Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Kai Kight: Violin

Episode Date: August 26, 2015

Some conversations will be with those who summit the pinnacle of their profession —or break molds attempting to scale untold peaks. In this conversation, I was fortunate to sit down with a contemporary composer & innovator, Kai Kight. His background is anything but typical. Sports, Design, Stanford, Violin, Composing. He holds an engineering degree from Stanford University’s d. school where he was introduced to the innovative culture of Silicon Valley. As a Kleiner Perkins Design Fellow and Mayfield Fellow, Kai got an early start in entrepreneurship. Kai began playing the violin when he was 3 years old, was classically trained, and studied under the concertmaster of Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra. His music has brought him to perform in venues such as the White House and the Great Wall of China. Today Kai composes his own music using an innovative style on the violin which blends classical technique with rhythms and textures from popular genres such as hip hop and jazz. His favorite composer is Bach, because of the soul riveting harmony and improvisational rhythms. He is thoughtful, articulate, and working to let his heart be felt._________________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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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Hi, everyone. In this episode, I sat down with Kai Kite. He's a classically trained violinist and composer who's been able to perform around the world sharing his craft. He graduated from Stanford University where surprisingly he didn't study music. He graduated actually from the School of Engineering where he was selected eventually as a design fellow for the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. I first met Kai while he and I were both presenting at a conference called Wisdom 2.0. And if you haven't had the chance to check out the conference, it's definitely worth a quick search. It's a conference where mindfulness and technology intersect, and it's definitely a switched on community. So when he was performing, he dropped into this version of Michael Jackson's Smooth Operator, and It was just so good. And he goes on to explain

in his presentation of his path toward being able to allow his music to speak. I think that we capture in this interview how much he really loves music and how his practice, his love for practice and figuring out how to get better and how that has led him to this quest and this interest in innovation. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort.

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energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you 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. So let's just jump right into the path that led him to now where he wants to go, his psychological framework and the mental skills that he practices that have led him toward mastery in his own life. So thank you for coming in, Kai. We've had the pleasure to meet each other up at the Seattle Seahawks, and I've followed your work for a while. The first time that I was

exposed to you was when you were playing at Wisdom 2.0, which is obviously a conference about mindfulness and the path toward a better version of yourself., what I came to find is that you had or have a way about yourself that's grounded, that's personable, but also really pushing the edge in your craft. And obviously the craft is you're a violinist. So can you bring us into your journey that led you to just pushing some boundaries a bit and really having a deep understanding of your craft? And so can you just take us through that bit and really having a deep understanding of your craft. And so can you just take us through that journey and like, take it all the way back? Like, where did this start? Where did this come from? What was your childhood like? Let's just first anchor into

the journey of what this is about. So I started playing the violin when I was three years old. So tiny, it was like the size of my entire body and apparently I saw it on TV and was inspired to try to find out how to do that and my parents luckily found a program in the DC area where I grew up that I started playing in so you your parents followed your interest yes is that how that was so you were more interested so neither of my parents are musically talented at all they have great interests but they yeah no one in my family i don't think even extended family is a musician okay so how old are you now i'm 23 23 okay so 20 years ago you were watching on tv and something sparked for you. Now, 20 years later, do you have any sense of why the violin?

Do you have any sense of how that called you? I can't. It was so early at three years old. I can't really say as to why. I think when I started to come into my own as a person, having more memories and thoughts, I'd already had a baseline talent with it just because I started so early. So when you start with the violin, it sounds awful. And so I was lucky that I didn't have memories really at that point, right? I couldn't really internalize how bad I probably sounded. And so by the time I was like seven or eight years old, when I started having more developed thoughts and ideas, I already had that baseline skill set. And then it was just a way to express myself. It was my social environment. A lot of my friends did music.

And so it was just a part of what I did by that time point. Yeah. Have you noticed as you're on this path, have you noticed that there's this emerge between your identity with what you do or is there a clear separation between the two that what I do is a reflection of who I am or is that or is it more complicated like I am a violinist yes so I that's something I've been dealing with my entire life so I think when you start with something so early, and especially on something where you're on a platform, right? You're on an exposed stage when you perform. And so it can feel like your entire identity is kind of wrapped into how well you do.

And especially if you start early and show aptitude at it, you know, you get praise and you're rewarded for it. And so you kind of feel like, okay, well, wow, this is the way to do things, like doing well on this stage. And I think that's something that I actually dealt with for a long time, especially as a child when I was younger, was putting a lot of pressure on myself for each performance because it would feel like, you know, this is me. If I don't do this, then what am I, really? And what you just said is a really big statement.

And, you know, I've been fortunate enough to work with people at the world stage for a long time. And one of the things that I'm able to take away from the experience is that when people are really good at a young age, they get really connected to their identity, to their performance. Those two things start to merge. And as soon as they begin to decouple those and pull those apart, meaning what that sounds like is that I am not just a violinist. I am not just an athlete. I'm so much more. And that craft that I'm expressing is an extension of me, but it doesn't define me. And you're nodding your head like you understand that, like you've battled.

Okay, so can you walk us through, and maybe think about 12, 14, 15 highly talented young kids that might be listening, or parents that might be listening and saying, God, my kid's really good too. Like is he or she struggling in that same space? Yeah, so for me, you talked about the separation between who you are internally as a person and what you do. And I think for me, the most important thing in that regard was diversity of experiences as I grew older. And so while my plan originally was

to do the whole conservatory thing, nothing but music. But I didn't do that. So I was fortunate I was able to go to Stanford. And I didn't study music. I studied design there. And so I had this whole background that was, okay, well, I'm doing this too. But then I also grew up playing basketball. So I just made sure that it wasn't the only thing that I did.

So I had some perspective on it. Okay. But this is really important. You dropped the word Stanford like like it's a run of the mill university, top university. You're, you're really good at something at a young age. And then you went to one of the best universities in the world. Not for that. That's not what opened the doors for you. Yeah. It's funny because I'm doing a lot of things with music now that I would not be doing. Pretty sure I would not be doing if I did go to a music school. And that's because it just exposed me to a different type of mindset. So what exposed you to a different mindset? Being at Stanford in that environment. And I'll tell you what I mean. So a lot of my experience in college wasn't necessarily with music it was around entrepreneurship and

design and making small tests and being comfortable with failing and my all of my classes were kind of centered around that idea how can you test something how can you try something how can you be okay with not having the answers and then figuring them out along the way and for me which is 180 degrees away from you know like classically trained yeah hundreds right which is the pursuit of perfection right right the crippling stuff yeah and so it was funny because so in high school all of my teachers not all of my teachers but most of them in you know the traditional classical violin setting which I was in. There was one way to do something.

