Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Way of the Warrior — Legendary Green Beret on Pain, Love, and Discipline | Tu Lam

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

Step into the riveting world of Tu Lam, whose journey from war-torn Saigon to becoming a Green Beret is a tale of courage, resilience, and modern-day samurai wisdom. Born amidst chaos, he escaped Vietnam's turmoil, eventually finding a new life in America. Enthralled by stories of elite warriors, he chased his dream, enlisting in the US Military right after high school.Deploying to over 20 countries, including conflict zones in the Philippines, Iraq, and Libya, Tu's career spanned 22 years of distinguished service. He retired as a master sergeant, having reached the pinnacle of elite forces—the special missions unit. In his post-military journey, Tu established Ronin Tactics, a tactical gear and training company. His expertise in martial arts and combat led to him being immortalized as a video game character in "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare." Beyond the battlefield, Tu’s pursuits encompass a profound exploration of life's meaning, emphasizing the importance of love, authenticity, and embodying the samurai Bushido Code—loyalty, courage, and honor. In this gripping conversation, Tu shares his emotional journey as a refugee, his profound insights into life and love, captivating stories from his time as a Green Beret, and the seven pillars that guide his modern samurai lifestyle.Join us as we delve into the extraordinary life and wisdom of Tu Lam, a man who found purpose, resilience, and mastery through the crucible of his experiences._________________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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You have to train the mind. And the only way that you reach a level of fulfillment and happiness is to train the mind. And the only way that you reach a level of fulfillment and happiness is you train the mind. Okay. Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. And this week, we have a very special conversation for a few reasons. First of all, this is our 400th official episode of Finding Mastery.

That number, 400 episodes, represents a podcast published every single week for over seven years. And I just want to express my sincerest gratitude to you for tuning in and helping build our community. This podcast wouldn't be possible without you. And I'm so stoked that our team at Finding Mastery gets to continue sharing our passion with you. It's been quite the adventure so far, and it still feels like we're just getting started.

And to celebrate our 400th episode, I'm stoked to welcome back a legend to the podcast for this week's conversation, 2LAM. 2 is the real deal. He's a literal video game character, and we're talking about Call of Duty, not The Sims. His two-plus decades in the military, 22 years in special operations, make him an obvious choice. But it's his extraordinary warrior spirit, his inherent resolve in the face of adversity to live completely aligned with his values. Early tragedy, an upbringing of horror and hopelessness, and years of combat and subsequent PTSD never hardened Tu. Instead, the hardships of his past only cemented his desire to serve humanity.

He's a retired Green Beret, a tactical weapons expert, a highly skilled martial artist, and the founder of his company, Ronin Tactics. With loyalty, courage, and honor at the core of who he is, Two shows us what fuels the best kind of fighters. In this conversation, you'll hear from a true warrior, but make no mistake about it. This is a conversation about love. Tu is one of our guests back in 2017, and I am so excited to reintroduce him to you. And I can't wait for you to hear his story and perhaps even more importantly, how he tells it with emotion and authenticity and truth with a deep courage and discernment.

Two is a special human. And I think we all have something to learn from his approach to life. So with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with two lamb. Two, I'm so happy to have you here, mate. Thank you. We had a conversation in 2017 that was unbelievable and it left an imprint on me. I don't normally ask this question. I haven't asked this question to anybody on the podcast, but you have lived the life and the way that you've lived your life, I think warrants this type of depth coming right out of the gates here what is your best understanding for the meaning of life i mean i i think like that's the

ultimate question right since man you know humanity reached a certain level of consciousness when i say that we we came from a species right and then somehow we reached a higher level of consciousness when i say that we we came from a species right and then somehow we reached a higher level of consciousness in the evolution of man right so life that question like what is the meaning of life um you know as a green beret i i traveled the world you know it's a as a warrior i traveled the world 27 countries i live with the people indigenous populations i ran into the rain jungles and hunted down creatures you know running with the a-teams and you know one of the biggest thing was what is the meaning of life climbing the highest mountains in the hamileas i searched for the meaning of life like sitting with tibetan monks feeling the vibration of they call it oneness you know and you know um

going through europe and and and seeing the the crusades and the tombs and so what what i feel is that there was one thing i learned that connected us all in our religions and our humanness and oneness there was one thing i learned like and that was love, man. Like that is love. Like love is the highest frequency and vibration of the universe. So you, you asked me what life is. It goes back to the highest vibration that created all things. Wow. I would not have expected you to go to that word.

Yeah. So when, when I search for the meaning of life, you know, um, life is, is it's beyond thought. You know, when I say that is like in today's world, we, we look at things, we form a narrative, you know, based off our senses of sights, sound, smell, a belief that, you know, we, we grew up around, but life is beyond that. You, you ever sat in the stillness in the morning and you focus on breath. It's beyond thought that morning, you know, you, you can't put a word on it because it's always been here. If you want to know what life is, it's to feel. It's to feel, like to live from the heart. There's any teachings of spirituality they talk about. There's three minds. You get the heart like you know there's you know any teachings of spirituality they talk about there's

three minds right you get the heart you get the the gut and then you got the uh the brain the thoughts and the the thoughts is you know really an illusion is based off in your narrative of what where you been you know and and the reason why i'm saying this is where i've been was oppression murder you know i was uh born in war you know so my meaning of life um was a different angle than the average westerner these days you you know. I was born in war. I was born on a cold cement floor in Saigon Hospital. My mother shielded my body from incoming artillery fire on the morning of my birth.

At that stage of the Vietnam War, you know, American troops left Vietnam and I was born on that losing side of the war. We lived underneath communist occupation until I was born on that losing side of the war we lived underneath communist occupation to us three years old you know like you think about like Afghanistan right the news footage people hopping on planes and literally throwing their bodies from airplane trying to escape Ukraine you know we see news footage of them loading up trains and just trying to leave country before the war hit them.

Can you imagine Vietnam? Can you imagine the chaos? You know, there's images of families escaping off of rooftops with helicopters landing in Vietnam, people holding on to skids of a helicopter. People walked out to neighboring countries. And I want to say this is, you know how many landmines are through those jungles?

And yet they're willing to walk out of a country. What's the emotion that you are working from right now, recapping, and as I'm watching you reliving this horror? There's a shadow in me. Yeah. You know, and that shadow was forced in war, you know. Death. Yeah. And you know, that shadow became this commando, you know, death. Yeah.

And, you know, that shadow became this commando, you know, to fight against that oppression. But the thing is, when I think back to that level of hopelessness, like, have we lost connection with humanity like each other, where we don't care for one's life, to watch families murdered, sold into slavery. Like for me and my family, we escaped by sea. 400,000 refugees died by sea. And there we were, loaded up on the bottom deck of a small little fishing boat and you know we had to escape the piety the the seas and you know navigation to malaysia and when we finally made it

malaysia they didn't accept any more refugees so they strapped us back and pulled us back out in the south china sea cut the line and shot the motor. How old were you? Three years old. And left us there to die. 30 days we drifted. The dead was thrown overboard. Your dad?

