Know Thyself - E134 - Peter Crone: Finding Freedom From Ego & Subconscious Limiting Beliefs

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

This week renowned mindset coach Peter Crone comes back for a transformative discussion on breaking through the barriers of the subconscious mind. He explores how to unlock inner freedom and create lasting change in our lives.Peter delves into the intricacies of the subconscious mind, helping us define its role and influence on our daily experiences. Peter reveals the patterns that lie at the root of our suffering and how to rewire these problems at the source. He examines common limiting beliefs that hold many people back, guiding us through the process of unpacking these layers to uncover deeper truths.He also touches on the theme of transmuting the pain of loss and grief, and the concept of the spiritual ego.BonCharge Red light therapy:Go to https://BonCharge.com/KnowThyself and use code KNOWTHYSELF to save 15% André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books___________0:00 Intro 2:08 The Problems Hidden in Your Subconscious 11:37 These Patterns are at the Root of our Suffering18:21 Common Limiting Beliefs that Hold People Back24:08 Unpacking the Layers of Limiting Beliefs 31:15 Ask Yourself This One Question36:30 Transmuting the Pain of Loss/Grief47:23 Ad: Boncharge Redlight Therapy48:40 Relationships & Connecting from a Place of Love1:00:06 The Power of Listening 1:05:37 Go from ‘Seeking’ to ‘Exploring’1:09:45 Why the Ego Fears Being Wrong1:13:08 Stop Identifying with Your Problems1:17:03 Freedom is Available Here and Now1:28:05 Unpacking the Spiritual Ego1:55:26 Reaching new Heights of Your Potenital2:01:02 Conclusion___________Peter Crone is a thought leader in human potential and performance. He devotes his life to sharing insights and strategies to create an inspired life and find true freedom by awakening new levels of awareness. Peter helps redesign the subconscious mind that drives behavior and performance and uses the wisdom of Ayurveda to help people find balance through diet and lifestyle. He’s worked with entertainers, professional athletes, as well as global organizations.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petercrone/Website: https://www.petercrone.com/___________Know ThyselfInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/Website: https://www.knowthyself.oneClips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKgListen to all episodes on Audio: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927André DuqumInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

People really are under the impression that the life they have is not the life they want. The thing that we're really up against is all our own perspective. That's it. We could just be perpetually chasing our tail, trying to perfect everything around us under the illusion, that when I get everything exactly the way that my current perspective thinks it should be, then I'm going to experience peace. But you don't. When you live that way, four decades, you also now have the accumulative effect of that perspective.

The toxicity in the brain, the toxicity in the body, the toxicity in your body. the toxicity in your relationships, the absence of abundance in your finances. My role is to help people discover what's beneath their woe. Because then you start to see that everything that anyone deals with is a problem exists only in perspective. People do end relationships. They leave careers because they realize that it wasn't actually an extension of their greatest self, because it's the freedom from the idea of myself, which immediately instantaneously at the same time gives an experience of newfound love for what is.

And simultaneously, that's the present state. relates to my future, I see nothing but pure possibility. I've introduced you enough, my friend. I'm honestly getting quite tired of it. I just don't even like this guy. I can't keep making up nice things about him. Oh, man. Well, welcome back for the trilogy.

Oh, we're going. We're a lot. Okay. Hello. You in plus one. You brought Scooby-Dubid. Yeah, he's one of my favorites. He's great.

Reminding he can't take life too seriously, darling. Yeah. Am I your only three-peat? There might be one or two others. What? I'm so upset. But for good reason. You know, you obviously won, dear friend.

And you happen to have cultivated quite an amazing perspective understanding and life. And there's a lot of ripe things that I'm excited to bring up with you in today's conversation. I feel like in my own personal evolution, the evolution of the show, and also the world. Yeah. For just kind of definition's sake, I would love actually for you to just define what you feel the subconscious mind is because what's so fascinating to me is on the pursuit of discovering true freedom in our life. Yeah.

There are so many things beyond our current awareness that are holding us back from accessing our natural state of being. Yeah. Which we both feel is freedom. Yeah. But it helps to get context for. what the subconscious mind is and the patterns that are kind of outside of our realm of awareness. So what is that in your perspective?

I mean, I don't know if it's so much a definition. I like to use analogies. I think it helps people to understand things that perhaps aren't so palatable. But like if you imagine like the building we're in right now, it's going to be commensurate with the foundations, right? So this existence that we live in as a space or you live in as your home, it has to have the pillars that support it. So any building, any identity that we become associated with, in this case our own personality, has got its own foundation. So for me, the subconscious represents

that. So the things that we're aware of, it's really just as the word implies that which is beneath, which is conscious, right? So it's just below. So we become oblivious to it, but nonetheless, it informs everything. So that when, you know, we're thinking about things, we're in the shower, we're going to bed, we're driving our car, whatever it is that you are aware of as a conscious thought, to me is generated from a much deeper, and at times more insidious, doesn't have to be bad, but it's a much more well-formed idea. And so whilst people know, for example, that they shouldn't smoke cigarettes, or maybe they shouldn't drink so much alcohol, that's a conscious awareness,

but they don't know why they still do it because of the subconscious foundation that supports the habit. So that's why it's so beautiful to be able to access, because really it informs everything else. it's sort of that which is tucked away in the wings but it's it's it's the genesis of everything that we're aware of that we think about that then creates all of our emotions and our actions and then consequently our results so that's why for me i love delving into that space because it's the only thing that's really going to make lasting change i mean you go and see an expert of any kind they're going to they dabble in the realm of behavior right like you see someone who touches you tennis or someone who teaches you yoga or someone who's a nutritionist, most of the conversation

is going to be in the realm of action. Like, do this, don't do that. But to me, that's way too far down the cascade of like how things come into creation. So prior to, you know, what we were aware of and we think about are these subconscious thoughts and then we can access the realm of being and freedom. So let's reverse engineer it a little bit, going back to the root, because again, there is a large rhetoric, especially in the personal development space, to focus so. on the behaviors and the discipline and the willpower. Yeah. And we can see that no matter how much praying or effort,

if you plant, let's say, a mango tree seed, you know, there's no way you're going to turn that into an avocado tree, you know, or there's no amount of willpower that will change what the confines of, you know, the genome that's in that seed to change it into something else. And so likewise, I feel like at the root, there are these beliefs and identity structures that then cascade down. And so reverse engineering backwards from the results to the actions, the thoughts, the feelings, and the beliefs and the identity. When you take it down to the root of what something is, do you feel in the subconscious realm, like you said, that's kind of one level beneath their level of conscious awareness, are the identity and beliefs? Is that how you see that?

Yeah, I mean, that's the realm that I traffic in. That's what I'm always looking for. And, you know, in the book that I've been writing for, like, the last 70, 8 years, that's eventually going to come out. Older than you. It just feels like it's been there for a minute. I know. It has been.

I delineate these 10 primal prisons that, to me, are the foundation of the personality. So they sit in the subconscious. So that is when I'm working with anyone and you've seen me coach people. Even better than that, I've seen you coach myself at times. Exactly. you've experienced it. Peter, help me. Yeah, it's so, I just feel very fortunate that for whatever reasons I'm able to, and I make analogies again, or it's akin to me like a magician, right,

who's in a form of entertainment helping somebody see something that in this case could be miraculous or inspiring or entertaining. And so for me, when I'm hearing somebody's issues or whatever their problems are, because I know these primal prisons that everybody's identity is built upon, I can hear and reverse engineer, okay, if someone's dealing with fill in the blank. So my role is to sort of through often compassion, kindness and patience and a lot of love, help people discover what's beneath their woes, right? So that is that reverse engineering.

Because then you start to see that everything that anyone deals with is a problem, exists only in perspective. And so when you shift that, as Wayne Dyer said, you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change, right? So really, that's why I love what I get to do, because I don't necessarily need to know how to resolve problems. I'm helping people see they don't have any, right? And that doesn't mean that circumstances aren't challenging. There's a lot of shit out there that people deal with, myself included.

But it's to remove the suffering that's associated with the challenges and circumstances of life, right? And that, to me, is because of these subconscious constraints that we look through, that inform the way that we perceive the world, that we're coming from a perspective as a very benign example everyone can relate to is that we feel we're not enough. Where is that? Like it's not part of your genome, right? That's software. And so I'm really like a coder. You know, I'm helping people see that the identity that you have become misidentified with is based solely in language. It's just words. It's really stopping people. And when you see that, it's both liberating, but it's also almost comical to see that the things that you so crave are really on the other side of vibration and sound that you think that you're not

valuable, you're not loved. It's not a truth, right? And so that's why that reverse engineering process is so profound. I mean, I just work with someone as part of a free event to show people what they might experience in my master my program. And this guy, there's like 8,000 people signed up to witness this free, you know, sort of expose on terms of my philosophy and my work. And I work with a I've never met before, 46, 48, or a guy from India, and he'd submitted a question like a lot of people, and I just randomly picked. And he was struggling with self-esteem, anxiety, and a lot of anger, particularly towards his loved ones, which tends to be, you know, sadly the case when people struggle with that.

And you could see, like even for me, the fatigue in his face, like the dark circles under his eyes, the sadness, the fatigue that it is upon him knowing he's a good guy and he doesn't want to hurt people that he loves. he even said that he'd just blown up at his oldest son and almost said to his son, I hope you don't grow up to be like me. You know, and you can feel like the shame in that, right? There's a guy who wants to be a good dad, but he doesn't even know why he blows up. And so to be able to reverse engineer that and help him see that he fundamentally thought who he was was bad.

But he's not walking around going on bad. He's walking around going, I'm an asshole of a father because I just blew up on my kids, right? But the eye bad was the foundation that allows that behavior to be perpetuated through every arena of his life. So then we investigate the validity of that. Like where did that come from when he was slapped as a kid and very traditional Indian family where he was sort of, you know, seen and not heard and scolded and shamed and all the things he did was wrong. But then to see that it's not a truth. That's what you went through and it's hard for a kid.

And I can understand why you thought you're a bad kid, but it's not an actual truth. and to see his face on the other side of that, realizing, as I ask everybody, is it true, whatever the constraint is, like in his case, is it true that you're bad? And he really got it, it's not a truth. But it becomes so part of him is not even a thought. People talk about limiting beliefs. That's also not it. It's a subconscious foundation of his whole identity.

And when you pull that from beneath someone, I mean, the joy that was on his face was palpable. There wasn't a dry eye on the Zoom, you know, because people could feel they could feel they can relate to like, wow, like he's spent 40-something years thinking that who he is as a person is bad. And that's, you know, that's how most people go through life. And then they have the myriad of forms of escape, right? Some street drugs to medication, to food, to, you know, whatever it is that impacts their life. So, yes, that's why I like what I get to do if you're into freedom and not having suffering. Yeah. Especially, as I'm sure, you've experienced more and more life as it is. You witness the realm that this is, which is very beautiful, so joyous. And we were just

talking about beforehand on this podcast, how vast this universe is. Like this, the human predicament, like where we find ourselves in this cosmos is so magnificent and awe-inspiring. And for us to be living life and our own projections is, it's just sad when we know what else is possible. And so as you've seen and worked with people for decades, you've, like anybody who does anything for a while, you recognize patterns, right? You recognize that we're actually fairly predictable and that there's these patterns and limiting constraints

that we share across the board throughout humanity. Now, you mentioned that we're essentially suffering a perspective that's rooted in words. Yeah, yeah. When you go to the core of it, especially when somebody transmutes it and finds more freedom, Is it not more than that? Like there's got to be, there's feelings attached in emotion that's energy stored physiologically.

