she's gone through. You know, it's strange without going into too much specifics on her life. We have this like

core foundational thing in common because she was a secret to, her father's family as well. And she found that secret out that she was actually adopted partially. And I don't, like I said, I don't want, she's open with it. So I feel comfortable saying this. I'm not betraying any trust. But I don't want to go into the full details of the story. But basically she has four siblings as well, half siblings. And none of them knew that she existed. And we didn't find this out pretty much until we were already really, really, falling in love. So it's very strange to have something that's such a unique experience in the world

be mirrored by my partner. I think we understand each other on levels that are beyond words. That's beautiful, man. What about you? Like, if you were to answer that same question, what are some of the things that you guys do to remain in sync and in unison with each other? So one of the things that was very helpful for my wife and I in the beginning even before, you know, we were engaged, is that I was a huge fan and a student of the Gottman method, which is a approach to evidence-based marital therapy,

but really it's so much bigger than marriage. It's like all the things that they do. teach doctors John and Julie Gottman, who are these researchers that are based in Seattle. And so much of what we have learned about therapy, especially when it comes to couples, had been kind of just like made up over the years or sort of one person's experience. But they brought more evidence-based of studying couples. And kind of the thing that they like really made them well known in the book, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, he wrote about them. And the book is all about intuition and how you can use this deep intuition to, you know,

train it over many years where you have like an incredible insight into something. And these guys, they came up with this process called thin slicing where they would get a couple in a room and they would say, talk to me about a problem that you guys had in the past. It's no longer a problem now, but it's something that you resolved in the past. And they would get these couples to talk about something like, overbearing in-laws or we would fight about money. And when the couples would talk about it, a large percentage of them, it actually, they would see a difference between couples that it was actually resolved for

and couples where it reignited the same exact way. They would film these conversations and they kind of blinded themselves about those couples in this research. And through this process of seeing this method called thin slicing where they would look at the conversation and they would look in particular for these four horsemen of the apocalypse is what they eventually ended up calling it, belligerence, hypercriticism, stonewalling, which is that thing that people do often men are guilty of of like the wife saying, well, you know, sweetie, I'm just bringing it up because like we're not mindful about the budget and I need to be, I want us to be more

mindful. And the guys like crosses his arm is like, you know, I don't want to talk about it. Right. that's stonewalling. So these four things that they saw would regularly happen, they had a 90% success rate of predicting which couples would get divorced. Wow. Within five years. And so they developed this whole methodology and this whole institute and everything. And on my sixth date with my now wife, it was still very early for us. And I'm going to tell a funny story actually here in a second. but it was still very early. And I said to her, I said, you know what, I always thought that when I get serious, now that I'm in my later 30s, when I'm serious about wanting to be serious with somebody.

So it's not like, hey, I'm ready to propose to you next week. It's like, hey, I'm very serious about us like getting serious. Like I can really see this going somewhere. I thought it'd be amazing to go to like a coach, a therapist, a somebody, and actually see, like, are we all on the same page about big things in life? And she sat there for a second, looked at me, and she said, I fucking love it. And I was like, all right. Let's go.

Let's go. So we didn't do that right then and then, obviously because we weren't in that space. We were still getting a chance to get to know each other. and everything. But about six, seven, eight months in, we were very clear like we could see a future. Now, I wasn't ready to propose to her, but in my head, I could see it all kind of happening and taking place and all playing out. We were still getting, she hadn't really spent a lot of time with my family. I don't, you know, we were still getting to know each other's world, seeing each other in context and everything. But we came back from this trip to Italy that we went to and we met with

a Gottman therapist here in Los Angeles. I'll give him a shout out. Michael, his name is Michael. We'll link to him in the show notes. I'm blanking on his last name. And we went to him and he said, okay, so tell me a little bit about you guys. I said, well, we're not married.

