Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Andrew Zimmern, Chef and TV Personality

Episode Date: July 11, 2018

This week’s conversation is with Andrew Zimmern, a four-time James Beard Award-winning TV personality, chef, writer and teacher.Andrew is regarded as one of the most versatile and knowledgeable personalities in the food world. As the creator, executive producer and host of the Bizarre Foods franchise on Travel Channel, The Zimmern List and Andrew Zimmern’s Driven by Food, he has explored culture through food in more than 170 countries.He has built a multi-faceted empire that promotes impactful ways to think about, create and live with food.On the surface Andrew is wildly successful – he’s highly ambitious and has an insatiable curiosity for life but in this conversation he pulls back the curtain and we get to learn about a different side of him.Andrew’s affinity for risk taking led him down a path that almost cost him his life.And that is at the heart of what this conversation is all about.Andrew holds nothing back.The pain he endured, what he ultimately learned about himself, and how it’s impacted the work he does today.We all have challenges we’re dealing with—whether it be issues at work, your personal life, addiction, searching for purpose, and I truly believe this conversation has something to offer for everyone._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I'm Michael Gervais. And by trade and training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist, as well as the co-founder of Compete to Create alongside of head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Pete Carroll. And the idea behind these conversations is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery, to better understand what they're searching for, what they're hungry for, what they're driven by, their psychological framework, if you will, how they make sense of the world themselves in it, events that take place, both easy events and difficult events. And we also want to pull back the curtain to see if we can find the mental skills that they use to build and refine their

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They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually tastes good. Dr. Peter Attia, someone who's been on the show, it's a great episode by the way, is also their chief science officer. So I know they've done their due diligence in that category. My favorite flavor right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough.

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to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Now, this week's conversation is with Andrew Zimmern. He's a four-time James Beard Award winning TV personality, chef, writer, and teacher. Andrew is regarded as one of the most versatile and knowledgeable personalities in the food world. And as the creator, executive producer, and host of the Bizarre Food franchise, it's on Travel Channel if you're not familiar with

it, he's explored culture through food in more than 170 countries. And he's built this multifaceted empire that promotes impactful ways to think about and create and live with food. And he's wildly successful by all conventional measures, a strong love life. He's got health. He's got his ambitions and dreams have actually turned into a lifestyle and he has an insatiable curiosity for life. With that success, there is far more to him than just a highlight reel. With it, it comes a multifaceted experience with inner pain and addiction and recovery. And in this conversation, Andrew pulls back the curtain and we get to learn about a different side of him, a side that, if we're honest, all of us have. We've all touched loneliness and hurt and sadness. And some people spend far more time in those states than others.

And some of us numb and distract ourselves because of the fear of feeling those prickly emotions, but we all have them. And in my best estimate about how people grow and develop, we do need to honor that side of ourselves and to know that side of ourselves so that we can develop that strength of mind to hold a compassionate gaze for our true self, our complete self, and not just that shiny highlight reel that we want to show others. And the whole purpose for that, that honest, compassionate strength is so that we can do the same for others.

We all need to belong. That's it. That's a flat out deep human need. And my heart just breaks in this conversation. Andrew lost one of his fellow colleagues and friends, Anthony Bourdain. And if you are struggling with depression or you know somebody who is, I just want to encourage you as a psychologist, put your hand up, find a skilled psychologist in your neighborhood or a therapist to help navigate this very challenging human condition. And Andrew's affinity for risk-taking led him down a path that he almost didn't come out of. It almost cost him his life. So this conversation is rich in tone. I want you to spend time with it. I want to encourage you to do that. And Andrew holds nothing back. The pain he has endured, what ultimately he learned about himself and how it's impacted the work or personal life or addiction or searching for purpose. We all have challenges. We're trying to sort this shot that we have together out.

And I just believe that this conversation has something to offer for everyone flat out. And with that, let's jump into this week's conversation of enthusiasm and honesty and hope and love and passion with Andrew Zimmern. Andrew, how are you? Perpetually tired, Michael. Perpetually tired. Where does the tired come from? I don't get enough sleep. And I know how important sleep is. I mean, I read, uh, you know, to the best of my ability. Uh, but if I, if I had to change, uh, a couple of things in my life, one of them would be a little more rigorous attention

to getting the seven or eight hours that I get a night instead of the five or six that I get a night. Okay, cool. What are you getting? Like, what is your average? Uh, probably, uh, closer to six on average. And, you know, as I age, I'm 56. I realized that I probably, that I function much better when I have a little more sleep. Yeah. Um, but the fact of the matter is, is that, um, there's so much going on in my life and I feel so much pressure internally to suck every ounce of pleasure and experience, both good and bad, that life has to offer that I try to stay awake for most of it. And there always seems to be something to do that really interests me. And, you know, I mean, that, and that can range from, I mean, what did I do last night? I wrapped up watching Ozark, uh, a great series on Netflix. Um, did you binge watch? Well, no, I, but I saved the last episode and then I realized the episode was an hour and 25 minutes long and it's riveting.

And if people haven't seen it, it's one of the best produced television shows that I've seen in a long, long time. But the fact of the matter is, is that for anyone who has seen it um going to sleep it's not the kind of show that you watch episode 10 and you say okay i'm ready to go to sleep now yeah it's it'll stir you up i've really yeah my wife and i watched it um like as we consumed as fast as you possibly could and i don't watch i don't watch tv and that was something that was it felt like a great treat oh no it's it's it's unbelievable i think one of the best things to happen uh in the media business uh in the last decade has been the predominance of quality uh shows that are available um in non-traditional formats mean, they're just some of the best stuff that's being

made out there right now are, are original programs, you know, on Netflix and Amazon and Hulu or, you know, documentaries that would never have been made 10 years ago, but, you know, have an audience now, whether it's HBO docs, Netflix docs, et cetera, it's, it's a real, um, it's been a real boon for those of us who love to consume that type of entertainment. And not only you are, you know, a host and also a curator of a show, but are you also involved in a production company as well? Yeah. I mean, I have too many jobs. I mean, that's, I need a, I need a, I need a serious editor to come into my life and start, you know, hacking away all the different things that I do. But I'm endlessly fascinated. I'm a serial entrepreneur

and I'm endlessly fascinated by so many things that I am always exploring the idea of, you know, how can I do X better? And oftentimes it comes down to taking a project in-house and developing a business around it. And so, you know, I got into television, I became successful at it. And so the very next step is let's bring the, you know, that world in house and start producing our own content. It, it happened in the branding and marketing business and I started a branding and marketing company called Foodworks. It's happened in the hospitality business and I started a company called Passport Hospitality. And so our team, Zimmern Inc., is really three different companies all housed in the same warehouse space in Minneapolis. And there's a lot of overlap.

