Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Tune Up Your Mind – A Music Legend’s Journey of Self-Evolution | Moby & Lindsay Hicks

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

Where do I begin with the man who only needs one name?Moby has been a prominent figure in the music scene for decades – a punk rocker-turned-electronica artist who has sold over 20 million records worldwide, Moby’s genre-defying soundscapes have captivated audiences around the globe, earning him Grammy nominations, a devoted fanbase, and countless other accolades. Beyond his musical success, Moby is also an activist, a filmmaker, and an author – as you’ll hear about in this conversation, his journey has been one of profound introspection, self-discovery, and relentless pursuit of personal growth.Lindsay Hicks brings her own unique brilliance to the table – she is a passionate environmentalist and sustainability expert, recognized for her collaboration with Moby to amplify the message of climate change activism. Together, Moby and Lindsay have formed an extraordinary partnership, blending their passions for music, activism, and thought-provoking conversations into the recently launched Moby Pod. In this conversation, we delve deep into how to navigate pivotal moments and deep challenges – neither of their journeys have been without public scrutiny and personal hardship. Moby and Lindsay are beacons for the commitment to self-discovery, doing the work, and the resilience to keep going. We’re all creating something in life, and it was a breath of fresh air to experience the authenticity Moby and Lindsay brought to this conversation and to what they are creating._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, I trade and training a high-performance psychologist, and I'm ecstatic to welcome two incredible guests to the podcast, Moby and Lindsay Hicks. Where do I even begin with a man who only needs one name? Moby has been a prominent figure in the music scene for decades, a punk rocker turned electronica artist who sold over 20 million records worldwide. Moby's genre-defying soundscapes have captivated audience around the globe, earning him Grammy nominations, a devoted fan base, and countless of other accolades. But beyond his musical success, Moby is an activist,

a filmmaker, and an author. And as you'll hear about in this conversation, his journey in life has been one of profound introspection, self-discovery, a relentless pursuit of personal growth, of making a difference in the lives of others. Lindsay Hicks brings her own unique brilliance to the table. She's a passionate environmentalist and sustainability expert, recognized for her collaboration with Moby to amplify the message of climate change activism. Together, Moby and Lindsay, they have formed an extraordinary partnership blending their passions for music, activism, and thought-provoking conversations into the recently launched MobyPod. Now, in this conversation, we delve deep, deep into how to navigate pivotal moments

and deep challenges in life. And I think they mentioned doing the deep work in therapy about 45 times in this conversation. They are beacons for the commitment to self-discovery and the resilience to keep going. We're all creating something in life. And it was a breath of fresh air to experience the authenticity Moby and Lindsay brought to this conversation, to what they are creating. And I can't wait to share their insights. So with that, let's get into this week's conversation with Moby and Lindsay Hicks. Moby, you've been at the forefront of your industry for so long. I've loved your music. I've loved how you contributed to the rhythm of the world. You've had an expansive career across

multiple decades. Now, the thing that I'm curious about, though, is I know your music. And oddly enough, this is one of the reasons I'm so excited for this conversation is like, I don't feel like I know you. And I'm not sure if that's because you've wanted it that way, or it's just, I I've missed all the cues, but I just want to start with this appreciation. And then secondly, I wanted to kind of have this really big, hairy question like, who is Moby? Yeah, I guess. I mean, I'm trying to think about what parts of me might be enigmatic. And I mean, I know myself to the extent that I'm bored of myself most of the time. So the idea of me being sort of mysterious or enigmatic, it's like, well, I mean, I don't know how enigmatic I was earlier when I was cleaning my downstairs bathroom. And that's one thing I learned a long time ago is like,

for a while I had a professional cleaning person. But when I was growing up, I used to clean houses with my mom because I grew up very, very poor. And I was watching this professional cleaner in my house. And I was like, why am I paying someone to do what I actually find kind of like rewarding and comforting? So I got rid of my professional cleaner. And since then, one of my forms of meditation is cleaning and even cleaning the stuff that no one wants to touch, like cleaning toilets. And so I don't know if that in any way is germane to what you're asking,

but I grew up very poor and started playing music when I was around nine years old. And I studied music theory and classical music. But then when I was 13, I discovered punk rock and I immediately tried to unlearn the music theory that I had learned. And I started hanging out at nightclubs in New York in the late 70s, the early 80s, going to see punk rock bands, but being exposed to burgeoning electronic music and hip hop and dance hall reggae and early house music. And so I just became this strange polyglot where like I loved every genre of music I was exposed to. And I never expected to have a career as a musician. Like I really thought I was going to spend my entire life being a philosophy professor at a community college somewhere in New England,

most likely being completely ignored by my students, and then making music in my spare time that no one would listen to. So every single part of my career has been a baffling surprise to me. That's cool. So let me just double click on that for a moment because some people, most people, when they hear punk, or certainly when they're exposed to it at a young age even, it's so intense that messy edge of punk. And so what is it about your early life that led you to be attracted to that messy edge? You know, it's a wonderful question. I see your years of professional therapy coming through. And honestly, if I was to look back with some semblance of objectivity, I would say that because I grew up very poor in a very affluent society, I grew up with a lot of fear and a lot of caution, both at home, at school, wherever I was. And when I found punk rock, it threw caution to the wind. And it also had an authenticity. And who knows, other music might have as well, but other music felt so... And I still love a lot of different

types of music, but punk rock was so... There was a genuineness to it. People weren't hiding. They were wearing their shame like a badge of honor. They were wearing their disenfranchisement like a badge of honor, and they were yelling about it. And it stood in such stark contrast to my upbringing of being ashamed, of being afraid. And then all of a sudden, there was this gigantic liberation that came in the form of people screaming about the things that I didn't know you were allowed to express. Yeah, there you go. So were you naturally a rule breaker or rule follower? Early days.

Even early days, I was just a weirdo. I mean, I loved comfort and structure, but I also really appreciated chaos. As paradoxical as that might sound, like I loved repetition. I love schedules. I loved structure. I loved school. Like the only time I ever cut class when I was going to school was to read books in the library. So I was such a nerd, but I was also playing in punk rock bands or even earlier, like really interested in some things that were pretty destructive. So it was that weird paradox of profound comfort with structure and order and a deep affinity for chaos and destruction.

