Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - System of a Down’s Serj Tankian on Turning Passion Into Purpose

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

How do the best in the world channel the intensity of their emotions—like frustration, anxiety, and love—into creative power that impacts the world?Serj Tankian is a Grammy-winning artist, activist, and frontman of the iconic rock band System of a Down. Known for his dynamic vocals and thought-provoking lyrics, Serj blends creativity, activism, and mindfulness into his music, poetry and art – all with the goal to inspire change, advocate for justice, and explore the depths of human emotion.  In this conversation, we explore how Serj transforms emotional tension into creativity and clarity. We dive into his early days growing up as a first-generation Armenian American, the profound influence of his family’s history, and his journey to finding equilibrium between justice and forgiveness.For anyone looking to better manage emotions, lean into creativity, or make sense of life’s contradictions, this conversation is packed with wisdom. We can’t wait to share it with you._________________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. How can we channel the intensity of our emotions like frustration, anxiety, love into creative power that impacts the world? Welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. Serge Tunkian is a Grammy-winning artist, activist, and frontman of the iconic genre-defying rock band

System of a Down. Serge is known for his dynamic vocals and thought-provoking lyrics. He blends creativity, activism, and mindfulness into his music, poetry, and art in order to inspire change, advocate for justice, and explore the depths of human emotion. In this conversation, we dive deep into Serge's mindset, his journey, and we explore how he transforms emotional tension into creativity and art. So with that, let's dive into this week's conversation with Serge Tankian. Serge, this is awesome. Thanks for having me, Mike. Two things. One is I kind of can't believe I'm sitting with you. Oh, come on.

Yeah. No, I grew up surfing, skating. I love the edge of just about everything. And there was just an energy to three, or five bands that i loved and this is when i was i don't know 16 17 18 in that range there and what you stood for and the energy that you brought i was like i didn't even know what you were saying but i was like there's something here and so i just love that i'm here and i'm love that our mutual friend, Peter Park, put us together. Absolutely.

I love Peter. He's the best. I texted him last night. And I said, Sarah, just coming on. And he says, yeah, we were talking about it. And I said, I loved his book. His book was smart. And I love that you read it.

I did the audio version. And I just really appreciated it. And I said, obviously smart, super intense, passionate, global citizen, is working at a system level, no pun intended here yet. And I said, is he kind of nerdy? And he fired back, F no. He's like, he's so passionate, he's so intense, like politically he fired back, F no. You know, he's like, he's so passionate. He's so intense, like politically, musically, like no way. And he's also the most humble and kind person. It's very kind of Peter, but I am nerdy.

I have to tell you one of the last texts I just did was to my friend, Tom Morello. Legend. Yeah, we have a game on Saturday saturday night and uh we're playing pirates wait wait wait hold on no you just took a turn you have a game well it's it's kind of like you know they they play dnd i haven't played since i was a teenager a young teenager yes i can't so they were gonna play dnd but then they changed it to a Pirates game. And I actually went to my friend Joe Manganiello's house

and he invited me to play this Pirate game. Now, I was there for hours and I really enjoyed how they played it and I loved their company. So I really enjoyed it and the pizza was awesome. But I didn't really get into the game at all. Like I was just like the game was kind of boring. But I'm going back because I love those guys.

And it's fun being with them. But yeah, I mean, I am a nerd. I was a 4.0 student in high school and university and honors and all that. But yeah. Were you a 4.0 student high school because your parents were like, that's what we do. We're coming to this United States of America, this great land of opportunity. And I know that you've, you've got a, um, a beautiful understanding of our country from, uh, first generation from Armenia. So I do want to get into all of that.

Was that because your parents were like, this is what we do? Or did that come from inside? Like, no, I love learning. And I, this is amazing. And it could be a hybrid, of course. I think I was the older son in the family. I've got a younger brother. And I think my mom specifically had a lot of expectations from a very young age. So she would sit with me with my homework and it was something that we would do together. And there was a lot of care taken into, I mean, I'm talking about even when I was a kid, you know, I was born in Lebanon, raised in Los Angeles. So even before coming to the US, but coming to the US, you know, there's always the challenge, the language challenge, And, you know, you're kind of a grade behind with your language.

So you've got to catch up. And that kind of gives you even more of a motivation to try to outdo. And so it's probably a combination of the two. I would love to talk, spend our time understanding how you hold the tension between two states. It's like the tension between trauma and trust, the tension between intimacy and frustration, the tension between humility and masterfulness. I want to open those up like a bottle of wine, if you will,

one at a time with you. But to set the stage of why I'm so interested in that is like your music has so, and it's happening right in this moment, your music has so much intensity, call it frustration. I don't know if it's rage, you know, but so much frustration slash intensity. And I don't experience any of that in you in this moment. Of course, you don't walk around pissed off or frustrated. And I always thought the name of your band, System of a Down, I didn't understand it. And what I ascribed the meaning of it was you were pointing to a system, a cultural system of a downward spiral. And I don't know the origin,

so I'm happy to talk about the origin with you. But how do you hold those tensions? Just talk about that concept of holding tension for a minute. Musically, I think when we first started working as a band, there was a lot of tension in my life from family, a lot of, you know, my parents were going through this horrible lawsuit that I kind of highlight in the book. And there was just a lot going on. And I think that tension needed a release. Now, music and the arts are the perfect release for those type of tensions for young people in their 20s you know teens to 20s um it's a positive way of releasing energy we kind of referred to it earlier um so

that that start that that's the beginning of how it you know got married into the music for me um how do i how do i hold tension holding the tension that's the part that let me open this up one more one more time is that so we're talking about really emotional states and you're a highly emotional musician hold on before i take any further can you respond to that is that accurate i am am i highly emotional there are times where i'm highly emotional but i would say that generally i try to um contain my emotions and not react to them as much as i can that's it okay so here's the here was the the i always say i'd rather react to sports in sports and not in life oh that's interesting. Because my working hypothesis and why I think