There's a lot of projects we do that all three companies work on or two or three companies work on. And so the formula has been good. But, you know, I really didn't imagine as I went down that path, you know, 10, eight, five, even three years ago that, you know, one of the things that I would have to do is be the, you know, a, a, a, a corporate guy who is, you know, supervising, you know, two or three dozen employees across several businesses. Okay. So the three businesses are the production house under Inc are the production house, the, um, hospitality. And what was the third one? It was a branding and marketing company, branding, marketing, food works, food works is our branding and marketing group. Intuitive content

is our production company and a passport hospitality is our, uh, is our production company and Passport Hospitality is our hospitality company. OK, cool. And then you've also written a couple of books. I've written four. I've taken a break from writing books for the last three or four years and we're working right now on a three-book deal that will hopefully get signed in the next couple of months. Okay. All right. So – all right. Great. Now that's a full – that's a full plate. Great job giving us that picture.

That being said, you said something at the top that I want to go back to. And at the top you said pressure comes from within and it comes from you wanting to do more. Is that, so when you, when you say that, and that's why you're not sleeping, you know, as much as you'd like to. And so is that because like there's an anxiousness that's an unsettled thing underneath, or is that because it's like this, uh, ambition the, or is it like really a seekers of voyagers type of quest to go explore more? What, where, where does that come from for you? Well, it's all three and it really depends on, on, you know, what time of day you catch me and what I'm involved in. Um, let me work backwards. I am insane. I think one of the secrets to my success is that I am insanely curious. I've created a syllabus for myself of ongoing education that

has provided me endless amounts of enjoyment and inspiration and leads me into places to do things that I never would have dreamed possible. So I could spin it very nicely for you that it's all the proactive positivity of someone who is a seeker and a curious human being that wants to make the world a better place. And that's very true. That's not a lie. But it's also not the entire picture. I think anyone who is successful by generic societal standards, who doesn't cop to having a big ego, low self-esteem and a lot of ambition is lying. I've just never found that not to be true. It just varies.

The percentage of each pillar varies within each individual. But of course I'm ambitious. Of course, I have a big ego. And, you know, everything that goes along with those, those issues has to be managed very carefully. Because left on left unchecked, it can become extremely problematic. The last piece of the puzzle is that as a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and I've been sober now for 26 years, I feel like I missed a decade. The 1980s are kind of hazy for me. I didn't accomplish anything. I don't remember much. I was a slave to chemicals and alcohol.

And over the course of that decade, in simplest terms, I was a user of people and a taker of things. So here I find myself, you know, 26 years, you know, from coming into sobriety and I still feel like I am making up for the time that I lost. And what, what are you making up? Is it with the ambition or is it with the relationships or is it of the giving as opposed to taking like what what how do you make it up well i think i'm it's it's all of that and more um first of all to to stay right sized um and more importantly to stay sober and maybe most importantly, to be, you know, happy, joyous, free, uh, to be a, uh, to be a productive member of society. You have to change the basis of your life, uh, you know, both, you know, physically, spiritually, emotionally. And so you have to turn that around and be a contributor, be a giver. What can I bring to the, to the party instead of what can I take?

Um, that's obviously a large component, um, of it, but, uh, you know, I think I think mostly it's it's, you know, embracing an attitude that you. Your life is more fulfilled and your legacy can be greater by living a life that's more action oriented. Life isn't to me about thinking, you know, I, I can't, and I can't think myself into right acting, but I sure can act myself into right thinking. So by getting active and be a human doing instead of a human being allows me to accomplish a lot, make a bigger impact, leave a bigger legacy. And that includes that's not just in work. That's, you know, as a parent, as a friend, in my relationships, and in my relationship with myself as well. Okay, so you're putting interesting that you're putting doing in front of being, and you're saying, if I'm not doing right, then my being isn't right.

Is that the order? That is for me, that for me, that is correct. If I try to think my way into right acting, it never happens. I'll give you the most obvious example. It's, Hey, what's your new year's resolution? I don't have one. I mean, you know, what do I, I think I'm going to start going to the gym. I think I'm going to, you know, make these changes in my life. That's going to be, it's never worked for me. You know, I am one of those people for whom, you know, a dream is, is something that I, I excise that term from my vocabulary. I think if you put a date and a little bit of an action plan against a dream, then it becomes something that is workable and attainable and is available for

everyone. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to happen the way you plan, but at least it means along the way, with the marching towards that, um, positive things are going to come from it. Okay. So on, before we got going on your whiteboard, you had lots of diagrams and lists and, and interactive, you know, types of, uh, lines drawn across your whiteboard. Is that your action? Was that a quick glimpse of, of an action plan or is that more, um, do you have another format you use for action planning? Uh, it's part of it. Um, I am a, I'm a very visual person and sometimes I think big plans and projects can actually be, uh, diagrammed out and, and, and worked on like a math problem.

And a lot of the stuff behind it, I'm looking at it right now, several of them are restaurant projects. One is a project that I'm doing with a giant food hall here in town. Another one is some in-house reorganization of one of our companies. I actually took our conference room and I had all three, it was a glass wall, and then I have the other three walls are all painted with whiteboard material because I need a lot of space to draw. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be

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So it's, is it fair to, I don't want to oversimplify you by any means, because we're just getting to know each other here, but is it fair to say you're a visual thinker? You're an extraordinary doer. You're highly ambitious. You're a risk taker, evidenced by the drugs. And, you know, that's an insatiable curiosity is kind of a prime driver. Are those some of the big movers for you? Yes. And I would tell you to crawl back out of my head, you evil genius.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, actually, I'm just repeating pretty much what you said. Yeah. So that's good. You threw in risk taker, which was a, a very accurate, uh, assessment. Um, most people, when they, they hear the term addict or alcoholic, don't jump to risk taker right away. Yeah. I mean, it's because they don't understand it. Yeah.

Well, exactly. Exactly. And you do. And your professional life has given you insight into people like me that a lot of other people don't. But risk and the management of that is a very big part of my story. You know, risky behaviors can be very detrimental to progress and success. And the timely and appropriate risky moves are something that I is now a strength of mine,

because I've eliminated the vast majority of, you know, just stupid, you know, ridiculous, risky moves. It's, you know, I find a lot of parables in the game of backgammon. I don't know if you play backgammon. I have. Yeah. But there are times in the game. Well, I mean, I'll use I'll use a football analogy, second quarter tie game, and you're at mid midfield and, you know, it's fourth in inches and your defense is playing well, that's a time to go for it. You know, the same kind of game status, third down, that's a that's or second down. It's a good place to put in a trick play. You know, it's a good place to try a fake punt. In other words, from a risk standpoint, all of those are, you know, are low probability chances of success in terms of plays, but it's the right time in the game to pursue it. And I think the accurate assessment of risk reward

is something that's a big part of the last 10 years of my life. And a inaccurate reading of risk and reward is a big part of the first 30 years of my life. Yeah. Okay. So let's, let's assume that you're highly or fairly or extraordinarily somewhere in that top range skilled at risk-taking. The only way that you get good at risk-taking is to know the boundaries and sometimes get burned by them. And anyone, you know, and that's where the drug use takes place, because if you're going to have the courage to experiment and say, I'll try that, you know, there's all types of brain centers that, you know, they're highly active during those types of moments. But there's a cost to it. And, you know, exploring that risk process is extraordinary.