You listen to the conductor, you listen to the teacher who kind of sets the goal for you. But in most of my experiences in college, quite different. They were, okay, I don't have the answers, but I have a process, a framework that you can use, and you're going to come up with a solution yourself. Was this the entrepreneurial classes or was this in your music training as well so just only took private lessons in college i didn't take any compositional class or anything like that they they were in the design and entrepreneurship classes and so while i was sitting in those classes i was taking notes but i knew that i was going to apply them to other areas as well. I didn't exactly say that at the time, but I knew that what I was learning, I could translate into other areas because it was such a stark perspective than my upbringing and the value system that I had. And for me, it kind of comes down to one simple idea,

and that's just being comfortable and accepting the fact that you don't have the answers, that there's no one way, that there's multiple ways of doing things, and that kind of the journey is being comfortable with that fact. Because before it was, okay, well, I have to work towards this one thing and this is how you do it. And you're kind of saying that you have all the knowledge and all the answers, but by admitting that you're going to fail at some point and accepting that, it frees you up a bit. And that's led to a lot of the things that I'm able to do now. Yeah. Because you're right on this idea of, you know, create and iterate, create, iterate, break it, iterate again.

You know, and that sounds like that was you probably needed that at some point in time. Definitely. Because the course that you're taking a classical train as a musician was very different. Right. Yeah. So if there's no one way to mastery and, you know, obviously this podcast is about finding mastery and just understanding the process you know and i'm interested in it you know you're living it as well to to want to explore this if there's no one way to mastery are there some key elements that you would say like these

are the main rocks that i got in the container and this is some of the stuff that worked for me to be on this path of pursuing mastery yeah so there are kind of two ideas that mastery come down to for me and the first one is curiosity and curiosity meaning being open-minded but with a particular purpose so curiosity so that you can increase the possibilities around you, right? You always think of like the masterful person as the person that has an idea out of thin air, but actually it's because they were curious about something and took an insight from a different place that they then involved into their work. And so this is something that's been extremely helpful for me as an artist, right? I'm a classical violinist but I'm curious about other

genres, so I don't just block them out. And so the way I kind of look at curiosity is that, you know, you should be curious about things that are different in other areas. You can be curious about things that are great, right? When you see someone play a piece of music that sounds beautiful, are you just sitting back and saying like, wow that was great? Are you really curious to learn how they did that? Are you curious to uncover the process? And then also curious in the unexpected, curious in things that you can't predict and curious about the things that, you know, that just come out randomly. And I think a lot of times we have plans and we kind of reward ourselves on

how well we stick to that plan and get it done. But a lot of times there will be ideas that come out of the blue and taking the time to explore them a little bit deeper, I think leads to mastery as well, too. So curiosity is one point. And then another, I think, perspective and idea that's been really helpful for me as an artist is the idea of intention and I use the word intention because I think I think purpose is like an overarching word that you feel like you have one purpose in life but intention for me means that in anything you do you have to decide why you're doing it and anything that you're doing and so this is something for me as an artist that and as a performer I ask myself that question anytime I do something and let me explain further so for me as a classical musician I used to just be caught up and you know the technique

like hitting the right notes and that's how I would judge my myself my performance but the music didn't sound that good. The audience wasn't as connected to it because, you know, my intent was just to, you know, follow the rules, play it right. But I realized that the true intent, the true purpose of music is to actually connect with people. And I started to change the way I was doing things because I started to put people first and that connection. And so I started to, you know, change the technique a little bit. I started to hold a note a little longer that wasn't written on the page. I would play around with it more because audience member, they don't care if I hit all the right notes. So you don't know when you heard me play last week, you didn't know if I messed up or not. Right. You didn't know what was right or

wrong, but it was the idea that you could feel something. And so a big transformation for me was, okay, the intent of my work is to make someone feel something. It's not to hit every single right note. And the idea comes back to this idea of failure, that it's impossible to play every single right note. There are too many uncontrollable forces for that to happen. But it is possible to have that intent, that focus of saying something. And so for me, it's intent in controlling what you can control. And that's been very helpful for me. Yeah, you're hitting some really core nuggets that I embrace as well.

And just for folks that are listening right now, for context is last week, what we did up at the Seahawks is we created a, um, you know, there's a mini camp that was going on. And in that mini camp, um, you're invited to come up and demonstrate your craft. And then you were able to speak, um, to the athletes about your insights. And it was really well received the next day. Afterwards, there was comments about, uh, from the coaching staff and athletes about um what that you literally struck a chord with them on um staying with it going forward and not not working to be perfect but working to be competent in adjusting to whatever comes up right and you know that connection with the music the person the moment is something that um yeah really struck a chord i think with many people so it was awesome it was fun yeah that was did you have fun yeah it was amazing to share

especially it was so unexpected people did not expect i'm sure violin is that football mini camp or you know just to the for there to be such a clear translation and insight to take away from it i think was it was really beautiful and just talking to players after it was great as well too yeah yeah that was fun that was a great that was great i mean okay so let's talk about more of that in a minute like because we'll come back to this but i want to get into really the mechanics of how you structured your day as a youngster working to get good at this craft. Was this a relentless training that you went through, like a deep practice, or was it sporadic? So I was kind of obsessed younger, and it was nice looking back at it. I always try to get back to this point

because I wasn't really thinking about the end result at all in terms of the way I practiced. I would just go, I didn't go to music school in high school. I went to a typical high school. I was doing other things as well too, but we would have a lunch break for an hour and a half. Ridiculous. You should never give a kid that long of a break, right? And we would have free periods. And any time before school, after school, at lunch, free period, I was practicing to the point where I think the head of the music department had to give me a key to the room because I would always ask him before, like 7 a.m., before he even got to work, for the key to the room. And it was just because I loved doing it. And so for me, the skill just developed from this need to get just like a little bit better each day. And, yeah, I didn't really – I don't think I even had – it was a beautiful time because I didn't even need to make a schedule.

How old are we talking about? I'm saying between the age of 13 and 18. Yeah. So you loved it. Yeah, I loved it, but it was also, it wasn't just the active. It was like, it was just something pulling me to it. And so now I'm busy. I'm doing like multiple things. Uh, and so I always have to set a schedule for it to make sure that I do it. And it's just part of things pop up now. Uh now but at that time it was beautiful because whenever there was that open time there was something automatically pulling me back to it and I think it was just the idea of getting a little bit better uh each day and the idea of having like something you can play just with your fingers and in maybe in half an hour time

being able to play something that you couldn't before was just kind of addicting and so it sounds to me like you know i'll just tag that word addicting that you were hungry for progression yeah progression right like it was the get a little bit better a little bit better can i get a little better and if you wrap that full circle with your curiosity there's end intention it sounds like um no one had to tell you to do it. Oh, no. Right. And what you fell in love with, which was the incremental growth. Definitely.