our conversation can be really, maybe as we're going, powerful for our community is because when emotions come online, you pick it. It could be love. It could be frustration. It could be sadness, anxiousness. When emotion comes online, for most people that are untrained, the emotion wins. The emotion runs the show. And it's a little bit like the metaphor of the elephant and the rider. The elephant is the emotion. And when an intense emotion, a la elephant wants to run, it runs. And the rider is trying to just hold on for dear life, which is our cognitive processing. And you're able to manage emotions, I think, in an artistic way. And right now in a topsy-turvy world, in a world that has speed, intensity, high emotions, there's a separation in the United States that we're experiencing, that maybe we can

be a little bit better if we know how to work with emotions. And I don't know if you're the poster child, but you certainly hold tension between opposing states of being. And that's what I'm really interested in how you do that. Yeah. I remember, I don't know if it was in Eckhart Tolle book or wherever I saw it, emotions are like the video library. Each emotion is like a video that you check and then you put back. And you are not the emotion. You are the seer. You're watching the emotion.

And I think in states where I am more calm you know when I meditate often then I don't react as well this morning was not one of them my son wait wait say that when you read when you when you are meditative you don't react well I no no no I don't react in other words I don't I don't emotionally react because I'm in a state of understanding what's going on across me that I could look through and see everything and not necessarily emotionally react is what I mean when I say react. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Yeah. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions.

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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. This morning, my son, we asked him because it's's cold we asked him to put on a certain pants and how old 10 very rebellious which i love about him you know i mean um but he had to put that on so my wife and i are like you have to put on those pants and he just had the largest meltdown like just and, I would just be like, okay.

And not just meltdown, but he was very, very aggressive. And normally, I would be like, let's try that again. That's what you would say? Normally, that's what I want to say. I would want to say, let's try that again. What you want to express, you're expressing something, which I understand. Let's try to express that without anger. I'm going to express that without anger i'm going to walk back out i'm going to walk back in what do you really want to tell me without all this drama you know that's what i wanted to say but this morning

for some reason i was in that world as well you guys he sucked you right in lost it i was like what the fuck right like just what'd you say to him and then I felt like an idiot because I'm the adult, right? So it happens. Like, you know, the ones that get under our skin are the ones that are closest to us usually in every way. You know, partners, kids, you know, parents and stuff. And it's harder to have that kind of detachment from the emotional aspect. But I try and i generally do you know that just if someone reacts and someone has you know a strong emotion i mean if it's love then obviously that you know it's it's beautiful go with it but if there's anger

frustration i try to see to the bottom common denominator what what is it what is it that that's causing this what is the cause of this because it's important to be productive i'm a productive person you're a productive person and it's important not to stay in these states that can kind of be just you know uh i don't want to say consequential, but something that breaks us down and instead go, okay, let's move on from this. What is it that we're trying to solve? I like solving problems, you know. I like moving on from it, you know.

Not because I want to deny the emotion or deny the trauma, but because if you get to the root of that emotion and trauma and you deal with that, then you can move on. I'm listening to sound logic. And I'm listening to somebody who, so first and foremost, like at a cognitive level, I'm like, Jack, oh yeah, oh, I see what you did. Oh, cool.

And I'm watching sound logic step-by-step on how you are working through emotional processing. And then underneath the surface, I'm feeling somebody that is calm right now. Okay. And then when I listen to your music, I don't understand it, but I feel it. I don't know how to make sense of where the lyrics came from, but I have a sense of it. So can you wrap those two together? So music is an incredible way of, as we were discussing, just exorcising those emotions, getting them out of you, right? So when you're done, you're calm.

You've already done your heavy lifting. Those emotions are out. So offstage, i'm very relaxed you know very cool on stage i you know you perform you do the thing and you live the emotion of the music and the words that you're that you've written you know you live it for as an actor would live it up you know on stage because you know if if the script says he angrily did this, then you're angry, right? Like you live those words, you perform those words, but you walk off and you feel so much lighter. This is cool because you're talking about exorcising, you're talking about training, you're talking about a cathartic experience. And I'm not sure that the person who's not in art or sport, right, and they are solving business-based challenges, that they have this mechanism in their life.

Maybe they go to the gym before or after. Maybe they do some sort of artistic expression at some point in their lives. But this idea that, no, I get to flex and press and stress and express emotions, and then it's a way to let go of them it also sounds like so that might be an insight from your life that could be really if we unpack that could be powerful for people how would you suggest that people could do that in a corporate environment wow is it it's got to be after it's or is it do you think it's close the door and there's something inside of their office they could do? Anything that you get lost in is valuable. It's meditative.

So for years I did music and music helps me get lost still to a certain degree. But I've been doing music for so long and I do music for films and TV and stuff. It's very, I don't want to say regimented, but it's very organized. It's, I know what I'm doing. You know, once I figure out the palette that I want to use, it's very logical. It's very... What does that mean, palette in music? Creative palette.

Instrumentation, colors that you want to use, emotional colors that you want to portray. When I started painting, because I've been doing music for so long, that feeling of loss is less. And when I started painting 10, 12 years ago, for so long that feeling of loss is less and when I started painting 10-12 years ago I experienced that first feeling when I first started writing music again which is just losing time being lost in something so I mean it's great to exercise go to the gym and get that anxiety out from a long business work day or whatever but you need something that basically stops your mind.

Whether it's meditation, whether it's art, whether it's doing something that creates that space inside of you. Because that space inside of you is necessary because your mind is always incessantly working. I can tell you've done a lot of work, internal work. Yeah, whether it's meditation or formal therapy, I'm not sure.