And it can become a finely tuned skill. It sounds like you're on it. And I'd like to know if you're more of a risk mitigator or risk taker. And in, and there is a difference between that, like gating out risk, you know, versus like a hungry consumption of risk. And then I'd like to know if there's different types of risk, like there's financial risk, there's moral risk, there's emotional risk, there's physical risk, you know, there's different types of risks. And I'd like to know what type you are. So risk mitigator or taker, and it could be for sure the combination of both. And then, um, where you're for sure. I'm for sure a risk taker and

very consciously surrounded myself with people who are risk mitigators or risk adverse. Yeah. So they say, Hey, Andrew, wait a minute. Yeah. The last thing as a risk taker, I, in exploring that and being honest with myself, I thought, well, how much am I going to really change? I can be healthier about it. I can, uh, use it less in, in places where it could result in too much harm in my life. I'm not a risky parent, for example. But, you know, in business, I found that through a lot of life experience, that if I surrounded myself with the right people and actually listened to them and had enough people with alternate opinion and a different model for achieving the same goals that I want, that I could at least be aware and put enough boundaries in place for myself so that I was as aware as I could be and make the best possible decisions that I was capable of. Left to my own devices and alone, I think I would have made a lot more mistakes. To consciously put more, I guess, spaces between my thoughts and my actions was a very conscious thing when it comes to my business.

I love that thought. How did you create more space? Because that space is like what you just described is like as deep as it possibly can get about the human experience. You know, like the space between thoughts and the space between thoughts and actions is extraordinarily difficult to do, especially at a time right now when we are 24-7 on the go. Yeah. Sure. Well, I mean, you know, it's I mean, to me, that's the that's the real key to life. And I learned the hard way by, you know, making some horrific decisions for, you know, a decade at least, where I would think something and immediately react to it. And when I came into

sobriety, I started to embrace a different way of thinking and a spiritual practice that focused on putting actual time between what we're thinking about and what I would do. Now, that doesn't mean if I see a bus hurtling towards a baby carriage that you don't dive in and push the baby carriage out of the way. I'm not talking about that type of thinking, but in terms of just work a day life, you have the thought that, uh, you're going to, you know, wait a couple of days before you call the girl back for a second date. So I have that thought that I'm going to, I'm going to be Mr. Cool, just as an example, as a younger man. Um, now left to my own devices, I'm, I'm just gonna think that thought and then take that action. The spaces that I put between what I think and what I do now involve living my life more openly and bringing other people in on the most intimate decisions in my life so that I can. Be exposed to the the idea that what I'm thinking isn't necessarily the best course of action. Now you can, some people

call that humility. You know, I actually saw it more as a chop wood, carry water sort of utilitarian thing that if I, in general, try to, you know, talk to other people, seek counsel, discuss, turn things over. It's the results were always much better. I used to be an impulse chopper. I and I used to joke with people, I don't shop, I just go out and buy. And I would, you know, write something down on a on a post it note, like, Oh, I really want a 1960s, you know, Fillmore Easter West, you know, rock and roll poster from, you know, an era of music that I happen to love. And then you just go online and, you know, you buy it and, uh, you know, and then you wonder why you can't pay your electric bill at the end of the month. Well, you know, that $5,000 poster that you put, yeah, I convinced myself it's a great investment.

It's worth more now than when I bought it, blah, blah, blah. But if you talk that out with another human being, whether it's a friend, a loved one, spouse, spiritual advisor, colleague at work, whatever, hey, I'm thinking about doing this. The other person's first reaction might be, wow, those are really expensive. I, you know, that's so cool that you can afford it. Oh, well, you know, it's really pushing things. I'm not really sure I can afford it. You have a different kind of conversation with them and one that gives you pause. There's other ways to do that. I mean, I use prayer and meditation. I try to, you know, wait 24 hours before I make any big purchase. Obviously,

at work, you can actually put actual stopgaps and filters and policies in place so that certain types of things aren't acted on until a group of people agrees on it. I mean, those are all different ways in which we can actually put that space between our thoughts and our actions. I think it goes back, though, maybe just a little further, and I don't want to get too crunchy in our thinking about this whole thing, but the roots of it are in the fact that, you know, I had, you know, several insane tragedies in my life, and I survived them. And kind of like Joseph Campbell and the hero's journey and all of the other writings that have been similar to that, that have evolved over the years, you you, if you survive that kind of stuff, if you really get, you know,

the trial by fire early enough in your life, you are forced to embrace a different way of thinking is simply to survive that. And you then have real experience in your life to draw from that makes it easier when it comes to using that same sort of solution set in your life when there's not tragedy exploding all around you. You know, it can be right. It sounds like you have and when I say can be some people are haunted by their experiences. And it sounds like if I had to make a guess that you had some heavy stuff early, and I'd like to know one or two of those just for context. And then part of the reasons you love drugs, because it took away some of that turmoil, some of that inner, inner conflict and pain. And that but that's a total guess.

Yeah, no, no, it's, it's absolutely right on. I mean, I was 13 years old, I came back from summer camp, and my mother had had an accident in the hospital. They had given her the wrong anesthesia during surgery and she was in a coma. A portion of her brain had become nonfunctional and that was the sort of the traumatic event of of my life quickly followed by a series of other traumatic events, you know, having to do with school and friends and the parent I was living with and, you know, living situation and all that other stuff. And it happened to me during my – in between my 13th and 14th birthdays. That year was one that looking back has become the greatest source of strength for me. But at the time was certainly the most horrific 12 months that I've lived through. So I had dabbled. I smoked pot a couple of times, but I also had nip sips at daddy's liquor cabinet.

My older cousins had gotten me a couple of beers once or twice and I ended up passing out or whatever. I knew that there were chemicals out there. There were things that, that existed that would transform the way that I was feeling numb myself. And I, I became a classic New York city garbage head almost immediately. I mean, my drug use, you know, the first year went from, you know, casually buying, you know, a little bit of weed in Central Park to I mean, within, oh, gosh, two months, I had figured out that because there was an envelope with a couple hundred dollars in petty cash underneath the silverware drawer in the in the kitchen of the house I grew up in, that I could take that money, I could buy a large quantity of drugs, I could sell it, I would be able to return the $200 to the little petty cash where no one would be the wiser if I did it quickly enough. And I'd have enough chemicals, because at the time, I was on allowance that didn't have enough money to support my, my newfound love. So within about six months, I was, you know, regularly consuming hallucinogenic mushrooms, quaaludes, weed, booze, coke. I mean, you know, you, you name it, I was

into it. And of course, then actual physical addiction occurs. The phenomenon of craving becomes a large part of your life and you start to enter in as a – as someone who was an alcoholic before he even picked up the first drink or drug. Your chemical use starts to support the ill thinking in your head. And the rest is, they say is history. Wow. Okay. And so the, I mean, evidence of your ability to take risks,

evidence of your ability to get skilled at risks. And, you know, I, you know, many people don't make it out. And so how do you think you did make like it through? And I've, I've loved if I could just say something to you and then, you know, many people don't make it out. And so how do you think you did make like it through?