Like how do you see what it's actually made up of? Because words lead to, I guess, a narrative around ourselves, which informs the perspective we have. But when you see the substance of what is actually making up our limitations, how would you kind of break that down? I still think at its core, it's still words. words, it's still sound, right? Like, we live in a vibratory universe. Tess says that you want to understand the universe thinking in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration, right?

So, in the beginning was the word, no matter what sort of tenants you pull from, everything to me still comes back to that vibratory state that is what it is to have life. And so, over time, because of the way that we perceive ourselves, like this 46-year-old that I'm working with in this free workshop, he's got four-plus decades. of that particular form of conditioning.

So there is more associated with it because of the accumulation over time, right? So the type of job he would have curated, the type of wife he would have attracted, even the way that he takes care or doesn't take care of his physiology, which then over time is going to accumulate whatever, you know, derogatory energies

that he feels about himself, the dismissive energies he's accumulated with friends or loved ones, X's, the type of foods and things that he's drawn to if he thinks he's a bad person, he's probably not being pulled towards the most clean, fresh, organic food because his value proposition of his own idea of himself doesn't afford that. So that's on top of, right? So in Ioveda, we talk about these sort of three stages, which is you first have to remove the root cause of whatever it is the precursor to the pathology or the sickness. Then you want to balance the effects of the previous root cause and then the third stage is you create a new paradigm for

existence. So in his case, the root cause is I would still assert based in vibration and language. I'm bad. And there were other ones like there's something wrong with him because he was a pretty boy when he was young. He had a very pretty eyes. And so as a little boy, he was told, oh, you look like a girl. Now, it's an innocent almost compliment really because he's got these beautiful eyes. But the way he interpreted it is that there was something wrong with him. So that was another part of his constraint. So he's bad. There's something wrong with him. And then most people's relationship to the future is based in worst case scenario. So that's the lens constraint of I'm not going to be okay. It's a survival proposition. So you had all three going, right? So those three to me

are still the foundation that create the suffering. When you live that way, four decades, then you also now have the cumulative effect of that perspective. So the toxicity in the brain, the toxicity in the body, the toxicity in your relationships, the absence of abundance in your finances, the kind of environment you live in. A lot of evidence to reinforce its existence too. Yeah. So that's where we get to be right about the perspective, right? Which is why humans are, you know, so preoccupied with self-righteousness because it's a way

that ego can perpetuate itself. So once he saw that he's not bad, he's still going to be left with, you know, the adrenal fatigue, right, that I could see based on the dark circles under his eyes, which is a reflection of somebody who's in fight or flight for the majority of their day. So that now has to be balanced, right? So the previous root cause removed, which is awesome, but like someone who's been an alcoholic, for example, they've got psorysis of the liver, right? You've got to, just because you stop drinking, your liver isn't now like, you know, functioning like a brand new baby, like it's clean. So you've got to balance the effects of living that way. So there is some practical things to

do, too, once I work with people. They also may find that they're in a toxic relationship that their previous identity, but no longer is in alignment with their newfound sense of self-worth, which can be, you know, they can be tough. People, you know, do end relationships. They leave careers because they realize that it wasn't actually an extension of their greatest self. It was really what was sustaining their limited idea of themselves. So there's a lot to it. Just removing the blanket is one thing in the liberation and the freedom that people experience is just more inspiring, even to witness, let alone the euphoria they feel, it's palpable to watch, right?

Because as human beings, we can relate to all of these constraints. We all have them. So it's why my mastermind is so beautiful, because people, even if I'm not working with them directly, they're vicariously getting whatever liberation they need through somebody else's trauma and story. Then we'd be responsible for like, holy shit, I've lived in the world of I'm not good enough for 40 years,

and as a result, I have kept myself small, I don't do, I don't pursue the projects I want. I don't take care of myself. I've settled in a relationship that isn't passionate, whatever it is. And then it's like, now you see a new opportunity. So it's literally creating a new arena, which is then pulling you through inspiration to become literally a better version of yourself. So that's the cascade of the evolution.

You know, we shed these skins hopefully continually. We do it physiologically, just showering every day. You know, you're getting rid of dead cells. but why I love what I get to do is because people just, they don't upgrade their software usually, you know, oftentimes in an entire lifetime. So to keep dying to the version of yourself that no longer serves you is a form of being truly alive,

which is why the subject of death is one of my favorites, because to truly be alive, you have to constantly dive to the part of you that is redundant. Yeah. It's a gift to be able to see work. And also you came and worked with my men's, group one night. That was fun. What's fascinating is when you see the process of you working with somebody, it becomes quite

obvious to everybody except the person who's being worked on, because the nature of our blind spot is like we can't see it. We're operating through the lens of it. And so we can't see ourselves because we're looking through it. Yeah. I'm excited to unpack that a little bit. But when you look at the possible perspectives that you boil down, that are prisons of our own making.

What would you say are some of the most common ones if you look at it from a pattern perspective? Yeah, I think, you know, I often talk about the three main buckets which sort of are a catch-all for the different ways that people perceive themselves. And it's not even, as I said, it's not a limiting belief. The way I phrase it, it's the you that you are for yourself, right? Which might seem like a weird statement, but it's accurate, right?

The you that you are for yourself. So it's not that you think or have a belief that you're not enough. It's that who you are for yourself is you're not enough. And so that informs, that is the view of life that you look through. So I talk about like some sense of inadequacy, some sense of insecurity and some sense of scarcity as being the three main catchals, right, that everyone can relate to. Inadequacy is normally about ourselves that I'm not enough, I'm not loved, I'm not valuable. Insecurity is how I relate to my environment.

So there's a fundamental feeling of like we're not safe. And particularly for the feminine, sadly, because of this patriarchal world we live in and that they've been abused for centuries, right? a woman walking to her car at night has a totally different experience and a guy walking to his car at night, right? You know, just because of the way that this society is sadly set up. So the not safe really is the feeling of insecurity for the way it manifests in a masculine. It might be insecurity and performance, right? So I've worked with high-end executives who are super well-informed about their industry.

They've worked in a company for decades, but they're still scared shitless to get on stage and present, right? So insecurity. And then scarcity is like where people have this misnomer that there isn't enough as it relates to the material world, right? So there's a relationship to ourselves, there's a relationship to others, and there's a relationship to the material world. And so they tend to be the default factory settings of the subconscious that we look through. Something wrong with me. I'm not fundamentally loved and accepted by society and I don't have enough. And then it's like slap on the ass and, you know, go figure it out, have fun. Become who you think you should. be as a compensation for your inadequacy, do whatever you have to do as a strategy to win love

and favor from your fellow species, and then accumulate as much as you can to compensate for the scarcity. And those three right there, you start to see the idiosyncrasies that people deal with, right? People are exhausted. They are living in a pretense. They're trying to be who they think they should be in order to be loved and accepted. They are doing whatever they can as a strategy to compensate for their own shortcomings, whether they work harder, they become people-pleases, as perfectionist. The social media game is obviously, you know, where this is replete with the attempts to, through filters and posters and positions and light to look good, you know, and then the hoarding mentality that it is to be human, the holding onto things as though anything exogenous

to us has any value at all. It just doesn't. You know, so when you really start to see that, it's like, holy shit, now, wonder people are just, like, sick and tired. They're playing this quintessential hamster wheel game of really trying to overcome their own blind spots of lies. It's, you know, when you really see it, it's, there's so much compassion. That's why, again, I love what I get to do because as I tell people, I can't give you something you don't already have. I'm just helping you see what's in the way of you realizing that. And it's a dissolution process, right?

And we live in a very solve, a solution-oriented society. Yeah, where growth is perceived in the acquisition of more. Yeah. as opposed to addition by subtraction and actually the removal of things. Which is why I love Ayaveda. When I became a practitioner of that, there were so many correlates between what I already intuitively understood in my own work and what the science of five, some six thousand years old,

was pointing to physiologically. And there's something called Sampropti, which is the six stages of disease. And it really talks about the physiology and the dosha, right? If you have too much pitta or butter or kaffa, these different energies, then you eventually get sickness. first stage of disease is accumulation. And yet here we live psychologically in a world of scarcity. And so the impulse is to accumulate. So it's just so ironic that the very thing that's driving us to try and find some sense of solace from the deprogramming that there's not enough

is itself the first stage to sickness. And so it's this vicious cycle where until you realize that you are what you're looking for, like the seeker is the sort, the place we're looking from is the place we're looking for, right? It's just so stunning when you get it because we're playing this game of illusion, right? That there's something missing, something wrong, and now I'm going to play this compensatory role where actually the means by which I'm trying to find that which I am is creating the obstacle and the sickness that then I have to deal with. It's nuts. Yeah, yeah, I know. What about people fucking drink so much? It downloads pretty heavy and I want to kind of zoom in and slow down on this aspect because it's really important we hit this. Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot. I know it's a lot to

process. It's so obvious to me and I just spit it out. He's like, wait, I think he said something profound, but I don't know what the fuck he's in. You know, because, so there's the saying, you know, best time to plant a tree is 100 years ago. The best time is today. Yeah. It would have been nice if we were raised in an environment that was loving from the get-go where we didn't develop these behavioral compensations. And yet now we have a lot of evidence and the accumulation and momentum for believing our own sense of inadequacy, for example, to present day. And the best time to realize its illusory is right now, whoever is listening to this. A couple of things I want to dive into here.

First, do you perceive, like from metast systemic thinking, are there patterns within a hierarchy of patterns? For example, we're speaking English within Los Angeles, which is within the context of America, which is in the context of the Milky Way galaxy, for example. Like, there are nodes within nodes. Yeah, for sure. Are there patterns, limiting beliefs, subconscious patterns, that exist within each other where you see kind of the ultimate one

being the illusory of the self, I'm assuming. But like, how do you kind of see how they are nested within each other, so to speak? Yeah, the sort of Russian dollar fact. I mean, I think they're all sort of commensurate. They all sort of reinforce one another. but they all overlap, right? So somebody who thinks they're not enough

could equally relate to somebody that they're over here talking about the fact that they can't find a good mate in Los Angeles, right? It's like, it's not necessarily I'm not enough, but it's sort of a correlate to, I'm not lovable, which is what the other person's experience might be. So they all overlap. I mean, it's not a distinct science

in the way that I've created it. But it really speaks to, that's why those three main buckets, I think, kind of capture the human experience that everyone can relate to. somebody out there, no matter how accomplished they are, could probably feel like, oh, I can see that sometimes I think I'm not enough or that there's a feeling of inadequacy. So I think they all, it's sort of like a domino effect. Like once you start to see one for what it is, which is this sort of linguistic fortress, as I call it.

So literally you're in a prison based on words or sound. Once you see that, then whatever else it is that you come across, even if it's a blind spot, there's a deeper knowing. now, no cis, it's not mind-oriented, but like really systemic-oriented, where it's like, oh, hang on a minute, whatever I'm feeling I now know is self-referral based on the way that I have some perceived limitation. It's no longer circumstantial based, right? Most people think that they're a victim of circumstance. If fill in the blank, right, obviously the number one is usually if I had more money, I'd be fine. Then it usually defers to something in the family. If my wife, my husband were nicer, if my parents appreciated me, then I'd be fine.

if my workplace was nicer. You can fill in the blank of the things that people complain about. But that's the trap, right? If I think that I'm a victim of circumstance, then we lead into the world that we see, which is control, manipulation, domination. Because people are trying to manipulate the things around them under the illusion that that's what's going to garner

my greater sense of joy. But that's not how it works. I mean, talk to a billionaire, right? It's like I've worked with, I don't know, a couple of dozen of them. they don't have white light shooting out of their genitals and they're not like loving life, right? They didn't crack the code.