But the words that you're using internal work. Yeah. Um, whether it's meditation or formal therapy, I'm not sure. Um, but the, the words that you're using are the, the, the evidence of like the value of the inner experience and the commitment to express it in the way that seems fitting to you. Talk about your meditation process for just a minute. Cause this might be the reason you're able to hold tension so well in multi-disciplines or multi-factors you know so so years ago um when we first started the band i was i i had a lot of anxiety and and i was i was seeing these kind of recurring daydreams of just electronic equipment and stuff in the shower when i would be in the shower under hot water and i just like there's times i passed out like, like it just had these weird effects on my mind, on my brain. And I was telling our producer, my friend Rick Rubin about them, and he recommended a guru to learn how to do transcendental meditation. So I started doing transcendental meditation. That

led me into, you know, mindfulness, a bunch of different books from Jon Kabat-Zinn to Eckhart Tolle to Thich Nhat Hanh and kind of just understanding the spiritual world. So this is a synergy moment. Jon Kabat-Zinn is a mentor of mine. Oh, no way. That's amazing and i never got to spend any time with uh technot han um but he has been instrumental in my becoming as well that's you know yeah john is hey john amazing wherever you go there you are there you are that was probably the first book that i ever picked up that really spoke to me. Like I would read one line and stop and feel it,

read another line and stop and feel it. Like I love it when that happens with any type of transcription. Okay, very cool. So meditation is a big part of your practice. It is. And I kind of over time developed my own combination of body meditation mixed with Native American spirituality and

sun salutations and transcendental meditation. It's almost like this poetry, I say. And it starts from the end of my toes all throughout my body and then gets into kind of gratefulness for the day and you know the standing or sitting sitting and then so you connect your physical body to a spiritual experience in a way yeah yeah um because i want to feel my body first you know like energize the body the chakras feel things moving energy moving inside like it wakes you up right especially in the morning and then thank the universe for my vision you know and i i want clarity in my vision i ask for clarity i ask for intelligence wisdom the things that i yearn for to be better at everything that i do everything that i am when you say i ask the universe what does that mean to you? Oh. Dead Sea Scrolls apparently hid the power of visualization in the form of prayer.

All 11 world religions have some sort of contemplative practice. And when I say contemplative, I mean a way to contemplate. And prayer is the form that most of meditation is obviously a similar word but your origin influence from a philosophical standpoint was christianity yeah right still i don't know i mean um it's kind of like there's truths in all these books but there's no one book that has all the truths and that one book is us that has all these truths very cool i remember the first time i had the idea that

it was a intro to world religion class as a freshman in college and i was or sophomore or something and i said to the professor i said i like them all and he looked at me he's like yeah and i said i mean if you took. And he looked at me and he's like, yeah. And I said, I mean, if you took this from Buddhism and this from Confucianism and you took this from Christianity and this from Islam, and like, if you put these things together and I mean, these Zoroastrian principles, like, I mean, they're foundational. And he says, how would you do it? And this is in front of like a class.

And I said, I don't know, but I would like like i want to line them all up get to the first principles of each world religion and then like see if i can string some dots together and he says okay he says that's a good project he says um just curious do you think that you're smarter than jesus buddha confucius and muhammad i said no no i'm not saying that he goes well you're acting like that you can pull he's checking your ego yeah right and i was like no i just think it's all beautiful there's a connectivity that i don't understand yet because they're discrete books they talk about each other in some of them but so anyways um that's really cool yeah i took world religion in in college as well i thought i thought it was a very interesting class yeah it's good so okay your practice, is it something like five minutes a day, 20 minutes a day?

I don't time it, but it's probably more like 15, 20. 15, 20. Is it after you brush your teeth? I'm going to be super tactical for a moment. I try to do it as early in the morning as I can because, you know, well, the day gets busy more than anything else. But I used to do it at night as well. I started at night.

Yeah. And then I was missing this glow that happens, like this long tail glow that I want to have during my day. Yeah. And then John Kabat-Zinn, I was like, man, I'm struggling to get it in right now. And he says, do it laying down in bed. Your alarm goes off.

Just take a couple moments there yeah right you're not going to fall back asleep mike you you need to get up and go yeah just take a few minutes settle in do some nice breathing do some gratitude work maybe you know and you know there's all types of scripts that you could create and or follow but i've been doing that now probably for five years. And it's the first 10 minutes. I'm already relaxed. I don't have to work to kind of, that's one of the primary reasons I like meditation in the morning. I don't have to work as hard to quiet it down. Exactly. I like it for the same purpose. Afternoons when you're busy and stuff, it's harder to sit with it and your mind's way more busy and to calm it down.

When you were creating some of your early music, did you have a practice or were you... Tell me about that. I'm trying to think of the time frame. It might have been after the first record or around the first record definitely by the second record yeah definitely by toxicity because listening to the lyrics you know of aerials or something like life is a waterfall and swim what what is life is a waterfall drink from the river then you turn around and put up our walls or something like it's it's very there's a lot of spirituality still this album has a lot of really cool spiritual still this album was lyrics um that was so punk yeah steal this album that record yeah it's probably my favorite system record is it i think so yeah it's just so diverse it's just all all over the place what was the line on the waterfall which was something around um you know we are the river no hold on

how did it go the idea was that we're we're the river and we rejoin after we fall off the water yeah i don't have the lyric down but yeah so like think of each of us as a drop in that waterfall we're one before that waterfall and then we're one again after the fall and that fall is our life our separation see i didn't know that that middle part because i made up the story i always wondered why i was not part of the waterfall with like okay i get it like beautiful like we're all part of this river amazing and then we rejoin i think what's the word you used right maybe i can um afterwards but i was like well what happens to the waterfall like i didn't know you were pointing to life i was like yeah wait hold on that's that's the the the radical part why is