The dead. The dead were thrown overboard? Yeah, because they- Were you with your mom and your dad? I was with my mom and my biological father and my brother. We were left for dead how many how many others they said around 100 others were on that boat um they took food off of the boats to make more room for refugees so you know in our situation people were willing to load their whole families up in these small

little fishing boats knowing that piety happens you know these pirates from surrounding countries would stop the boats and uh board the boats killed the man raped the women enslaved the children you know they made a profit off of it and it was easy. So we had to navigate past that. And then finally we were not accepted in the country, pushed down to the South China Sea, left for dead. And, you know, and somehow we survived by the grace of God. We survived. You know, and then we had to do our year and a half in the refugee camps where thousands of refugees died from diseases and starvation. You know, in the refugee camps, you're living in the jungles.

So, you know, at three, I was laying on a dirt floor with some grass hut, you know? And finally, you know, we made it to the land of the free, you know, only to be spit on, flicked off, called by racist names. So the thing was like, you ask about life, you know, that was my zero to seven. And, you know, when I say that zero to seven is like if you study neuroscience zero to seven is when the subconscious mind is programmed

and it's within those ages when you're unconsciously forming a narrative of the world and who you are in your place zero to seven that was my zero to seven you know so statistically you know you you see like in today the study of mental health today statistically if a child experienced trauma from zero to seven they have a hard time in life. That's right. But you know, what do you do when you see that much trauma from zero to seven? So, you know, I want to address this is that that's what you need. I needed that.

You needed? I needed to feel that. Feel what? That level of hopelessness, survival. I needed to feel that level of hate in humanity. Because there was a choice at a stage in my life where I was able to take that hate and made it into strength. That weakness that I felt from a refugee boy, there was a certain point during my growing up process where I'm like, I'm more than this. And that's where, you know, when you face that, you face your struggle, then you're reprogramming to zero to seven years old.

It's not too late, right? So if you're facing trauma from zero to seven, you're falling underneath a statistic that you're not going to make it in life. You're going to be messed up in life, not be able to, you're going to be a drug addict, whatever, right? That's a statistic. What if I tell you, you need that energy in order to propel you to be something more? Okay. So that goes against survivor's mind. So as hunter-gatherers going back to caveman days, right? We had to have a survival mind. You're sitting across from me because your ancestors did something right to put you here in front of me today. Survival was the number one thing back in the hunter-gatherer days. I know this because I live with the primitive tribes. I connected with the land. We're in a world now that we're so disconnected me running with rebel forces

living in rain jungles i connected with the primitive people so i know what it means to chase survival at that primitive state right so survival man like that's a powerful thing because in today's world, our survival is what? You know, we were given everything, right? So, I mean, like it's not really hard. We know we're going to have dinner on our table that night. So what is your survival these days? And that's where we're going to that mental health crisis in America, because people don't understand that, that our minds are programmed like that as survival mindset. We are

human beings and animal species, right? With a higher level of consciousness, of course. But if you're able to go against your fear, so as a refugee boy who lost everything and was spit on, called by many racist names, like to choose to go back into these countries and to fight for the oppressed. That goes against survival, doesn't it? It does. that goes against survival doesn't it it does so in today's world if you want to be anything more than it goes against survival you have to be willing to die for what you believe and the code of bushido the way to wear ancient code ethics of the samurai is to readily accept death for a higher purpose. I'm going to pause the conversation here for just a few minutes to talk about our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions.

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Terms and conditions apply. Fighting Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein Bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put them on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly.

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listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't 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. And with that, let's jump right back into our conversation. There's two things that I'm struck by. The first is the way that you're able to feel as much as you're feeling and still access thinking in a way that is clear. So I'm watching you travel back to hopelessness and horror and trauma and

feel it in your body to its fullness. And at the same time, balance the ability to think and to be eloquent with your thinking patterns. So how are you doing that right now? I think what I'm watching and feeling is it, the thing that makes you special. And I want to get into a course like the higher order purpose of life. I want to get into the way that you work with fear. I want to get into the decision moment where you said i am more than this i think that there's some other phrase that you said it's something like that how are you doing what you're doing right now you know in religion they call it surrender right in in in taoism is to flow with the Tao, right?

It's Wu Wang, the flow. You know, and the thing is I surrender to my emotions because it's trapped emotions that's inside of me and it moves through my body when I inject a thought because thought is tied to emotion. So if I'm telling you a story that happened in my life, that emotion is going to surface. I understand this. And I allow that emotion to move through me like water. How do you do that? Because what you're, I think what

we're doing right now, what you're doing, all I'm doing is holding a space with you. But what you're doing is what strength is. What you're doing is that space between vulnerability and risk and authenticity. Like it's that unique triangle of whether I flow or I'm just trying to like manage and control something. And so this is what I think leaders need to understand. And the old image, which I thought maybe you would have had more of the old image. So I'm feeling something very different than I expected, which I'm so like, I love all of this too. Is this old idea, numb your numb your emotions that gets in the way there's no time to operate in environments of risk or consequence when you have emotions on board and so you can't be a great operator or even a great human because emotions are so noisy

and they're too difficult to deal with and they're that old image is is obviously problematic and you and i could have long conversations about it how are you doing this how did you come to be able to have this type of richness in the way that you work with your emotions they call it muscle memory in the gun world right when you practice a move muscle memory you know in special forces you're moving through uh tactics muscle memory you build muscle memory the samurais they they they set a term called motion no mind a state of no mind you see a lot of athletes have that state uh it's it's the state of no mind as in we dump thoughts okay because thoughts are tied to emotion so if i'm

going on to a bad guy's house and i know he has you know four or five positions in a house he has multiple uh combatants in the house highly armed suicide vests they're willing to die because you understand why they're fighting for their cause they're willing to die for what they believe so are you you're willing to die for what you believe right how many times have you been in that exact moment you're describing war you know i mean it's the 20-year war so you know i served at special operations level you know so we we go after the the worst people right we get the best intelligence and we're going after a national target you know so you know when you're going in and you know that they're heavily armed and they may outgun you initially until you get you know your your uh support you know uh assault positions in place so you know you make that initial assault they're supporting assault there's

there's exterior assault so the thing is you have to get certain guns in certain places to take advantage of that terrain. If I'm stuck on emotion of thought, which is, I'm going to fucking die, then that emotion will surface, right? Because your thoughts are tied to your emotions. So in special operations, we're taught to breathe. And there's certain breathing sequences that we do to ground ourselves of thought, separate ourselves from thought and to move emotion through your body. So you can be present to perform. And then the state of Muxin is you've done it so much your body is not thinking you react but you react in clarity because there's no emotion present you know so when you ask me how do i separate it's just that it's emotion it's present you could feel it you could feel my energy sitting across from me but i'm present with you there's a separation it's

not tied so much together it's interesting you say separation because i would have thought more there was a harmony ah yeah i like that word yes yeah like you're not you're not run over by your thoughts and emotions but you're you figured out how to work in the slipstream. Yes. Right. Where, yes. And so you're, if I tie it together, there's a posture that you have that I'm going to surrender, but it's not a surrendering in what many people would think on bent knee, right? There's a surrendering to acceptance. Is that more accurate? Like I'm accepting that I've got emotions on board. I'm accepting that I've got emotions on board. I'm accepting that I can work with emotions. I might fall into a thousand pieces, but that's okay too. But here I am, I'm reliving a moment of horror, stories of horror in my life. And so