You know what I love? I know it doesn't make any sense to me. No, no, because actually it shows in your music. You know, I think that that, let's call it authenticity, use that word. It gets thrown around a lot, but I think you really do appreciate that word. It presents itself in your music. And then, okay, so before we go too much further, because I love this, Lindsay, hello. Yes, hi. All right. So Lindsay, how did you two, you went from actress to activist. And so can you walk me through,

like, let's do the chapters of your life really quickly and how the two of you are working together now, but how you've migrated to be an activist? I was in acting school in Texas in 2005 and I discovered PETA and went vegan when people didn't know what that was or meant in Texas at all. Wait, Lindsay, Lindsay, this is hilarious. Wait, sorry to interrupt you, but like acting school in Texas, PETA in Texas. So Moe just got done saying he was a weirdo. Yeah, absolutely. I was a weirdo. People thought I was crazy. And I, it was very, very hard for me to eat. You know, I was eating a lot of rice and beans and carrots and hummus. And also, can I throw this in and maybe you don't want, maybe I can't mention this, but you were also either bisexual

or gay. So like you think of Texas and you don't necessarily think of it as like, oh, I'm interested in exploring bisexuality and possibly being gay and I'm going to be a vegan and study acting. So let's go to Texas. Well, I had no choice. I moved around a lot. And so I was always exposed to different people in different places. And I realized that the same groups existed everywhere. Everywhere was a little bit a version of the exact same thing. So I already had an outsider's perspective, which gave me a lot of compassion for everyone. It made me see all the ways that everyone was the same and the ways that everyone, even if they were different, it wasn't that much different. It was them exploring a part of themselves that we all probably have a little bit.

And so I think because of that, I developed a deeper sense of not only compassion, but self-knowledge. And so I was curious about other things. And I think that's how I found PETA. That's how I found the horrific videos that made me never want to eat or touch meat or dairy ever again. And so I went to and also was one of the only out bi or people or lesbians in my college, which was a trip, but also kind of fun because it was a safe space to do that kind of thing. Bizarrely, even though it was Texas. If I was a man, it might not have been so fun for me. But as a woman, I think it was a little bit of a safer space for that. It was less intimidating or scary or put me at less risk for whatever reason. But then I started making my own stuff and writing my own stuff. And that

eventually led me into working on more of the producer side and working for bigger, different companies and development, which eventually led me to working and collaborating with Moby on different creative endeavors. And that's how we got here. Okay. No one does it alone. And I want to share a couple sponsors that are making this show possible. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions.

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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. Let's jump right back into the conversation. So who was the Lindsay Young versus who is the Lindsay now? I'm curious how you would you would respond to that. I mean, I would say I've I've seen I've really seen things, I think, because I was always compassionate. I always loved animals. I always, you know, had a hard time with the idea of any sort of human or animal suffering. I think I've learned more. I've seen more. I think it's it's harder to have, you know, wide eyed, open compassion when you see how or not compassion, but wide eyedeyed open love for the entire world when you see how horrible people can be horrible humans can be to each other and to the planet so i would say i've

definitely like you know there's more chinks in the armor than there once were because of just you know what i know people can do to each other and to the world around them. So I would say, you know, I have a greater awareness of what's possible in this world. And that has changed me in ways. Hmm. You still have maintained a suppleness. You don't feel like hardened and angry or pissed off. It feels like there's a there's a contour to the way that you choose your words. Well, Moby always has said this one thing where there's two kinds of crazy. Isn't this what you say? There's angry crazy and there's sad crazy? Or people are either insane or they're sad? Yeah, that's sort of, I mean, I'm being glib and reductive, but generally speaking,

like crazy versus sad. And I know that crazy is maybe not a DSM-5 clinical description, but sad people have a distorted sense of themselves and the world in which they inhabit. But you can approach that. Whereas actually like unhinged, seriously mentally ill people, you can't really – you can't interact with them because, you know, at least my experience – and I don't want to be dismissive of people who are differently cognated. Did I just invent that expression? But nonetheless, I've had a lot of encounters with people who are sort of unhinged to the point where you don't feel like they're connected to reality. And not surprisingly, it makes it very hard to get close to them. So I found that myself and most of the people I'm friends with, we might be a little unhinged, but we're more sad than actually cripplingly mentally ill. Okay. All right.

Yeah. So technically, I can appreciate the sensitivity you have in there. And you're using depression as a way to say there's still a connection to reality. It's distorted in a way, or it's pervasive in a way where it's kind of like there's three stools, as you guys would recognize the depression. I don't know. I suck. I'm not, I'm not, I'm no good. The world's no good. It's never going to be any good. You know, it's like the three stools to depression. But what you're describing is actually technically access one versus access to disorders that the DSM, you know, clearly outlines and access to disorders. They're usually evident in childhood and they're like really challenging conditions like borderline

or antisocial or, you know, like there's some really difficult breaks from what most people would consider to be normal. And so I hear what you're saying. I double down on it. I appreciate the sentiment in there as well. I think you guys have both done a lot of internal work. Is that fair to assume? Lindsay's laughing.

Yeah. You know, internal work is interesting. It makes me think of the first time I went to therapy because I had grown up, you know, I was a philosophy major. I read Young. I read Huxley. You know, I read I thought I was an incredibly self-aware, enlightened person. I was also up until 15 years ago, an incredible alcoholic drug addict. And so I went to therapy. The first time would have been about, let's say 2001, 2002. I was in a relationship and it was as dysfunctional as a relationship can be, you know, just awful in every way that a relationship can be awful and we finally were like okay as a last-ditch effort let's go to couples therapy and so we went to this wonderful therapist on the upper west side of New York and I remember the first time we went in

I thought the therapist was going to look at me and congratulate me on being this enlightened, rational, long-suffering boyfriend who knew himself so incredibly well. And that's not what he said. What he said is at the end of the session, he was like, well, Moby, for what it's worth, I think you might want to consider coming to therapy at least two or three times a week on your own i was like i was like you mean i don't get a gold star for right being able to reference different schools of thought and different types of therapy and i was basically just like a traumatized broken person who had never who never had never looked at the trauma. I'd inhabited the trauma, I'd written songs about the trauma, but I'd never actually explored it. And so to your question slash point, yeah, I was sort of forced to do dynamic psychoanalysis, followed by cognitive behavioral

therapy, followed by psychodrama, followed by all these other things and then uh at the advice of a psychiatrist i got sober because i was wondering i was like doing all these types of therapy sometimes going two or three times a week and i was still anxious i was still depressed and i went to a psychiatrist and he's like well you are also spending a thousand dollars a week on cocaine and you're having 20 drinks a night. Like it's possible these things are informing your sense of self and your emotional state. I was like, oh, you mean drinking 20 or 30 drinks a night and doing tons of cocaine and going to sleep with Xanax and Vicodin and being disappointed every time I woke up that I hadn't died in my sleep.