And I've, I've loved if I could just say something to you and then, and then tell me if I'm off or, or right about it is that my experience with some of my favorite people, by the way, in, in the world period are people that have come through recovery and it's because they've gone to the edges, they've slipped off the edge, they've somehow clawed onto the edge of the cliff, you know, by hook and crook and fingernails and just hold it onto the ropes or whatever that are the tree branches that are not supposed to be on the edge of the cliff. And they climb and claw their way back up. And the new experience that they have based on this rebirth, this redoing, if you will, of the understanding of the stages of becoming a man or

woman are extraordinarily rich, extraordinarily rich and deep. And they come through it with a sense of fidelity, like they can honor another person's experience independent of their own when they do it well. And that's one of the reasons they're my favorite folks that go to the hard yards. So for you, what was what was it that allowed you to, um, follow Joseph Campbell? I'm leaving a couple of stories, follow Joseph Campbell's, um, journey back home with the elixir. Like what was it that was the trigger for you to say, I got to get my shit together? Well, I definitely think that some of us have better survival skills than others. I certainly think at the end of the rope, I wanted to let go and just have the whole thing be over. I know that I didn't want to claw my way

back up. I felt that there were winners and losers in life. And clearly I was a loser. And I just I just wanted to check myself into into a flop house hotel and just drink myself to death. And it, it didn't work. Did you try? Did you try? Oh, yeah, no, no, I went into my godmother's house, I stole a bunch of drugs. I stole a bunch of jewelry. I hopped them. I got a little nest egg together. I checked into a flop house hotel in New York city called the San Pedro that doesn't exist anymore and locked myself in the room and, you know, bought a couple of cases of vodka from across the street at the liquor store and tried to drink myself to death. It didn't work. And I woke up one morning, actually, January 24, 1992. And I, I may have been there three days,

I may have been there five days, I couldn't tell you and nobody knows. But for the first time in my life, I mean, really since memory of childhood, I woke up that morning without the ace bandage of fear and anxiety cinched across my chest. I had been the guy that every room he walked into, he pulled the phone jack out of the wall. You know, I had three year old newspapers sitting in the corner of every room I slept in for the last 10 years, uh, before I sobered up. Um, I did not want to participate in the reality of life. All I was doing was attempting to earn a living and pay for my needs. And my primary need was drinking and drugging. That was my higher power. The only thing that I had faith in was that if I could move throughout the day, just maintaining, you know, my high because I had a physical need for the drugs at that point,

otherwise I would be sick. I could then get as high as I wanted and be free from all of this, this, this pressure and this tension that I was living with. And I woke up that morning, January 24, completely free of that feeling. And it only lasted about five minutes, it turned out. But I didn't know that at the time. But during that five minutes, I actually plugged the phone back into the wall and called my best friend at the time and asked for help. And it was enough to set the ball rolling that several days later, I walked into what was an intervention that started this current sobriety. I got a one way ticket to Minnesota. And my friends had booked a space for me at a treatment center here in Minnesota called Hazelden. And I kind of went kicking and screaming, you know, I, all of that willingness that I had during those five minutes kind of disappeared. But at the very least, I got on the plane, a lot of which was circumstantial. I had nowhere else to go. I had been homeless for my last year living in New York. Um, I had squatted a building down on Sullivan street with a bottle

gang that I had been drinking at, at a shot in a beer bar on 43rd and 11th Avenue, 43rd and 10th Avenue. Um, I had disappeared. I was living completely off the grid. My mother thought I was dead. My father, uh, you know, did not think I was dead because he thought that I was just, I was just too tough. And, uh, I, you know, I had thrown away everything and while, while going kicking and screaming, you know, I did in fact go. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down.

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like the down and outs, whether it was the, whether somebody was homeless or not, but for you, it was like you were in the streets and you know, people will say like, it was the dirt under my nails. That was the worst part. And other people say, no, it's the misery of being alone. You know, what was the worst part for you? The worst part was crossing every moral boundary that I had ever set for myself in pursuit of getting high. I didn't bathe for a year. I was dirty. I didn't communicate with a real human being for that last year. I was lonely. All of that was a moot point because at some point during

the day, I got high enough that I never considered those things. But when you're stealing purses off the backs of restaurant chairs to run to Central Park, vault the wall, walk down to 59th Street, 57th Street, hop on a subway, sell the passport and credit cards, whatever was in the purse, keep the cash, you know, and, and, and become a, you know, a petty thief was something that I didn't imagine my life was going to be like when I was, you know, a history and art history major at Vassar College, or a student at the Dalton School in New York, or, you know, a young kid at Camp Moosehead in, in Raymond, Maine, was not part of my plan. You know, the place that my addiction brought me, you know, in the abandoned building that I was squatting, you know, no electricity, cement casements instead of windows. The one conscious act that I made sure I took care of every day was stealing bottles of comet cleanser from the local bodegas downtown where I was living so that I could dump a bottle in a big ring around the pile of dirty clothes and rags that I slept on every night so that

ultimately when I passed out, the roaches and the rats wouldn't crawl across me during my sleep. You were a mess. What a mess. Oh my God. And the worst part about that, and some people are horrified to hear it, but the worst part about it actually was that I thought it made all the sense in the world. I was just being practical. And when you look back on that, it's crazy what drugs will do. It's like, it really is. It's crazy. Now, you know, then, then there were also, you know, the, I mean, the other just sort of awful ways I abused relationships in people. I, you know, as a child of privilege growing up in New York, I knew, you know, ways around fancy apartment buildings so I could steal things. I.

Oh, so you came, you came from privilege. Yes, I knew. And I knew how restaurants work. So I knew the places that I could steal purses off the, you know, backs of chairs and things like that. I knew the, the, the types of places I could dine and dash if I wanted a meal that wasn't at a soup kitchen. I, I, I had a skillset for living in the street that allowed me, uh, to survive. And, you know, it was, I mean, just a horrible, shameful, tawdry lifestyle that I was living, just just basically living to get high at the end. And there's no other there's no other way to describe it. Okay, two, two part question is, did you work a 12-step program? And I'm really thinking about steps eight and nine. And if you didn't, that's okay.

We'll move on to the second one. And the second question is, how have you used these experiences, the lost year, the lost decade, and to be extraordinary in your current I don't know how to say it, but to be extraordinary in your current life? Like, how have you used it? And did you work a 12 step? I went to Hazelden, I immediately rejected all I heard was God and 12 step programs. And I thought 12 step programs were a bunch of old men in the basement of churches. And I thought of God as being something kind and benevolent that was a relationship available to other people, but not for me. And several weeks into my stay, I had been encouraged to just, and by the way, I was just going along so that I wasn't kicked out and didn't get in trouble.