he saying we're rejoining so i felt like you my interpretation is like i didn't put those two together like there was you missing like what actually happens over the waterfall yeah i think most of us are terrified we're in the river and we're terrified we can hear the we can hear the waterfall yeah we're in some rapids and it's overwhelming and it feels like our head is barely above water we're working as hard as we possibly can. And then something, the milk is spilt, the person cuts us off, the deadline is missed. And then now we're like, can't you just make this right? And we point to something outside of ourselves for the reason we feel agitated because we're afraid to go over the waterfall. And what I just heard you say is,

no, no, no, you gotta go over the waterfall. The waterfall's a whole thing. The waterfall to me was basically describing our life because we're separated. You know, those droplets falling are separated. There you go. We feel separated. And then when we land back in the stream or river,

we're together again. So our whole life, before I was born, I was part of everything. I'm still part of everything, but we feel like we're separate. Got it. So this takes on a whole different dimension. That's pretty rich. 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. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not

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and i have been as open and vulnerable as a human can be as i can be and you're holding space in your insight which is and does she know everything how can she right and so there's there's a there's a um a hidden dimension even to me sure but but that space is necessary just like different flavors of food is necessary because if if the the interaction if if it wasn't different enough life wouldn't be interesting you know the richness of life the diversity of life is that space that difference okay now i'm going to take two turns okay i hear you say that and it's super elevated in thinking and it's rich in its tone of appreciating other people. How do you square that with the tension between the Turks and the Armenians? How do you square that? Good question.

Yeah. Because if I can learn how you're doing it, and maybe you're not doing a nice job with it, I don't know. But if we can have that conversation, maybe we can have a conversation about how the political left and the political right in the United States can navigate, or there's so many folks that have tension. But first, can you take a pause and walk us through the tension, the historical tension between the Turks and Armenians. Right. Well, it's interesting because I would say there is no historical tension between Turks and Armenians.

I think during the falling days of the Ottoman Empire, these two people that lived in close harmony with each other, neighbors, friends, were ripped apart by political systems to dominate a Christian minority, first started by the Ottoman Sultan, and then later taken over by what we call the Young Turks, that's what they were called, the political party that took over in 1908, that they organized and executed the Armenian Genocide, genocides of roughly one and a half million Armenians, also Pontiac Greeks and Assyrians.

Wait, let's pause here. Let's pause here for a second. Okay, so we've got a party that formed in 1908, and you're very clear that there was a genocide. And- History is clear. History is clear. History is clear. And there's still not a, at least to my awareness,

a recognition about it that is part of the zeitgeist. By the country that inherited the perpetrators. The sons and grandkids of the perpetrators have not formally recognized it but that's also politics that's erdogan that's erdogan's turkey right now yeah so and that so has there been a there turkey has not had a formal recognition no the u.s has recognized that most european nations most south american nations most of the world i mean most most of um i don't know if it's most of the world but a large part of the world has formally recognized including the united

nations and all of that that there was a genocide um and what were the years 19 1915 to 1918 yeah and 1.5 million you said yeah yeah uh but to answer your question properly, is you were talking about a tension between two peoples. That's correct, yeah. So the tension comes from a historical injustice. And because that injustice hasn't been properly addressed, that tension exists. But it's less between two people and more between those that are deniers

and those that aren't. I have Turkish friends, amazing authors, writers, directors who recognize the genocide, openly speak about it, even put their own lives at risk and stuff. And I love them. I respect them. I, you know, they're very creative people like us, you know, and, um, and that has nothing to do with ethnicity. You know, it has to do with a crime an international crime and do you square healing with recognizing it of course the first stage to anything is awareness right awareness and then if the perpetrator is unaware i don't think that healing is beholden to the person saying i'm sorry the perpetrator. Matter of fact, it would be a dangerous proposition in my mind that let's say that this was naive psychology

as a best practice is somebody sitting down and they've been abused by a family member and the psychologist says, okay, so what do you think a plan forward is? I need to confront him, let's say in this case. Okay. You know, this will be cathartic. This will be great. And to have the courage and the clarity to go do that, that'd be a nice moment for you to stand up for yourself and do that. But what we know, and that was like thoughtful, but what we know now is that that perpetrator usually re-perpet and they give you the most insidious they say what what do you mean that never happened right

denial denial to your point and so now a best practice is that the other person doesn't need to see me understand me recognize it uh even acknowledge that it happened. My job is to heal. And so, but now I'm talking one-to-one. And where this gets complicated, I think, is that like if you and I, if I was Turkish and you're Armenian and we're having a tension about the stuff and I actually didn't, it was my great-great-grandfather. Sure.

And he taught me that nothing ever happened. Right. I'm confused, let's say right yes and i'm like why are you hung up on this well aren't we friends yeah yeah i'm being a a tool here yeah but like what come on serge like can't we move past that why are you still holding on to this like right i'm i didn't do anything and why are you why are you bringing this to me yeah no i i understand that the the thing is that most Turks that were educated in Turkey and not outside of Turkey have that issue

because they were taught a Orwellian version of history. Orwellian, yeah, that's interesting. Whereas, you know, and there's, you know, I've seen a lot of fans throughout Europe that usually come up to me and say, hey, I'm Turkish. And until I left Turkey, I didn't really know about the Armenian Genocide properly.