wouldn't it be weird if I didn't have emotions? Yes. So in the understanding of yin and yang, right? The polar energy that created all things. So when I say that is the polar energy, positive, negative, right? It's all one in the same. Life, death, it's all one. Is yin yang a first principle for you yin yang is a philosophy that i so when people ask me like what's a principle what is a religion what's a philosophy you know i i travel the world so i saw religion in some multiple angles right do i believe in god to create yes you do right i do and i believe in jesus christ i believe it But I also have a different angle on life too. I saw things, right? I saw things, I felt things, you know? And like I said, there's one thing that connected us all in our humanness, it was in religion, is love. Like, look man,

that's the highest vibration in this universe if you believe in energy you should you know like we are energy scientists have proved it right we're just in this flesh right now but we are energy so energy is endless right is eternal and where did that energy come from? It was always here, right? So what I'm saying is we separate ourselves from what is truth. And I feel like we chase an illusion in today's world, you know, as in, you know, I have to be accepted by you. You have to like me. I have to get this praise. I need to live this life. I have to please this person because they are you know this person

in my life you know um we trap ourselves you know and doing that where do you think the fear of rejection the craving for acceptance plays a role in the modern human experience. Oh, yeah. What a great, I truly think it's programmed in us and handed down through the generations of our ancestors. Going to the hunter-gatherer days, you think about like we're hunter-gatherers, right? We're a tribe. We live in a tribe. We run in a tribe. Everybody's going to do their share within this tribe or you get booted out of the tribe.

So it's embedded. it's a survival thing like you have to like me because i don't want to get booted out of this tribe because back then it was survival but what is survival nowadays but we're still having that brain right that was wired the same it's wired the same right i mean there's scientists that scan the brain and it's wired the same way and the thing is what is survival nowadays it's not we don't live in these hunter-gatherer tribes so acceptance right is programmed in our subconscious from the moment we're born, handed down to us through generations of survival. That's why I care what you think, because my life depended on it when we were hunter-gatherers.

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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. And now back to the conversation. As a man that's aware of the power of the brain from generations ago, like deeply embedded in a generational DNA kind of pass through and your awareness that that's happening on a regular basis and your deep desire to live the higher consciousness, the highest form that you possibly can. Like, how do you manage that yourself? This need,

and I'll be explicit here, this craving to be accepted, this fear of rejection balanced with wanting the freedom from that how do you uniquely do it so it goes back to like you know when i was abandoned i was told i was nothing i was spit on i was left for dead all those experiences all those emotions right i felt them i felt that emotion and what I give back to the world is love. I wasn't accepted. I know what it feels to not be accepted. I'm going to give you acceptance.

Right? I was oppressed. I was enslaved. But I'm going to free you from oppression because I know that energy. You know, I know what it means to live like that so that goes into yin and yang like what what you receive that's your narrative but you can give back something else and that can only be done in the present moment a high percentage of people that go through trauma some sort of abuse that they've experienced um there's a high percentage of people that go through trauma, some sort of abuse that they've experienced,

there's a healthy percentage that re-abuse. They find another way to abuse. And a smaller percentage are able to work with that abuse to do what you're doing. And so can you speak to folks that have had trauma, which big T, little t, I think no one's getting through this world without it. Can you speak right into people that are struggling

at some point in their life right now, where they're hanging on to their survival mechanisms from the trauma that they had when they were younger? Can you speak right to them in a way that might just be able to knock some of that calcium off, some of that scar tissue that's been keeping them stuck? And you know, trauma, it holds us down, it scars us. It traps us from living a life that's really true

to being anything more than who we are today. Like trauma. Wait, what does that mean? It holds us back from being anything more than who you are today. Like if you're living today in addictions trying to feel devoid of this trauma, you're not going to be anything more than that. That statement has so much hope, and it does not sound like airy-fairy, new-agey. That is such a grounded thought, the way you just said it.

You say it one more time so I can... Yeah, you'll never be anything more than who you are today. That's rad. Because the opposite of that is you can be more. If you believe in God, you believe in a creator, right? Creation was created from the heart, not from thoughts, from the heart. And if you understand that at the root of your being, then, man, you're not going to give hate to the world. What if you don't have a foundation of a creator, an omniscient?

Well, I didn't at one point in my life. I was a refugee refugee i wasn't introduced to religion i wasn't like raised in a normal westernized family religion i wasn't introduced to any of it i didn't believe in it and i joined the military and yeah i i served a code of bushido but that's like war and combat and you know I felt like that's what I deserved anyways. But I didn't know at the time I was giving back. So the hopelessness and the horror and the trauma you experienced,

you made a decision that there's more to me than living a hopeless life, one of internal violence, maybe external violence, but coming from that place of rage, you said, or hopelessness and rage, those are like on the opposite sides of the same expression of trauma, hopelessness and rage, right? So somehow you said there's more,

and how did you navigate to eventually become a Green Beret? And obviously working in the elite ranks of the Green Beret Special Operator community. So when I was young, a teenager, I was a big Bruce Lee fan. During that age, I was a Bruce Lee fan. And beside his martial arts, he would talk about Taoism, the way.

And that turned me on to Laoozu which was okay so i'm gonna pause before we go further so how do you read the tao te ching what do you mean how do i so the 81 principles there yes do you read it by yourself and meditate or do you read it in a community with others good question it's about oneness with all things if you're it in a community with others? Good question. It's about oneness with all things. If you're sitting in a room full of other people's thoughts, then you are avoiding your own thoughts, right? It's oneness. So for me, how I read is I read a paragraph and it's really deep.

It's so flip. It's, you know, 81, you know know where I'm going with 81, right? Infinity, one infinity, like the whole thing. And we don't even know if Lao Tzu was like a real human. But the wisdoms in that thing are like, it's pretty radical. So I hear you talk about God and Jesus Christ, and I'm assuming that there's a Christian orientation. And then you're introducing Taoism

and the practices of, I think you're gonna say meditating per poem, per page, per whatever. And so what are they called? What is each, 81 principles? No, are they principles? Yeah, so you do it by yourself? Yes. Holy shit, like I get so lost in it.