Like this wasn't normal. And so that led me to get sober and I did the 12 steps and I found the 12 steps to be like also a really phenomenal way to better understand myself, better understand the world in which I lived. And like, I don't, if someone wants to ignore the 12 steps, by all means, please do so. But for me, they were really helpful and basically concretized or solidified everything else I'd sort of been doing in therapy. Yeah. So I hear that and I'm like, nice job putting in the work. Like you go. And then I hear 20 drinks, Coke, Xanax, deeply depressed,

not wanting to wake up. All right, Moby, where'd that come from? You might not want to go there. I don't find you to be fragile, so I'm asking respectfully with highest regard, like what was the trauma? I think the trauma was, well, part of it was hereditary. I remember when I was around eight years old, my father, okay, to put it in hereditary context, my father killed himself drunk when I was two. And I was sporadically sexually abused when I was growing up. But those things in and of themselves, my limited understanding is that unique experiences of trauma are not enough to rewire. Okay. And oftentimes, unique experiences of trauma might not rewire someone. Some trauma obviously could, but it's more the day-to-day experience. And my day-to-day experience was one of, as I said, fear and shame and uncertainty. And I was saying, I remember being eight years old, meeting my father's family for the first time. And they were all hyper-educated, hyper-erudite

intellectuals from New England who were all drinking themselves to an early grave, like the saddest bunch of people I'd ever met. And I was like, oh, later I realized like, oh, I guess that's me. Like I'm part of this long tradition of sad, overeducated New England alcoholics. And so somehow I managed to get sober and not go down the horrifying spiral that all of them went down. Wow. Look at that. Okay. And do you think that you hit rock bottom before you made the change? Oh boy, yeah. You did hit rock bottom. And I would say, yeah, when I work with, when I sponsor people in AA or other 12-step programs,

that's my first question. Like, cause my, I tried to get sober many times. That's right. Everyone's bottom is different. That many times that's right everyone's bottom is different that's that's the dangerous part you know yeah so how bad was your bottom my so my actual bottom bottom bottom was long and protracted and bad but there wasn't one dramatic moment. That's right, yeah. Like I remember it was October 8th, 2008, and I had played a fundraiser for a politician, upstate New York, and I, of course, had my 25 drinks afterwards and found someone to sell me terrible rot gut cocaine.

And I was taking the train back into the city and I was just, I couldn't think, I couldn't read. I couldn't look out the windows. I was so hung over and sick. And I realized I had been in, I'd felt that way every single day for the last eight years. And all of a sudden I was like, oh, it's not getting better. Like I've tried to strategize my way around this, but it's not, it's just simply not getting better. Like I've tried to strategize my way around this, but it's not,

it's just simply not getting better. And that was my bottom. And again, like there was no car crash, there was no waking up next to a dead person, there was no waking up covered in blood. It was just simply, as Steven Tyler from Aerosmith said, I just unrelentingly sick and tired of being unrelentingly sick and tired. There it is. Lindsay, when you hear this, because you're an edge pusher as well. What I just heard was Moby describing from a place of trauma and pain, pushing right at the edges of what his mind and body, his emotional well-being were capable of. Like you can't continue that for too much longer without like some real consequences. And I'm sure you had some health consequences, of course, Moby. But when you hear that, Lindsay, do you say, oh, I don't relate?

Or do you relate as well? Here's what I relate to. And it actually is a story that you might remember, Moby. Which is, I was, I don't know if you remember this, but one day we were like in a car or something and we were talking about my difficult relationship with my difficult mother and my difficult life growing up. And you, Moby asked me a question. He said, and how has your relationship with your mother affected you? And I was like, I don't think it has. And it hit me. I was like, no, I don't think it has. And

then I was like, has it? I don't know. And then I didn't think about it again. And then maybe it was a few weeks or a few months later, you were like, that was the moment I realized you had a lot of work to do. And you do have a lot of work to do. And I was like, wait, I realized that every toxic behavior, every coping mechanism that wasn't working for me all kind of stemmed from those early moments, those early relationships, those her early relationships and things I saw her doing. It all kind of stemmed from that. And how I relate to Moby's story is that I think it's very easy to not understand how much pain you're in, to push forward with you and you realize, wait, not only is this not working for me, this is actually maybe killing me a little bit. helped you, obviously in a lot of ways, but it helped to reveal where some of the stuff was coming from and how it was showing up. I think my question here is, what was your work that you did from that place? I mean, what was, it's still happening. I'm still 100% deep in it. I wouldn't say I'm not here touting any sort of accomplishment, but I am information, putting together with a professional, putting together the pieces of breaking down what my responses are to certain situations and where they came from and figuring out all the parts of me that are trying to work together

to do the right thing in my brain that isn't actually the right thing and to sort out, you know, where it came from, why I do it, what the habits are and deconstruct it all. And what I'm hoping to do now that I have gained immense knowledge and understanding is to get to more of a proactive place of building the new habits. Okay. Quick pause here to share some of the sponsors of this conversation. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits,

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Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. And now back to the conversation. So I'm classically trained as a psychologist, as we talked about, and then an emphasis in sport and performance. And that emphasis is really important because it is front foot forward leaning, like what work are we going to do to get better at the things we just identify we want to

be better at? And the getting better might be accepting who I am with all my flaws. It might be getting better at, oh, I don't know, being more authentic, walking into a boardroom or being a little more relaxed when I want to be able to hit a note or whatever it might be. So I'm curious about the work. And so, so far, it sounds like the work is talk therapy, getting context, insight, awareness building, putting pieces together like, oh, oh, oh, oh, that's how I'm working. That's right. Okay.

But then there's a next phase, hopefully soon, which is like, well, what do I do in the off time that I'm not in therapy? Like, what is the work that I do so I can be whatever version badass that I want to be in life? And so maybe, Moby, can you speak to some of that, like the quote-unquote the work? Yeah, I would say from my perspective, there's – I mean, I guess in the Buddhist world, and I'm not a Buddhist necessarily, is that idea of dharma. What's the daily quotidian effort that we're involved in? That's right.