They told me, just pick a higher power. Pick anything. But you have to believe in something bigger than you. You were a hustler, huh? Yeah, and all I believed in was my drugs and my abilities to survive. And so I ended up picking a tree outside of my room. And I guess about two weeks in, they came in, they said, Oh, we need to take a blood test and give you an AIDS, a run the blood for a bunch of things, but including an AIDS test. And, uh, I gave my blood and 48 hours later, I got the message on

the unit that I was living on to go down to the nurse's office. And I knew that it was, I was going to get the results of my test. And I walked into the nurse's office and I'll never forget this experience as long as I live. Cause it was a, it was a big moment for me. I just started sobbing uncontrollably. And the nurse there asked me why I was so upset. And I told her that, you know, every risky behavior associated with with AIDS, I had participated in. And that, you know, for sure, my test was going to come back positive. And I had been dry at that point for two weeks. And so I was aware of this word called consequences. And I thought to myself, well, well, there it is. That's the piper I'm going to have to pay. This is just being set up. I've seen this story played out before. Here we go.

So you started praying to the tree? I was beyond that ability to pray to the tree. I'm joking. At that point. No, no, no. But this is a very – because I'm going to come back to the tree. Okay, good. So all I'm doing is dwelling in this negative future fantasy that the nurse is going to tell me I have AIDS. I'm going to be dead in a week. Do you remember what that was like?

Terrifying. Okay. I mean truly terrifying. And it was the root cause of being so, so emotional. I mean I was almost hyperventilating and sobbing. And the nurse said something very interesting to me. She says, you know, first of all, you can't tell what's going to happen 30 seconds from now. So, you know, you shouldn't assume that you know what the future holds for you. And I kind of looked at her, you know,

with that, what do you mean feeling? And she said, you know, the fact of the matter is, is that I could tell you that you have, uh, that you're HIV positive and you could get on a course of medicine and have a happy, productive life and die at age 100, surrounded by loved ones and family. Or I could tell you you're not HIV positive and hand you tomorrow's winning Powerball ticket for $400 million. And you could go running out into the street, jumping up and down for joy and get hit by a bus. You really don't know what's going to happen. Life is all about seconds and inches. Just look at your own story. How many times you could have been killed? How many times you didn't deserve to wake up the next day? How many times you, you did wake up the next day. And I just started to, I mean, you know, in the wink of an eye,

looked at my own story through a different lens. And she said, by the way, you're HIV free, your blood tests came back, you're fine. In fact, your liver numbers are much better than we thought they would be on a different topic. And, you know, you don't have hepatitis C and, you know, I got a clean bill of health. And I went back to that tree and instead of asking for more things, I just said thank you. And I didn't realize it at the time. It had to be explained to me later. But that foundational experience, including simply saying thank you, became a daily spiritual practice that I could embrace. And I showed up that night at the, you know, evening, you know, 12 step lecture in the big hall at Hazelden with a much different attitude about life. I felt that I had been rescued from a sinking ship.

I felt gratitude for the first time in that I could remember. I had enough humility that I remembered from the previous couple of weeks of lectures, the spotting memory that I had, that all those people standing up on the stage talking to us each night, just recounting their stories, all had a couple of things in common. They'd gotten involved in 12 step recovery. Um, and they had, uh, gotten a, uh, uh, a sponsor in that 12 step group and they had maintained regular attendance and, you know, worked the steps and done what was asked of them, uh, in their recovery. And there was a guy on stage that night and I could relate to what he said. And I went up to him and I said, I need a sponsor. Would you be one? And he said, well, you're living in a, in a treatment center. And I live in St. Paul, Minnesota, and who knows where you're going,

but if you come down to St. Paul, Minnesota, when you're done with this, here's my number. And two weeks later, they told me that I was going to go the following week down to a halfway house in St. Paul. And I went mostly because it was, you know, a bed and, and three hot meals a day. Uh, and I had nowhere else to go, but also because I was convinced that I was just going to do what I was told that my way of doing things in life hadn't worked. It had only gotten me where I'd gotten. Um, and that I really needed to, I didn't need to be rehabilitated. I needed to be habilitated. I had no idea how to live life. And so I got together with this man who was my sponsor and still is today and started down a whole different kind of path. Is that why you live in Minnesota now?

That is true. That is why I live in Minnesota now? you going to come pick me up? And he just looked at me and he said, ask for help, ask around, start reaching out, start talking to people. Now he very easily could have come and picked me up. We we've talked about this for a long time and frequently with guys that I work with in 12 step programs that I'm a member of, I will sometimes gladly volunteer to go pick up someone and take them to a meeting. In fact, it's the type of service work that I embrace and encourage. But my sponsor was trying to gauge me to see if I would actually, you know, where my humility was at.

Would I reach out and ask for help? And, you know, I asked around the house I was living in. Turns out there were some other guys that regularly went to that meeting. I got a lift from them and, uh, I arrived about 10 minutes early and it was a, you know, snowy, cold night in early March. And it was a, uh, meeting at a house in the residential area of St. Paul. And there was a woman standing, the house was set back off the street. And there was a woman about 100 feet up this cobblestone path that led to the front steps of the of the building that the meeting was in. And I didn't know it at the time,

but she was the greeter. And I just remember her being, you know, older. She was in her sixties, very patrician looking, had this beautiful, uh, uh, coat on with a fur collar and fur cuffs. And she just looked clean and bright and sharp and classy. And just, I mean, she was shiny. And as I walked up the steps, she was a little bit further back, uh, set in off the sidewalk. Um, I started to do my usual modus operandi, which was to walk around her because I didn't want to encounter other human beings. I didn't want to talk to them. I didn't want to be judged. I was used to being the person that people wanted to avoid. And she kind of went out of her way to lean her arm out and say, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, where are you going? And she said, you know, hi, I'm, I'm Holly. And I said, said, I'm Andrew. And she, I don't know, she sent something, whatever. She gave me a little

one arm side hug and said, welcome, glad to have you here. And in the 50 feet that was left between her backside and the front step, um, I just burst into tears. And I realized that I hadn't had anyone that I sized up respectfully, the way I sized her up respectfully, wanting me to be a part of anything that they were involved in for years. I was the person all my life that was, you know, avoided and and walked away from. And here was someone telling me welcome. And it was that little bit of respect and dignity that we sprinkle on other people that allows the human spirit to revive that she gave me. It was an incredible gift that I got that night. And I, I just, I fell in love with that meeting. I fell in love with the process.