Like I feel like I need to talk through, okay, what do you mean? When you, when you hear the 10,000 things, like when you think about this, the shadows of the moon, the 10,000 moons, you know, and not the one moon, the source, like I want to have conversations about it, but you do it more of an introverted process. Yeah. Yeah. So who is, so let's do the 10 000 moons or 10 000 lakes for just a moment they're the reflections of the one

and so it's easy to be confused by the reflections of the one the 10 000 lakes or 10 000 moons the reflections of the moons in the lake what what is your primary practice to be connected to the one source, which all things turn to one, which is the yin yang. It's also the way, if you will. Lao Tzu says that within the empty spaces, the room is what makes the room useful. That's right. So to be able to sit in the place of void,

and when I say that, it's to empty your mind. Okay. Okay. So when I say, so imagine you're sitting there and you're going to a breathing technique. What cadence is your favorite? My breathing technique goes into my lower abdominal region. I'm breathing from the gut. I'm breathing in my nose. I'm holding,

right? Usually it's about a four-second hold. I'm exhaling out to eight to 10 seconds, going into the lower abdominal, my gut. So let me explain how this works. Majority of the world as human beings, we shallow breathe. We breathe from our lungs. We don't breathe into yes we don't breathe into our lower abdominal area and as a human species that's where energy right trapped energy is stored so if you have stress you're going to push that down through suppressants right suppression and that's done through suppressants like alcohol drugs you know momentary addictions or repression which is done unconsciously both pushing down that emotion to

your lower abdominal region how can you ever move energy unless you breathe into that lower abdominal 100 right so you know in uh you know my practice of breathing, you know, I train with the Indian commandos, you know, up in the Himalayas. So I had, you know, personal practice with Tibetan monks and breathing and understanding at that level of oneness, you know. So breathing into the lower dharma, you ask me, how do I reach that level of oneness? First, you have to follow breath. And then you have to empty thought, no thoughts. And then when you sit with emotion, which is your lower abdominal, you breathe into your lower abdominal and you're pushing out that emotion. Imagine there's no thought, there's no emotion. Motion. Yes. And so the way that mechanically that works for me is,

I say yes, yes, yes to everything you're saying, is that it's a singular focus on the one thing. Yes. And then that one thing is the inhale. And then over time, it's almost like it becomes its own mantra. And you just kind of get lost in the simplicity of that deep focus. Yes. And the three S's stillness, silence, stillness, and space is like those three. I find, I find it faster than I was able to yesterday or 10 years ago at the, at that junction between exhale and inhale. So it's almost like a drug for me. It's which, yeah. So the, in the, at that junction where the,

there's a stillness at the bottom and there's like a, um, oxygen, uh, dioxide exchange that's happening. And I, it's, it almost feels, my first teacher, this was 20 some years ago, said to me, he saw this, this was 25 years, I guess, no, let's see, 1997, how long ago was that? I can't do the math that fast. He says, Mike, this is like a full body orgasm. You just don't realize it yet.

And so as a young kid, I was like, what is that? Do you, when I a full body orgasm. You just don't realize it yet. And so as a young kid, I was like, what is that? Do you, when I say full body orgasm, do you have any relationship to that? Or does that feel like it's totally different? No, you actually go to a state of joy. Yeah. Right, it's what I call it, a state of joy. And that's a state of our being.

Like, you know, when you think about any religion, they say, you know, the state of our being like you know when you think about any religion they say you know the state of your being is happiness like if you're able to go to that state of being right and and when i say that it's like let go of thought let go of like breathe out emotion let go of thought you don't have anything in you anymore that's like human created right like why don't you like i don't like that tea mug right here why because some narrative was formed in my subconscious many years ago why i don't like that color something happened there right so imagine like letting go of that narrative letting go of it all like just letting it go and just sitting in your root of your being, like that's where joy is. You and I are going to like be able to

vibe on this for a long time. And somehow I miss, there's a challenge that I have of how, how, how can you, how do you put it back to you? Like, how do you create a pull or draw for people to want to have that type of stillness and experience within themselves? Do you, do you just square up like in a way that says you can't have what you want unless you go and work for stillness or do you do it more eloquently? You know, I just share my story. You know, I share my story of like where I came from. You know, I came from like the dirt floors of a refugee camp sleeping with the rats, you know, like that's where I came from. And, and then I made, you know, a brand, a name for myself after I got out of the military, after serving our country.

Like, isn't that the American dream? Yeah. To be able to like come from like nothing and then now be this successful, you know, tasting fame and tasting success. And, you know, and just running a very successful company with my wife and but you know what was really weird was like i achieved that state really fast like success how do you define it success in my eyes back then was rich right you you got to be rich you got to live in a big house and drive that was my illusion that I lived in because that was the narrative that was given to me. Look, we were refugees.

We came from nothing. So what my parents gave me as a success was don't starve. Like money is everything because they lost everything. So that narrative was handed to me. And imagine I reached that state and I wasn't happy. Like I was happy that, you know, I was able to be something more, but I wasn't happy at the root of my being. Right.

And then that started my like entrepreneurship as in, you know, I need to travel around united states and train people and i need to like if i believe in like communities and i believe in like you know fighting against active shooters and and i need to train these police officers i need to train the community and how to defend themselves because i was a Green Beret and I force multiply armies. So do you link success with purpose? I do, like, I feel like success comes with multiple angles, right?

In this materialistic world, we need to live off of the energy of yang, which is, man, we need to be aggressive, right? We need to live with a purpose. We have to be type A, driven. That's yang. Like that's in this physical world of materialistic things. But there's yin, which is a spirit world that we're all connected to eternally, right?

And we need to develop that too. Because in the energies of yin and yang, if you put too much emphasis on one thing, it's going to fail. That's why it's all one and the same. You have to have one where you can't have the other. There you go. So you practice both. I practice both. And now one final word from our sponsors.

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without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. 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. And with that, let's jump right back into this conversation. How do you help people understand their purpose? And I want to move to your principles of life, your first principles of life that you're writing about, but how do you help people understand their purpose? You know, a lot of people come from difficult backgrounds, right? So who I teach is I teach the military. I speak law enforcement. A lot of them, they come from, you know, broken households, you know, so they have their traumas.

And what I teach, you know, the community as well, the people, is that you take that pain. You take that neglect right you you take that you know people putting you down and and saying you're not good you take that energy you turn into something more because creation is found within you hmm so you're want to teach people to take it well you need to feel it look at that you need to feel you don't have there's a level of sophistication here that. If you give me a present that makes me better as a human being, will I say thank you to you? So the universe gives you a present in suffering and hardships and it made you into this successful entrepreneur that the world looks up to in life, right? In happiness, why not say thank you?

That squares up deeply with this idea that is very Buddhist in principle, which is to know suffering. Without it, you just can't quite work with real compassion. So, and I'm oversimplifying, a beautiful ancient tradition. That's a big part of your life and your life approach is to embrace suffering and you're calling it a gift and many that experience suffering myself included for a long time didn't want anything to do with it it was too much it was overwhelming and i didn't have your suffering i had different different experiences in my life

and would never try to compare but the idea that to sit with the discomfort and the prickliness of that and the heaviness of that, you're suggesting is the gift. If I didn't experience that, I wouldn't have the strength to change. Like I wouldn't have the emotion and the pain to be something more. So do you have kids? No.

Would you want your kids to have the level of suffering you had? No. Okay. So where's the threshold for the amount or intensity, the duration or intensity of suffering that I agree with you. And so, but I'm confused because I'm giving my son all the things that I didn't have and hopefully the things that I did get, I'm also giving him. But I'll tell you a phrase that an athlete shared with me that I vibe with, but it's not accurate in whole for me. As I said,

it's a professional athlete, multiple championships that he won. I said, how's life? And he says, it's pretty good. He's a basketball player. And I said, how the kids? And he said, you know, they're good. And I kind of paused. I said, what does that mean? He said, you know, they've got the best shoes, the best private coaches, all the right camps. He's doing great in basketball. He likes it. But the one thing I can't give him is nothing. I can't give him the thing that I came from, which was nothing. And so I can't relate at the depth of that statement, but I can relate to the spirit of it. And so when you hear me talk about this, can you frame the level or intensity of suffering that you would hope a child would be able to experience to live the good life? Well, unfortunately, I understand that's the process, right?