Or there's a bottomed out old alcoholic once said, because I got sober, the meeting where I got sober was on the Bowery. And so there were some real hardcore old timey, like, like people who'd sold kidneys for drugs, people who, you know, this one, I love this. One of my friends, he'd been sober for 40 or 50 years. He was very elderly and he wore a little lucite cube around his neck that he called BB because it was the last bed bug he found on him when he was sleeping in a flop house on the Bowery. Oh. And it was his reminder.

Oh. Look at Lindsay's face. Oh my God. So he had a little BB the bed bug encased in lucite around his neck. And I, yeah. So, but he said something that I loved and it's so simple.

Well, two things I heard in meetings. One is we're either moving towards a drink or away from a drink. And you can replace drink with anything. Like we're either moving towards anxiety or away from anxiety. I'm moving towards bad habits or away from bad habits. I'm moving towards anger or away from anger. And the other thing I heard that's so simple, but so hard to put into practice, another old timey alcoholic at the end of one of his shares just said, do more of what works, do less of what

doesn't. And the simplicity of that, I was like, oh, yeah, it kind of does come down to that. But the question, it's both such a huge, relevant, important, fascinating, but also a very difficult question to address and answer. It's like, we know what therapy looks like. What does healing look like? What does being recovered look like? What does, you know, where do we end up? And from my perspective, there are a few different elements to that. One is, and sorry if I sound, you guys can edit this out because I'm about to ramble on like a crazy old grad student, but is, we'll call it like the existential context.

As we know, a lot of 20th century therapeutic modality looks at the individual, like what's the individual's experience? And of course, the individual's experience is incredibly important, but the expanded context, family, culture, gender, socioeconomics, and just our species, you know, we're descended from anxious monkeys. How surprising that we're all prone towards anxiety. So trying to understand that context. And also, I know for myself, there are moments when I have a reaction that is actually not a sign of any sort of dysfunction.

It's just a normal reaction. Like put anyone in a TSA line that's not moving and have them stand there for two hours and be on the verge of missing their flight. They can be the most in light. The Dalai Lama at that point would have a panic attack. You know, it's like, you know, it's funny you bring that up because athletes that that do fly commercial that I spend time with, I have that to be a training moment for them, which is when you're in TSA. And this is more Olympians than it is pro athletes. But when you're when you're in TSA, that is a trigger. That's like a threshold that you're walking through to practice breathing to practice

like being where your feet are if you're fortunate to have feet but like it's this so thresholds matter to me and so the way that i enter or the way that they enter to a space or a threshold is a really important like moment to say right who is the person i want to be this is a great time to practice it because it would even potentially unearth the Dalai Lama, you know, to use your framing. Yeah. So those are, there's thresholds are really interesting idea for me. Do you have thresholds that you guys do that, that are important? Well, it's interesting because that, yeah, that idea of threshold, there's one of my, one of my favorite psychological writers is Albert Ellis. Do you know Albert Ellis? Oh yeah. One of my friends listening know Albert Ellis? Oh, yeah.

One of my friends listening right now studied under Albert, Dr. Ellis, and is going to say, oh, give it to me. You know, give it to me. So he loves the love slob. Do you? Are you? I just love Albert Ellis because like his books, he sounds like such a hipster, but he, you know.

Okay. Yeah. There you go. And he sort of was the guy who invented cognitive behavioral therapy to an extent. He came up with rational emotive therapy that I think, and again, my limited understanding, sort of became CBT. But I was reading one of his books with a ridiculous funny title. And my takeaway was, it's the difference between a preference or a preference or a compulsion a bummer versus a

tragedy and having like sometimes like as an alcoholic i understand preference versus compulsion if you put me in front of 20 pieces of chocolate cake as much as i love chocolate cake best case scenario i'll eat one or two of them there's not a part of me that's going to stay up until seven o'clock in the morning eating chocolate cake. Put me in front of 20 drinks. They will disappear as fast as I can put them in my mouth. Preference versus compulsion. That's great. And then the other side of like bummer versus catastrophe is, and Albert Ellis would say, everything's a bummer.

Guess what? You're human. Life is a bummer. Like accept it. Like even you've lost a foot. You've lost a leg. Yeah, it's a bummer. You'll get over it. Like even like going back to like Viktor Frankl, this idea of like you put it in context and like you choose insofar as you can your response, because I know

there are things that are huge triggers for me. And I sometimes have to remind myself, like, just like the athletes you work with, you don't go into a high performance game without rehearsing and being prepared. So if I'm going to LAX and I know I'm going to be in stupid TSA for 90 minutes, prepare yourself. Like,

don't walk in and be surprised. Like, you know what you're entering into and you, I know I'm going to have a reaction. So maybe that means listen to ambient music. Maybe that means practice breathing. Maybe it means prayer. Maybe it means whatever, as opposed to being blindsided by stimuli that I know is going to affect me badly. And I love that you bring in Viktor Frankl. You know, he's often attributed that really deep insight that there's a space

between stimulus and response, but we can't actually find that he said it or not. But to play along- Isn't it in Man's, I think it's in Man's Search for Meaning, or at least it's attributed to him in Man's Search for Meaning. That's right. And I've read it a bunch. I can't find it. So maybe somebody, maybe I'm just like mind blind on the paragraph or page that it's on. But that being said, stimulus response, that idea that there's a space between and our job is to widen that space or create as much space as we can so that we're not constantly caught off guard with reckless or uninformed responses, responses that are more aligned with our core virtues or our principles. So the idea that you're like, listen, one is too many, a thousand is not enough, that adage

that you often hear from AA or whatever anonymous club that you're part of, it's the meditation. Just to do this arc really quickly. There's three S's that have been attributed to meditation, stillness, silence, and space. And as a practice, so Lindsay, that could be like work and maybe you are doing that work. I don't know, but are, do either of you practice or have a mindfulness or meditation practice that besides maybe washing the dishes or getting the toothbrush or getting the toothbrush out for the dirty corner, you know, that is so wonderful. But are you meditating? Either of you? My introduction to meditation was actually with my mom. My mom was,