They're still usually trying to accumulate more because that's where they're still caught in the same rat race as most people that it's out there somewhere. So I think the overlap is good to see. The cascade of one to the next is good to see, but really it's the fundamentals of what is it we're up against. That's the thing to see is that, you know, as I said earlier, it'll be it in that sort of

rapid download. We are what we're looking for. It's just we're looking through a lens of illusion that has us feel inadequate, insecure, scarce. And so once you understand the mechanism of suffering, because otherwise it becomes sort of like the allopathic world, right? You go and see a gastroontologist, a neurologist, a cardiologist. It's all this world of separation. So someone could go to see a therapist or a psychiatrist or a spiritual teacher or a priest for some sort of counsel and they're going to talk about the different arenas of their life, right? And so you could go from department to department of your life, okay, there's something to do in my relationships, of which there are many, romantic, friends, family. I could look in the arena of my wealth. So it could be my literal

bank accounts. It could be my career. I could look in the arena of my body and my health. And so we could just be perpetually chasing our tail, trying to perfect everything around us under the illusion that when I get everything exactly the way that my current perspective thinks it should be, then I'm going to experience peace. But you don't because guess what? The next day you're scrolling on Instagram and you saw the latest thing that you're supposed to be doing with your body now and you're like, fuck, I just thought I'd reach the crescendo of my physiological radiance and now it's like there's something else or there's a new fashion

or there's a new thing to try. So that's where I want people to understand that the thing that we're really up against is all our own perspective. That's it. That's it. Then the world can be as it is. And it's not to say that it's ideal and it's not to in any way dismiss that people

have very challenging circumstances. They have families to raise with maybe shortcomings in their income and they have certainly right now with whatever happened in LA and people's houses have been burnt to the ground. There's stuff to deal with. There's shit to handle.

But the means by which we do it is what I'm interested in. There's what we do and then there's the how. We all do shit every day. I'm a busy guy. but am I doing it from a place of obligation, suffering, a feeling of lack? I'm trying to get away from something I'm trying to fix.

Or am I doing it for the pure joy of creation and being alive? Yeah. Clearly, I'm doing the first one. Fucking miserable. Yeah. No, so that's, you know, a long-winded answer to your question is often the case with me, but it's like, it's just recognizing,

listen, you're not up against circumstances. You're just not. And we want to make space for the challenges that it is to be human, right? Like this three-dimensional carbon suit, I take care of, right? It needs to sleep. It needs food. It needs to get rid of waste products. So there's things that it needs in order for me to have this interface with you and everybody else.

But that's not my challenge. My challenge isn't what's going on in life. It just isn't. None of that. That is the reflection. That is the mirror through which I can start to really investigate. what am I really up against, which is the limitations of my own perspective. Crack that code, forget about it.

That's freedom. Yeah, that level of accepting and admitting that is an admission to taking immense and complete responsibility for your life. Yes. And as you've said before, we can't be held responsible to that which we're oblivious to. Correct, yeah. And so a lot of times, like, these perspectives, even though we can say, like, these are perspectives that I have, that I hold. But again, we're looking through them as them.

And so it is the blind spot that we're looking through. And from that point, like, self-improvement is a project of the divided self. It is like a dog chase its own tail, failing to recognize that we are the source of that, which we seek, like you're referring to. Yeah. For people that want to bring this from the philosophical and existential down to their own immediate life, what is a question that they can ask themselves to invite some awareness? Because you're talking about the process of awareness and integration.

You have the insight. You live it. What is the question we can ask yourself to become aware of what is our predominant limiting belief holding us back without our awareness right now? That's great. And I think just to address one quote, you know, like, so I actually say you can't. be held accountable for that which you're oblivious to. So, because you really understand this in a way that you live it, I think, is we are responsible. It's just we might not know. So that's what then breeds the compassion, right? You go and see experts and they're like, you shouldn't do this.

And it's sort of this more lecturing high school, like derogatory way that people can be spoken to. So I think there's room for compassion. But the responsibility part is where the power lies, right? If I'm fully responsible for my life, even in the ways that I don't fully understand someone, my behavior, I'm no longer a victim of circumstance. So that's the first thing. for people to look at. In terms of the questions, they can ask themselves, it really comes down to the predominant emotional state that people are in, which is fear. So whatever anyone is dealing with, you know, as best as you can, look at the circumstance, whatever it is, rent that can't be paid, a relationship that's seemingly coming to an end, a parent that is about to die.

Wherever they're suffering, there's going to be some form of resistance. One of the biggest lenses that is illusory that people look through is that they're under the impression that the life they have right now just isn't it. And when you really understand the amount of energy and time that people put into trying not to be where they are, you start to see the futility of that particular perspective, right? Because it's completely logical. But when you see it, it's so insidious, right? People really are under the impression that the life they have is not the life they want. And I understand that psychologically and emotionally, but it's futile because it is the life you have. So the degree to which you resist that is the degree to which you're saying that I'm not

where I'm supposed to be, which is going to be based on some deeper feeling of inadequacy or insecurity. Inadequacy that I haven't fulfilled on my potential. You know, when I was a kid, everyone was like, oh, you're going to be pretty or you're going to be amazing, or you're going to be so successful. And so these deep programs that got instilled from parents and family members that haven't become realized because you're in a middle management position and you're you live in a city in an apartment and you thought you'd be in the suburbs driving your Mercedes, or whatever it is, there's nothing inherently wrong with your life. What you're fighting is the life you have relative to the life you either think you're supposed

to have, you want, or you should have. So I were to investigate suffering, where are you in resistance to yourself and life? What is it that you're saying about who you are and what you have that you're under the impression isn't right? and when you can really see that, it's like, holy shit. Like, I am in a constant, mild to severe state of fight or flight with the circumstances of my life, which in of themselves, aren't threatening. Right? There's one of my more favorite quotes I say, you know,

it's either life-threatening or it's ego-threatening. For the most part, hopefully most people's lives, there isn't much life-threatening ever, you know, occasionally. But for the most part, it's all your own perspective that's being threatened. So fear is that precursor to resistance. I'm not going to be okay. This isn't the way it should be. What do people think about me?

So to tap into that is where people can start to investigate, okay, what is the deeper concern? What is it that I say about myself? What is it that I'm saying about my relationship to other people? What is it I'm saying about my relationship to the material world? That according to my subconscious program, because it's not a conscious process, it's based on some sort of, you know, imprints from childhood, or I would say the constraints with which we arrived, because otherwise it's, you know, becomes accusatory, right?

It's because my dad said that I'm a loser, that I'm a loser. No, you arrived as a loser as a potentiality, the emotional epigenetics, right? Not literally, but you're for so. Quote that, I'm just cutting that out. Peter Crone, you arrived as a loser. You are a loser. Let's just call it what it is. You arrive with the perspective that that's who you are.

for yourself and then you curated the events that helped to trigger that, right? So that is your opportunity as a soul to be able to transcend to discover your true divine nature. So whilst we tend to blame people for the things that we struggle with today, that just leaves us powerless, right? And there's nothing then we can do other than to continue to try and manipulate our circumstances. The nature of insight is like once we see something clearly, it becomes like an aha. Like, of course.

Like that's how it is. And there can be a self-righteousness that's attached to it to. To sidebar that, because that's another conversation we're going to dive into. When we're oblivious to it and we're in the moment where it is a blind spot, can you take us into an example of your life where you were living and in limitation that you weren't aware to? And then you had the insight of. Because from the perspective where you understand it, it seems so clear. And when you're not in it, it seems completely unclear.

Yeah, totally. And I think, yeah, it just breathes in some human. because I know you've had so many examples within your own life where it's been this, you know, hide and seek of yourself, so to speak. Absolutely, yeah. No, I mean, I feel I'm at the bow of the boat of this whole process, which allows me, you know, the really, the gift that it is to be able to see other peoples, right? Because I've had to go through it myself.

I often say, you know, heaven is a place on earth, but you have to go through hell to get there, right? And so I've definitely been through hell. I think one of the first ones that we may even talked about on your first podcast that we did together was my story of loss, which obviously is part of the fabric of it, what it is to be human. Like people talking about, I've lost my home,

I've lost my possessions. And so what I recognize is that's also a story. There's no loss. Like in the world of energy that we live in, it's all just transferred, right? It's all conserved. It just goes from one form to an ex. And so my parents dying,

my mom dying when I was seven of cancer, and my dad going to work when I was 17 and he worked on the boats, and the boats capsized, and he was one of close to 200 people that died. So I, in ways that I didn't know, my oblivious state was because I'm hearing, oh my gosh, loss and loss and loss, and loss, I lost my parents. And for years, in a really well-intended way, I was hearing that from people, I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. Or, oh, that must have been

so hard to lose your parents at such a young age. And so that narrative continues to get reinforced. So it wasn't until 14 years after, 13 years after my dad died, that I fell in love as best as I knew at the right page of 29 and my, you know, very limited understanding of what love was. And so my, who I was for myself is who I am is somebody that loses things of value. I'm not walking around saying that. That's a bizarre thing to say, but my energetic signature is that. And so the way I related to this new girl was from the compensatory space of, well, I don't want to lose you because my way of relating to you is that I love you and you're amazing. So I'm going to compensate by being the perfect boyfriend, right? So people can understand that. To ensure that I don't lose you,

which I believe that's my inevitability in a way. But I didn't believe it because I'm not even, it's my blind spot. Yeah, yeah. Subconscious identity belief, right? Exactly. So it's just who I was for myself is that anything of particular value, especially in the realm of relationships, is going to disappear because that's my trauma. That's my experience, right? So that's my only frame of reference. So here now is somebody who for the first time, you know, dated other girls, but didn't have the same significant connection. So, but here, this is wall, this is strong, this is love, right? So now we get this energetic, these tender hooks that get into her, you know, are my means of making sure that I don't experience the hurt that I actually haven't

transmuted yet, that I'm still propagating, is to make sure I don't lose her because that's too painful, not realizing because this is all happening beneath the surface, that I just still have him reconciled to her that was my parents dying. And it's being reinforced by the narrative of loss, which I didn't lose them. They died. So eventually I got to the post of, I didn't lose anything. My parents died as part of the human experience. That might sound cold or callous. I still missed the shit out of my dad. I mean, I think he would have been blown away by what I've accomplished. And, you know, there's a sense of pride that I know he just adored me as an only child, right? And especially as for 10 years there after he'd lost his own wife, you know, my mom had died and his

wife had gone, you know, I was his entire world, right? So there's times where I just really feel like I would love to just sit down and get to know him, you know, because of a 17 year old, we're all so self-preoccupied. But anyway, so in that relationship, I, you know, got to the point where, as I tell people, fear will break its own heart, right? So I didn't know, but my fear of loss did eventually fulfill on itself, that self-fulfilling prophecy, where my behavior, because albeit well-intended, and I really was a great fucking boyfriend, But my efforts were somewhat disingenuous. Their underlying intent was pure, which is, I love this person.

I want to show up, whether it be poetry, flowers, kindness, attention, safety, all the things that you would assume any woman would just die for, were nonetheless tainted with this little bit of inauthenticity because the energetic way that it's being represented is from fear. And even on the receiving end, in ways that we probably couldn't articulate, or she couldn't. She's her body, her somatic experience is feeling the texture of the energy in which things are being given from, right?

And she could feel it to the point that that's what she articulated when she left, right? Because I thought we were in such a great place. And we had, you know, like any couple, we had things to work on and communications to clear up, but there was so much joy and love between us. But when she did eventually say she's leaving, she said, your love is suffocating. And even in the moment she said that, it still didn't really. register, like, because I didn't know what I was up to, right? It's like, you know, when you catch a kid and they, you can tell as a parent, like, they just did something, you know, what are you up to?