And being, you know, that progression, seeing how far you can take it. Yeah. And it had nothing to do with what other people thought of you or comparing yourself to others. I was one of the only violinists in my school. Where did you go to school? So I went to a school it was called landon schools in uh maryland private school and i for me it was just something and i my social groups were different like i was on the basketball team i was doing all these other things but for me there was nothing anyone could say that would make it not seem as important. You know, there was nothing anyone can hold over me because and I think I think any any child, any person deals with this just kind of like self acceptance.

But at an early age, I just became fine with being myself and different. And I think what that came down to is that for anyone's experience, or I think we all have different like cultures and social groups, but at an early age, I was able to see that, you know, okay, you have these set of beliefs, but there's someone in the world that has the exact opposite. And neither of you are right or wrong. There's just what you believe and what you bring to it. And so I was able to see that, travel to a few places when I was younger. And so for me, I was, my actions have never been controlled by the people that are right around me.

It's always around kind of like a larger idea, a larger thing. Was that, that's true to me. Did your folks teach you that? Or is this something that you just picked up from mentors or just something that's been you know a guiding theme yeah so i haven't talked about this yet but one of the i think i spoke about this at wisdom but one of the the changing or i guess transformative times for me

was actually an experience with my mother uh back when I was in high school and it was when she found out that she had breast cancer and she I remember she sat me down we were talking for like hours and she would she was just telling me all these different stories about things that she would have done and how she was kind of like walking through life or I think the term she used was stumbling through life just going with the flow and that she her decisions weren't hers and I think the term she used that she felt that she missed out on something because she didn't make her decisions and that just stuck out to me I realized that you know I don't have to wait to get diagnosed with something that you know there's there's another option and so for me I, I've always had, since that experience,

even a little bit before I kind of had it, but that was that moment where I have that so deeply in me that there's nothing someone can say that will alter me differently. And it's just so strong inside of me. And if it's someone that knows me really well, like if she says something like that or my girlfriend says something like that then yeah i'll listen deeper to that but from a surface level if you don't have that like intense understanding of where i'm coming from then i'm very i'm very particular as to what can guide my behavior if if it's not internal to you know what

i believe what i believe is the the right thing do. Yeah, there's some strong conviction, even the way you're saying it now, there's strong conviction that you've got some core principles that are guiding how you operate in life. I want to know what those are in a minute. And then you've got a real strong conviction that you're staying true to them, no matter what someone says or doesn't say. Yeah, right. 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 better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters.

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creeping in. Plus, they look great. Clean, clear, no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to felixgray.com and use the code findingmastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Okay. So let's talk about your philosophy. You know, like how, what are the guiding principles in your life? Yeah. So for me, it was funny. I was having a conversation with someone last week. He's a college student out in Tennessee in Nashville at a place I spoke at a couple of months ago. And we were just talking

about ideas and he asked me the same question. And I use this analogy that I'm going to share again. It was that I realized that I use this idea of like the sunset principle. And let me understand, let me tell you what that means is that let's say you're at – well, recently I was at the beach. And it was just like the most beautiful sunset. And I was thinking, you know, somewhere in the world there's someone who's going through something completely different from me. But they still probably see that same sunset. And there's like a common beauty between it and for me in terms of my values or philosophy I always try to go for those those sunset feelings those sunset ideas that no matter

what external difference or experience you're going through there's still something there and so I don't think I found them yet but I'm always on the search for them. And so for me now, one of those is just gratitude. One of those things, wherever you are, if you show gratitude towards someone, isn't that a sunset thing that no matter where you are, you'll see it, you'll experience it, and you'll feel something that's common? Or just helping other people, being honest, giving all of yourself to something, working hard, those things. And so I'm always on the search for okay what are those things now and it's been really fascinating this past year because what I do is I take music I perform in places like you know a football team right unexpected places and I find common connections whether it's like a team or a business a school company I find common

connections between my experience and theirs. And I've done this in places like Germany, Mexico, all across, and there are certain things that just connect with people. And so for me, one of those things as a performer is just the idea of vulnerability. So for Wisdom, even last week for the Seahawks, I shared part of my experience that wasn't perfect, that you see performers on a stage and you don't hear how they suffer from stage fright. You don't hear

that. But for me, I'm not trying to separate myself. I try to kind of share that because I think, you know, you and I both can feel the same way about something. Yeah. I want to, I want to get to that stage fright, that part of the your conversation yeah and then before we move from your philosophy do you have a like a phrase or a statement or like have you have you anchored this in a way that's really crisp or are you still working to like the sunset idea yeah like yeah i haven't i haven't it's not i don't think it's at any complete yeah so it's not like one i'm gonna i'm gonna search for that i'm on a continual search from that and that's kind of an everyday thing and and if i think about

how you are searching um i've come to know that you're more introverted than extroverted yeah yeah so do you write do you oh i write a lot yeah yeah is that how you get it out of your head yeah so one of the most helpful things for me is actually just meditation. So every morning I wake up, I just sit for 20 minutes. And I'm someone I can talk a lot to. I do that for a living. I talk to people. I enjoy it.

But something I've learned to do is to just appreciate that quiet side because I can look like I'm zoning out. I can look like I don't have a nice face on or look like I'm zoning out I can look like you know I don't have a nice face on or look like I'm doing whatever but internally it's loud inside of there and internally there's so many things going on that I'm just thrilled about it I'm excited about that no one would tell based on my outside expression so like you know it's like there's a lot going on inside your mind yeah yeah like ideas no I'm'm saying that when I take that time to just be by myself,

it seems like this quiet, oh, he's just being in this internal zone by himself, but it's loud. There's so many things, and I found that I need to take time to allow my brain to calm down so that those internal voices that are kind of hidden can come out and appreciate them

and capture them and so i'll do that every morning i literally i i sit down i have like a little dim lighting and then i just have a notebook next to me and i sit down what time do you wake up in the morning um it depends i'm an early bird so like maybe six six a.m or something like that and so is it the first thing that you do when you wake up? Or do you brush your teeth or get food? I'll brush my teeth and drink. I think I drink hot water and lemon every morning. I heard that was a good thing to do.