we'll call her a seeker. She was, you know, a very confused suburban woman who was a painter. She was sort of a hippie, but she had an office job and she loved the Tao Te Ching and she loved the I Ching and she loved Krishnamurti and tarot cards. And so she kind of got me interested in all these different things. And I thought they were all interesting, but when I, like, I remember being, I don't know, seven or eight years old, throwing the I Ching or using tarot cards. And I thought it was fun, but I didn't get anything from it. Years later, I got invited by David Lynch, one of my heroes, to perform and speak at a meditation

retreat in Fairfield, Iowa, at the Center for Transcendental Meditation. And I thought, okay, this is perfect. I'm going to go hang out with David Lynch. I'm going to play music and someone's going to give me a mantra and all my problems will disappear. And of course, I ended up going out and smoking crystal meth and drinking GHB and taking ecstasy and having about 30 drinks and taking a bunch of Xanax. So I don't know how much enlightenment I achieved in Fairfield, Iowa, but that was my introduction to meditation. And then I tried a bunch of different types of meditation. I didn't want to just be siloed and pick one thing. So I tried meta-meditation, Vipassana, different Native American traditions, some sort of Thomas Merton-inspired Christian traditions. I kind of tried everything. And

ultimately, I came, oh boy, I could just ramble on about this forever, but I realized the practice, and please contradict me if you think this is a mistake, but from my perspective, the practice needs to be attainable. If I say to you, I have the best meditation practice in the world and you hate it, you're never going to do it, then what point is knowing about the best meditation practice in the world? So it's that idea. Same thing with exercise, with anything else. Do what you can. Make it insofar as you can enjoyable and regular, and that's going to increase the chances that you're going to keep doing it. So my meditation approach is either cognitive, which is a sort of, you know, an analysis, a sort of Vipassana mindfulness, or emotional, like meta-inspired, you know,

meta being the Pali word for loving kindness, or creative visualization that can lead to either a sense of calm or insight. So I have a grab bag of meditations that I choose and use. And sometimes it's just as simple as box breathing. And is it a daily practice? Is it like a convenient practice? it what does it look it's a usually two o'clock in the morning racing thoughts practice or or the daily practice is the end of my yoga practice i have a very expanded hybrid of meta and vipassana or mindfulness and loving kindness that I do that is fairly regular and very enjoyable. So that way I don't grit my teeth when I do it. There you go. Brilliant. Lindsay, I'll tell you mine. Yeah, yeah, please. So I'm a daily yoga-er and I find that I have to keep them separate. Three things that have to happen or else I can't, it doesn't feel good. One is I have to move in a way that gets me out of my head.

Usually that's yoga and that's the only one that gets me fully out of my brain. Of course, sometimes it's nice to go to a gym and be on elliptical and watch news or whatever. That sometimes feels kind of good. But usually and pretty much daily, I'll do yoga. Sometimes I'll do a class. Sometimes I'll just be in my house and just do what feels what I like for like half an hour or an hour or 90 minutes. And then a breathing exercise, a box breathing, a fire breath, one of those. And then I've done lots of guided meditations and those are wonderful, but the one, the thing, and I think simplicity is so important, sitting in silence for any period of time, five minutes, eight minutes, 10 minutes makes me feel like I'm going to actually lose my mind.

But just that five minutes of sitting in silence is the best thing that I've found for myself. Like a guided meditation doesn't really get me there anymore. I just got to sit still. It's so hard, but it's so unbelievably effective for me. I also, you know, that's all kind of part of it. It's part of the yoga practice. Breathing is separate, you know, meditation is separate. idea is the concept in yoga of non-attachment, non-aversion has been a real game changer for me because it wasn't until I started going deeper into that that I realized how core my attachments

and aversions were and how powerful they were inside of me and how like being in the TSA line, my attachment is if I miss this plane, I'm not going to get to where I need to go and it'll kill me. Or I will have such deep shame for being a person that misses release them has also been a huge part of that process for me. It's apparent to me that both of you don't want to be pinned down. You don't want to be labeled in some kind of way. You're explorers. You don't want to be, to use Moby's word, you don't want to be siloed or defined as just one thing. And that seems like it's a common thread for both of you. Does that feel right? Does that feel like there's a heartbeat when I say that to you? Yes, it seems very accurate. But I also, because I've been sort of living in the public eye for quite a long time now. And so I don't pay attention to how anyone might want to label me. I stopped reading social media comments. I stopped reading

reviews. I stopped watching interviews myself a long time ago because the simple illogic of it finally struck me. And I hope that maybe this is helpful to anyone who's listening where think of how strange it is that we hand our sense of self, that we hand our emotional state over to strangers, over to people we've never met, and people who might just be bots in Macedonian cube farms. Like I've had friends of mine have Twitter arguments with people they later found out were bots. And I realized that a while ago that like I cannot stay sane and calm if I'm constantly being torn apart by the opinions of people I've never actually met. Oh, so like, wait, wait, wait.

You're not going to know this, but I just submitted my accepted manuscript to HBR for a book. A new book is coming out November 7th, which is, this is, it's on FOPO, Fear of People's Opinions, and I'm calling it The Great Constrictor of One's Potential. The book title is called The First Rule of Mastery. But what you just described is a thing that I struggled when I was a young kid. And I see it over and over and over again for people who have had public success is that there's still this nagging experience that like, even though they've had all this wild success, they're still tuning to the masses to see if they're okay. And it's a really dangerous tuning fork. And so everything you just said, I'm like nodding my head that I've lived it. I've seen it over and over again. And I think the thing I'm most curious about is like, how did you like, let's, let's do the foot in the door approach, just the beginning step to make the change to down, downgrade the noise

and to stay connected to the signal. What was the beginnings of the actions you took there? Well, for me, it was the first time I was written about in a magazine, which was actually probably 1990. And then I saw myself on the cover of a magazine. And early days as a musician, I was an underground unknown entity. So I got only good press. And I was like, oh my God, this is validation. This is love. This is like people, people know me. That means I have meaning. They care about me. They're being nice to me. I have friends I've never met. And so I spent the next, I don't know, 15 years obsessing over what people said about

me because for a minute it was really good. I mean, it sounds like I'm also describing alcohol and drugs. Like in the beginning, how great, this is the answer to all my problems. And then slowly over time, you realize it's destroying you. And towards the end, I would, especially when social media was sort of invented, I would read comments where people wanted to stab me. They wanted to destroy me. They wanted to watch me die. They hated me. And I was like, what good can come from knowing this? what possible benefit am I getting? I'm just being constantly destroyed by people I've never met. And so I had to learn. I had to say, like, OK, similar to alcohol and drugs, I have to have an abstinence model. And with the opinions of strangers, I have to practice abstinence because the other alternatives are to find every person who hates me and kill them. And in addition to being unethical, it's also kind of illegal and probably not practical because we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people.