There was a, a rote way to do this thing because, you know, all I heard it at meetings, the first couple of weeks was you have to have a relationship with a higher power, greater than yourself in order for this to work. And I thought, well, for sure, I'm the one who's not going to get it. All these other people who are so happy, they got it, but I'm not going to get it. And it turned out I was very wrong. Um, in the, in the, in the steps that, you know, tells us that, you know, we will have that spiritual awakening sufficient to recover from alcoholism simply by doing what we're told to do through those steps. And I saw that there was this sort of rote way that I could go through, you know, putting one foot in front of the other and get well.

And it's been going strong for 26 years. dignity and respect as a medicine for the societal ills that I've encountered now that I'm on the far side of that has been the foundation on which I predicate all of my charitable work. We do a ton of that here, both from a corporate standpoint and for myself from an individual standpoint. It's why I'm so involved in politics. It's why I sit on so many boards. It's why I do all of my charitable work is that I learn that doing something for other people, while that was the key to my sobriety, the first 10 years that I was in recovery,

practicing those principles outside of my quote unquote, recovering life was really important because these were lessons for life, not just ones to be done when I'm, you know, dealing with my own personal wellness or trying to help another alcoholic or drug addict. And those same principles that I was learning and the same results that I had gotten, I could achieve anywhere else. And in fact, it's why I created Bizarre Foods. Bizarre Foods was not created as an entertainment program about a fat white guy that runs around the world and eats bugs. I left restaurants and started pitching this TV idea 15, 16 years ago. And it took me three, four years to get anybody to listen to me because I had a secret plan, which was I had

a Trojan horse, which was a show about exploring culture through food. But the real point of bizarre foods is for us to learn to practice patience and tolerance and understanding in a world that doesn't have a lot of it. And that I had seen that we were defining people by the things that we didn't have in common with that different sexuality, different religion, different skin color, different language, when in fact we should be celebrating our common humanity and that by doing so, we would allow ourselves to treat other people with dignity and respect and the world would be a better place. of, quote unquote, my recovering life, I've seen it work everywhere, whether it's my, you know, work with, you know, refugees, whether it's my work with, you know, people coming out of jails and institutions and helping them get jobs in the food service industry, whether it's, you know, my my board work at services for the underserved or Taste of the NFL or other hunger relief organizations I work with. You know, whether it's, you know, working with, you know, Food Action Policy Committee

and the Environmental Working Group and Plate of the Union to try to make sure that our farm bill gets passed with the right inclusions in it next year. Whether it's, you know, going to Capitol Hill with the one organization and fighting for the Electrify Africa campaign so that people in countries that don't have solid, reliable electrical grids can have them so that, you know, hospitals can keep, you know, vital medicines cold in a refrigerator and food can be frozen for distribution later, you know, in countries that don't have solid distribution systems for food. These were things that were all about providing other human beings with, you know, dignity and respect. And so everything that I learned my first six months

in recovery, uh, back in 1992 have been the templates by which not only do I run my life, not only do I run the rest of my charitable endeavors outside of the recovery rooms, but they've actually been the reasons that I've predicated my businesses on, including the thing that I'm arguably most well known for, which is bizarre foods. It was all about spreading the messages that I thought were vital ones for the world to hear. You know, you've in an amazing way, you've captured all the reasons that you're successful in reverse order is the dignity that you have for others. And then when day one, your sponsor said, Hey, be vulnerable and ask for

some help. In other words, be a normal person and be part of a community. Don't try to scam one, right? Don't try to hustle, but build a community built on and what you've come to learn dignity and respect. But then also like the planning that while you're in your hustle and you're snatching purses off backs of purses and you are getting the comment to clean your dirty clothes. That's all part of plans. And so like we started. Yeah. So when we started earlier in the conversation, you're like, listen, it's about doing and it's about having great plans. Well, you've been doing that since you were 17. And then, and then, you know, the risk-taking to, to, to taste calf brain

or bull testicles or all the grubs that you've put in your mouth, like, you know, come full circle to the thing that you're most well known for. That's, that's a lot of risk-taking in those small little momentary ways, but you've got a whole history of risk-taking to be vulnerable, to be part of a community, to accept a hug, to not be a jerk when she gave you a half hug. Like there's all those maybe more subtle risk-taking and deeper risk-taking of vulnerability than it is like putting something odd in your mouth. But to travel the world and to really understand people, right. Is it? Yeah, well, of course. And, and you know, you know, you know, this to be true. And, and I think, you know, people like, uh, you know, Brene Brown have, have, you know, created bestsellers based around this simple idea that the key to happiness is vulnerability.

And, uh, I, I have looked back on my life and seen that, that without a doubt, that is the case. There is, there is no better example, um, of how to be happy than in discussing, uh, the times in our lives when we're most vulnerable. Um, that's why I asked you about eight and nine, step eight and nine. And because that is really about, I don't know if you did the steps or not, but it sounds like you did, but like step eight and nine is about, Hey, get yourself together. Like who do you need to apologize, make amends to, and then actually have the courage and vulnerability to go you know say those things as long as it doesn't bring someone harm and i did you walk

the steps and still walking the steps or is that um not your process uh no that's that's my process i mean i'm extremely active that's it sounded that way. I continue to work with others and share that experience with other people. Without that, that's my medicine. I mean that's what keeps me alive and vibrant and keeps these ideas fresh and front and center in my head. Because if they go stale, you talk about steps eight and nine. And certainly those are the ones that tell us to go out and repair the damage of the past. emphasis on eight and nine that I think is in the most beautiful part of, uh, some of the other steps, most notably, and, you know, not to get too, you know, recovery geeked, but, you know, the 11th step tells us that when we make mistakes, there's a very simple

order of solutions, uh, to right those wrongs. And included in there is a direction in the – in our literature. It's actually at the bottom of page 84 of the – I think very famously, even outside the rooms of recovery in the big book of AA, that tells us to take a certain series of actions, the final one of which is to do something for someone else, because turning our thoughts to others will help us at this time. And it does not say to do something for another alcoholic or person in trouble. It just says do something for others. And I have used that as a daily spiritual practice, even if it's walking past someone's desk and emptying their garbage without telling them or, you know, bringing in, you know, donuts to the office and setting them out.

There are simple daily things that we can do that helps create an atmosphere of other-centeredness. And when you're other-centered, you're spending less time being self-centered. I'll also say that from a generic recovery standpoint, we come into sobriety and get well first and foremost by admitting there's a problem in the first step, by conceding that there's something bigger than us, a higher power that can help us. And that's in step two. And then in step three, dedicating our lives to that thing that we believe in. Whatever it is that you want, doesn't have to be God. It can be anything that you want it to be. But you've got to believe in something. And that belief grows into faith. And with some people, it grows into what we call certainty. I've spoken to certain professional religious

people that I've had the opportunity to meet over the years, people who've been, you know, priests, ministers, cardinals, I've had this conversation with rabbis, imams, you know, who have dedicated a life to other people. And the one thing that they all have in common is certainty, something that even goes beyond faith. And what I found is that not only do we get well, one, two, three, but we get unwell, three, two, one. When we lose that belief in something bigger than ourselves, then we slide back into a place where we don't believe that there is hope for us. And then finally, we end up sliding all the way back to one where we actually pick up or in in the case of a lot of people who don't go back to

drinking or drugging, but experience all the consequences of what we call that dry drunk, where your life just keeps getting, your life keeps getting worse, even though you're, you're physically not using. I, I am so still to this day, impressed and horrified and terrified by the power of this disease, because I see it all the time in the world. I do everything that I can to embrace the principles, uh, of the recovering life. Um, and, you know, chief among those is, is service work, um, and trying to make the world a better place in the wake of my boat as I speed through it. And I don't know any other way to exist. Sure, do I make mistakes? All the time. Do I do foolish, silly things? All the time.