Nothing. You know, there's something going on systemically, energetically, at the subtlest level of who we be that we're oblivious to, but you're up to something, right? And in this case, what I was up to was doing everything I could to avoid her leaving me, which has got nothing to do with her. It had everything to do with the hurt that had not yet been mitigated. in my system because of the passing of my parents. So once I saw that, I mean, there was, she left and there was, it was probably seven, eight weeks where she wasn't in my life. The first two or three were communicating this, you know, whatever logistics, she left

this or this or how you, you know, we're staying in touch for a while. And I was at that point still hoping that there was, there was an opportunity to reconcile where, you know, she'd come back or desperate men doing desperate things. I was talking to all my buddies and, you know, walking. can I do? What can I say? How did I fuck this up? All the normal stuff that humans go through. And then there was a period of about six or seven weeks where maybe five or six weeks where there was no communication. So I hadn't heard a word from her. And my brain, because of this subconscious foundation of fear and loss, the conscious thoughts were based in that scarcity and lack,

right? Where is she? Is she dating someone else, which would help to reinforce my feeling of inadequacy? will I see her again, which is the fear of like my life not working out. And so all of these questions kept ruminating around, you know, to the point of like, I woke up one night in the middle of the night and I actually screamed, shut up. I said, shut up. Because my mind just would not stop. It is an addiction, right? When we come from that place of suffering. So it was very humbling for me, because back then I wasn't doing what I do now. I was just, you know, not just, but I was training people. So it, albeit transformative, and it was beautiful, it didn't have this level of impact. So I sat there and then, you know, one day I was just sitting at my desk and these same

questions were still, you know, permeating the corners of my skull. And I got the answer to all the questions. It were like, where is she, is she dating someone? Will I see her again? And will I find love like that? It was three words, which is I don't know. And the peace and freedom that cascaded through my body, I'd never had before. And to me, if there was a sartori moment, some sort of moksha or enlightenment, that was it. That was it. I realized at that moment, all of it, right, in terms of my experience, which is, I'd never known what the fuck was going to happen. None of us do. You know, I didn't know I was going to have this conversation with you today. But the irony or the paradox of the human brain, which is designed to predict and protect, because the imperative of

every organism is to survive. And so we, we can. got this incredible piece of equipment that's always trying to calculate what's going to happen for its own self-preservation, which is handy. We all want to stick around. But I realize it's futile because it doesn't matter how much you sit and try and think about what's going to happen. At best you can speculate, I mean, people do it on the stock market. They do it with human behavior a little bit. But you still don't know. So that's where that pattern to me got revealed and the truth was just so self-evident that it was undeniable and I never looked back, which is I didn't know.

I didn't know where she was. I didn't know who she's dating. I didn't know if I'd see her again. And the powerful part was not only the reconciliation of the futility of trying to work out life, but the actual nature of life is uncertainty. But then secondly, for the first time in my life, I was totally okay with it. And that was peace. That to me was true success.

There was nothing more to figure out. There was nothing to control. There was nothing to manipulate or try and win or hold. It was complete surrender. And because I know you love physics and the sort of the subtler bodies of this paradigm we're in. What was so profound for me is within 15 minutes of me having that revelation, my phone rings. point it was a landline showing my age. But I pick it up and it's her. And I haven't spoken her for about six weeks. And the last time I spoke to her, I'm the desperate one, like trying

to get her back, right? And now she's crying saying, I miss you so much, I want to come back. I mean, again, tingles now, right? Because what I got at that moment was in physics, entanglement theory, right? But the unification of everything. And she was literally on the other side of the the planet. She couldn't physically have been further. She was in New Zealand. Right? And this isn't a knowing, right? This is an energetic resonance that I would assert at that moment I had become available for the first time in my life. Because I wasn't available. Most people in relationships aren't available. I know that's a bold statement to make, but because you're fighting your own feelings of constraint and then your partner is the mirror

for hopefully for those things to obviously get transmuted. But at that moment, moment, I no longer had anything to prove. I didn't need to hold on to her. I understood what love was. I recognized what freedom was. And albeit of course over the last two plus decades, you know, there's been moments where I've still tried to figure shit out, but it wasn't from a place of fear. It wasn't from a place of worry. It wasn't from a place of, you know, desperation. So that was the insight that could not be unseen. those moments where you see the interconnection of life is such a trip and a reminder of these chords that we really do create with people and how the energies we hold and beliefs are

when they're when they're collapsed immediately in real time you get that call like that's just proof right there of the energy collapsing but then also how it's connected with other people yeah we'll get right back to the episode but first a quick share from a brand that i love and use all of the time, I'm talking about bond charge red light therapy, which, by the way, has over 4,000 peer-reviewed studies, many of which show how it helps with cellular healing, skin health by stimulating collagen, testosterone, sleep, mood, and so many other things. I personally can feel the benefits in real time, and I think it's a great way to get healthy light in the morning, especially during the colder months or where there's less sun outside,

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Back to the episode. I think this is a big theme. Thank you for sharing. You know, and you've shared with me that story in the past. And to me, it's such an important reminder of what is love and the mirrors that relationship serve in our life and how we're constantly bringing in our past history with us into every dynamic and actually painfully, the realization is that we're relating to people through our own perspective of them and who we want them to be and not actually dumb.

Now, looking back on that, what is that revealed to you about what it means to actually relate to people from a true place of love without attachment of who we need them to be for us? It's such a beautiful question, isn't it? I feel so blessed that I got to see that. right because at one level it could be embarrassing right but again like i say you can't be hard accountable for that which you're oblivious to so i didn't know any better i was a great boyfriend i was a great boyfriend but i was nonetheless more in relationship with my fears and my constraints

than i was with her you know when people really get that it is it hurts you know it stings because there was love and thankfully she came back around many years later she's married happily and you know found me on Instagram and still super grateful for everything we went through, which is for me, peace in the way that, you know, it was a beautiful experience together. But nonetheless, to answer your question, what I really got was that most people don't relate to other people. They're relating to other people through the lens of their own identity in the way that it serves them, for good or bad. You know, like it's the madness of the ego. You know, you fight for your limitations. They're yours, right? sometimes we attract circumstances professionally, romantically, that help us to be right

about the fact that we think that we're a horrible person, or that we're not good enough. But at that moment, I really got, I think the greatest gift you can give another human being, which is, who can I be where I'm absent? The me that is me is absent. And that I'm so with you, it's almost as though I'm truly. you. Like, that to me is the gift of real listening. To get someone's reality, and it doesn't mean you have to agree with it, condone with it, or go by whatever they're asking of you, but to really get their reality, to me, is the greatest gift of love you can afford somebody. And I got it.

I was like, holy shit, I just wanted to be with her. No agenda, no intention, no Peter Crone in the way, no fear of loss, no little boy that needed reassuring, none of that. And there's something so beautiful about it because it's almost like by virtue of truly being with another being, human, you get to see another facet of consciousness itself. It's almost like we're all different parts of an eight billion faceted diamond, right?

And we all have a slightly different perspective. And so in the absence of the eye, you're left with the they. And it's beautiful for two reasons, because it's both liberating, because in the absence of the me, which tends to be founded in constraints, I feel free,

but then it's the gift of presence to be with someone. And we see this with kids and parents, right? Like the number one thing that I ask, well, I hear from parents is, you know, how can I both help my kids to become better humans, but how can I get my kids to listen because they don't listen? And it's to teach them this, that you're not with them.

You're superimposing your view of who they're, should be, who you'd like them to be. Oftentimes, you're preoccupied with a device or cooking or doing something, which is understandable. But the kid doesn't have any of that. The kid is so present. And so it's the tugging of the pan legs for the 20th time. Mummy, mommy, daddy, daddy, daddy. They don't yet feel heard or seen or held.

And so in the absence of the idea of oneself, which I know can sound very esoteric, but it's a literal experience, you get to truly be, fully be with another person. And that to me is true intimacy. That's the beautiful, pure line of connection that is always there underneath the static that is our ego is trying to be right or connect. And that's what I experienced was the opportunity to be fully present with another being. Yeah, I remember actually calling you up in my last relationship,

it because I had one of these examples where I was seeing her through the, you could even, you know, say in a good way, the potential of who she could be or behaviors that I know that would benefit her and loving the version of her that would uphold that and being disappointed when she would fall short of that. Yeah. Failing to recognize that I'm literally not relating with her in that way, you know? And it's a painful thing to realize in the moment. but again, to the degree there's a shadow holds the other side of the light too.

So the freedom that's experienced and the true love and depth of intimacy that it reveals on the other side of that is an amazing gift. So it's painful to go through in the moment. You know, it's the hell through that we get to get to heaven, like you said. No, it's beautiful because I think it also appeals to the fact that, again, without sounding to poetic, that our nature is to love, you know. And so when we see a part of us that's not doing that, it hurts because we're in denial. of our true self.

It's like we're disappointed in who we know we are. Yeah. Who we can be. And that's, but it's such a, it's such a magical mechanism to discover more love, in this case of self-love, right? So compassion to self of like, oh, even though I was playing the role of the perfect boyfriend, which was my way of strategizing to not lose something that was of value to me, it was so well-intended and innocent.

You know, even to the point where sometimes, okay, there's, there's really horrific things that happen in relationships that don't. don't. I mean, people go through horrible forms of harm and abuse. But, you know, underneath it all, I really feel there's just a little boy or a little girl that just wants to connect. You know, I always talk about these three qualities I feel every human being wants, which is to be seen, heard, and held. And in the absence of the idea of ourselves, we get to join in union there, which ironically is not to join, but really to reveal, right? Like, I often joke with friends, as you know, because I can be a bit of a smart ass, but when people say, oh,

wow, dude, I really connected with this chick. I'm like, well, no shit, you're already connected. You just got rid of the illusion that you're not. So it's really just, it's that dissolution process again, right? It's the revelation of the fact that there is nothing but love and unity, but we have this sort of preconceived idea that has us think that we're in this dangerous world where we have to present ourselves in a way so that we get loved and accepted. And it's so convoluted and exhausting.

And in the absence of all of that, you just get to truly. be with another human. And there's something inherently like a candle in a dark room that illuminates wherever it goes, a presence of love, somebody who has realized themselves as that nature, where they become an invitation for everybody around them to feel seen, heard, and held. And I just find it so amazing that in the embodiment of that, you become a walking invitation to that energy. And it's wild what unravels in front of that presence that is you.

Yeah. You know, because you are that safe space for people to know that you genuinely are there for somebody and you actually, they're connecting with them and not through your own prism of who they are, you know? And that's why I feel so lucky that I get to do what I do, because even now my live events, which are growing and I'm going to do more around the world, you know, you're in a room with 200 and 300 people in this case, and somebody's sharing something that's so vulnerable and so intimate to them. But for whatever reasons, based on everything I just shared, they feel that they can. Because it's okay.

And this is why, like, having best friends, and I think women do this so well, like, there's the absence of judgment. So we could say, like, in a sort of negatory way, like love is really the absence of judgment, right? It's allowing someone to be fully who they are in this moment. knowing that everything's in constant flux anyway, right? So there's even a deeper illusion, which is that it's ours to grant somebody, that allowance, right, too. Absolutely.

Yeah, that's sort of the audacious perspective of the human, right? So in the absence of you, there is just whatever's going on for them, which is why I was saying earlier, like to truly relate is to truly be in their reality without the condoning of it, without the accepting of it, without their having to adhere to it.