We're not engaged. We're actually still in the courting phase, but we're both serious about wanting to be serious with each other. And we wanted some help from somebody outside to make sure are we on the same page and we're talking about the big most important things about life and he said he paused for a second he looked at us and he said i can't tell you if more couples would do this the world would be a better place now along with that the thing that we were doing is we were going through these these deck of cards they're called the gotman 50 questions it's

actual deck of cards. It's called, sorry, 52, 52 questions before marriage and moving in. And we were using that as an opportunity to see, are we, you know, how do we feel about, you know, certain, it's like life, like, there's aspects of like raising a family and like your relationship with your current family. There's a whole section there about money, you know, processing emotions, like career. And they're just questions to create conversation. And we were making it fun. We were making it fun. We were making a fun. Like we do a couple questions each week. And we would, we would have like a glass of wine, you know, on a special occasion. We'd make it fun. And we'd work through those things. And that was

super helpful. And you know, friends often ask like, well, what if you guys actually found out that you weren't on the same page about some of those key areas? Would you have had the courage to say, listen, we're not on the same page? And I don't know the answer. We can all fall in like. And I don't and be obsessed about the person or attraction or whatever, and I'm not gonna say that I'm not victim to that same thing. But I had to have hoped that we approached it so intentionally that we went in knowing that that could have been the situation. And I think that we were more intentional about that

and we were more focused about that because we had both felt like we had been in a couple of relationships and you didn't find out until like a year in, a year and a half in until you're already together, that actually there's some basic things. that you don't actually are not on the same page about things that would be these deal breakers later on in life and would cause both parties stress. That doesn't mean the person's a bad person. It just means that if you would have known them sooner, everybody could have saved a little bit of heartache. So, foundationally, that's where we started. I love that. What it seems to me is that

you took a course and had guidance around figuring out your non-negotiables. Yes. Because if you know what is non-negotiable, the rest of the things are negotiable. You could just negotiate. And then when you're in a fight about something or a conversation about something that might be a little bit more challenging because there's been a conflict, you're fighting or you're discussing to be seen and to be heard, but you're on the same side. You're not fighting to win. It's when you start fighting to win, you realize either you're dealing with something that's non-negotiable or your ego is getting in the way.

And you have forgotten that you're on the same side. You should be fighting for the middle ground so that you guys can actually move on together. It's great that you found a way to fast forward that process and that you did it so early because it does take time to get to know somebody really, right? And in those beginning stages, when you fall in love with those projections that you have of each other, or just experiences or whatever's going on with your serotonin and, you know, eventually it at least starts to less and then you're like, oh, these speed bumps come up and you have to like deal with them in figuring out

who it is that you are continuing to say yes to on a daily basis. I think you always need to approach a relationship with like, as if it's an archaeological site and you just take a brush and you're just like brushing away whatever is there, rather than like a jackhammer, because you're going to mess it all up.

But, you know, on the topic of fighting, if I could jump in. Yeah, yeah, please. A lot of people actually don't know how to fight the right way. Again, like you said, when people fight, because they saw this demonstrated when they were growing up, it was modeled. And most people talk to others how they were spoken to. And as a kid, you just absorb all that, right?

Your brain is primarily in theta up until the age of seven. You're just absorbing. you're a sponge, even if you realize it or not realize it. And a huge part of the, you know, the Gottman method, you know, shout out to them is they teach you how to actually, what does it look like to disagree and fight? Because the opposite is true in their research. They found out that couples that don't fight actually have less longevity. Yeah, of course. So if you don't have the courage to bring something up and say that, hey, listen, I know you didn't.

maybe mean to do that, which by the way, that's called the soft starter. You know, you give somebody the benefit of the doubt and the relationship. Hey, sweetie, listen, I know it's been a busy time at work. I know you're, it's crazy with your family right now. I don't think you did this intentionally. And I noticed that you didn't X, Y, and C. Or I noticed that you forgot to fill up the car with gas when I had asked you yesterday because I had a long drive or whatever it is. Yeah. Right? You're softening it. And most people have never been taught that. They never saw that model. They never saw how to healthfully bring those things up and that it's actually not a bad thing, you know, especially coming from like an immigrant family.

Yeah. My parents kind of had that inherently sort of baked in, but I thought early on in sort of my dating sort of life and other stuff, I just would not bring stuff up. And I thought that, oh, I'm going to be the bigger person. I'm not going to bring things up. And then I'm holding stuff on inside, which is a terrible thing to do. If you actually care somebody, you care about somebody, you want to bring it up and you want to bring it up in a way that you still are letting them know, like, you're

You love them, even though in this moment you might be a little bit pissed off. Well, that's part of love. Anger is part of life. You're allowed to be annoyed. You're allowed to be frustrated. You're allowed to be angry. And they are allowed the same. What's interesting is that negotiables can become non-negotiables if they're not expressed.