So I started doing that. I've been healthier. But I make sure it's the first thing because it grounds me. And so anything I do after kind of comes back to that intention. I get less distracted and I, I get more out of myself when I do it that way. The way you've described meditation is actually pretty sophisticated because most people have this idea that they sit down and they take some breaths and then they can't quiet their mind. And then they throw their hands up. Like, I don't, I can't do this. I can't

quiet my mind. And the way that you've described it is that when you quiet down, just slow your brain down, slow your mind down, slow your body down just a bit, that you have a higher awareness of the inner dialogue. Yeah, definitely. And then I'm guessing, correct me if I'm wrong, is what you work on doing is not judging things, but just listening. Yeah, listening. And following, right? So people will know in the way that I talk about meditation is like in two different camps. You want a single point meditation where you just follow one thing

over and over and over again. I was going to talk about that. I didn't know, but yeah, that's kind of how I view it. Single point. And there's a whole camp of things you can do in that category. And then contemplative meditation, which is just following without judgment, just, you know, just watching and observing and being curious. And it's a great way to get clear about those things that are percolating for you. Yeah. I was just going to

share that. I'd love to read more about what you've done in that space, just because that's how I do it. So sometimes I do meditate where I'm just trying to follow my breath or just follow one idea. And that's very valuable in terms of coming back to my focus and relaxing and things like that. And then the contemplative one is what I enjoy also, which is in that often when I start my day, it's maybe more of the single point when I start my day just to kind of get grounded. But throughout the day, I'll come back to that contemplative one. I'll just sit down and kind of see where it goes. Got it.

Yeah. So in the morning, you'll do for 20 minutes, you'll just follow your breath. Yeah. I mean, it's not strict. But the more I'm thinking about it, the morning time when I first wake up, that's more of my intention with that is to kind of ground myself to make sure that I'm focused and can kind of control what I can control in the day. It's just a nice grounded. Yeah. You know, and the other benefit, the nice benefit that we get from it, one, it there's all these physiological advantages that we get.

It sets our parasympathetic in a way where, you know, we're turning off the fight or flight response, even though we've only been up a few moments, right? So we turn that off or more sophisticated way is that we activate our parasympathetic, which is the recovery part of the process, um, or, or, or homeostasis. And then what happens is, um, if we're going to refocus on our, on one thing, if it's just your breath, that's totally cool that you get training at refocusing back to this moment. And I know that we've talked about my take on this is that life happens in the present moment. And if you're not in it, you're missing it. And so we can train our minds to be more here now, be more of my feet are be, you know, here where the breath is.. So yeah. And sometimes I don't

talk about meditation very much myself because it can sound so out there, but it is difficult and it is challenging and it is easy, right? Like it's all of those things together. Okay. Speaking of challenges, this is, I don't know if you're able to talk about it but some people struggle with this a little bit to talk about the dark side of being one of the best in the world and or pursuing that path and there's a cost that i've come to observe and understand for pursuing mastery and do you have any any thoughts about what some of the costs might have been for the path that you've chosen? Costs? Could you elaborate on? Yeah. Or do you just mean like any kind of negatives? No. Okay. So let me elaborate. I say this often is that if parents knew what I

knew about pursuing mastery and pursuing excellence and pursuing being the number one in the world out of whatever our population is today, that they might not push their kids as hard because there's a real dark side to it. Yeah. So I have very particular thoughts about that. So I think with that idea, I view mastery in a different way. I think the core foundation to what you just said is that there's one way to do

something. So like one way to be the best tennis player or the best basketball player. And, you know, there's a set of rules to something like that where, you know, a tennis court, the lines are set. There's only a certain amount of things you can change within it. And so to be the best at that, you're going to have to put a hundred thousand hours in, right? Like, because the rules are set, you can't really change anything. And for something like that, um, and I'm trying to think of another example where it's just more mechanical, right? To be the best at it. I think there's a lot of things you have to sacrifice just because you do have to put in it. Like whatever you get out of it is based on the things you sacrifice for it the way i view

mastery or what it is in my life is how can i offer something different and so it's not about doing more of something like i can this music uh like one of the pieces i played last week i wrote in not that like a day and it wasn't you know, I spent so many hours on it. But it sounds great because I, like, I thought about something different. I took an idea from another place and brought it into it. And so I'm more thinking about how can I offer something different. And so for me, there's certain things I'm not, like, I'm not going to be the person to now to spend 10 hours a day

and neglect my family to be great I want to find a way to offer something different but still Valid put first the things that I value and so I think it's Kind of reframing that where you know greatness isn't about sacrifice but it's about Kind of and obviously you do have to sacrifice things to reach a certain level, but finding a situation where you can make it more unique. And that's, that's what I try to bring to what I do. Yeah. Very cool. It's, um, it's a nice reframe away from that. You've got

to do it rigidly mechanically for X number of hours robotically to become great at something. Yeah. And a lot, a lot of people, especially if you're younger, a lot of people will tell you that, oh, well, you have to do this, this, and this. And I think a lot of situations are different, where you can actually find a unique way to do it, or you can find a different process. You can find a framework from another area of mastery

and bring it into this, where you can kind of take leaps ahead without having to and not not saying you don't have to put in time obviously they put in time but the way the way to get there there's multiple ways yeah there's not just one path yeah it's fresh to hear however we need to have a base, a base technical skill or craft. And that base, once that base is large and robust and you've put in your hours, you know, then and that's deep, deliberate, focused. You know, for you, it's not a joyful training. Right. In between. Not all of it, though. Yeah.

Yeah. There's there's some pain involved in that extra kind of depth of focus that's required to get good at something. But then once you have the base, then you can be creative in the divergent way of thinking about what can I pull from? Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. So there's just, I think, yeah. So there are two parts. And so I think where you're asking now is about like that first part, like that base training and yeah, I've put a lot of hours in. And so for me, I guess thinking about the cost of that, cause I kind of see where, where you're asking now is that I think for me I guess thinking about the cost of that because I kind of see where where you're

asking now is that I think for me it was just more of uh like little sacrifices along the way and getting used to making that decision so you know friends asking you to do something or having to say I was always I'm always saying no to things and I I always, that's always been something I've been doing just because I really want to be great at this, right? And so saying no to that. And before that used to take a really big toll on me to the point where it would even, I don't know, like some friendships, some relationships wouldn't last because like, no, this is kind of what I wanted to do. But I don't know. I think it comes with a balance. I think you just have to be grounded into some sense that there are other things out there. And I think if

like, it comes back to intent, right? If you're a musician, cause you want to be the best set in the world and like connect with people together, then like on your way there, are you hurting people to do that well then you're not following your intent right or your intent or yeah some people don't care yeah some people don't care but yeah and so well then maybe it's not a cost maybe you know maybe it's right yeah and so it's just what do you value in making sure that what you value is not just something in the end but something along the way too yeah and yeah i think that the only cost for me was just saying no to a lot of things and um saying no to i wouldn't call it