And now I know what you guys are talking about and just know that, you know, it's like so incredible to hear some stories like that. So, you know, I think, you know, for me, you know, justice is important. Like you were saying apology, what is the value of an apology? You know apologies the first step but without justice you know I'll keep going apology doesn't mean anything yeah right oftentimes a pop

this is cool oftentimes apologies is a mechanism to appease a moment mm-hmm because if people ask me what would what would happen if Turkey apologized for the genocide you know for example but just apologize you know it's a great first step but I always say well imagine someone had come to my house you know killed my family burned the house down I survived I run after them for a hundred and seven years and they finally turn around tired of being chased by me and say, fine, I'm sorry. What the fuck does that mean? What a cool framing.

And so you're saying, this is what my wife says, if I apologize for the same behavior, let's call it too many times, whatever it is, and she's like, words and behavior are different right right words and actions are different so i made that for my son say it again i gotta remember that for my son thank you yeah and so uh justice you're saying justice is necessary a necessary condition i would still hold my position that justice is necessary for change, but your healing, you, the collective you, can never be beholden on another person's actions. I agree.

Yeah. So that's, I'm taking a highly agentic position that you have agency to govern and design your life, even going through the conditions that are like the most radical. Because there will be relationships where there won't be any resolution. That's right. Yeah. Planned and unplanned. And so what does justice mean to you? Before I wrote a memoir,

my interest was to write a book about the intersection of justice and spirituality. Funny you ask. Oh, yeah. Because to me, they're almost synonymous. They're not the same thing, but they are necessary causation and you know effects in some ways um you know because i think you know it's important to live

whether it's a environmental uh way of looking at life in terms of equitable environmental world that we're living in. I shouldn't say equitable, I apologize. An equilibrium within our living on this planet is necessary, you know, to deal with the climate crisis, for example. An equilibrium in our political world is necessary for us to live in a civil society. An equilibrium in our relationships with each other is necessary for us to live in a civil society. An equilibrium in our relationships with each other is necessary for us to live in a peaceful home or community. And without justice, that equilibrium doesn't exist. How does justice take shape? Let's come down to the, I love this thought because the equilibrium, so we are the most complicated ecosystem on the planet

that we were at least aware of. Like our intern, what's happening inside our body is magically complicated. And it's been around for a couple hundred thousand years. We still don't really know how our brain works, how our body works. Because we've created the illusion of time that no other animal recognizes.

Oh, you're taking me somewhere different now. Yeah, okay, good. Pin it, pin that one. Okay, good. we're gonna come back to the illusion of time and so but where would justice happen on the equilibrium standpoint and or take it to like justice back to like governments or take it to individual relationships and justice like we've seen truth and reconciliation commissions in south africa yep right so that's a form of justice uh rwanda um we've seen you know germany post world war ii germany come to grips with its own history and make whatever type of remands or restitutions toward the jewish people you know, it's not necessarily complete justice,

but it's the right intention and it's a form of justice. If we're talking collectively, you know, justice can play many forms in that sense. You know, I think we, as a people, as Armenian people, for my people, we need that to heal further. I mean, we can separate ourselves and say that happened you know and and we forgive but we don't forget you know um justice isn't necessary i mean it's not just justice in terms of armenia and turkey there's it's more complicated because

the present is also volatile because turkey helped azer you know, in their attack of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenians that lived there as well as Armenia proper in 2021. And so for us, that's like the memory of the genocide and it kind of, you know, repetitious occurring again in a way. Can you take a moment and open up your experience right now the with a conflict that is taking place right underfoot which is israel and hamas yeah it's not just israel and hamas anymore it's also lebanon you know bombings in lebanon now in syria i think the whole israeli palestinian issue obviously is very contentious and you know post-world war two especially and you know there's what Hamas did in terms of their attack is a crime against

humanity and obviously there's an ICC decision against their leaders would be leaders and I think he stands for ICC the International Criminal Court and obviously there's a standing judgment against Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel by the ICC as well, and the ICC arrest warrant, and for genocide as well. And I think they're both crimes against humanity. I think what Israel has done in terms of the bombings in Palestine and the Palestinian territories, Gaza, and even the West Bank are criminal. I think the U.S. military support is very contentious as well, and it's led to being a huge issue in our recent elections. There's an element of this that is very much extremism,

religious extremism on multiple sides. And, you know, I understand the situation. I understand the area. I'm from the Middle East. I was born in Lebanon, you know. It's a very difficult, it's a very sectarian type of area. But it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be.

I think most people in their hearts want peace, whether you're Israeli or Palestinian, whether you're Lebanese or Syrian. And I think it's a disservice to humanity to have right-wing governments anywhere. That was an eloquent, succinct, clear take on something that is emotionally charged. How do you hold the vision of hope

when you have lived trauma? 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. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that.

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slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery atMASTERY at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's CalderaLab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash FINDINGMASTERY. Without hope, you have nothing. It's your only, you know, it's your only light in the sky. Is it fair for me to say that you've lived with trauma? Sure. I think we all have. I do too, but I don't want to make an assumption yeah um multiple types i'm sure yeah yeah like your family has gone through tremendous trauma

you have seen things that most people will never see probably oh i'm talking about your experiences in some of the war oh yeah yeah yeah when, when I was little, I remember bombs falling and crouching with my brother in our bedroom at the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. But we didn't experience that much of it. I know people that lived through it, you know? And we soon left thereafter and immigrated to the US. But I still remember that haphazard feeling of whether a bomb

could fall on our house, even though just a residential house. And that fear in a child, I think is really traumatic. And it's led me to really be against any type of, you know, bombing in urban areas because, you know, of course there's more missile guided, guidance has gotten better with technology and all that. But man, you're still killing a lot of civilians and that's unforgivable. Go back to that tension between hope and anxiety, hope and trauma.

How do you hold those two together? Because trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder is like in my mind this it's not right it's not the right quote-unquote label of a set of symptoms people that have been through traumas they fundamentally reorganize their life to avoid being re-traumatized so it's a a re-trauma avoidance right set of conditions So when you reconstitute how you organize with the present moment because of the trauma, there's an incredible anxiety that sits with that.