Things that are just like a random part of relationship, if they're not spoken about, they can kind of like become resentment. And these are the things that wind up closing the curtains on our heart. And then you start building a wall. And then you put archers way up high. And now you're not even really with the person anymore. The person that you're supposed to be closest to in the world. The person that you're building your life with.

And that's when you start to feel suffocated and imprisoned by your own unconscious decisions. It's much, much better to show up on a day-to-day basis, even if there's friction, than to create a bonfire later that burns you up. Do you have an example, you know, for those who are listening, and obviously people love the topic of love. I saw, you know, some of the folks that are here in the studio kind of perk up a little bit once we switch to that topic. What's an example of a non-negotiable?

Do you have anything that you feel comfortable mentioning? Well, for me, honestly, trust is to, to everything because I just didn't grow up feeling like I could fully trust mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. And so I knew that if I got into a relationship with somebody and said, I want to spend the rest of my life with this person. And one step beyond that, I want to create life with this person. I had to be willing to fully, like, show them all of who I am. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

And what you then realize is when someone loves your bad and ugly, it's not as bad as you thought it was. It's not as ugly as you thought it was. And you can almost, like, accept and integrate those parts of yourself. and alchemize them so that you feel lighter and have a better experience of being alive. You also get permission to the other person that they're ugly can be loved as well too, right? We all have it. I wouldn't want my wife to be any different, not one cell, but I hold the space for her to be

as different as she wants to be. God forbid, even if that took her away from me, even if her following her truth made her choose a different direction. I mean, the person that I love the most in the world could hurt me the most in the world. And by the way, even if we're together forever and we have this like unbelievable love story, in the end, I'm going to have to give all. of that up too, even my own identity. And that's to our earlier conversation, what makes life so sweet is the dichotomy, is the love and the loss. I'm curious from your perspective here, you know, just I'm throwing in a question for

myself because I'm actually, I love the way you think about the world and I'm curious from your experience. If there was somebody ever in a relationship that could not bring the level of trust that's there, right? You said, like, trust is a non-negotiable. For somebody that can't show up fully to that, what is it for that individual, that they've had a, you know, fucked up childhood that has, like, left them at an imprint where they never realized, like, what trust is? Like, if somebody can't bring that into a relationship, what do you think is going on with them? I don't know. And I'm saying that from a powerful place.

By the way, this is a bit of a departure, but I think that we need to reframe, I don't know, in our society. I think I don't know should be a perfectly appropriate answer to any question. And it doesn't mean that something's wrong. You're allowed to not know. That's a political thing.

I'm just putting that out there. I love it. We should all be, yes, we should all be allowed to not know. And in this particular case, I don't know, because I can't speak for anybody else's life or experience or even what they think trust is because that can be semantic, right? But what I know is that there are certain people that for them to have their perfect relationship, trust is not their non-negotiable.

Some people are like really happy to not have trust in a relationship. I don't understand that. You know, it doesn't make sense to me. But I know that that's true. Yeah. So one thing I'll say about my own experience and my path to finding love is that we tend to love people the way that we love ourselves. And I loved myself in a really unhealthy way for most of my life. I was very, like, violent to myself in my mind and self-destructive and a lot of my behavior.

And that led to me trying to love other people in that way. And it took a lot of work for me to change my relationship with myself. And it took a long time. There was even periods when, like, I said I was ready for a real relationship, but I chose people that were unavailable so that I could blame them for being unavailable when in reality I was unavailable. And that's why I was choosing people that were unavailable.

So it gets deep. It gets deep. It gets deep. But everything that I ever went through in partnership was necessary for me to be ready to meet my wife. When we went on our first date, at the end of the date we were having tea on her porch and she looks to me she's like how old are you I'm like I'm 39 she goes okay you've never had any kids I said no she said you've never been married