You need to suffer to hit muscle failure where that lactate acid is going to build to tear down that muscle group to build into anything more. But the thing is, you know, as a human being, I don't want people to suffer because I understand that we're all one in the same, you know, that's, that's the hardest thing for me is like to to look at other people and to judge now i used to judge a lot right i had to in special forces you're a threat you're not i had to judge it was life dependent uh and that skill set was refined i had to judge i was reconnaissance right but the thing in today's world now who i am today successful entrepreneur you know and husband you know and and beating the statistics of a

veteran what a veteran is you know after the 20 at the spec ops level you know my thing explain to what to folks what spec ops means. At the special operations level is that we are a national asset. We are what the country lies on. When we have terrorist group attack our countries, when we have attacks against our homeland, we are the ones under night vision that will go into the country covertly, find, fix and kill the enemy. You know, at that level. You know, if I was compared, that's the NFL level, you know, in the military, you are the top.

So at that level, you know, I had to judge people. What do you think made you special that you went the distance there i was willing to die for what i believe in and i go what do you what do you believe what do i believe i was willing to die for what i believe in what was that you know the values of my beliefs like god family country like you know but the values that the bushido code encompass compassion if it was spearheaded at all like compassion so how does that square with the violence that you would yeah that you are engaging in yeah so you know that's that's the thing is like humanity is like it's going to be war it's going to be conflict i came from war i was oppressed you know and and

the thing is like my violence that i inflict to our enemies were was to in the teachings of bushido bushido bull means to stop the spear to intercept the spear I intercept what the enemy does to humanity. As in, you know, in Buda Majida, Cameroon, we're fighting the Chad rebels because they're coming in killing wildlife. They're killing these animals, taking their ivory, taking their legs to fund their terrorist training camps.

We're stopping that bullshido to stop the spear, right? So in that aspect and in the teachings of the samurai where he said, if you have a man that oppresses thousands and tortures thousands of his people, hundreds of thousands of his people, tortures them, oppresses them, and you take out that one man, did you not save the hundreds and thousands of people, tortures them, oppresses them, and you take out that one man, did you not save the hundreds and thousands of lives? So in my understanding of warriors,

I understand the polar energies of the universe. Without darkness, there would never be light. There would never be light. Like without evil, we would never know what it means to be good. The contrast. But my eternal soul chooses light. I choose to walk in the light. You know, and what the world gives me in oppression and hate,

I return back in the light and that's, that's understanding how the universe works. You know, was there a moment in time that that happened for you or was it a slow drip eventually where you said I'm more comfortable or I feel more aligned with the light? Cause you could also, where you said, I'm more comfortable or I feel more aligned with the light. Because we could also create a narrative where you are one of the leaders of the dark. And some people would maybe consider you a leader of dark

because their value systems are exactly opposite or in contrast. This is a complicated thought, right? Like there's two questions. Let me separate them out. And the first question is, was there an experience that took place like a lightning bolt or is it a slow drip of experiences that led you to the light? You know, the slow drip came from being dark like yeah finally going to what it means to be dark in that space of hate like to understand how to hate the enemy

at that level where you know you see your teammates die, like you're fighting multiple conflict areas, 20-year war. You see the worst in humanity. You see women and children being tortured by the enemy. And you see war at that level of humanity. So you made the light decision. I became dark. So prior to Green beret or well i feel like a warrior is the light right like yeah to to to reach that state of what it means to be a warrior to protect like the shakhtariyas the the ancient hindu system like

the warrior class has a dharmic it has a dharmic path within this this lifetime what does that word mean oh dharma yeah the cosmic law right yep if you go against that you will pay in in karma for eternity right in in in western religion we call it hell, right? We have a value that we have to, you know. So the warrior is the light to pursue that, but then war, which is hate, and hate is a powerful tool. Like, hate will, when that explosive happens on the door, you have to go in, you have to kill that enemy hate is a powerful energy and you use that in war right you're going to win battles

but you're not going to win overall war which is yourself and and and the thing was, when I said I became dark, was I embraced hate at a certain point. It became such a powerful tool in time of fear, right? But what hate did for me was I saw only darkness in the world. I hated myself. I hated everything. And that's not what life is about. Life is about experience the wholeness that comes with knowing who you are. You're really your being, which is love, man,

like creation. We're more powerful than hate. If you sit in the center of your being and avoid that place of emptiness, Lao Tzu, that place of void, there is the answer. I chose the light. So when I was in that place of darkness, look, I sat for eight years in this place. Of darkness. Of darkness. Eight years.

Can you imagine in the teachings of meditation to sit within darkness? When I say darkness, when people don't understand what that means is imagine every fear, every emotion that you felt that it's painful, you're sitting with it in that place of void and in the place of no thought, you're sitting with emotion and you're feeling all of that again because you're moving that emotion now, right? Because you're breathing into of that again because you're moving that emotion now, right?

Because you're breathing into that lower abdominal. You're moving it out. You're exhaling it out. Because, look, as human beings in today's world, we're not educated on how to release our traumas, are we? Like that's why we're having such a mental health crisis in America. We're not – we don't understand how to move our traumas, you know, like to be anything more than who we are today. Like, we don't know how to do that besides like, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to get up

earlier and I'm going to run on a trip. No, like how, how do you better yourself as a human being not just like titles and positions at work you know chasing riches and fame like who are you like how do you better yourself as a human and what is the technique to that we had a trauma expert on dr dave raven from apollo neuro and he talked about the systemic denial of our feelings. And it's the thing that's keeping us stuck. So you've had two wars. You've had the external war that you fought,

and you've also had a mental internal war. And so how do you win the mental internal war? And so for me, I'll just be more specific. Sometimes when I sit, it feels like an internal civil war. And the narrative is unbecoming to say the least and difficult to feel and observe and that you go to places. But for me, I don't know if my experience is similar to yours.

So how have you worked through, or how would you suggest others work through the internal war? And you might say there's no war internally. You don't have to agree with the premise. No, there is a war, right? There's a war in our size, ourselves. Every single day we have negative thoughts, our beliefs, the exteriors and the outcomes that are outside of our control. There's a war inside our heads every day of thoughts. And that war to you, if you oversimplify it, sounds like what?

Emotions, right? So in trauma, it's like, okay, we push down our emotions to our lower abdominal, our gut, right? And then all it takes is a thought to activate that emotion. I'm not good enough. I can't get this done. It's a bad morning. Well, it was a bad morning. Well, it was a bad morning because dude, we haven't had our coffee yet.

Just simple narratives like that. You know, um, you know, it's, it's not a normal morning. Oh, because I woke up late. I woke up early and I have more time this morning instead of running out the door and driving sporadically to work because I'm used to driving sporadically to work. You're firing a neurological pathway often enough and it becomes your state of being. I need this to experience this morning. I need to drink this coffee to experience this experience in the morning. I need to drive the world really sporadically because I'm used to that adrenaline, right? We program ourselves over and over in a narrative. And how do you break that narrative?