So that's option one, which I had to take off the table. Option two is to become an enlightened, transcended master and not be bothered by the opinions of strangers. And I realized I can't do that. So option three was simple abstinence. Don't look. Don't read the comments. Don't read the reviews. And at first it felt like something

that was only germane to public figures. But now to state the obvious, I'm sure you address this in your book. Everyone's a public figure. You know, the guy who works at my local supermarket, putting stuff in the bag, like he's a public figure because he has an Instagram account. You know, he might have 20 followers. That's a public. And so everybody has that experience of – and here's where it can become incredibly challenging not just for better known public figures but for everybody is the private versus the public self. I have the same name with my friends as I do to 100,000 people in a stadium I'm playing in front of. And in my mind, there's a conflation. I'm like, how am I not the same person because I have the same name? But when someone I've never met hates me, they've never met me, and I cannot take it personally because they're not responding to a person. They're responding to a photo or an image or an idea.

And so that is my very long winded way of how I've come to this place of simply having no awareness of anything anyone might say about me apart from Lindsay and a few friends. And now, one final word from our sponsors. 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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into our conversation. There sounds like there's, well, you've done again, some real work to be able to know how to navigate this. And you just hit on something that I hear athletes talk about all the time, which is like fantasy is really problematic because you or I are playing a fantasy league using the names and likeness basically of the athletes in a way for our benefit. But they're a real person. And so when you're rooting against or rooting for, there's a, it's, it's a complicated experience

for people that, to your point, like Moby on stage, Moby in the living room, like, is it me or is it the way that I make them feel, you know, and if you're not clear, it can become really confusing. And so I love how you've articulated it. And it used to be the case that that, as I mentioned, that that only applied to professional athletes or actors or musicians or politicians. But now it is literally everyone with a phone and a social media account, which I think I've just described the vast majority of people on the planet. And you hear about and to state the obvious, it's not academic or elective. Like you hear about people killing themselves simply from reading comments. And it's, so that's my advice to everyone is just like, just don't look, just, you know, if you can disable

comments, don't read them. Cause there's, there's always going to be like 10 good ones, but that one negative one, what are you going to remember at two o'clock in the morning? Like the hundred people who said, Hey, good job. or the one person who said they want to find you and stab you and watch you die in front of them, which I've read many times before I decided to practice complete abstinence around social media comments. It sounds like that one stuck with you a little bit. Just the absurdity. I was like, wow, this person hates me so much.

They're having fantasies about stabbing me to death. They've never even met me. Likeinence, I think, is the best thing. But you've also had to because you have received it in a level that most people never will. You know, I think many of these public figures, people, they think because they've seen you more than three times somewhere that they know you were because they heard a song and connected with it that they know who you are. And so they are having an experience of you, especially as a musician or an actor, they're having an experience experience of you that you know nothing about. They're having a personal, deep, intimate relationship with you without your knowledge, which is beautiful. You've created art that has changed a person. But in the process, I think they've built a connection with you that makes them, they have the ability to say, oh, I changed my mind. I thought I knew you, but I don't know you because you did this song that I actually don't connect to. And now I'm angry because you did something I don't understand. And now I want to hurt you.

But you have no part of their experience other than creating something that they consumed and and the the one thing i'll add to that is both and again forgive me if this is self-evident but like the algorithms prioritize the engagement you're describing like there's no such thing as a social media algorithm that prioritizes friendliness or benign interaction. Like they want anger, you know, because they've, they learned a long time ago, anger gets clicks, you know, anger gets engagement and anger generates numbers. Uh, and the other is again, to state the obvious, the vast majority of people on the planet are struggling. And this is one thing that's helped. I don't know if this is either going to make sense or if you've experienced this before,

but it's almost like if someone needs to attack me and that gives them a feeling of comfort, if that gives them a feeling of happiness, I'm like, I can't even criticize them for it. I don't want to know about it, but I can't get mad at them. And I can't say, oh, you should think about me differently. Like I have to almost say, you know what? Maybe they needed that. Maybe in that moment they needed their, like their anger, maybe it gave them comfort and control in an environment where they felt no comfort and control. And it's again, I don't want to be on the I don't want to be aware of it, but I'm also not I don't think they're doing anything wrong or unethical by hating me if there is a lot of ways. For some of us, we have to pretend, it feels like we have to pretend to be something else because we won't be properly accepted. And some of us build a second self to protect the more vulnerable self in any room. And the other bit on the two selves is that many of us have found it very difficult

to know what our true self is. And so we get ping-ponged around by the external conditions or the eyebrow closing in like that glare from somebody else or like the eyebrow opening up like, oh, in favor. And we do get whipped around by the external circumstances quite a bit if we don't know our core principles and our core rocks, if you will, to what makes us us. And all that being said is, I don't think I know where Moby quote unquote came from as opposed to like, quote unquote, came from, as opposed to Richard. And I don't even know if it's taboo to even ask you this question. So help me understand the difference between Richard and Moby. Okay. So my parents decided before I was born that my full name was going to be Richard Melville Hall if I was a boy.

And lo and behold, I was a boy. So I was born in Harlem in 1965. And there I was lying in my mother's arms. I'm assuming she was smoking a cigarette. And I'm 10 minutes old. And my father and my mother looked at me and they're like, Richard Melville Hall is an incredibly grown up name. Like they were like, they're like, maybe when he's an adult, if he becomes a lawyer, Richard Melville Hall Esquire will be his name. But like, what a ridiculous name for this little white grub of a baby. And so my dad, who before he killed himself, was a delightful person with a great sense of humor, said, hey, let's call him Moby. And the reason being is I'm on his side of the family descended from Herman Melville. And so from the time I was 10 minutes old until right now, I've only ever been called Moby except for I had one dentist in elementary school who

called me Richard. And every time he called me Richard, I'd be like, I don't know who you're talking to because I've never been, what a weird name, I've never been called Richard. Yeah, got it. Okay, I understand. Okay, cool. It's a good story. There is, and this is, again, something you guys might want to edit out cool it's a good story there is there is and this is again something you guys might want to edit out because it's going to be a little esoteric and rambling but as time has passed it's forced me to think about this name moby like for for years it's just my name and i was like oh there's a famous book called moby dick i guess i'm named after the author who supposedly i'm related to and i never really thought about it because Lindsay, almost to