But it's just to get it, just really get it. like, wow, it's a gift both ways, right? Because to understand someone's perspective on life, not only can be informative, it can be inspiring, it can be educational, but it's the ultimate form of generosity, which is why I feel so blessed, because people talk to me about everything. I mean, the number of times I've been on an airplane

and sat next to a stranger who at the end of the fly is like, I don't know who you are, but I hadn't even told my wife that. And it's like, and so it's sort of to go back to that, what you're talking about with a girl, friend that I had, she could feel, right? Like, okay, there's this efforting that I'm trying to be a perfect boyfriend. It's a bit inauthentic. People feel the presence of safety where there is no judgment. There is listening. There is the ability to hear what they're saying and repeat it back so they know that they can trust that you're paying attention, that you care, all of these things.

Whereas most people, and I've seen this, you know, with some friends of late, where we were talking about the energy of actual communication, how people speak. And she recognized one of her tendencies was to interrupt a lot. And she didn't even know she was doing it, right? But it's a form of like trying to get attention or, oh, look, I also know, or whatever it is, right, which is on the top of the deeper foundation of feeling inadequate or not loved. And so when she saw that, it was both embarrassing, but also to our point earlier, like, it denies the fact that she just wants to love and be part of something. And she went home and she's like, oh my God, like I had dinner. You know, my parents and sibling. And it's insane. Everybody's just sort of basically screaming at each other.

Like, no one's listening to anything. Like, you hear what people say and there's some sort of semblance of a response. But really, it's like, well, you just said something. I'm going to take time to say something. And for me, that's just sort of this, again, this accumulation, the remnants of a child that never actually got heard seen or held. It's still trying to get, just love me, you know? And that's where we see often in the world. It's just a bit of a desperate energy where people are trying to be seen, you know, and whatever means we do, from surgery at the extremes to clothing and makeup and stuff, you know, and it's all okay. It's all okay. We have compassion for it, but it's exhausting. So to really relate is to ironically,

you know, not not be there in terms of the idea of yourself so that you could really be with whoever's in front of you, you know. Yeah, there's that saying, you know, one mouth, two years, use them proportionately. And I think cultivating you being a presence who truly listens is the most invaluable thing we can do in life, you know, and both for ourselves and others. Because to the degree, we're also truly listening to others when we're in the presence of them. We can be a catalyst for their change. But also we can become more aware of the subtleties within our own psyche, you know? And that's where we, I think in the first podcast we talked about how life gives us these reflections and mirrors,

They first start out as whispers within our own narrative and talk, you know, that we have within our own, the conversation in our head to where we see then maybe a more gross or dense example of somebody in a relationship in our life to the metaphorical cosmic two by four that smacks us in the face to wake up. You know, it's the scream of living out of alignment. Yeah. So anything you want to reflect on there about the power of listening. I mean, I need to reiterate what I said, which I think. it's the greatest gift we can afford ourselves and the person we're listening to, right? Because it's it's truly reciprocated in the way that I step aside, the idea of myself that has any agenda, has any concern about how I occur to you, like that I want to look, you know,

favorable, good, loved, cool, whatever it is. Like all of that's put to one side and I really get to just be with you and to hear what's going on without any judgment. it's it really is the demonstration of generosity in both directions right it's i'm going to hold space for you in a way that is generous but you're going to for that reason feel safe enough that you can express yourself fully vulnerably without any fear of judgment and so that's equally a form of generosity right because that's intimacy into me see like i i've often said like albeit like in a crack example, like I'd much rather someone come up to me and say, hey, I think you're a bit of an

asshole and your work is, you know, it's bullshit. And we can have a conversation about it versus somebody coming up to me and say, oh my God, you're amazing. And then they walk away and they tell their friend, you know, out of my earshot, that guy's just such a dig, you know? Like, there's no relationship there, right? And I'm sorry that you heard me say that. So your friend, right? Well, we've cleared it up since. We're good now. Because it's, it's, do you want to truly connect and relate to somebody and really have that feeling of intimacy and affinity? Or do you want to just keep dancing in the pretense and the facades of everything? It's like there's no depth.

There's no fulfillment there. There's no gratification. It's every relationship that to me is worth its salt or has got some sort of inspirational story associated with it is littered with trials and tribulations that those people went through. Like, I've once had this, because I always loved to work on myself. So I worked with a coach about relationships. And she said, I don't trust any romantic relationship that hasn't been to the edge of annihilation.

You know, and it really hit me. It's like, there's so much beauty in that, right? Like, because if everything has been so above, you know, the world of drama and heartache and suffering, because you kept it all together, that's just not real. just not human, right? It's like you want to get into the dirt of a relationship, you know, and really feel what it is to be fully exposed. So, like, as scary as that is and as embarrassing as that can be, like, that's, that's to relate, you know, it's, otherwise it's all just facade and everything's like, you know, it's this, what is that movie, the Stefford Wives

or whatever, it's like, everything's just perfect, you know, and it's not. Glennon Doyle has that quote, that paraphrasing says, we are a lot. to the degree in which we are willing to be annihilated, which goes hand in hand with that. And when we go back to like how beautiful this life is and what a gift it means and what it really means to be human, which is to move beyond the limitations that nature has set upon, you know, all other life, you know, an animal and plant life where we can go beyond our limitation

of just survival. And yet when we're in the energy of reactivity and reaction from these beliefs and perspectives. We are literally not living our life in a way, which is painful to see, but then again, is also how this realm is sort of set up, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's the self-preservation lens, right? That's the survival instinct. It's where everything is perceived as a threat, which again, if you can just default to, even if it's the one thing you remember from this, if it's not life-threatening, it's just ego-threatening. And if it's ego-threatening, and if it's ego-threatening, that's a gift. Right? Because on the other side of that, there's freedom-waiting.

to be discovered. Zooming in on how these things come up, again, without our awareness, we just perceive that it is ego-threatening and we react to it. The fundamental thing is that our intellect defends our identity. And so we are neurologically wired in a way to reinforce what we believe to be true, to reinforce that sense of self-righteousness. And this is where I have found in my own personal journey in the past, when I look at an expanded awareness or insight into something. You have, I've heard you share as well,

there's none so self-righteous as the newly converted. Yeah. Yeah. And it's so true, man. It goes from the densest, you know, obvious religious examples, right, to our own perspective in this conversation where we see an insight about ourselves. And it's an interesting dynamic because is we can have this expanded awareness, and then the ego insidiously uses it to reinforce itself. Yeah, it gets really slippery. Yeah. Yeah, it really is like new ammunition for the constraint, right?

Yeah. No, I've seen that. I've seen that myself. And that's why I go back to those three words that I discovered, you know, when you asked me to give an insight of my own life, which is, you know, I don't know. And so that to me is also the beauty of the game. It's the paradox, right?

which is that we want to survive and therefore we want to know, which is really, I'm going to be okay, but we don't know that. But it's also what creates the magic that is life, which is the curiosity that it is to be here. Like even this conversation, to me, sits in the realm of fascination. People tuning in right now, hoping that they are going to garner some insight,

some inspiration that they wouldn't have known otherwise. Like, that's the exploration that it is to be human. and one of my favorite distinctions that hit me very early on is the difference between searching and exploring and what I recognize is that the ego's predominant energy is searching because it's always seeking is around like the same energy seeking to a certain degree seeking is sort of like the high flute in form of searching

that you know is associated with spiritual people it's a rebrand of searching yeah just sounds cool yeah I'm a seeker no you're not yeah but now I think it's important because a lot of people are identified with that terminology too of a seeker or a searcher. Yeah. And so there is a component of seeking, searching,

but to me, when it's shifted into exploring, there's a joy and a playfulness that comes with the same pursuit, right? So the adventurous spirit that is our nature, we see that just everywhere with children, right? Like, what is the number one word that most children use when they start to use language is, why?

Why daddy, why mommy? And so that to me speaks to one of the inherent qualities of the soul, which is curiosity. And so the smarter we become, the more successful we become, the more status that we develop in society, the more we tend to think we know shit. Which ironically is a form of decay, right, because you've lost that fascination, that exploration, that adventure. Conclusions are like a death unto themselves. It closes the possibility of you exploring more. The knowing mind, you know, it's limited, right? And so for me, I often joke early on in my career. I'm like, you know, I have all of these incredible humans around the world that seek my counsel from sports to entertainment and business. You know, and I'm the first person, so I don't know. That'll be a lot of money, please. I'll send you an invoice for realizing that I don't know, neither do you?

No, and they're like, oh my God, that's amazing. Obviously, there's a certain degree of knowing in there, but to have the underlying current of curiosity, fascination, adventure, and exploration is to me the feeling of aliveness that we see in children, that to me is the vitality that is often lost when people start to know what's often not possible anymore, right? It's the loss of the imagination because you've got one too many forms of evidence as to why something's not going to work anymore. You know, the old adage of what is it, dance like no one's watching and love like you've never been hurt before, right? like these expressions resonate with people because it really appeals to that. Well, we've become resigned and cynical to life because we've got evidence that we're holding on to

that now sort of squashes what was otherwise there beforehand, which was, it's just sheer, fucking pure possibility. What is it about the ego that fears to be wrong fundamentally? Its own death. Something that is illusory to begin with is afraid of its own death. It has to be because it has no ground to stand on. There's no actual evidence. other than the story. So that's why the self-righteousness is so pervasive because that's the

ammunition that sustains the illusion, right? If I can find evidence for the fact that I'm undesirable as a person in a city because I don't have a partner or because I don't get paid enough money confirms the fact that I'm worthless, like we're going to seek the evidence to keep alive the illusion of ourselves because it's a pretense. It's a pretense. It's, it's, it's, it's made up. Truth doesn't need evidence. And so that's why we're always fighting for those

limitations because otherwise it's just a death. For example, if somebody who does fundamentally believe they're undesirable, their actions are going to be commensurate with proving that in ways that we're not fully aware to, right?

That's the blind spot. Yeah, that's where the compassion comes in. And like I being the perfect boyfriend in my story to this girl who loved me and adore me. She didn't need me to be anything. She loved me, right? I was in a relationship with my own identity, which is what most people have. Most relationships don't work. So that was unbeknownst to myself trying to overcome that which I thought I was, which I wasn't. So I'm looking for evidence, you know, for whatever it is. Reinforcement, reassurance. They're like, oh, I'm a great boyfriend, right? It's like, okay, that would appease the hurt of feeling that I'm not enough

somehow. So that's the addiction, right? Again, like, you know, I love quotes. So I say, there's no greater addiction than one's idea of oneself, right? That's the ultimate addiction. It's not the substance. It's not the behavior. It's the feeling of inadequacy and security or scarcity. We're addicted to that because that's where we have become so familiar to ourselves and then we have all the evidence to support it for good or bad. Yeah. You know, I'm working with a lot of athletes, I can remember even with Tiger Woods when he wasn't a client, but I worked with a lot of people on the tour, even if he was, say, five, six, seven shots back on a Sunday the last day, he had created a personality that the millions of viewers behind TV screens and then the thousands of people

watching at a golf course, their view of him was he's going to come back and win. So in that case, it was sort of perhaps a, you know, a more positive form of identity that could pull his behavior in a way that way make him show up. But he'd created that. He'd built that foundation until such time you can sustain it and then he fell apart too because the pressure is too much. But most part, for the most part, people are reinforcing some limiting view of themselves. See, I told you that when, you know, that was too good to be true. I knew that wouldn't last. These statements that are just, you know, tossed around like every day are nonetheless,

they've got some insidious evidence behind them that is really reinforcing that you're not just this extraordinary timeless, boundless being who's, divinely gifted to tap into this extraordinary experience that it is to be alive. No, no, no, that's not for me. That's, you know. With people that deal with addiction, I find that for people that have gone through recovery and maybe are 10, 20, 30 years down the road, I have wondered, often they still use the verbiage of like, I'm an addict.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm curious, like, the last gate seems to be like letting, go of the story completely that I am an addict even. And like there is this and I understand it's a delicate situation and thing to balance, you know, because there is this maybe fear of temptation around substance or, you know, you want to guard your behaviors or something. But I just wonder how much energy we use like literally physiologically to uphold these false assumptions about herself and how much free energy, like how much energy gets freed up and the dissolution of that. It's the number one thing I hear whenever I work with anyone and it just happened last weekend

because it was module one of my mastermind. Every single person I work with says I feel lighter. As soon as they see something that was a constraint because it pulls energy, as you said, to sustain an identity requires resources because it's fictitious. So even in the realm of addictions and I get what you're saying like we you know we live around people and we know people who've you know struggled and it's it's hurtful and it can destroy lives and relationships and so there is a sensitivity to that but you know to be categorically honest no one's a fucking addict no one is you know the addiction is to the idea of yourself that's not you but so in the absence of that it comes back to you know know thyself i am that's about as far as we can go i am the

consciousness that is self-aware is about as far as I can go. Anything on top of that is a delineation in any way in language that I am heater. It's not a truth. I mean, it's convenient. You know, if you see me walking down the street like, hey, Pedro, I'll look around. But I mean, I might as well be Tim. You know, it doesn't really matter. It's a sound. It just locates me in time and space in this dimension that we're in. So it's helpful. But to be able to disassociate from that which is not true is where the liberation lies. And that's where the absence of addiction occurs, because the addiction is to the identity.