And it clouds out space for hope. So how do you do, how do you- I fight it through activism. That's how you do it? Yeah, that's my head on thing. I don't wanna see other kids being bombed it bothers me you know i fight it through activism and the hope that i have is in you know the love of my family friends community and you know and i think being hopeful is a beautiful childish thing

that we need to do all the time you know because, because children are hopeful. It's the wariness, multi-layered difficulty of living life as an adult that makes, that kind of chars that hope, that disintegrates, starts disintegrating that hope. We always need that childlike play, which is why it's important to do an art or something that you get lost in as a as you would when you were a child there's no difference there when you lose time whether you're 60 or 6 you know it's the same experience and we need that play time every year i design like an intention a grand intention for the next 365 days and the last two years it's been the same one the year of play cool because you get so little of it probably that's exactly

right and i'm gonna run it back again yeah yeah very important very important when i don't get it yeah i mean half the reason i do music is that, right? Someone's paying me for it now, but that's the difference, you know? Like it's amazing. It's amazing. Like, you know, and when I don't, when I'm not creative for a while, whether it's painting or, you know, too much business to do or too many, you know,

family obligations or building or whatever, something irks me. I'm not happy. Like I'm not, something irks me. I need that play. I've always thought of your music as a form of activism. Activism.

You've been playing too many video games. I've always thought of it that way. Is that an accurate assumption? Yes and no. I think the, you know, I was an activist before becoming an artist that's right so my activism kind of bleeds through the music and but system of a down is no way rage against the machine where all of our songs are about social justice

or whatever yeah we have funny songs and stream of consciousness songs yeah you know and the other guys in the band help balance my seriousness in that sense although i i am very you know humorous with our my our lyrics and stuff as well but they always make sure i don't go too overboard and you know we don't want to be preachy and we want to be a fun band at the same time so here's another form of tension is that and you opened your book talking about an apology basically for, I think it was to your bandmates and it was to people in general about your early position in 9-11. So I bring that forward because it was such a beautiful, eloquent way to start your book to really know you. And so this activist energy, you had an insight about,

you want to create change, go to the people. And then here you are stirring up people, at least in some way. There's the fun stuff. I know the intensity. That's what I was gravitating toward. And then you've also got this very warm, thoughtful, kind part of you. So I'm wondering how you string those two together. Some philosophies would be, quote unquote, by any means necessary. Some philosophies would be, no, it's a pacifist,

you know, we're going to win through peace. So how do you hold the tension between those two, which is the stirred up activist, frustrated, demanding of justice, and then the other side, which is the kindness and the seeing of the bigger picture and the and the fragility of a of a one person wow i need a second for that one yeah when i first started meditating i mistook passivity for non-aggression i loved when you shared that insight in your book so i say that again just so it lands when i first started meditating i mistook passivity for non-aggression or passivity for non-confrontation i should say um it's okay yeah you know like hey let's be cool yeah let's be cool it's fine you want to do that that's that's your thing you know

that's like yeah i'm not gonna that that's not that doesn't work all it does is harbor negativity inside you because what you're doing what's's happening is not just. So justice, again, is a very important issue. When you know what you care deeply about, you'll do whatever it takes. I will run right in front of the biggest bus you can imagine. To save your family. Period. And when you use that as an emblem for how we can conduct our lives outside of a moment of saving a family member. To like what is intimately precious about how we want to live our lives and what we stand for. We can go into any environment, just about any environment, and stand for something. But the first work is like what really, really, really, really matters to you.

And that work is hard to come by because it stirs so much up. So maybe I could just pause and say what really, really, really, really, really matters to you. Love and learning. The two important things that people that had a near-death experience came back to say why we're here. How did you just search for those two words well you kind of distill that everything that you're living for in a way into you know if you were to pick two words right love and learning love of or the the being of love love of money oh no no yeah just love just simple love 60s love bro bro. Yeah. And learning. And is mindfulness meditation practices one way for you to be more closely connected to love?

Absolutely. What else do you do to be in a state of love more often and in a state of learning more often? I remind myself that the guy I'm about to honk at in front of me is me. Oh, that's interesting. I always believe that the, um, the biggest, again, we're the river, right? We're at the waterfall. We're in the waterfall. We're in the waterfall, but we, but if we don't understand that we are from the river and we're going back to the river, the complete river, then we're screwed. So I've made that mistake of taking too long before passing the light. And it's actually a

horrible example because there are times you should honk at the guy in front of you. But the Bible says at the end, we will be separated into the believers and non-believers. I think the believers are those that know that we're coming from that river and ending in that river, and it's just the waterfall separating us. Finding Mastery is brought to you by iRestore. When it comes to my health, I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health. This is about creating the conditions for growth. Now, hair health is one of those areas that often gets overlooked until your hair starts to change. That's when people pay attention. Now, that's why I've been loving iRestore Elite.

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Consciousness, everything. More aligned to the deep, deep ocean of consciousness or more aligned to Carl Young's collective unconsciousness. They're very similar, but there's a slight tonal difference between the two. I would say just everything. Everything. And so- The universe, consciousness, all physical. So we're not an accident running an experiment here.

There is a grand design. No, I believe there is not just a grand design, but I believe we each have a purpose. What is yours? Still trying to figure that out bro every day um our purpose you know i don't know i think that to create to make positive change to be a voice for my people that were voiceless and um and to produce. Like I like productivity. I'm addicted to productivity. Yeah, you're really prolific.