That's, that's the question, right? That's the question. So, you know, the program is a program. It's a program, right? So as a Green Beret, I look at the intelligence. I don't just hit an indigenous force. I look at the terrain. I look at the environment. I look at the people, the infrastructure. I look at their level of training, their equipment, their tactics, their history. I look at every data.

And I extract what is useful for me on how to effectively kill my enemies. So my enemy was me. So I started reading, studying data. How does the brain and everything gets connected? You know, the power of journaling, you know, a lot of like coaches, right? Mental coaches are like, journaling is like everything. And in the morning you should write three things that you're grateful for. So I did, you know, during my healing years, I would wake up in the morning, meditating and I'll write down three things I'm grateful for. You know, my wife, my parents,

my health. What happens in time is you're changed in narrative. So let's just say that something happened to you, right? And you can't get over it. 20 years later, that's still playing in your neurological pathway because that becomes your norm. That's your highway, right, of thoughts repeated. It happens. You know, there's cases that happen the whole lifetime. People can't get over their traumas. And, you know, let me tell you what it does health-wise. It pushes you to a fight or flight state, right, because you're activating the

anxieties and you're not present. And when you're not present, your immune system is not combating diseases. So you're killing yourself, you know? So you're an advocate for gratitude training, for journaling, for meditation. Yeah. If you train your body, if you train your body, right, which you seem like you run, you work out at the gym, like you take pride in fitness. If you believe in fitness, then you need to understand that body and mind is connected. You have to train the mind. And the only way that you reach a level of fulfillment and happiness is you train the mind. The mind, this survival mind that was handed down to us over 200,000 years of human life, this survivor's mind, this survival mind that was handed down to us over 200,000 years of human life, this survivor's mind, it looks for the negative in the day. It's the survivor's mind. So you have to train the mind to be grateful. And that goes into journaling. So when I tell people like,

okay, so let's say you have a bad day, right? I journal at night. So i have a bad day and i write down that first i go into meditation i breathe out the thoughts i breathe out the emotion i ground myself and i pull out my journal and i write down the event that's bothering me and this this can be ongoing right so this is a practice exercise you write down an event as is not your narrative what happened and you write one two three three different narratives you're hijacking the narrative of why that needed to happen that's right yeah you're hijacking the loop that you're on because if you change your narrative right and that's that's the thing is we victimize ourselves all the time based on our narratives. So a practice that, that I found to be meaningful is a little, like a three inch by three inch pad of paper, you know, on my nightstand and I call it a dump pad and it's a way to dump

the things that are running in my mind. So I just write it down, but I'm going to add now your practice, which is one, two, three. And those are three reasons that I needed to experience that mini trauma or that thing that's bothering me for the better, for the better. So that is actually taking me off of the loop that I'm on. I'm just using the dump pad to just get it out of my mind and I'll go think about it later. Right. And you're saying, yeah, just do that now. Three things of why I needed to experience that for the better. Because you're a survivor's mind. So let's just say today, let's just say today, we're walking around a hundred people and

say, Mike, I like your outfit, man. Looks good. Yeah. Right. And then one guy said, what are you thinking? You're going to be stuck to that because you got us a virus. My, it's the danger. Hey, pay attention to that. He just insulted you. That's the one that could, could eventually convert the other hundred to get you kicked

out of the tribe. That's why we're so attuned to that negative bit of information because as humans, we conspire, right? We are social beings. How we're programmed, right? And if you understand how you're programmed, you can beat the program. Just like the special forces. If I understand how you work, I can defeat you. If I know how you communicate in the jungles and how you push out your supplies to the front line and how these rebels work and how they guerrilla tactics work, I can probably kill you. This is okay. You scare me right now. This is where, this is where I think are the harmony between your insights, the places you've gone and the wisdoms that, uh, or the wisdom you've, you've worked through or to experience. So I have the same framing. If I understand you and I understand who you're

working on becoming, I think I can help you. And so we're both talking about understanding. And I think you and I are in a place in our lives where we're both doing what I just said. If I can understand you and understand who you want to become, then maybe I can help you. But first, it's the same framing. And because the objective was to kill, then maybe I can help you. And, but first it's the same framing. If I can, and because the objective was to kill the Bushido to, to intercept the sword. Do I have that right? Is I need to understand deeply and then I can do the objective better. Okay. So I want to figure out a way that we can work together. And at the same time, you've got great clarity. You've been writing and you've got, yeah.

And you've got the way of the modern samurai. And so can you spend a moment and just, just open up modern samurai, what that means. And then I'd love if we could just quick hit the seven principles. Yeah. So, you know're a modern samurai. Like the samurai came to me when I was very young, just kind of painting a picture as I was that weak refugee kid

trying to make it in America, spit on it. And I saw like the code of Bushido. And, you know, during the 80s, you know, it had the big ninja kick. And so I'm like big samurai right guy and it drew me into shinto and the study of spirituality and bushido so the the religion yeah and how like a warrior plays in in the path of religion like there's a there is a relationship that aware how did you find shinto because samurai yeah because i yeah like it's one of the 11 world religions that people do not know about or talk about so the way so your attraction

to the samurai the way the samurai um led you to yeah and in my attraction to uh bruce lee led me to laozu thalism yeah right andus, right? Because he talks about that. So like my teaching stemmed, you know, from those things. So the first principle you have is rise before sun. Open that up just a little bit. So, you know, and is all of this in your, in your, the way of Ronan? Yeah, the way of Ronan. This is, this is the writings. Yeah.an? Yeah, the way of Ronan. This is the writings there.

Yeah. And in fact, that's how I healed myself. Because look, if I tell you, we go in your room and you're like, Mike, why is your bed unmade? And you're like, I don't make my bed. Not a priority to me. And the thing is, that's not right or wrong. That's not right or wrong. That's not right or wrong. The thing is, when you look at that unmade bet, is that your standard?

Like, is that who you wish to be? And not right or wrong. If you're like, no, hey, then that's fine. But if you wish to be anything more than who you are today, then it starts with the day and that morning. So rising for the morning is like, you know, in today's world, we wake up and we're more reactive to the day, right? You're running out of house. You're almost late. Like you're reactive. Like what happened if I tell you,

wake up early in the morning and let go of thought and exhale out the residue of emotion, because that's just energy let it out and how long of a practice meditation practice is that for you know for me it's an hour now whoa yeah i could sit all day in meditation and meditation is actually changing the chemistry in your brain yeah and dropping your brain waves to you know beta uh, which is like sleep daydreaming. Theta. Theta. Yeah, like daydreaming modes.

So if you're present in that state where there's no thought or emotion. There you go. Okay, so what time are you going to sleep? Just working backwards on the math. Nine's when I try to wrap it up and go to bed. And what time are you waking up? I wake up at four.

Okay, so you're getting eight hours of sleep, seven to eight hours of sleep. So you're getting your proper, okay. Set an intention. Yeah, so like when it's, for me, the samurais did this practice. And when I say samurais, they were Shinto was tied into Buddhism, right?

Which tied into the monks and the monks reflected on death within the hours of darkness and light. The Tibetan monks would sit in the hour of death. So I don't go quite that extreme. I sit more like 10 minutes of death where I would sit in that state when the sun, when in the darkness between darkness and light, when that sun crosses over, I think of death. Right. And death.