The identity then has its behaviors that can lead to substance. But if I just know that I am and anything after that is not a truth, it's a story, convenient, helpful, may even be inspiring at levels. You know, like, I'm the greatest, like Muhammad Ali, you know. I mean, the guy was like awesome, you know, but none of it was true, but he fulfilled on that because he believed it to the degree that he was able to actually manifest it. But equally, someone can say,

oh, you know, I'll never meet anyone. Okay, well, you know, Henry Ford, right? Whether you believe you can or you can't, you're right. So that's the power of magic. This is why I love words in abracadabra as I speak, so I create. But we get to play with, co-create in this dimension where we're all artists and the form, the medium in which we get to express ourselves

and create these masterpieces for good or bad is through vibration and words. Yeah, it's so amazing when you get beyond the story of herself that have been passed down quite literally, possibly for many people, for generations and generations and generations. And you discover the unique creative pulse that lives within you that is like that one of the eight billion faces on the diamond. And then it's beautiful because you then get to be a true representation

of your unique perspective in life. And however that shows up, you know, and if you're an artist, that means that your music is going to be not recreatable because it's unique to what wants to come through you. You describe this energy when you work with people in your mastermind and they feel physiologically lighter. It reminded me of the section of this book I read. I don't know if you've heard on Having No Head by Harding, but it's great. It's a book on non-duality pretty thin. He describes in the recognition of one's true nature. some things that cascade,

and I just want to kind of riff off. I'll just list these off and see how it resonates. Okay. So a complex of interrelated psychophysical changes, including whole body alertness in place of the heady, intermittent sort, a reduction of stress, particularly in the region of the eyes and mouth and neck,

as if one were at last letting them go. A progressive lowering of one's center of gravity, as if losing one's head were finding one's heart and guts, and feet which are now rooted in the earth. A striking downward shift of one's breathing as if it were a belly function. In fact, a general come down as if all the good things one had vainly strained after in the heights were awaiting one in the depths. And balancing this descent, a general uplift, including a sense of exaltation, an upsurge

of creativity, a new childlike spontaneity and playfulness, above all a lightness, and finally perhaps a calming of fears, a marked reduction of greed. anger, smoothing out of personal relations, more capacity for selfless love, more joy. Amen. So these are like the fruits of the recognition. And it's so beautiful. And that's why I say life is revelatory, right? Those qualities that get listed there very articulately, they're there.

So someone might hear that list that you just, you know, read and they're like, I want that. Well, now you're fucked. The wanting of there, yeah. The eye that you think you are that doesn't have that is the same. suffering is the barrier to those qualities that already exist. Like I tell people, freedom is there. Like I really, really just connected with someone recently on Instagram. We're having some great conversations. And she's in this like really beautiful transition in her life, becoming a single

mom or she is a single mom and wanting to find more stability financially. And so the way she said is like, you know, I'm really finding my divinity, my goddess nature, and I'm wanting to create abundance. which all sounds beautiful, right? And I said, if I could just, you know, help you with language, you can't create abundance. What that shows me is that you're reinforcing the fact that you're what you're dealing with, which is what she shared, is she doesn't have it. So it's like, oh, I don't have it holding onto the scarcity, but I'm going to create it. That's the work.

That's the exhaustion. No, abundance is. So it reveals itself in the absence of the idea of me as somebody who doesn't deserve it, doesn't know how to get it, has never had it, money grows on trees, you know, whatever it is or doesn't grow on trees, you know, like whatever people have as a form of programming, which is the obstacle to the richness of all of these qualities and characteristics that are already there. One of the things that I really loved that I discovered in my work that I see is ever present. First of all, the breathing thing is one of the things that I will always say when I'm

working with someone and say, that was a nice breath. They're like, oh, I just felt my whole system softened, right? So you've come out of this excitatory sort of fight or flight. state where you're like vigilante to like oh there's nothing more about so immediately the physiology starts to mirror that the absence of ease is dis-ease right so dis-ease eventually cascades into the physiology this is why i'll always tell people it's a bold statement you cannot be healthy no matter what you buy hyperbarics cryogenic chambers red lights all the peptides in the fucking world unless you free your mind you have to do that first if you want to access vitality because you're always then perpetuating a state of dis-ease

everywhere you go. You are in a prison. And if you're in a prison, you can't access what it means to be radiant. You are in a world of survival. And if you're in survival, then you have to be in a mild to severe state attention, vital flight. You're not going to digest food properly. You can't have the radiance that is available

in connection with people because you're too busy trying to survive or not upset people or not get into trouble. All of the mechanisms that we talked about, right? But that list is so beautiful because that's what happens in the absence of you. And this is where it's become so,

it's so hard to articulate in language, right? The paradox of like, okay, well, the you that you're looking for is in the absence of the you that you think you are, you know, and it gets like kind of complex, right? But it's really not because when you start to see the illusion of how you've delineated yourself as some form of limitation in any arena, you're worth, you know, your capacity to love or be love, your value, your safety, whatever it is. When all of that's gone, all of these qualities, emerge because they've always been there. So for this girl, she really appreciated this woman,

seeing her, she's like, oh my God, I never looked at it like that. You're right. If I'm trying to create abundance, I'm saying, one, I don't have it. So then my form of resistance to life right now is creating suffering. I'm creating time, right? Because it means something I have to do. That's the whole world of manifestation. It's incumbent upon me to do something to get what I want, which creates time, which creates stress. I'm not where I want to be. That creates urgency. versus no, it's all there. And in the absence of me, it becomes revealed effortlessly.

And my work, there's three main qualities that I always see. Freedom, that's, as you know, my main product, because it's the freedom from the idea of oneself, which is really relative in terms of time to history. We're letting go of that which has been, which has created the idea of myself, which is illusory. So it's freedom from everything that is my baggage,

which immediately, instantaneously at the same time, gives an experience of newfound love for what is. Myself, my life, my family, my circumstances, even if they're not ideal. And simultaneously, that's the present state. As it relates to my future, I see nothing but pure possibility. It's so well said, man, so well articulated.

And I really, it's so interesting that paradox of striving for something that can only be recognized in the absence of striving. Yeah. Like we can never become free. we can only be free. Exactly. We can never become happy. We can only be happy.

It is an interesting paradox because even like for those that want to take up the practice of meditation has beautiful benefits. And yet to take up a practice that you are saying is going to one day lead to freedom is almost reinforcing the shackles and chains of you not being in recognizing that state in the current present tense. So it's it is both yes and like we,

do live in this realm of duality, and yet it's also, we can recognize the non-dual state of our being. And that's the compassion part, right? Because to begin with, my self-righteousness, when I saw this was like, it was so self-evident, I was like the smartest guy in the room all of a sudden, right? I had all the answers until I realized, no, that denied the fact that I previously didn't, right? So I wasn't making space for compassion. So I tell people, there's always somewhere to get to until you realize there isn't. And they're both appropriate, right? Because there's long as you think there's someone to get to, that's where you're currently at. And you can't force not getting somewhere, because that would be the ego still trying to do it, you know, to look good

in terms of like being spiritual or whatever. It's like, oh, no, no, kumbaya and I fucking meditate and I'm vegan roar or whatever. You know, that could be the ego's way of just like trying to still garner love that that person never felt as a child. It's still an addiction to some sort of constraint. So the compassion is to let everyone be, comes back to listening and love, exactly where they're at right now. As I said before, like, not knowing your path is your path right now. But there's a suffering that comes with like, no, but I should, or what's my purpose or what's my Dharma?

I don't know. Where are you at just right now? And can you be sufficiently big enough as a being to allow your current form of human iteration to be where it's at? Like, you know, I've had moments where I really feel like I just, I don't want to do anything. I just can't be bothered. You know, and it's like, like, I don't think anyone listening to this right now would be like,

oh my God, like he's the only person that's ever felt that. Right. So that's space for my humanity too. Yeah. And the more that I kept making space for my imperfections, the less they impeded my joy and my freedom. It's, you know, working with so many athletes as I have, Jack Nicholas, to me, still had one of the greatest quotes as it relates to accessing performance, which is he said, one of the most important parts of winning is being okay losing. He didn't say I want to lose. He didn't say that

I wouldn't be upset if I lose, but he's okay with it. And so the irony is as soon as we make space for the things that we don't want, they no longer impede what we do want. Because we've incorporated that. One of my athletes at a golfer, he tripled his winnings, and one of the things are really resonating. And I said, if you're okay with every outcome, you've got nothing to fear. which is another way of saying what Jack said, if you're okay losing, which is going to happen, especially my baseball players. I mean, the best in the world are still failing seven out of ten times.

So you really start to just recognize what it is to be a big enough human being that you're allowing for what it is to be a human being, which is to fuck up. I mean, my greatest athlete in terms of the longevity of our relationship, 15 plus years, seven all-stars, he won the most valuable player, MVP of the National League. only one person does that and then one in the American League. So it's the biggest accolade you can get as an individual athlete in a team sport. And he won.

And at the beginning of the season, you would think that this was completely counterintuitive to him becoming the best player, which is I said, you have the capacity to suck. Like that, you have that available to you because he was getting really upset that he kept striking out. And I said, again, the best in the world. So he knows these things mentally, but he hadn't allowed that to be part of the fabric of his humanity plus his being an athlete, even though he's paid millions of dollars to perform. You know, well, I can't do that because there's an expectation. But as soon as he allowed his

system to relax and go, oh yeah, I can strike out many games in a row. Like, he no longer worried about it. And for that reason, his performance became so much more effortless because he wasn't trying to avoid something. And in the absence of either holding or avoiding, which is the way that we predominantly relate to time, past and future, right? Most people are holding onto a history they haven't yet accepted, and they're trying to avoid usually the replication of that in their future, which creates fear and stress and anxiety. In the absence of both of those, you're left with what is always there, which is presence.

So even the whole adage of, like, you know, be present or be in the now, it's a becoming instruction, which is reinforcing that you're not. So my method of working with people in terms of flow state is like, I'm not interested in you being in the present. That'll happen if we just clear out all the shit that you're carrying and all the stuff you're worried about. Then you're just here. This is great. And you brought up something that I'm actually where I wanted to go next and actually ask you for my own personal process.