I just love productivity. Like Sundays, when I have something to do, it's kind of, it's part of my OCD nature that I was referring to earlier. But when I do something productive on a Sunday, which usually are my least productive days because you're with family and you're kind of just hanging

or going somewhere and whatnot. But when I, I i mean put up a painting or just something simple and it just feels so good how has purpose grounded you in your art i think once you know what your vision is then it's no longer haphazard. Once you know your purpose, then- Wait, purpose and vision to me are- Different things. Different. And they are to you as well?

And I love what you just did. I squarely, I'm like, ooh, I can't believe you just stitched those together. I can, of course. But my position when I'm trying to help somebody is like, what do you, what really, really, really, what really matters to you? And then when you close your eyes and you invoke an idea of a beautiful, compelling future state,

that's the vision. What am I working towards in that way? And what is my purpose? Are two, when, when those come together and you make a fundamental commitment yeah towards that game on yeah yeah so absolutely and and in that sense your vision is your kind of download understanding of your purpose to keep going say that maybe in another way or like open that up

your vision is understanding why you're here so that to me that sounds like purpose my purpose while i'm here is to give voice to people that didn't have a voice let's say okay my mechanism is through art okay i'm the vehicle because somehow i've been given this ability to um be artistic and to move people and i'm going to go to the people to help give voice. Okay. So that's my mechanism. My vision is that my people are flourishing. My vision is that my family flourishes. My vision is that the world understands the river, the waterfall, and the coming back together again. I don't know. I don't want to put any words. I just gave three kind of- That kind of good point. So when you think about a compelling,

beautiful, amazing future that you want to work towards when you close your eyes. And by the way, this is like, this is one of the great gifts I think we can give to our loved ones is I want to close my eyes and I do it on a regular basis with my son for my son. What do I believe is possible for him what is a vision for him and and oh you're in it now like if you just thought about a family member

and or you thought about yourself like what is the vision you have for yourself what comes up for you well you had me focused on family let's go family yeah let's do that so i you know i unfortunately i fear for our kids future really badly because of the climate crisis and every year that it gets warmer every year with with everything that we're dealing with i think to myself in 20 years when my son is 30 what kind of world is he going to be living in is he going to have to live indoors what just happened to your voice i don't know did you hear it no yeah what are you feeling right now um feeling fear yeah yeah concern yeah and it's and it's in your body. Yeah. Yeah, okay. And the vision, when you get quiet, is like, I am afraid of what the vision is going to turn into if we don't activate.

Not just if we don't activate, but, you know, Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, has been around since the 60s. Everyone's been telling us what's going on. And you look at all of these, you know, COP meetings and, you know, all of these environmental meetings, and there is no proper constructive response to the climate crisis. There isn't. So it's that that makes me worried. It's not because I don't want to envision a better world for my kids, but unfortunately,

I don't want to envision a better world for my kids. But unfortunately, I don't see it. When you are connected to the fear of what could go wrong, which is basically anxiety in some forms is a highlight reel of a future state that could be disastrous. And it becomes anxiety when we run that tape kind of wildly uncontrolled. you know like okay we know that when you close your eyes and you see and you use imagery of a future state that from a sport psychology standpoint it's a radical tool left undisciplined or unchecked it's so easy to have

a fear state run that script as opposed to um a discernment about what you're working towards. Okay. So positive, quote unquote, negative imagery. When you feel that anxiousness, how do you work with it to be able to navigate? So it doesn't, this is back to holding the tension. It doesn't run over you and you become immobilized from the state. Usually productivity helps with that. you want to make an effort toward fighting whatever fear that you have so you fight fear well maybe um in terms of climate

you know change it's it's such a large you know worldwide thing it's hard to have an impact but you know i think trying to have an impact on that is important, you know, individually and collectively. So I think about that, making positive change in that sense. But in any other aspect, I usually just attack the problem head on. Yeah, you do.

And try to get down to the, you know, the base of what's going on, understanding it, and just fighting for it, whether it's awareness or recognition having to do with the genocide or things happening today. And that's the scourge. I come back to genocide because it's my family's big pain, right? It's the giant pain, the community pain. And it's happening today. And we still haven't learned that lesson as a global community. How do you hold the tension between that intolerance for the injustice and the sense of peace that you have?

Good question. They stem from the same source. I think activism and fighting for something comes from understanding that we're all connected and that we need that equilibrium. It comes from spirituality. I had the honor years ago, I mentioned in the book as well, of meeting the Dalai Lama

and asking him two questions, one-on-one on camera for a film. And I asked him about what is the intersection of justice and spirituality and he gave me an a funny answer he basically he basically did a double negative and he basically said something like to live in a world of injustice would be spiritually unhealthy or something like that which thank you yeah and but and he laughed with the belly roll yeah when i thought about it though it was a simple answer yeah but it makes complete sense and it's very truthful but my second question and it was the last question of our meeting because he had a um speech to give at upenn university of pennsylvania

and i said if we can assume that civilization is over what we've been living for 10 000 years what's next and he looked at me like fuck you dude i've got like four minutes i gotta go give a speech no he looked at me like come on yeah he actually said something like come on this is what you saved for last. Like, you know, this is a heavy butt. And I remember him speaking vividly about the need to feed the Southern hemisphere based on climate change, based on wars. I remember Moby asked him, he was one of the artists that, you know, like myself that were meeting with him.

He asked him if you didn't have the job of being the Dalai L what would what job would you want and he said something with the climate which was very interesting that that man's been thinking yeah for a long time and this was maybe 10 years ago i might have thought something with neuroscience because he's so aligned amazing like okay if people knew what you know from your lived experience how would they be just a little bit different and a little bit better? It's hard for me to say, you know, because everyone has

their own lived experience. Everyone has their own accumulation of life, right? I don't know. It's hard for me to actually answer that question. Yeah. Okay. It's totally fair. I would think that you've lived a really interesting life and you've expressed emotions and thoughts that, you know, come from a place. I would have imagined that you would have said, you would have gone somewhere, you know, as a system framing and said, like, go inside, like get quiet, get honest, and it will take place. Whatever it is from there. It just seems presumptuous. It does. In what, in what ways? like get quiet, get honest, and it will take place, whatever the it is from there. It just seems presumptuous.