Is that a reverence for death? Death is like, if this is the last day in earth, like what are we gonna do to like try to better ourselves? And what are we gonna do to better the world? Like if this is our last day. Cool. And so that's just a quick little meditation you have yeah setting an intention knowing that we're we're this is transient this physical life is transient all things are temporary right and this is

temporary like what to be given this opportunity called life like seriously like mike think about like the endless universe like they're still seeing light particles from like the Big Bang, right? Like how endless is this universe? And the distance that the moon had to be from the sun and the rotation that that gives us in the waves, right? Like it has to be precise. So what I'm saying, Lao allows you said that nothing in this universe happens by accident everything is the way it is and it is perfect so you that's the first principle and when you align with the world is not chaotic there's harmony i understand that

peace starts within me and i have to write myself first. And I vibrate at the frequency of the universe, which is love. And if I vibrated that frequency, I have to dump out all these thoughts and emotion as man made. Right. So that's done in the mornings. There you go. I totally have that. Okay. Okay.

So then intention is set after I think about death for like 10 minutes, you know, and then I'll pull out my notebook and the intention is set for that day. Gratitude. Can you give me an example of an intention? Like a powerful intention. Like, you know, I'm entrepreneur these days is God give me strength to, to continue to do what I do. And this is who I want to be today.

This is who I want to be today. And you'll, you'll say, you'll describe who you want to be. Yeah. Yeah. Powerful. I want to be loyal. I want to be a great husband to my wife. I want to be a role model to my community. Like I name it out. There you go.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And then. Like I name it out. There you go. Right? And then I name out the things that, and I talk about like when I said intention is. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm watching you come back with motions right now. This again is an unlock for me, is that just you calling up the man you want to be is not an intellectual exercise alone.

It's an embedded emotional plus intellect. Thoughts and mind and body are harmonized. So that also speaks to the power of your imagination and the power of how important it is to you. Intention is a powerful thing. There you go. Because you are the creator. If I say that

you believe in God and you know that God's inside of you and God created all things, you just got to vibrate at that frequency, which is love. Like there is a frequency, you know, shame vibrates at a frequency. So what I'm saying is love is a very powerful vibration. And if that's the energy that created all things, then you need to harmonize who you are within. Pass your thoughts and your illusions, right, of desire, what you think you want to be. Like if you let go of all that and vibrate at love,

if you look at somebody and you just wish them the best, even though they're being a, you just wish them the best. Even though they're being a jerk, you wish them the best because you understand like we're all on this journey and we're all different phases in our journey, right? And you surrender to the creator, then you understand that he is, he, she, whatever the energy is. It's amazing. And it's beyond anything that we can ever replicate in words and he is perfect, right? And he's gonna make us perfect. So we have to surrender to that journey, but we don't because we attach,

and that goes into Buddhism, but we attach ourselves to desire, to illusions like fame and money is going to bring us happiness, right? It'll bring you joy at that moment. 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.

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plus an extra $50 off when you use the code finding mastery at checkout. That's lisa, L E E S a.com. The promo code is finding mastery for 25% off and then plus an extra $50 on us because quality sleep is just too important to leave to chance. One of my favorite Zen koans is the monk says to the student, do you want the good news or bad news? And so good news, I'm sorry, bad news is that life is like falling through the air without anything to grasp or hold on to. The good news, there's no bottom. So enjoy the ride, basically. So how do you sharpen, principle three, sharpen your sword.

How do you do that? You know, you sharpen your sword by first developing a skill in life. Like what is your skill? And your skill should be defined by a purpose. Like, you know, the way of the samurai is the way of two swords. Like, two swords. Only the samurai class, the warrior class, can carry two swords. It was a symbol. If you are caught without those two swords, your head will be lobbed off your head because you're not in status of what it means to be a warrior. Two swords is in service of the daimyo the lord so in the way of that uh two swords is develop a skill that's going to affect humanity to when i say affect humanities the better humanity you know for me it was a warrior to fight for the oppressed

fight for the enslaved where i came came from, you know, and to serve that higher power. So to develop a skill is to sharpen the sword, develop a skill. Okay. Whatever that is, if you're an artist, if you're, you know, a coach, whatever that skill is in your life, because everybody has their own individual journey. Okay. Sharpen the mind. Like what are the mental skills you're most interested in? You know, a lot of like athletes, a lot of military guys, like the biggest hurdle that we face is ourselves. As in like, you probably see an athlete that practices moving over and over and over and over. He's like one of the best at it. And in his head, he he's gonna fuck it up because the emotion of failure what happened

if i tell you that that's an illusion and you let go of that thing because it don't serve you right and if you're like you come to me you're like man i'm not happy right i'm not happy because this you know my dad treated me like this growing up. I'm not happy. What happened when I say, hey, man, it's not serving you. Let it go. Most people think that that's accurate, but don't know how to actually mechanically let it go. And that's where a lot of my practice came from is in theory, if this is trapped emotion, you should be able to let go of emotion. But we don't know how to let go of emotion because we don't even know where it's trapped in our bodies.

So in my study of like, you know, mental health and the body and disperse it you know and that was love like the highest energy uh so kung fu practice that channelization of energy so if i tell you like if you're not living a life that like you're happy with right and and and happiness don't come from a survivor's mind, then you need a practice. You need a form, right? Because that's martial arts. Like what is martial art? Proper form.

So you need a proper form and that begins with the day. I love that. From form to formless is the first principle that matters to me from, you know, like, so understanding form so you can create form less at some point. And then, so pursue Muchen, number four. Muchen, you know, a lot of people compare Muchen

to like muscle memory, and in a way it is muscle memory, but I want you to think deeper. In a state of Zazen, right, in a state of no mind, zazen is to be totally present, physically, in form. This is, zazen is the form that I actually study. Yeah, so to be totally present, right, in the practice of zazen, they'll talk about emptying one's mind.

Can you imagine that? To go into a breathing sequence where you can empty all thoughts, you're not thinking about anything. And if you are aware of your thoughts throughout the day, then you realize that we replicated like 70,000 thoughts throughout the day. And it goes everywhere, right? What happened if you control these thoughts and you make it serve you? Because each thought is tied to emotion, right? And if your survivor mind

keep on thinking of negative thoughts, you're gonna feel that negative emotion. But if your purpose is to be happy in life, you gotta change your thoughts. So it goes for changing your thoughts. So in Mu Shin, it's about being present as in the weaponry in the state of close quarters battle, which is swords, right? Back then it was close quarter engagement. The fear of death kicks in. Survival, fight or flight, like 200,000 years of evolution kicks in.