I think you and I, we've always felt this like sympathico and like a similarity of certain dynamics, I think, on our path and our journey, both what we love, what we find, you know, what we're passionate to. And then also I see on the shadow side and some like previous limitations you've had that I see myself. So cool if I ask some other things here. And to podcast four. Yeah. To be continued.

No, of course. I'd love to hear it. So, you know, as you were mentioning, the ego, in insidious ways, loves to reinforce itself. Yeah. And I think,

and hopefully this serves to everybody who's tuning in, me sharing a little bit more of my own personal journey. and I guess process as one grows and as I've grown on my own journey. Yeah. Starting out with, you know, more personal development kind of focused energy, you know, and self-improvement type energy to like 19, 20 years old,

getting introduced to like meditation and more spiritual, you know, ideas and concepts that has, you know, open my eyes up to so much. And up to launching this podcast, you know, in the genuine seed of wanting to support liberation and, and on the planet, I've just noticed, and as I've cultivated, cultivated my own ability to listen, like my own inner narrative or where there's a desire to change up any behaviors around this, what you could just, I would say, categorize maybe for people as like a spiritual ego. And I think this is a really big theme right now.

And I see it more and more, the more that I have awareness of it in myself. And I would say, I had this conversation with this guy, Daniel Schmockenberger, who's a friend. and I would love to introduce you to him. Just incredible human being, but probably like about a year ago. And it was like a deep three-hour late-night conversation that just like super awe-inspiring. And I left with this deepening of wanting to serve from the heart

and in noticing the part of myself that has gotten caught up in the identification with being spiritual. Yeah, yeah. Right? And I had this sort of. of, and you're my friends, you know, you know me and you can, you know, see patterns and different things. So I'm curious to see what you pick up.

Yeah. As I continue speaking here, I had kind of an experience which I can share now or maybe at a later date in Brazil with my men's group like maybe six months ago where I had like a deepening of this like shedding and releasing of, I kind of felt like I'm like, I'm tired of being spiritual. And really what it is is I'm. I'm tired of spending energy upholding a persona that desires to be perceived as spiritual. Exactly. Much more accurate.

Yeah. And it's fascinating because, like, of course, there's the genuine urge to, you know, serve people. And I recognize myself as a spiritual being. And I was just noticing more and more of the parts of myself that would desire to be seen spiritual, attractive, bright, light, you know. and how that would show up maybe in the choice of wardrobe or like the many different behaviors that it would show up as. Yeah, yeah. And it's a subtlety, but to me it felt like there is trapped energy there

and more freedom to be had. Yeah, for sure. And so happy to work with you on my own internal process of this, but then it also leads into this larger process of spirituality, as it's discovered for many people and deep end, you know, through podcasts and YouTube, there can very quickly become this identification with being spiritual.

And if being, truly being spiritual, is something to be approximating, not having an obnoxious ego, it's interesting how the ego uses that as well as yet another means to seem superior, attractive to other egos. Yeah, no, it's well said. And I've seen it in you for a while.

And I think just because you alluded to it earlier, you know, when I helped you with your relationship, that was the same trap you were in, right? Like the superimposition of who you were relative to your girlfriend and who you thought she should be, that's, you weren't related. Right? Because you weren't related to her. You were related to your spiritual ego's view of who she should be or the things she's supposed to do, right? So I've seen that in you.

I've had it myself, right? Like, so the way I said is spirituality is developed a face. It's developed a face. It's developed a face. it's developed a face. Spirituality now has a face. We know what spiritual looks like. If you meditate, you do yoga,

you wear some fucking yoga pants, and you definitely eat at some sort of raw vegan place, and you've got to be spiritual, right? But it goes back to what we said earlier. You got, like, you can't try and become free, you just got to be free. So even the, it's preposterous, right?

Like, if we had to think about it right now, and if I was to ask you, okay, if you could imagine everybody dead or alive, as human beings on the planet, who would you say is the most spiritual person you know? As an actual question. Oh, for me?

Yeah, for you, yeah. I mean, my truth is that everyone's equal, you know? But if I was to... Okay, so that's a... And again, this is where you get stuck a little bit, right? So there's the knowing, right? But like, really feel it. Like, as a human game, right?

Because that's a good answer. Yeah, yeah, the part of me that, you know, like the guru, the enlightened being that wears robes. Roman Mahashi, Shrinosa Grata. He has stories of awakening and is sat for, you know, 12 days without moving and like all that. Yeah, exactly.

And that's how most people would see it. And that's part of the face. And there's a degree of truth to it, right? There's things that people say. There's an energy that they emit that is palpable. And there's something that is enticing about that that's authentically attractive, not because it's created to be attractive,

But it's like, wow, there's something that appeals to me in that person, right? Maybe why, again, people open up to me on an airplane or whatever. There's the absence of pretense that allows them to feel safe. So it's a good answer. Well, I want you to consider which will help you because I know you and I love you is that the most spiritual people I know are children. Right? And why I say that is because I feel sometimes with you, you know, in the attempt to garner the attraction, the appearance,

especially as your brand grows, right? Like it's something that I had to deal with, Peter Crow and the Mind architect. I mean, God forbid when I fucking date somebody, like, I don't stand a chance, right? Like, it's because I can't have any problems. You know, it's so preposterous. Yeah. It's so stupid.

Yeah, the titles we give ourselves, The Hit Man for the Ego, that sounds really good to the ego, you know? Exactly. So that's why I said even earlier, I know I'm not Peter. Like, I've gotten to the point that I know none of the shit that I talk about is me. I'm just a space. I'm a perspective and it's helpful. And it seems to, like, you know, bring a lot more joy to people.

So I'll keep doing it as long as I do it. But for me, what's missing for you sometimes is a little bit more joy, a little bit more silliness, which we have great humor. I mean, we were in Cancun, we had a blast, right? But I think, you know, maybe why you were with your previous girlfriend is there was a playfulness about her that's really balancing for you because you're more the structure, which is oftentimes the masculine. And like the feminine is the self-express. The handbags and the fucking emotions and the shoes, I want to do it all. And the guys like, well, I'll keep the fucking everything straight, right? And so for you, that spiritual facade, I think, like, it reinforces the rigidity of trying to get shit right and look a certain way versus just being more childlike.

And that means also, again, I'm jumping around here, but you'll keep track. I remember a girlfriend and said, you know, she hadn't been to yoga for years. And so she's practicing a lot at home before she goes to class. I'm like, wait, what? She's like, well, yeah, it's kind of embarrassing. I'm like, Oh, okay, got it. I'm like, do you even hear what you're saying?

I mean, that's the opposite of fucking yoga. Yeah, I mean, you're so disconnected. It's like, whereas a kid, like, they love trying to balance on one leg and they're falling over and laughing. Like, they don't have to get it perfect, right? It's, it's so that's where I think for you, just recognizing with compassion again that, yes, you've got the look, you've got the brand,

it's all beautiful, your conversations are inspiring, they're touching people's lives, and you're a fucking human, you know, and in late terms, it's like your sticks, your shit still stinks, you know, it's like just a, you like, you know, I've smelled my shit, Peter. No, I lie. But I'm such a good friend that I would. It's like, that's, that's where, that's where real, that's where the real juice of life lives, right? Is like in that real accepting of humanity, which I think I've definitely, you know, struggled with.

Yeah, which itself is beautiful to admit, because I know you do, you know, and so that you can even having the question, I'm so proud of you that you can have the courage to ask this on air, on your own brand, because everyone right now, I promise you, is loving the shit out of you even more, because you could come across as a little bit, like, intimidating to people, because you're smart, you're good-looking, you're articulate, you've got a successful brand. Keep going, keep going. Just as I'm annihiling the, you go, let's build it back up. Come on, man.

So it's, it's, but the beauty, again, I quote myself all the time, I say, please never become perfect, you'll have no one to relate to. And I think you, because I can relate to someone as a couple of years older, like, you know, my sort of, my residual perfection itself, you know, as a recovering, like, wanting to get it all right, I can see in you, you know. And it's so beautiful when you can soften and go, no, I'm, I struggle with fill in the blank, you know, like, I know for me in my relationships, one of the biggest things I had to learn is that my partner, particularly romantically as much as a teacher as I am, even though in the world, you know, they might be like, oh my God, you're Peter Crone.

Like, I'm pleased don't relate to me like that because as it relates to us as a couple, I'm as fallible, as imperfect, as available to contribution as you are. I might have a fancy way of articulating it and be a little bit more eloquent with language, but as it relates to like the heartfelt, like human flaws, I'm with you, you know. and I think if you could embody more of that, the irony is all the things that you hold so dear to you in terms of your appearance and your brand and your business would 10x, because it's so much more relatable.

It's human, you know, and yeah, it's beautiful. So I get it. And the perfectionist tendency can be applied to anything, right? My athletes, my guy who became the MVP, he was trying to be the perfect baseball. You can't do it. My golfers, you as a spirit, figure now, an iconic, you know, podcaster who's got a big audience. Again, just that would be

the addiction that would be your downfall, right? Because you can't sustain it. It's, it's exhausting to sustain it. That's what I was kind of hinting at earlier. Yeah. I love that you had that epiphanya like I've fucking died of being spiritual. That's, yeah, that's what like how, how it makes sense to verbalize it now because I look back at even, you know, because right now we're kind of going through a bit of a rebrand with know thyself. And it's just more of a refinement with the podcast art, the branding website, and different things. That's in alignment with this new energy that I'm kind of, you know, discovering within myself. We'll go live kind of towards the end of next month in March. Yeah. But a big reason for that was this kind of experience

I had in Brazil. I was like, just had this conversation with God and like alone in a chapel. Yeah. You know, starting to like take off my jewelry and the things that I identify myself with. And yeah, we're making more space for the humanity and like the part that is, you know, the part that is, that is natural to want to be liked and to be seen in a good standard. And in the deeper accepting of my own humanity and be like, it's okay, like the messy parts of myself. It's okay like to not be seen, like to let go of needing to be seen a certain way. And I really had a deepening of like the experiential feeling in my body.

Like a lot of those qualities we mentioned earlier. Like it's almost like a, it's coming off. of your own trip or a hallucination in a sense, you know? Yeah. After that, I was like, I could see the, for example, the podcast art I created one at the start, which is like got some sacred geometry in the background and like gold glowing lights. And I could see parts of myself in which I wasn't aware of at the time creating that is almost a projection of who I'd like to see myself as or other people to see me as.

Yeah. And now it's like, I, and I'm sure. there's layers still to go, but I really don't, I don't, I don't have the desire to be seen as spiritual now. Like, you know, it just is a lot more spacious. No, absolutely. That's what, that's the weather came to mind. It's just, it's much more real, right? And I think, you know, what came to mind as you're talking is one, it's much more relatable, which is beautiful, because that's love, right? It's when someone's becoming too perfect because of a persona that they're trying to create or portray, they're not actually attainable.

Like, you can't, you can't connect with someone. It reminds me years ago I was on a TV show called Relationship Rehab. And it was funny, there's these three, I think it was three or four experts. So they had one girl, was a dating coach. One had a dating business, you know, matchmaking. And then the other one wrote a column about dating for Elle magazine or something. And I worked with her. So the premises of the show is that these dating experts who don't have relationships who don't

have relationships. Which is perfect. And so I can remember walking in. It was here in Los Angeles. And this girl was so put together, right? Because it's a TV show, first of all, right? So, and of course, I mean, I brush my teeth and made sure I looked at least presentable.