cost because now as i look back a lot of those things just wouldn't have been good for me anyways and so just that kind of social pressure a little bit yeah especially as you're younger you know yeah to deal with that but you were saying yes I mean there's a phrase that I speak about often which is that you can't fully say yes until you say no right and so you were saying no to some stuff but allowed you to say yes to something else yeah definitely so it's that the two parts there again what what comes to mind when you think of the single most difficult moment in your life single most difficult wow

i think that's a great question i think about that. Yeah. Yeah. So I think something I haven't talked too much about, but something that I've dealt with is depression. So it is this idea of kind of like having these internal thoughts in your mind that are kind of just eating away at you. And that's something I've dealt with for a couple of years. And they're way more serious case than what i dealt with but i think you mentioned it a little bit earlier but you talked about imposter syndrome and so i just being in music or we actually talked about that before the mic was on oh okay something maybe we get to okay we can get to i mean i'll talk about that now being in music being in a place like stanford right you see all these great things

around you and i've always been surrounded by You see all these great things around you. And I've always been surrounded by people who are doing great things. And I think the reason why this is relevant, this imposter syndrome conversation, is because when people work their life's effort with a goal in mind, and then they reach that goal or they reach that platform, like making a, you know, at the highest level or standing at Disney stage for you. Right. Or wherever one of those kind of monumental things might be. And feeling like I don't fully belong here is something that I've witnessed and experienced in myself as well. That is really a thread through people that are really hungry as well. And so I think it's important to honor this, that we look at you on stage and be like, wow, he's really got it together. And then you shock us with talking about, you know, stage fright and then talking about, no, no, no, I battled.

I battled this inner voice in my head. And can we get into that inner critic and that yeah we all we all have it yeah yeah yeah so i think we we can look at people that are on a platform and assume that it's gone and they're just living this free carefree life uh but no they just probably been doing it longer and it's it's like for me i deal with that all the time like every day yeah i'm sorry, I totally interrupted. Go back to a difficult time that really captures this. Yeah, there was a time just where I just wasn't following my internal thoughts meaning that I was in a place and where I was kind of either comparing myself to others and and not thinking that I was good enough to the point where it would just

consume all of me and where I wouldn't I wasn't as nice of a person, I wasn't thoughtful because I wasn't being as thoughtful to myself. And I wasn't as caring. I wasn't as focused in the point in the present at all. And yeah, I just wasn't my full self. And it was because I was in this constant comparison state. And it was just this time where i yeah my my values of what i thought of myself i i just lessened in comparison to what was going on around me isn't that amazing that we do that to ourselves you know and it's sneaky yeah it's really sneaky right and it starts with this idea that i want to get better what is she doing or he doing? Can I do that better? There's maybe nothing wrong with that.

That's like a healthy competitiveness maybe. But then when we turn it on ourselves, I don't know how your exact experience, but we turn inward on ourselves and we cut and we say, I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough. Over and over and over again before we know it, we're totally deflated. Yeah. And so that was something that I dealt with actually a lot through college, just being in a place like Stanford.

Like you have your friend, but they're also like an Olympic athlete. They're doing all these crazy things. And it wasn't just that. It was just also myself too. And so what really helped me is actually just a lot of these things that we're talking about today so meditation finding that internal time by myself and so what did someone switch you on to mindfulness yeah so what i actually went to a therapist because it was so i was like and i wasn't i wasn't on the deepest end of someone that's going through something like

this but it was enough where my relationships and the things that i'm doing are not going well i need to talk to someone and so i did that and we just said a thing like all right well for one minute a day you're just gonna sit down and like light a candle and i was like all right that's doable yeah it's better than what i'm doing yeah i can do that and then it was just a value thing. Like before, I would just say that there's not enough time in the day. And now it's almost like, well, what is your day going to be if you don't do this? Right? And it was just something that grew. And so like each morning, even in college, this is towards the end of my senior year,

when things started like turning around, and not just externally, like things for the most part always externally from for me it like looked good looked like things oh like you'd want that but when they when I started feeling more fulfilled with what I was doing like just happier when I woke up every morning it was around this time when I just started taking that time investing that time to be by myself to appreciate my own thoughts and it was amazing like the first the first week i started doing it i was just nicer to the people around me i started asking more questions because because i the way i put it was that because i gave myself that time i could give it to others and it was a really important lesson you've in the last uh 30 minutes that we've been talking you've been i can't help but understand what I know from my past and history.

And you've done some amazing little things here to share with us. One is that you decoupled your performance from who you are. You took, and in that process, you pulled out and away from self-judgment. And hence, judging others, others obviously is the natural extension. And when you did that by finding time to be quiet, to listen to yourself, to be curious, that's the nonjudgmental high regard for yourself that you were able to connect with other people. It's not lost on me in this conversation that one of your guiding principles is to use music or to connect with others with music and the music that you're creating.

And so that connection first began with yourself. And then all of a sudden you found connections, deeper connections with your music and other people, which are so important for you. And so that decoupling, that pulling apart is probably where it began for you. And I think that the reason for me why this part of the conversation is important, I haven't met someone yet that hasn't stared down like some heavy stuff that's pursuing mastery. And we don't get to see that or know that, that they are and we are human in this process. We're all kind of cut from the same sense of do I matter?

And I think it's a fundamental thing for us to sort out, like knowing that we matter just because we breathe. And it sounds so, I don't know, it sounds like it doesn't have weight to it, but it really does. It has everything. Yeah, there's some real weight to it. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep.

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Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Okay, so knowing what you know now, if you went back and you were 14 years old, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to your 14-year-old? I picked that time because you're just starting high school. This is a question of wisdom and insight that you've gathered throughout the years. To my 14- old self um i think something that i'm all about like systems right i think you can tell someone you know an idea to do it or something to, but I think process is what actually helps people. And so I would tell my 14-year-old self to look into kind of meditation and mindfulness,

build a habit around this earlier, because a lot of the things that I'm talking about now, even like mindset-wise that I'm at right now, which leads to some cool end results, are not because I thought about these things or was told these things. It's because I developed a system, a habit, that I could actually use and implement. So let me tell you more. So like when I started meditating, for example, I didn't just say, okay, I'm just going to meditate every morning. I created a little board on my door, and I would have a little checkbox.