This is why I love action sports. It's not the highest form of risk, meaning military and operations of what you're doing, because it's still a luxury, but it forces a present moment focus. So does sitting in a pillow, you know, sitting, doing some meditation, you can get there. But when you're at the edge of the cliff and you have a choice to make, think about my laundry or focus deeply on this line that's never been cut, you know, in the back country. And if I miss that deep focus, I'm in trouble. There is a forcing function in environments of consequence, whether they're your environments or a lower level of it, you know, in action sports or whatever. But so do you think that there's multiple ways

to get to Mu Shin? Or is it, are you saying double down on meditation? To increase? No, there's different ways to get to Mu Shin. Mu Shin needs to be practiced different, like as it is two different subjects. This is my way of getting there. First is the action of the

skill right so if if we're talking about you know weaponry is the action of that movement so the move the the repetitive moment yeah it could be an athlete neurologically completely neurologically yeah mind and body right right okay so without, you can execute that movement. So now weaponry is done. I'm just comparing to a weapon. And then what meditation does, it allows you to empty thought because thought is tied to emotion. Imagine if you're not feeling fear in the moment of battle, like you don't feel fear. So if I ask you to perform a task, sitting here talking to me, you're probably going to do better because there's no stress. But if I pull out a knife and I'm going to say, I'm going to stab you in the face. You're scaring me again.

Right? Unless you perform this movement within this time, your survival instincts kick in, but also fear is there. And when fear is present, it doesn't enhance your movements. It hinders your motor skills. It'll keep you alive, but won't necessarily allow you to get into the slipstream. Well, okay. So fight or flight, it shuts down certain motor skills, right? So if I have to have better vision, right? In a fight or flight situation, a gun fight, I have to have better vision, it's gonna shut down,

it's gonna increase my breathing. So I can get more oxygen to my brain. Subconsciously, things are changing chemistry-wise in my body. Technically, your attention goes internal more than you would like, and it goes narrow more than you would like. So that's why you lock onto one thing

and it could be a lock on of error. And then we go internal too much. So we miss the external frames in the way that we need to see them. Yeah, so okay, if you were to work with an athlete that was choking or was micro choking, really struggling out there, what would be, would you say that the,

practice the modern samurai principles or would you have something specific that you would go after? No, so if he's stuck in his mental head, right? So- His mental head, yeah. Yeah, if he's stuck in that, he needs to go into a pattern of breathing technique right away.

You just start there. Right, so we do box breathing technique and what it does, it increases the oxygen into your brain, changes the chemistry of your brain. Are you like a 5-5-5-5 or 6-6-6-6? You know, for me, it's 5-4-8-4. So I hold 4, 5 in, hold 4, 8 out. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Okay, brilliant. And then next principle, and I'm mindful of our time, so I just want to rip through these because they're so important. Prepare to die. And this is a samurai practice. And the idea that you think about the way that you want to die, not the method, but the experience you'd like to have at the moment of death is a practice that, um, that shaped me. And so is this how you're thinking about prepare to die? Or do you think about it differently? You know, it depends on what state of death I'm focusing on because death happens through our lives. Like you, you died to who you

were in your twenties. Yeah. that's a really cool thought. But who you are in your twenties, right? The world does not need a 20 year old Mike Jouret. Right? Yeah, we don't need that. You know, they don't need a 20 year old me anymore. Like, but it made me who I was at that portion of my life. So you died at certain phases in your life. There's just haven't been a physical death yet.

That's cool. Right? And there's going to be one day a physical death so the thing is like you know if if i say to you that if you're chasing richness and fame you're living off illusion which is temporary what's the eternal that's right right what is that eternal energy and if i'm saying that um love is the creation like that all things, then if you live in the frequency of love, at that final moments in your life, and you reflect back on life and you're like, man, we lived a great life, man.

Look at all the people we helped. And we made a difference. Imagine that being your final words like, thank you. That thought is so grounding and important to me that I don't want to have the final physical form and be anything other than graceful or kind. And I have to work my ass off for that. Because I know that if I go unchecked and untrained,

I'll live a life of anxiety and frustration and intolerance. And that will be my last breath as well. I don't want that. I want the handshake to be kind. And so I have to train on a daily basis to have that kindness. And so that's- The samurais go out right-mindedness. That's right.

That's right. Yeah. Modern samurai protects those who need it. I love that principle. And the last is stand by a code. What does that mean? You know, like a lot of us, we just kind of walk through life like without a map.

You know, we just wander aimlessly through life without a blueprint, like what we want to be. Like, you know, we let the externals influence who we are, right? Shaping us to of your life to be that. Like you even say, I wanna die and I wanna be this. Well, and you just said, I have to work my ass off every day. That's living by a code, right? So if you don't live by a code that's higher than yourself, you're gonna slip down into survivor's mind,

which seeks comfort. There you go. Right, you don't have like a blueprint what is your code like what what is the code where do you draw your code from because it sounds like taoism buddhism confucianism shintoism christianity did i say buddhism like so you've got in the the way of samurai like you it sounds like you've sourced code from a lot of different ways but i don't want to take that liberty no no yeah i mean like what is aware like you've sourced code from a lot of different ways, but I don't want to take that liberty. No, no, yeah.

I mean, what is a warrior? People say to you, you speak of peace, you speak of God, love, but yet you're a warrior. You had to kill, right? And that's the thing was a lot of my philosophy base is warrior base because warriors in the past had to live with this to kill. So you are living the Bushido code.

Well, I live the Bushido code in certain aspects, as in when I say that is it ties you to a religion. Like the warrior's path lives by a purpose of a higher self, which is tied to God, the creator. So as a warrior, if I walk the path of Bushido, it was, hey, you're a dictator that's killing thousands of people. The universe lined us up where my job is to take you out, and I have to live with that,

and to understand how that ripples through the universe. How does that affect lifetimes and generations? If I stand here as a human being and I watch this dictator kill, mutilate, and hand his dictatorship to his son that continues to do the same. How many lifetimes have those people suffered? If I freed them, how many generations experience freedom after that? And that to me is the way to where is to understand, to find balance between humanity, God. What is our relationship between that? Because you are taking life.

To you are, you are living in alignment with the first principles of your life. You are definitely living, I feel it in this conversation and I'm grateful to know you in this way thank you for being a warrior of good and the bushido code is not lost on me and i feel like i got to witness it and feel it here which is i'm just going to make sure I have these right. Courage, compassion, respect, honor, loyalty, duty, righteousness,

which is about right-mindedness, and of course, self-control. What a gift. I just wanna say thank you. I wanna encourage people to follow what you're doing, both from a business standpoint as well as for your book that's coming out soon. And we'll have that posted and we're definitely going to support it. The Way of Ronan.

The Way of Ronan. I want to explain what's the title mean. Ronan. Yeah. The Way of Ronan. The Way is Confucius, right? It's to flow in harmony. Ronan. Yeah. universe and in our existence within this space is we have a purpose we're given life for a purpose and and we are to inject that purpose into this physical world you know we are to make a difference in this physical world so the way to surrender to flow and ronin came to me later on in life is

to to walk alone to be masterless. And you know, the book of five rings by Miyamoto Masashi was a Ronin. And he wrote the 21 principles of doku do, the way of walking alone. And that's what saved me after I got out of the military was to be Ronin, to have strength to to walk alone and to sit within this space of void and to find the root of my being again because i was surrounded by the

hate of the world so the only thing i felt was the hate but when i sat with what has always been that's where i found love right creator peace uh And that's what I give back to the world. So that's why I named that book, The Way of Ronan. What a gift. Honored to know you and honored to spend time with you. I hope that this time that we spent together was as impactful to you as it even, or even close to what it was for me.

So I just want to say, I appreciate you. Thank you. 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. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send

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The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend, and let us know how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional. So seek assistance from your healthcare providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening.

Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.