It does, in what ways? Well, to give that type of advice in a way. I actually don't like advice. It's interesting that you bring that up. Or whatever you want to call it, yeah. Yeah, no, I think I was asking for advice and you're chin checking that idea right now. Like, I don't want to give advice is what you're saying.

Yeah, I mean, unless someone is asking me right like in a way we all react to our own stimuli of life experiences and it's hard for me to know what someone else would react with my own experiences like my own little hard drive of you know or or or whatever i just, you know, I have a penchant for justice and I have a penchant for egalitarian principles. And, you know, and that comes from the Armenian genocide and searching for justice for my people and my grandparents, you know. That's been my experience as a young adult becoming an activist. But once I became an activist, I became an activist of many things because that was the little door that opened, you know, to me, the world of inequality.

You know, whether it's racial inequality or labor inequality, economic inequality, environmental inequality, animal inequality and cruelty and all of the above. Like you just start becoming so aware so sensitive to everything are there some small behaviors that you would hope people could do that if they wanted to be a little bit better for the planet a little bit better for animals a little bit better like there's some small behaviors that you would suggest tell me more smile what does that smile what does that Like, when you meet someone, even if you're feeling like shit, give them the beauty of a smile.

That's it. If you can't do anything else, just do that. That's really cool. It's very kind. Well, no, it's very effective. When you open a door for someone, even if they're rushing and angry, they respond. Not to you, but to the next person that needs a door open to.

If it's within the same time period, I've noticed. It's a simple observation. It's funny because one of the examples I give when people ask, like, what is gratitude training? When we go through a training of gratitude, it actually is designed to light up a different circuitry in your brain. You know, it's a bit of an inoculation to anxiety or something else, right? And there's good research connected to the potency of a gratitude practice. What do you mean?

Well, so the exercise is, you know, set out to like be connected while you're experiencing your life to small little things that you're grateful for. So there's a bunch of ways to do gratitude training. One is in the morning, just run through things you're grateful for, but feel them. That's cool. The other is in real motion, in real time. And the example I give often is, and then you want to clock it when it's happening, just an awareness and an observation of it, clock it.

And at the end of the day, if you have the discipline to write it down and then stitch it to the emotion that's also connected to it. For example, somebody held the door open for me and we made eye contact and connection. So I use that moment often. I like to, when I can give give it when i can open a door from somebody and i like when there's a moment when somebody holds it open and there's just a moment of connection yeah yeah but even if they're not looking at you they're just doing it because that's what they know they're supposed to be doing it's the right thing to do you know that's that's

still cool yeah so all right i think that um I could go on and on and on with you. Me too. Yeah. Thank you for the warmth, the thoughtfulness, the depth that you've created. And I'd love to give you just some quick hits to respond to, almost like a forcing function as a reductionist, which I am not, but just for fun. So I'll say a thought stem and then you just roll with it. Okay. Give me a second. Go ahead. What'd you just do?

Took a breath. Yeah, where'd you go or what was that for? I didn't go anywhere. I just wanted to be clear to hear what you're gonna say more clearly. Very cool. That's probably the most telling embodied example you could give of how you hold tension so well is that you're coming,

you're coming to this moment and anchoring in an authentic way to what is calling for your response. That I probably don't need to ask. Whatever you say. I probably don't need to ask any more questions. Okay. All right. It all comes down to science i don't know my vision is changing

relationships are a way of understanding ourselves money is a tool success is succeeding at your vision or i should say purpose since you taught me that it's actually purpose no both both are A tool? Success is? Succeeding at your vision. Or I should say purpose, since you taught me that it's actually purpose. No, both are cool. Both have different energies about it. Yeah, definitely. I could nod my head to both of those for sure. Okay, the good life is marked by? Simplicity.

The balance between performance and doing is complicated i'm more interested in being or doing oh you got me at a crossroads yeah that's the big one i'm a slave of doing even though i should be more into being i think we find that intersection when we find that intersection yeah it is where the fullness of us comes forward yeah right like but i also i can i talk or should i just yeah no let's go yeah arnold schwarzenegger's documentary he said my dad used to say be useful i found that to be tremendously profound be useful like that's fucking awesome it is yeah you know it's really powerful because being useful is not just useful to yourself and your family to society the planet the world be useful don't be a worthless

that's a shocker yeah well i i spent part of the year in new zealand so we're just like that word don't be a worthless mate. They throw that around a lot. Yeah, we throw that around a lot, yeah. Okay, so if you could name a boat, what would you name it? If I named a what? A boat.

A boat? Yeah. Oh man, I puke on so many of them. Pukie? My son loves to go fishing and I take him and i know i'm gonna be sick every time it's like my um i don't know what you you call it but it's my torture but i do it because i love him so it's like every time i go i'm like all right we're going oh and you know you got to gear up no matter what i take no drama mean like nothing helps bro good dad yeah good it's my torture self-torture

i just i want to say thank you for what you stand for thank you for what you bring to the surface and the way that you do it thank you for sitting with me yeah man that is awesome all right appreciate you likewise thanks man thank you thanks for the chat here's what to expect in our next episode. We delve into a profound conversation with former NFL quarterback, Ryan Lee. Ryan opens up about his meteoric rise in football, the intense pressures of professional sports and his personal battles with addiction and public scrutiny that led to his fall from grace.

This raw and inspiring episode delves into resilience, radical personal growth, and the journey to redemption. Tune in on Wednesday, March 12th. 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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