And I created this system where – because it was difficult at first, right, finding the time to. And I was like, all right, just do it for one minute, check it off, and then at the end of the week, I'll get this for myself. And so I created a system where it turned into a habit and so what was that reward um it was something I think I think it was like maybe some basketball it was just something that I needed that I should have gotten anyway but I was just like all right well we'll make a game out of this and so for me I would just say okay at that age as early as possible what kind of process what kind of habit really small habit can you build that will kind of ground you in a way for the future and so it wouldn't necessarily

be an idea it would be a system yeah very cool and you know i can't help but think of what you said earlier when you were even younger i think when you were like 8 12 years old you loved it you know like your system was to go try to just get better. Your process was try to just go get better, get better, get better. And maybe what I'm hearing is that there was a little bit of bite at some point that entered. And I say bite meaning self-judgment. There was a little bit of self-judgment that entered at some point in time. And the wisdom that you would give your 14-year-old self is, hey, don't take it so seriously.

Invest in the process. Is that part of it? Like, well, so what happens? So I, I started out with that, you know, love for progress. As you said, like I, I would, you know, be so focused on, you know, every day getting a little bit better. It was so much fun, but over time I got way better than I thought I did. And so like, because of that, people of that, people give you certain things, awards and kind of rewards and accolades for that. And so it kind of went from this, wow, every day I'm just getting a little bit better. I don't even know what I sound like in comparison. I just know that it's so much fun getting a little bit better. But then people recognize you for that.

And so how do you deal with that? Are you still valuing that little bit of progress? Or have you turned to say oh well now i really like these awards i'm getting right and so for me it was it was that kind of switching from that everyday getting a little bit better to awards and i i honestly to this day i i said like i told you i have all these like kind of methods and habits in place but but I haven't even, I still wish to get back to that place of having no, you want awareness of end results, but I was just so invested in that every day getting a little bit better. And so for me, the systems I have in place now are kind of actually, once I think about

it, kind of going back to that childhood, uh, immersion that. Oh, so good. And I'll just offer you a thought on this is that i'm i i've come to understand that it's not possible to go back but it is possible to uh capture a way it felt right and bring that now yeah right yeah it sounds like that's what you're doing it's like you you have a clear and vivid placeholder of what it felt like 15 years ago and you're saying i want to structure my day yeah that's what i'm doing every day so that i can get totally completely lost and absorbed and you find it in music and it sounds like you find it in connections with other people yeah i'm always looking to do that so like now i whenever i'm like working on music or you know

writing any content you know my phone's out of the room, everything's off. I'm, I'm zoned in and, and it's because I want to find ways to, yeah, build that back in. And yeah, I think that was a beautiful way to put it. Yeah. You know, I, I, it resonates for me cause that's what I'm trying to do as well is find moments, um, extend the moments where I'm fully connected to what I'm doing. And for me, I need a little bit of risk involved in it, a little bit of uncertainty involved, where it primes me in a way to lean in and to be really purposeful and get lost in this moment, whatever this moment is. And loss is a funny way of saying it. It's like completely engaged is the other way of saying it.

And you know this, the science around flow, is amazing. It's the most optimal, it's the highest functioning state that we can be in as a human. And it's really slippery. It's very elusive. And as soon as we think that we're in the pocket, so to speak, we're out because now we're thinking, you know, it's like that meta awareness is what gets in our way. So I think we're probably, you know, as we're talking now, like hungry and for different for some of the same things using a different path yeah yeah okay um so we've we've talked about your journey we're starting to get into the framework of um how you see yourself and how you see the world and i'm wondering if we can you've shared with us about the inner critic you've you've

shared a little bit about the imposter syndrome you've talked about your philosophy these are all framework pieces like um can we get into risk taking so can do you have a particular story that comes to mind that captures your relationship with risk with risk yeah we all have different relationships with it so do you have a story that comes to mind so it's what i'm doing now so like right now no not right here this is the biggest it took a lot for me to come in this room um oh no so just my job right now right so i i'm not just a performer but i perform and speak at different companies organizations uh universities across the world really to share a message and that's inspired people to kind of bring something new to

the world. And I've only been doing this for a year but it was I guess one of the riskiest decisions I made because I was at this point where there were a lot of other safer options around because of my academic background i could have gotten a job in what i studied a lot of my friends were kind of basking in their job security too and i went to stanford right so you're supposed to go do the these other things more so than that you're actually given awards from one of the top venture capitalist firms in the world right yeah yeah cliner perkins i was like a design fellow and so there's all these things and so that point almost don't sound real right like you know okay there's a pause here because but as we're unpacking this what um

this is why I was so fascinated to talk with you yeah because um obviously masterful at your craft, went to Stanford, awarded, you know, awards from one of the top VC firms in the world. And you're going on a path that is completely your own, right? You're merging and blending these two. So, and what I'm learning right now from you, this is why I'm so excited, is that you've invested in the process of progression. Maybe I just made those two, put those two together for us, but you know, it's that getting lost in the moment. And when you do that, you're getting better at it, whatever it is. And then you're finding connection with other people. Yeah. Does that sound? Yeah. So for me, I guess, yeah, going back to that. So all of the things from that experience that look great are, you know, because, you know, I'm capable.

I can focus on something and accomplish something. But for a lot of that that you see, it was being pulled by external factors. And so kind of the ideas that we talked about a few minutes ago, just around imposter syndrome and all that, is that a lot of the external accolades that you can see were actually, I didn't feel as great as they might look on a resume. Right. And so I got to this point where I was just asking myself, like, is this what I was working for? So I have a very high pain tolerance. I can work hard. I can, you know, say no to stuff and do things that are harder to do. Would you call that grit? I would call it grit, yeah. So I'm willing to put in whatever hours it takes, fine.

And so for those who are listening, grit really is defined, Dr. Duckworth has done some great research around this, that it's doing difficult things for an extended period of time. Like really having a dogged perseverance and a dogged focus for an extended period of time and enduring.

It's not just like doing difficult things right now, but it's like over and over and over. Yeah. Yeah. So that kind of sums up my work habit. But what I realized is that that was hurting me because I was using that. It's important to be intentional about where you apply your grit, right? I think a lot of people have this idea that, you know, you just work hard and then you'll get something.

But asking, like, what are you working towards? Like, what do you really want to accomplish? And for me, I was applying my grit towards kind of like awards, things that looked good. And I was able to get them because I have a high pain tolerance. I can do it. But then I came to this feeling where I was like, okay, is this what I'm working for? Is it for this feeling of like lack of fulfillment? Like on the outside, it looks great, but I probably feel worse than most of these people that wish they were in my position right now. So what does this mean? And so from that point, I was like,

at least career wise, I was like, I'm doing, I can come back to this place. Like I know I have the aptitude to come back. But for me, I want to do something that's purposeful that really just awakens people and inspires them to do something and so for me all my energy was i just applied all that grit towards this and so when i graduated when you say this what is oh sorry what i'm doing now so the company where i perform and speak in different places i shared this message and what is this message The message is for people to bring their own. I use the analogy of music. So to bring their own music to the world. So all my music is original.