your point of like, when you grow up with something, it's just who you are. It's familiar. But then as time passed, I started thinking like, well, what does this mean? Like who was Melville? Who was, what, what, why is the book Moby Dick so revered? Because if you've tried to read it, if I was tried toory for existentialism, for the human condition. You could almost boil it down in very reductive terms that there's Ahab on one side and Ahab represents the anger of humanity in an unknowable universe. There's even one scene where he nails a gold piece to the mast of the boat, the Pequod, and he has this soliloquy about the unfairness of the human condition. He says that as humans, we know nothing. The best that we is like living in a world of pasteboard masks. And he says, I want to punch through that pasteboard mask. And he wages a war on God. And Moby Dick on an allegorical level is the unknowable universe that he's fighting against. You know, he looks at

this enigma and he hates it because he can't understand it. He can't control it. And he tries to destroy it. Surprise, the unknowable universe destroys him. And I could say that on one hand, self-involvedly, I'm incredibly thrilled to be named after the vast, chaotic, unknowable forces of the universe. But also the allegory for our current culture is like, the more we fight against nature, the more we're just going to destroy ourselves. Like we're currently culturally and as a species, we're all becoming Ahab.

Like, you know, whether it's climate change, pandemics, antibiotic resistance, water use, desertification, et cetera. Like we're waging a war on nature and it's sort of like going to Las Vegas. Like the household always wins. Like nature is going to win. It might be time for our species,

I say presumptuously, but also empirically to stop fighting an unbeatable foe. Futile. It's a futile effort. Yeah. Very thoughtful. You can't fight a three and a half billion year old planet and expect to win. Yeah. We are social beings masquerading as individual contributors.

And until we're plugged into the larger ecosystem, it becomes the, the, the unmovable force in many respects. Yep. I read that you guys are part of your beginning philosophy, you know, right now is that you're ignoring the pursuit of being cool. And I want to know what that means. And I also want to understand what your understand what you have your eyes set on next, especially Resound NYC. So can you help understand that philosophy? Yeah. So when I first was looking at sobriety, I was obsessed with the world. I was obsessed with fame. I was obsessed with getting good reviews, getting played on the radio, selling out stadiums or arenas. I was obsessed with worldliness.

I wanted that success. I wanted to go to red carpet events. I wanted to have this glamorous life filled with affluence and validation. But then I started taking a step back because what was also happening at this time is I was being invited to fewer parties. I was selling fewer records. I was getting worse and worse reviews and it really frustrated me. And when I started getting worse and worse reviews, and it really frustrated me. And when I started getting sober, and hopefully this is a lesson that applies to people even who aren't considering sobriety, but just in general, is I had been so selfish. I was selfish in my friendships. I was selfish in my family relationships.

I was selfish in my family relationships. I was selfish in my romantic relationships. I was selfish with the people I worked with. And it was all based on fear and control. I thought the more I can control my environment, the more I can get exactly what I want from the world, the happier I will be. And I don't want to anthropomorphize the universe too much, but I feel like the universe was sort of saying to me, you know, selfishness and clueless materialism, that's not the way to have a good life. That's not, you know, that's not an enlightened, healthy way to live as much as I wanted to live that way. And when I got sober, I started reading different literature and there was this idea of service. And I hated reading about being of service. I hated reading about selflessness because I wanted to be selfish. But over time, I found that trying to control the world, trying to

be like an abject materialist, and I'm not criticizing materialism per se, but I'm criticizing the idea that materialism could replace or supplant cult-like health and spirituality. And so I found myself focusing more on nature, on spirituality, on service, and on creativity as its own end. Like not creativity to have market share, not creativity as something you can monetize, but creativity as just like a remarkable spiritual practice. So something happened where I found myself putting things in perspective, going hiking in the mountains and realizing like, oh, nature doesn't care about album sales. Nature doesn't care about getting invited to red carpet events. There is a wisdom and a strength to nature that is indifferent to us. And I found that indifference to be really comforting and

liberating and very healing. And my focus just became like, okay, selfishness and look at the culture in which we live. And I'm sorry to ramble on so much, but I'm going to state the obvious. If selfishness made people happy, Donald trump would be the happiest person on the planet you know if if being a selfish materialist made people happy kanye and elon and donald trump and putin and erdogan would be jumping up and down with joy and they seem like the most miserable human beings on the planet so it's the idea of you know trying to be of service, trying to use creativity as a way of connecting spiritually and not trying to control things too much, recognizing that there is a wisdom to the universe that is much older than I am. And the more I try and control it, the more I fail. So sorry, I know I definitely rambled on way too much. And now when I make music, it's like just the love of making music, the joy of making music, and the hope that when music goes out into the world, it can provide a sense of happiness or comfort or connection with someone.

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is just too important to leave to chance do um to live the good life and this is for both of you guys, to live the good life, what are some of the essential practices that you would say have benefited you the most? And it could be anything from great sleep to reading A, B, and C book to meditation, wherever you want to take it. But to live the good life, what are some of the essential practices? Interesting. You go, and then I'm going to, what are some of the essential practices? Interesting. You go and then I'll, I'm going to, cause I love this question so much. You do? Okay. I'm finding it to be challenging.

I guess, I guess like what, what kind of life I think would be good and what would make my life better? What works? What doesn't? Here's what works. Here's when I feel good. And I want to do more of this as my life expands and evolves and moves forward, is every time I find myself being of service, I feel so good. And I don't always do it. especially in our world now today to be selfish and to focus inward and to hole up in my little apartment with my dog and snacks and watch shows on the tv that feels so good to be fair dogs and snacks tv sounds great but when i can go out of my way and be of service, even the thought of going to work at the food bank in a few weeks, knowing that that is something I'm actually able to help her to, you know, have people on our podcast whose ideology I believe with and know that I get to be a part of putting that out into the universe.