Do I live some sort of monastic existence? Far from it. I'm just an average. I really am just an average human being that's been given an opportunity and a design for living dumped in my lap that works for me. And when I'm talking to people who are not drug addicts and alcoholics, I encourage them to find that same design for living because I have found that the spiritual principles that I've learned in my recovery are ones that are invaluable to anyone.

This is everything I hoped in this conversation, Andrew, because knowing a little bit about your background, but not really knowing the details, I had hoped that we would have explored this part of you and then the mapping of how this has impacted a professional life that is respected to be respected by many. And so I love it. And who would have thought that Bill W. and Dr. Bob would have created what I think is probably one of the most under celebrated, but most significant movements in in our lifetime. It's a transform. It's a transformative thing that they created. I find it interesting. And you know, there's people listening to this who may not have a lot of familiarity with the story. But two men talking to each other about their alcoholism started a social movement in America and a system for recovery that became Alcoholics Anonymous. And a very, very, very important part of my recovery has been to talk about the steps in my experience and not be a spokesperson for a specific 12-step program.

I am, and I'm addressing this now only from the historical perspective because I like to maintain that level of anonymity. I am very outspoken about my participation in 12-step programs because I want other people out there to know that there is a solution and that there is help available to them. The last thing that I would ever do is tell people, you know, where to go or what to do with their, with their problems. But I will say, as someone who has lived in recovery for the last 26 years, and found a home in the 12 steps, that what those two men did is nothing short of miraculous and is often considered to be, from a historical standpoint, as you indicate, one of the great moments of socio-religious invention of this or any other century.

Oh, Well said. Okay. So that I feel like I'm out of questions, but I've, that doesn't happen for me often because you've eloquently described the mechanics of how you become. And then so mechanically, how do you think about success? Like how do you describe success? And I want to ask the same question about mastery on the heels well success for me is defined by peace of mind I don't define I'll give you one example of it that's probably the best one a lot of people would think that people would define success by fame or fortune. I define success by not being a slave to the idea that I have to have a certain amount of money to be happy or a certain amount of notoriety to be happy. If everything that I've created in those two silos went away tomorrow, I would still be very happy. I can go out and earn a living.

I can continue to do the things that I love to do. And the dollars and the fame is something that I do not care a whit about, except to say that the dollars have allowed me to give away a lot more of it, much to the horror of my accountant. And the notoriety has allowed me to do things that I never imagined possible. You know, I found myself, you know, once again on Capitol Hill with my friends, Jose Andres and Tom Colicchio, fighting to preserve and actually to grow the presence of SNAP in the farm bill that's coming up for a vote end of 2018, beginning of 2019. To have that opportunity to impact so many lives, I mean, millions of lives is something that I never thought I'd have the opportunity to do. When I got involved in the Electrify Africa campaign, the reason that Bono and the one organization reached out to me was

that they heard me talking about my own boots on the ground experience in Africa. And they felt that what was missing was somebody who could, you know, stand there in front of congressional and Senate leadership and talk about what's actually happening in the most remote parts of the African continent, places that I've had the privilege to go because of my day job making television. We didn't get the farm bill passed the first time around. It was part of a larger bill and it got cut out of it, excised from it. However, the following year, I returned to Capitol Hill and got a Republican and a Democratic senator to introduce the bill as

a separate piece of legislation. A very large piece of it got passed. And the feeling that you get when you realize that there is now at present, electric, this is several years ago, electrical grids in Africa, that I was a small piece of helping to put in place. And that because of that, some baby somewhere is going to get some medicine and that baby may grow up to be the doctor that cures cancer, you know, is the greatest high that I've ever known.

That's so good. So good. And then how about mastery? How do you think about mastery? Define it. Oh, gosh. To me, mastery is all about the journey and not the destination. I love the concept of mastery. I love the concept of expertise. But I'm also, you know, a longstanding appreciator of the idea that the minute we stop being teachable, we be, we, we enter into very dangerous ground. So I wouldn't lie to anybody if they said to me, well, do you, do you have mastery in several professional areas of your life or in having certain types of relationships or in certain ways to navigate life. I always tell them, well, well, yes, but I look at it more as a level of expertise, but it's on a sliding scale that we never get to the, to the top. I had an experience very early on in sobriety that, uh, I think about every time this question gets raised. I had an opportunity to meet an actual old, old timer.

And when I was very early in recovery at one of at a convention that I went to, and the gentleman was someone who was was one of the guys who had sobered up years and years and years ago, and he was very old, almost 90, and was celebrating his – I think his 60th year of sobriety. And it was fascinating to me because you always ask people when they're celebrating anniversaries, what'd you learn this year? And he looked at me because I, you know, I asked him and, uh, he said, I finally think this was the year I started to love unconditionally. Now, if you sat down with a piece of paper and someone told you in your wildest dreams, write down the things you really want to be in life, the goals you really want to have. I think one of them would probably be loving unconditionally. We all know that that kind of, you know, freedom, that kind of spiritual grace, it just must be an unbelievable feeling. Who could actually say that that's something that

they have, you know, gotten? And, you know, this old timer felt that, you know, while not 100% there, it was the year that it really started to click in place for him. And I remember turning to, you know, one of my best friends who was, you know, like me trudging the road of happy destiny and recovery, you know, alongside me, I looked at I joked with him, I said, Ah, you know, so you know, me i looked and i joked with him i said ah you know so you know in 55 years we can look forward to loving unconditionally um and it's sort of this running joke between us but i think about it all the time because we're constantly learning and constantly evolving and constantly trying to be better human beings and And I think it's in the pursuit of it is where the mastery lies. I don't think our lesson planning in life is ever complete. I think

we actually leave this planet before any of us are, you know, the model citizen or the gleaming spiritual light that we all would hope that we might be at some point. But the fact of the matter is, is that I get, I get better and better every year. And it's, it's why, you know, like I said before, I don't do New Year's resolutions. I'm more of the fall into more of the GK Chesterton school where I just each year try to wipe the slate clean and say, you know, something I'm going to try to be better, uh, this year. I mean, we have that tradition, uh, you know, I'm a, I'm a our religion where we have our day of atonement each year and we fast and we reflect and we make amends and we try to work on different principles each year to make ourselves better human beings. And that to me is what the whole point of life is about is just to try to, you know, love other people and continue to be the best person that we