I said no she goes what's wrong with you and the thing is I knew why she was asking and she had every right to ask. But I had been asking myself the same question. I didn't feel comfortable answering. I was thinking, what's wrong with me? Like, am I actually not settling to settle down? Right? Because I know that there is something better out there for me, something that is more aligned, a real true trusting partnership, or am I just getting in the way of having to truly open up to another person. And I didn't know how to answer that question for myself. So I don't know how to answer it for her. So I literally was like, I don't feel comfortable answering that question. And then it got really awkward. And then the date ended like 10 minutes later. She's like, well,

okay. Yeah. And we both were like, deuces, you know, I don't think we thought we were going to have another date. But luckily, we did. And then when I asked her to marry me, I think it was like three years later or something. We've been together six years, married for three. So I think that's right on the timeline. I basically told her, I finally answered that question that she had forgotten about. And I was like, you're the reason that you asked. I was waiting for you. Yeah. That's beautiful, brother. I feel like on that note, you know, there's a few poems that touch on the theme of love but I'll turn it over to you anything that you want to share at where we are in the conversation as we're winding down here that that might piggyback off of that

theme of love or connection anything come up come to mind yeah I can actually do the one that I did in my proposal to Andriana and I can read that piece because I feel like it It makes sense. It's also in the album and the journal. And really, the album and the journal is about the path to self-love so that you can have love with someone else. Every love poem I ever wrote was about you. You are every dream I've ever had. Somehow they've come true. You are every dream I've never had. Somehow you've come true. I gaze into your eyes and know they'll never be a a better view. I see heaven in your face. I see children in your smile. I see our future and our present. Will you stay with me a while? Will you dance without the music? Will you laugh without the jokes?

Will you cry without a reason? Will you play with all the notes? I've come to love you in a way that is impossible to quote. Forever and a day is not enough. Forever. And, is a joke, any moment where together is forever, now or never, whether you are in my arms or too far away to measure, I respect you in the pain. I accept you in the pleasure. I'll be your shelter in the rain. You can shine in any weather. Every love poem I wrote was an invisible letter, reaching out beyond my time and space to what I would discover from a place that was unknown to a home inside each other. I am floating on a cloud. I am singing in a gutter. Our relationship is sailing and we do not need a rudder. I don't care

where we go from here because here is with each other. Your soul is like a mirror. You're a goddess and a lover. You're a sister and a brother. You're a father and a mother. You're a son and your daughter. You're a stranger and a friend, even when I end. Our love's not something I can transcend. You're more than just a perfect 10. And you're a perfect 10. But your beauty lies behind your skin. It's the way you taste reminding me of everyone I've been.

It's the way you smell reminding me of everywhere I've been. Your sweetness overwhelms me. Can we end where we begin? come back to write our stories intertwined again. You're the greatest poem I ever read. You made me find my pen. You're the greatest poem I ever wrote the wisdom from within. You inspired me. It took me lifetimes to comprehend. You're my who, what, where, and when. You're my why I even try. A vow to have you and to hold you till the day I say goodbye. I vow for better or for worse, as long as you are by my side, I vow to cherish you in sickness and health until I die.

On our first date, you asked me why I hadn't settled down. I refused to give an answer, but I have your answer now. I was always waiting for you. You're the reason that you asked. My words have never done you justice, but I've searched for them at last. I've asked myself a thousand questions about who I want to be. I've asked myself a thousand questions to reflect on you and me. I've asked myself a thousand questions, but your loves would set them free.

There's only one question left. So I'll ask it on one knee. Will you marry? That's beautiful. That poem's titled Love and a great way to put a little cherry on top of this conversation. Adam, this has been fantastic, brother. Thank you for being on the podcast and sharing your beautiful art with us

and reminding the audience and me. I need this reminder too that we all have this inability inside of us. We have this ability inside of us to create art and anything that sort of distracts us from that. And there are a lot of distractions

that are there in the world, that's okay. We can always come back to it. And with a little prompt, with a little guidance, we can step back in that creativity, doesn't have to look however we imagined, we're all creative, and it can allow something truly magnificent to unfold. Thank you, man. So I appreciate that reminder, brother.

Yeah, I appreciate you. Thank you for having me and sharing my heart with your community and anybody who wants to listen to the album, it's out on all streaming, services, you know, Apple and Spotify and anybody who wants to get the journal. It's on passion planner.com or I.N. dash Q.com. I think it'll be on Amazon as well. And maybe this is something like the Gottlie program that couples can also go through together. Yeah. If they want to get to know each other on a deeper level through poetry. Oh, that's a great idea. So maybe you'll go through it

with your lady. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you again for coming on the podcast. We'll have the links for everything you mentioned in the show notes below. Thanks, man. 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.

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