And so to bring those internal sounds and to help organizations create cultures where these sounds can lead to exponential growth together. And I'm just very passionate about that idea. And so I made the decision that the same work ethic that I was applying to kind of end goals that other people had put in front of me, well, I'm going to see what happens if I apply the same work ethic to this crazy idea that I have. And I did that. So after I graduated, actually, I remember the other day after graduation, I went back home to my parents' home just for like a couple of weeks.

And I just worked on this. Sorry, I keep saying this, but on this idea for probably 15 or 16 hours a day. So thinking about the ideas that I want to share, how would I frame it? Who would want to hear something like this? And it's coming to fruition and so for me it's just been so rewarding because I probably work more technically than I ever have grit wise but I feel so fulfilled and I'm still able to give more to my relationships because it's coming from a healthy place of trying to do something that helps people that I really care about.

And so, um, yeah, just seeing it. Where does this empathy come from for you? Like caring of others? So honestly, it comes back to this experience with my mother and it's just so deep in me because I think what she shares, like so many people around the world in this country share. And like I said, I'm looking for those sunset principles. And what I think she shared with me was a sunset principle, not in the positive way, in a negative way, of kind of denying your internal sounds that you can bring to the world,

your internal ideas. And so when she said that, and when I think about that, I don't just see her or my family. I see so many other potential people that could be bringing and I also see the potential of what could happen like imagine a world if like people fully if people didn't need a diagnosis to kind of live with more curiosity and live with more intention like imagine what would that look like if we didn't need to get to that point if you were at your healthiest form and had this same mindset like what i'm just curious to see what that would look like um and it kind of

comes from me being curious about what that would look like for my own family like my mother the people that share that with me initially and so i just see that in everyone and so that's just kind of where it comes from how did your mom do through the process? She did well. So she had surgery, double mastectomy, breast cancer, and she's doing well now. She's still in Maryland. Thanks for asking. Yeah, cool. Okay.

Okay, so let's get into some mindset stuff. Let's switch gears if we can. Cool. Yeah. So we talked about philosophy and kind of your journey, I'm sorry. And we got into some framework stuff, the way you see the world the way you see yourself and let's get into like really concrete mindset or mental skills what how do you describe your ideal mindset when you take stage or when you um are in a conversation and there's probably slight variance between the two but can you capture are you really clear what your ideal mindset is?

And if so, let's bring it to life. Yeah. So this is really funny and interesting because after I spoke for the players of the Seahawks last week, the kicker, is it Steven? Yeah. So he came up to me and he asked me this same question. He was like, okay, you're going on a stage. I was just seeing myself going up to kick the ball. Like this is the same thing.

And so he asked me about that. And what I told him, and I'm trying to hear about his mindset too, right? How does he do that with millions of people watching? But for me, it's setting, at least performance-wise, it's setting an intention whenever I get on the stage of why I'm doing this, and that's to have fun with it and to let other people experience how much I when I write something I'm in I'm in that flow state when I write music I'm it's the most enjoyable thing and so I want other people to

see themselves in that experience I want them to experience the same kind of like emotional excitement and immersion that I felt creating this. And so I say that to myself in my brain, I would just want to share the feeling with people. And that's the intention I set whenever I perform a piece of music. Okay. So let me see if i can capture it that your mindset is purposefully anchoring to the intent that you want to share yeah what it is that you created so that they can feel some or all of of what you felt yeah so so music for me it's it's most powerful language because it takes it's a story right so music by itself and stories are the most powerful like piece of language that we have and so it's a story that translates or translates across any spoken

language so it's most powerful and so for me i want to take people through that story because i want them i want i want someone to come up to me after and tell me a story about how like what did that remind them of what did that what place did that take them to uh and so for me i think that's a super powerful position to be in it's a super super uh um i guess yeah powerful is just because you're on stage it's just you and so i i try to put that at the forefront of my mind because i still i still battle with okay well you you know, I don't want to mess up or, wow, like, there's a lot of people in the audience. And so for me, when I get on stage, I just take a deep breath. And it's always a different line, but I come back to that place.

And it's just been really helpful for me just in terms of as a performer, you want to share everything. And so, like, if I smile when I play or anything like that it's because like I try to it's funny like I try to ignore the audience in a way to kind of go back to to why I like why I really made this piece the place I was at when I created this and so to really communicate that most with the audience, you kind of have to ignore them in a way. And so I try to say, how can I kind of bring that memory back? How can I go back to that place of joy of creating this? Yeah. Okay. So it's difficult to do, but I always set that intention. So that's kind of like a practice. That's the practice. Yeah. So you actually

practice putting on an ideal mindset, which is the intent to connect right yeah oh yeah so easy right like when you say it it's so easy yeah but it takes great practice it takes practice because your mind yeah a lot a lot of times will not allow yourself to do that and i think it's come through a lot of repetition so having you know a ton of performances where i can try to do this, and now it's like this is what I do, and it takes me to that place a lot of times. How do you train confidence? How do I train confidence? Practicing in different scenarios.

And so I talked about this a little bit with the Seahawks last week, but I think it's one of the things that hurts us the most as people that perform on any stage is that we only practice in ideal environments. And when we're trying to perform at a high level, it's never ideal. There's always things that are coming against us, forces that make it more challenging to get in that state. And so for me, I, anytime I perform, I put so many repetitions in, but they're always different, right? When I practice music, I'll practice with other music playing on the background, or I'll start on the wrong note, or I'll try to mess up in a way way I'll start at a point of dissonance and see how I can get back to that and so by the time I perform every time I've

never had a perfect performance but I'm confident that I'll figure it out because I know that I know that at the end of the day something's gonna happen but the way I practice is a deep trust that you're talking about so you put yourself in a lot of different scenarios so that you can trust yourself in whatever's going to come next. And that maybe what I'm hearing is that you'll trust that you can adjust to whatever comes

because you've seen so many frames, so many different looks at this thing that you're interested in doing. So it's expanding that comfort zone to be able to, I don't know, have the uncomfortable like that requires effort yeah and i think it's not easy it takes more effort to all right it's easy to say okay if i do this this and this it will lead to x right so if i practice two hours a day

play this it will lead to that that's easy but what's harder is saying if i keep myself off balance right what will happen then and what happens if you kind of practice by keeping yourself off balance, being ready to adjust, you create an energy, you create confidence. Have you ever? Yeah. OK. So and so you're not you're not creating you're not creating a static piece of art. You're creating energy. Right. and that's what people feel and so for me when i practice now it's like okay well whatever i practice it doesn't matter if i don't have that energy and so like how can i train for that that kind of responsiveness love it and that's what matters yeah and that's something that's pretty advanced yeah and you again you need to have your base right you know to be able to mechanically be