can be. And then are there any, like concrete steps or training mechanisms that you would suggest people put in place to be able to be their very best? I think you have to find a design for living that works for you. Yeah. So many of us, I mean, just in talking to, you know, a lot of people over the course of my lifetime, I'm surprised at how many people actually just wake up each day and let life happen to them. And, you know, that's a, that's a passive approach that work, you know, if it works for someone great. I, I, at one point thought to myself that the key to spiritual development was to be the jellyfish, to just float, right? Let life happen. Bad things come, you let them go. Good things come, you don't pay too much attention to

them. And I started to talk about these ideas because you remember I mentioned before being transparent and vulnerable is a key to this whole thing. So if I have an idea, I want to talk to people and explore it. And I thought I was so smart and I brought this up to a couple of spiritual gurus of mine. And this one guy named Len, who's since passed away, gave me such a wonderful gift. He leaned into me with his long old bony finger and he pointed at me and he said, the only fish that I've seen floating are dead. And I just looked at him and I just thought my, my whole analogy of water and the jellyfish was so brilliant. And he was telling me, don't be the jellyfish. Don't be dead on the top of the water. He's like, be the fucking salmon. Swim your ass off all over the world. Be out in the ocean. Be of life. And then every year return to the same place, you know, and spawn, be active, you know, do your thing and spread your message. And it really, it really hit me at that point, you know, I was probably five, six years sober at the time that life was about action. And it's when I first started to put together this working idea for myself that has stuck with me and been a key to my success that, you know. You know, acting, you know, human doing is better than human being. And that acting ourselves into right thinking is the only way

it works. We can never think ourselves into right acting. We can't lay back and just let it happen and expect things to proceed for us. In fact, quite the opposite. We have to be the change in the world that we want to see. Amazing. So, I mean, it does not surprise me why you're doing extraordinary things. And I guess like the last kind of selfish question, if you will, is where are this, I'm curating spiritual places in the world that I want to go to. And where are some of the, you've been all over the world. What are a couple of spiritual places that you would recommend I go see or experience, not just see? Well, I've been lucky enough, you know, I've visited 174 countries and my answer, my short

answer is that, you know, wherever you go, there you are, you can find that sort of peace in the most surprising places, even areas of extreme calamity. I will say that I will say that I do find a incredible amount of humility being in the farthest reaches of the world. You know, Mongolia and parts of northwestern China and that whole region is, you know, technically the least populated place on earth. So they say, the experts, that some of the places I've been in Mongolia, I was at that time, the furthest away from any human being I've ever been the furthest away from any lamppost, the furthest away from any jet plane crossing overhead. And it felt that way. And it was an extremely serene and peaceful moment. Walking at night, I got out of my my gir, the tent I was sleeping in, and actually

walked. I mean, I wasn't afraid there were no people, there's no wild animals that are, you know, predators of mine and just walked up a hill and sat and looked at the stars. I felt that same feeling in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and a little raft, again, as far away from human beings as you could possibly imagine. I get a lot of my bliss at the ocean, but probably the happiest that I've been and the most serene and the most at peace is actually interacting with the first peoples of the world, especially the ones who are living life indistinguishable from the way in which their ancestors have drawn those lives on cave walls. I've had the privilege to spend a lot of time with many of the protected tribes in the world that are living fully ancient ancient pathways of life. And I, I've taken an incredible amount of, of peace and contentment

from those experiences, but probably the most impactful was in a place that I found actually very horrific to, to spend time in. And, you know, that was a trip that I took to Madagascar several years ago. Madagascar is a lawless country. I don't think they've had a president for 20 years. It's a very, very, very sad situation over there. And I remember spending time with some Sakhalava people who were fishermen. And we documented this in my Madagascar show, but I spent some time with Jama, the fisherman and Jama had absolutely no possessions except this little canoe that he rigged a sail on. He didn't have lines on the boat. One of his kids would sit in the sail with their feet pushed against

the outside of the boat so that the sail could hold wind. And he would sail out up to 20 miles out into the sea, very rough water, and fill his boat with fish and then bring it back in and trade it for other things that he needed to use. He had one set of clothes. He had a rusty piece of metal for a knife. He had one spear to throw at bigger fish attached to a small line. He, I mean, seemingly he had nothing. His home blew down five times a year in big storms. Um, and he lived day to day in terms of knowing where his food source was coming from and some days they ate less some days they ate more he had lost children to diseases that a trip to the local cbs for me would have alleviated had

it been my son and i asked him i said you happy? And he laughed at me. And he threw a translator and said, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. He said, I'm the happiest man I know. I have everything. And I think of Jamba the fisherman every day, much in the same way that I think of the shaman in Botswana, who was a Gentwazi tribes person who, during a trance dance went into my head and looked at the pictures of my life. And had I not been there to experience it, I would have called bullshit on myself if I'd heard someone else tell me that story. But I sat outside his tent after

he passed out because I needed to be the first one to talk to him because I needed to know if that's what he was really doing during that trance dance. And I didn't want anyone interfering. I didn't want there to be any doubt that that's what he was doing. And he told me, in fact, that's what he was doing. And I asked him kind of like, you know, Bill Murray and the Dalai Lama and Caddyshack, you know, what's the meaning of life? Because I wanted to ask him and I said, what's our purpose here on earth? And again, he laughed at me like I was an idiot. And it turns out he was right. And he just chuckled as he walked away and muttered under his breath, something that my translator told me essentially

said, we're meant to live the best lives we can on this earth and love other people. And he walked away from me. He didn't talk to me for the rest of the time that I was in camp because he thought he thought of me as the village idiot, because to him it was so obvious that that's how we're supposed to live our lives. So I think it's those kinds of experiences. Extreme, extreme isolation, I think, brings about a meditative place reminds me that i am neither you know neither master nor expert but still have a lot of work to do what a great conversation andrew thank you so much for sharing from the most honest places that um i would imagine you know how to share. So thank you.

I appreciate it. Yeah. And like, really, what a rich life you've had. I appreciate it. I certainly have. This has been fantastic. Any other time you want to talk, just let me know. All the best to you, Andrew.

And to follow along with what Andrew's doing, you can follow him on Twitter, twitter.com, Andrew Zimmern. That's Andrew, A-N-D-R-E-W-Z-I-M-M-E-R-N. And he's also on Instagram as well, ChefAZ, so C-H-E-F Bizarre Foods. And to follow along with what we're doing, hit us up on social. So Twitter is at Michael Gervais, G-E-R-V-A-I-S. And also become part of the tribe that we invite you to do so. And it's an extraordinary community of people that are supporting and challenging each other on the path of mastery. And that's findingmastery.net forward slash tribe. Okay. So with that, what an extraordinary life and extraordinary conversation. So again, thank you, Andrew.

Take it easy. Okay. Bye. Bye-bye. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening.

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