It's all an act of service. So when I'm doing – when I'm in a state of service is when I thrive and when I feel the best. And so as I move, as my life moves forward, I want to incorporate every single form of being of service that I possibly can. And in do, I mean, the part of that is also finding better ways to fill my own cup, finding better ways to be full and to show up fully for this kind of hopefully a life of service that I can create for myself. Very cool. Okay, my turn. I agree with everything you said. I almost, while you were talking, I was thinking of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And I almost feel like that's in a way, is it? Now I'm thinking about it a little bit more, but that's almost a way of like looking at the steps that are necessary for

a good life as it were, you know, and you could almost say like, first start with the physical you know am i looking after my body because it doesn't matter how enlightened we are if our bodies are falling apart and sick and destroyed like we're not going to be living a good life so i would say looking after our bodies you know exercise eating well avoiding processed garbage foods um spending time in nature and then moving up to community you know because we are a bunch of social monkeys and we do need you know we had dan buechner who sort of came up with the idea of the blue zones on our podcast, and he stresses this idea of community as well. Like we live in community. We need our friends, our support. You know, even if we get frustrated with them, we still need that sense of community. But then ultimately at the tippity top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is spirituality and service. you know, the connection with something greater than

us, you know, and I and it's a very tricky one because I'm 57. I'm getting older and I'm starting to confront in myself and other friends and family members like realizing like, oh, life is finite, like like not one biological thing has ever existed that hasn't died. And trying to both have compassion for myself and for other people struggling with mortality, but also recognizing the fascinating beauty, as strange as that might sound, in this system. This system of we're alive and we die and we're recycled. We go back into this planet, into this universe, and we become other things. We're recycled in the most literal way. And I think there's something so beautiful about that. And of course, I like being alive. I like watching 30 Rock and I like making soup and I like drinking coffee and I like doing, you know, playing with Bagel the Dog.

But the recognition, like it ends and it ends for everyone. So the result of that is try to be compassionate with yourself as you're struggling. Try to be compassionate with myself as I'm struggling. And try to be compassionate for every other human on the planet and every animal on the planet because they're all attached to life with the understanding that life doesn't last. So hopefully that's not a morbid way to end, but I find a great comfort in that, knowing that life will end and I will be recycled. And hopefully while I'm here, I can do some good and move the needle away from the current system that is causing so much suffering. Really cool.

And to hang in the morbidity idea just a little bit longer is that one of the things that I do when I say goodbye to people, and my friends know this, is that I'm saying goodbye and I just have a moment with myself, which is like, this might be the last time that I see you. And so it's a constant reminder that there will be that time for everybody I know, that there is a last time.

And so the reminder is to stay as present as I possibly can. And that's why I do all the internal work to be, uh, to have the faculty, to be connected to the people and the projects and the ideas that, um, are in my present, you know, gaze, if you will, because when we're not present, we're missing so much. And that being said, what are the projects? Before we wrap up, what are the projects that we can drive people to, to pay attention to what you're doing now? Where are the right places to pay their attention? So Lindsay, or Lindsay, hi, Lindsay.

Hi. Well, kind of. We have a podcast called MobyPod, and it is a way for us to talk to, in fact, we'd love to at some point, maybe like do a little quid pro quo and have you on our podcast. But it's a way for us to just talk to each other, to talk to other people, because as you know better than anyone, there's something to be said for a structured conversation. You know, I realize if I hang out with my friends, it doesn't matter how smart they are. We're just going to talk about ridiculous stuff. Whereas with the moment you have a podcast, people are thoughtful and introspective and we listen. The remarkable thing about a podcast is when someone's speaking, everyone else sits and listens. And it's almost separate from the idea of an audience

or monetization, both of which are nice things, but just there's something I find, and I'm going to sound really silly here for a second, there's something sacred about the type of conversations that you have in a podcast interview. It's probably why so many people love them. But I find that to be this really special, almost spiritual space where you really you get to know people in such a special way. It's beautiful. It's focused. There are no distractions. You can go deep. You can take a sidebar about as far as a sidebar can go and still manage to come back to the point. It's been a really gratifying medium for us to go into. And so that's been something that we've been working on and we're putting out new episodes every other week. Awesome.

And in addition to that, we released a movie recently called the Punk Rock Vegan Movie. And it's a very odd idiosyncratic look at the history of punk rock and animal rights. It's for free. We give it away on YouTube and Vimeo. Anyone can download it, do whatever you want with it. And I, as you mentioned, I just put out an orchestral, a second orchestral greatest hits called Resound NYC. We make tons of music videos. We do films for other people. We help other people produce their films, working on our own stuff. So as narcissistic and self-involved as I am, I don't want to run through the long laundry list of things that we're doing because it is a long laundry list of things that we're doing. Yeah. You guys both are making a contribution to your communities.

Moby, you've been at the music, um, art thing for a long time. I want to say, thank you guys for your time. I'd be honored to come on your podcast. And, um, I love, I love what you're trying to do and how you're positioned your philosophy to be expressed in the world. So, um, and before we really go, um, I'd love a, like a little quick hit where we, I ask you just a question and as a reductionist here, a reductionist approach, just one or two word answers from each of you. Are you game to play along? One or two word answer.

It's not my strong suit. I do love a lightning round though. It's a lightning round. Are you ready for a lightning round? All right. Yeah. Stress has just turned up on you, Moby. Are you ready?

Great. Okay. Maybe what we'll do, Lindsay, you go first, okay? Okay, great. No, I love brevity. It all comes down to? Oh, I'm finishing the sentence. Compassion.

Moby? Bagel. That's your dog. Bagel, come say hi. Oh, God. Yes. Perfect. All comes down to Bagel.

All right, good. My only goal in life is to die before Bagel does. How about it? Okay. He says it like it's a joke, but it's not a joke. Look at that little one. Cool. All right.

Pressure comes from? Fear. Heredity. I am? Worried. I am bald. Oh, my God. You guys are clowns. That's too funny. Oh my God, you guys are clowns. That's too funny.

Oh God, I don't know how, should we keep torturing ourselves here? Last one, ready? Last one. Mastery is? Exploration. Service and awareness. Service and awareness, very cool.

You guys are great. Thank you for spending your time sharing your wisdom and insights and just not taking yourself so seriously and having fun with it. So I really appreciate meeting you guys. And thank you again. Yeah, this was wonderful. I feel like we should send, we should like Venmo you money for therapy. I know, but it actually feels like that.

I feel like how this is the cheapest therapy i've ever had thank you yeah that's awesome i gotta remember that this is the cheapest therapy i've ever had it's really good cheapest but most valuable yes yes no very valuable all right okay thanks take care thank you so much bye-bye all right thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening.

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