an artist in uncomfortable scenarios so get the base first and then put yourself in really uncomfortable situations i'd add one layer to it that confidence comes from just that little voice that you have because you can be uncomfortable and say to yourself i love this yeah right and confidence goes up if you're uncomfortable and you go oh my god everyone's going to realize that i'm telling the story you're telling yourself yeah that that that's for what i've come to understand where confidence comes from but the more frames you have in uncomfortable rugged sometimes hostile environments

the more you can trust your voice which is i got this let's go let's see some backbone too yeah let's see what this is about let's see what i got here yeah like this is what i do right so all of that stuff becomes credible yeah Yeah. Yeah. And I love it. Okay. So let me, let me just kind of go really quickly, um, through some stuff here. Uh, are you more street savvy or analytical? I think more street savvy. Do you prefer slow paced environment or fast-paced environment? Slow-paced. Yeah. Rule follower or risk taker? Risk taker. Really? Do you have a high need for control in a room or are you okay if other people lead? Depends on what the room is looking like. Okay. Intellectually competitive or physically competitive or both uh i'd say intellectually

are you more critical or more positive by nature definitely more positive yeah so what's it like when people are critical of you um well actually now that you put it that way okay it's weird like i have uh i'm more critical than anyone could ever be of me. And so when I hear criticism, I'm just like, okay, well, that's toned. That's so much nicer than what I said to myself. But I'm positive in the sense that I know there's a way to change it. So I'm not saying the criticism that I have of myself is the end goal. It's like after performance, if it goes great, right, I'm not just saying, Oh, well, like people loved it. I'm saying,

Oh, that was cool. But I think I can change these five things and I'm positive that if I work at this tonight, tomorrow will be better. And so it's, I think it's both. Yeah.

Okay. Um, pressure comes from, um, pressure comes from, I think, uh, pressure control i think an end result that you have in mind a trying to predict the future oh nice yeah okay it all comes down to

it's a big question yeah they're fast but you don't have to just take your time unpacking these things intent yeah it all comes down to intent love how do you respond to that word? Love. Trust. Relationships. Communication. My vision is? To keep getting better tomorrow and today,

to do a little more to keep getting better. And then last is i am i am i think i respond by just saying we are the response to that I am we are yeah we're all kind of going through similar things and I love watching you work for that you had to really work for that yeah because I was thinking like I am when I think of I am I think there's a lot of ways to go with that yeah but I think there's a little little different ways to go with that. Yeah. But I think there's a little, little pieces of pieces of all of those responses in each of us. And so it just kind of depends on the scenario. Love it.

Okay. So for those that are listening, we're in my office right now and I've got a board behind you that it's a chalkboard. And there's a bunch of phrases that people that are finding mastery in their own life have taken a chalk pen and put, put their little thing up there. So I'm going to ask you to do it in a little bit, but maybe that's one of it. That's really good. That's great. Yeah. Okay. Um, all right. In your own words, I think you said it earlier, but how do you, how do you capture mastery? And this is like, this is really the

last question. You know, how do you capture what this thing of finding mastery or what mastery is? For me, it's mastery and finding a process that's repeatable, that works, that you can be immersed in. And then for me personally, that process comes down to curiosity, being open to whatever's around you and intent. So being purposeful with whatever you're doing at that time. And doing that over a repeated amount of time will lead to the mastery. So good. All right. So I said last question.

Now I'm switching it. What do you see in the next five to ten years for your industry? Right? Which is, I'm not sure what industry that is. It's always difficult when I have to put that. You're blending like two or three kind of things, right? Yeah. So this part music, like I'm not sure what industry that is. Like you're blending like two or three kind of things, right? Yeah. So this part music, like I'm working on an album this year. So like, it's still trying to go further with that, but it's also like leadership development, personal development. So let's go bigger. Let's go. What do you see in the next five or 10 years

for humans? For humans? Yeah. Maybe 10 years out is easier. I don't know. So I think right now we're at this turning point this is just based on you know my experience what i'm passionate about where the world is so connected where we're going to ask bigger questions we're asking why more and so a lot of a lot of things are going to change around lifestyle career choices um and yeah in just in terms of personal personal choices a lot of things are going to change because we can see everything now we see that there's another way of doing it and there's only a certain amount of time before we start to ask okay well why am i just doing it this way and so i think as we talk about you know technology changing and how it has impacted our lives so much in the last 15 or 20 years,

I think that technology has leaned to openness and seeing the world. And so I think that's going to lead to a lot of the kind of personal life plan systems that we have in place. I think they're going to change in a beautiful way. So in terms of looking at life, in terms of being education to work to retirement I think all that's gonna switch because we're gonna see that there's another option and I'm excited to be a part of that so are an optimist I am okay so where can we where can we find more about what you're doing and where can people go yeah yeah the best place to see

what i'm up to is on my website so it's uh www.kikite.com which is spelled k-a-i-k-i-g-h-t and then you can also find me on twitter at um just my name so at kikite yeah do you have an instagram page as well uh i do yeah you're just i don't yeah i use that sometimes uh and then also twitter yeah mostly twitter and then i'm responsive to email too so it's just uh kai kite at gmail.com yeah that's right okay i i i want to thank you i loved this conversation i was looking forward to having it with you. I appreciate what you're doing, how you've captured it. This conversation for me was a joy. So thank you. That's fantastic. I learned a lot. Yeah, good. It's both of us. Yeah. So thanks for coming in. Thanks for sharing your life passion and how you understand it, the, you know, your approach to life and your

framework and the mental skills that you're working on. So love it. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. So if you enjoyed Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. So if you enjoyed this episode, hopefully you can go to iTunes and subscribe to Finding Mastery. And I've also learned that if you hit the like button and share some comments, that that helps out tremendously for, you know, building this community so we can keep this thing going. And, or you can also go to the website findingmastery.net and what will be set up there is a place for you to log in for your email and all that good stuff. So I could just keep you connected and posted to what's coming, what's next and all that good

stuff. You can also get more information on Twitter at Michael, M-I-C-H-A-E-L. And then my last name, Gervais, G-E-R-V as in Victor, A-I-S. And you can also hit us up at facebook.com forward slash finding mastery. So hopefully you go spend some time to check out Kai and, you know, follow him on his adventures and all of his links and everything that we talked about in in the podcast will be in the show notes and um yeah so until next time thank you thank you for listening and i'm hopeful to hear really how you're finding mastery in your own life is as we use some of these nuggets to um to take it into our own communities all the best 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.

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