But she was like to the point of like it was so perfect, right? So anyway, she opens the door and you know, you got the camera action and you walk in and like, oh, nice to meet you and all the bullshit or whatever. And so we sit down. And we say our highs and I said, you know, wow, you look like a porcelain doll. And she said, oh, thank you. I said, it wasn't a compliment. I have yet to meet a porcelain doll that I want to cuddle with.

You might have just discovered one of the obstacles to you having a relationship. And so I think that's so, again, it's brutal. Yeah, I don't fuck around, right? But I just also, but I'm real, right? So instead of being perfect or being spiritual, I think what life is giving. you and hopefully I'm reinforcing is the opportunity just to be real. You know, it's, I've dated now a couple of women who are mothers because they obviously have had a kid or two or whatever and they've moved on. But there's something beautiful about being, particularly with the feminine,

feminine generally, because they are self-expressive. They have different biology. You know, it's like they go through these cycles. They become different people by virtue of their hormones. You know, it's like it's the gamut of all expressions. So they have a lot more self-acceptance because of that amongst themselves, a better listener, whereas guys are a little bit more, you know, we're more, we represent perusia, consciousness, more stable, it's more consistent, but we become fucking rigid, right? And so when I've dated these mothers, what I love about in ways that I can't comprehend, but I'm definitely committed to learning, is they see it all, right?

I mean, from freaking childbirth to shit and puke and fucking everything, right? And so they have a much bigger bandwidth as it relates to acceptance. Like the kid that comes in who in the middle of night is scared or who shit the bed literally, you know, it's like they just deal with it. And I think for you and I, and particularly you being younger and a man and not married and not having kids, you know, there's just a whole world of mess that is waiting for you to explore, you know, and I just hope you get to step in the shit, literally and figure I know you'd be an amazing dad, but I think this might be the precursor to you becoming a dad now prior to the event, which is as a role model, as a father figure, to be so generous in your capacity to let people be who they are is to me what it means to be a true leader and a parent.

You know, like often when I work with corporations, I say good leaders don't make people wrong and they make them better. and we have such a patriarchal world that is so finger-pointing in its nature of like, don't do this, do this. And what people want is actually just to be embraced. They want to be held. The ego doesn't want to be healed. It wants to be held, as I've often said, right? And it's making space for the fact that we're all fucked up, right?

That to me is real love. People talk about self-love, and I get that asked a lot of me. What is self-love? It's not pampering with like, you know, rose-pedal bath tubs and massages and manicures. it's learning to realize that as a human being, you by design are fucked up. Can you find enough love for that part of you? That's self-love. That we're all imperfect.

The nature of being human is to be flawed. Self-love isn't trying to perfect that human. It's making space for it as part of the fabric of what it is to be here. So, welcome to self-love, buddy. Embrace the part of you that even wants to be spiritual and look cool. Totally. And that was on the other side of that experience, like immediately I had a lot of gratitude for young Andre who whatever coping mechanisms or like strategies or identities, you know, that were useful in building the life that I have now, which is amazing. And I'm grateful for it. And it's like, yeah, and it just gets to be kind of let go or just like let it be. And it's it, I think it's a subtle repattering. You know, there's like, I, in my experience, have a bigger insider awareness or expanded of how things are happening.

And then it's like the continual integrative process of repatterning anytime little subtleties show up. Yeah. One of the things that might help, it's in a funny way now that you talk about some of these tendencies, you really do remind me of my athlete, which is a compliment because he's extraordinary. But one of the things I find most people lack

that they need to work on is discipline, right? When people say they don't have the life they want, they don't have the results they want, they don't have the body they want. invariably as a very practical reflection, they just lack discipline. That discipline lacking is usually an extension of lack of self-worth and deeper subconscious patterns, which need to be addressed. But for you, the irony like him is his discipline that he needed was to not be so disciplined.

Yeah. It seems kind of intuitive. So for you, you know, I'm guessing from the smile, it resonates. So one of the things that I find so admirable about you that you've inspired me with than many is your discipline. But I think your discipline has become your own sort of self-created prison, right? Where you've become so attached to it that you've lost the flexibility of what it is to be flawed and to be human.

So I would invite you to just expand your understanding of discipline, which is to incorporate what it is just to be Andre when he doesn't want to do shit. You know, it's okay. Yeah, for sure. And it's felt good. good, just creating more and more space for that. Yeah. You know?

Yeah, that's an extension. That's, you know, that's the expansion that we're really committed to that I think you are really talking to. It's not the expansion of you, the spiritual brand, who has a great podcast. It's the expansion that can include that, but also now is making room for the guy that just wants to fucking sleep all day and do nothing or the guy that wants to look to Shreve, or doesn't give a shit, or can get angry with somebody, you know? It's making room for all of it.

Like you've heard me say before, can I be with this? Right? It's one of my questions for myself, whatever it is. Can I be with this? Like, whatever it is. Like, even the devastation that happens in the world, doesn't mean we don't take action. It doesn't mean we don't have compassion.

But I'm not going to be in a reactive state to it as though I can't handle it. Yeah. It's, that's real power. That's real freedom. That's real love. It's all okay. And I find myself being more pulled from that state. Now these days, like earlier on, meditation was more disciplined, almost militant, you know, in my approach to it, which is great for the benefits or whatever, but still creating that mental prison that you're living within.

And now it's like going to meditate because that's, you know, generally being pulled and called, you know, and devotion versus discipline and really heart instead of the mind as much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. shift. And it's a commitment out of love versus fear. Like what I see in you and so many people, even who are very disciplined, is that they're being driven by an underlying energy of fear. Right? Then I've got to get it right. It's about how I care to people. It's about being the good boy, not upsetting parents, like fill in the blank of whatever it is that we feel we have to do.

And it has that energy of must need, which is a resistant energy, versus it's a choice. It's out of pure joy and exploration. It's out of the sheer, like, love of being alive, to have the feelings, to have the curiosity to explore, versus just trying to get it right. Yeah. And they're very distinct worlds, you know, and I think you obviously dabbling both, but it feels like now, okay, great, you're making room for the one that is more based in spontaneity and exploration as opposed to just like, this is where it has to be because this is where I've always done it. Yeah. Yeah, no. And I mean, I, out of like all my friends, I'm probably, honestly, like the most adventurous and silly and rascal.

Like, whenever we like go on travels or whatever, I'm always like climbing the dangerous rocks and doing these things. And like that for sure is a big part of me. And, you know, I think previously for sure more in the past, like maybe I would guard from, guard that side and all of its aspects being perceived. And it's been a good process and thanks for chatting with me about it. I'm excited. I'm excited for you because I love you and I can see it. And it's subtle. And I know your silliness and playfulness when we're, you know, whether we're on camera or not. Like I hope there's no difference.

We can be playful. But I can see you have a role. You're playing a job. You've got a job. You're doing an incredible role as a host as you always do. Your questions are impeccable. Your listening is great. All of that.

But there's just a little bit more room for the silly, a little bit. more room for the freedom of self-expression. It's like it doesn't have to look a certain way. As soon as we get caught up with the appearance of something, we're missing the point. Yeah. That's, and that's probably a big invitation also for everyone who's listening, which has been helpful for me, is asking myself that question. Like, at any point throughout my day in conversation with somebody and creating something, is there subconscious or conscious cognizance of how something is being perceived externally and how it's being appeared. Because in that alteration of behavior lies like where we're trapped and we're not free.

So that's been a helpful kind of pointer for my own personal journey, I think. And the way I distinguish it, which I resonate based on what you just shared to everyone and even for yourself, is the difference between being self-conscious and self-expressed. Right? So people who get caught up in the how is this coming across or they're shy or embarrassed or anxious, they're self-conscious. They're aware of self. First is just being self-expressed. One has got the governor on, like the break and the accelerator, and the other one is just take it as it is.

You know, and it kind of just weaves in as the wider umbrella for this whole conversation of like we have our waking up process of perceiving who we are beyond the illusion of a self. And we still have our relative history. character logical stuff that we get to work through as it relates to our own internal emotional landscape and connection and relationship with others and they like they're they're both valuable you know there's there's reality by agreement that is cultural that is religious that is national you know people become so associated with like these traditions that that's now collapsed like people really think they are a religion right

I am Christian, I am Jewish. And to just give that up, just because you recognize it's not an actual truth, that comes with consequences for a lot of people, you know, and that can impinge on that sense of family and belonging that is really primal to the human experience. So I'm not saying that you throw it all away, it's just to recognize that none of it's true. You know, it's, I tell Bueba, it's all real, it's just not true. Yeah, that's an important distinction, you know, because it helps us not bypass or deny experience or existence, but it also helps us see the illusoryness of something.

Yeah, and that's where the freedom comes in. Otherwise, we're just fighting over illusions, right? Like, my God is better than yours or whatever it is. My particular label or my status is better than yours, and it's all made up. And it's okay. You can still play the role. It's like you don't have to emancipate yourself from your belongings, but emancipate yourself from the person who thinks they need them, right?

It's just a deeper level, right? It's like, I love to have all the trappings and all the toys. It's fun, but I'm not attached, right? I'd love to experience like companionship and intimacy and relationships, but I do the best I can not to be attached, right? Love is allowing for all of it to come and go and to be in the flow and not to be so easily upset, you know, or to be so rigid in the way that things have to occur to us. It's like, no, I'm in the dance. I'm in the trust of life. The things are always and all for all of us to our benefit, to our evolution. And we're here to transcend the consideration.

restraints with which we arrived and this brilliant paradigm has got exactly the circumstances you need for that to eventuate. It reminds me earlier, you know, when we're reflecting on, you know, and it's been talked about through Adveeta, through millennia, that even the act or desire to dissolve the ego is in itself an egoic act. Exactly. Yeah. And, uh... Yeah. It's so slippery. And the good news, it's all unavoidable. Right. You know, people are, well, what should to do. I'm like, just keep living. Yeah. Because wherever you go, there you are and your triggers are going to be what they are based on whatever it is that you still got to transcend. Like, you know, I say, like, life will present you with people and circumstances to reveal where you're not free.

Life will present you with people and circumstances to reveal where you're not free. It really is probably my favorite quote of yours and really does encapsulate, like, what this human experience is and how it happens in the reflections and mirrors in our life. And when we've kind of dissolved a certain aspect, you know, or overcome one aspect of life, there is usually another mirror down the road that's coming, right? Something more subtle, something more refined, yeah. And I think we're so far away from what it is, if we were to put it in the word of what is our potential, right? Like, you know, potential is something that gets actualized over time. It's not like you could realize your potential, like it's a finite thing. It's never ending,

which is why this is such an extraordinary game, right? The mountain without a top. For as much as I've garnered and learned and realized and let go of and shed and reconciled and mitigated. Like, it's, it's, okay, there's something that happened last month that I'm like, oh shit, I didn't even see that too, you know, and it's, it's just beautiful because it's like, it's like a sport. Like I love golf, right? Like, and there's no one in the world at the best of the best. They don't get it perfect.

You know, Ben Hogan, one of the greatest, he said, you know, in his best round of golf, he hit four perfect shots. You know, it's like, it's the consistent exploration of what it is to be us. and there's a joy to that. Like, you know, it's, at times it can be a pain in the ass because it's never ending, but that's also part of the gift that it is to be alive, to taste it or to feel it all and to explore it all.

Yeah, it's, again, the paradox of being a limitless being within this finite human experience. I remember listening to a tape where Ram Dass was talking about how he's tried every plant medicine and every mantra he's done and every teacher, you know, as if there is a place other than the human experience we're supposed to get to. Yeah.

And, you know, the deeper realization was like, what if I actually came here to have a human experience? Yeah. How funny, you know, me, us being humans. And, uh, and it just invites again, accepting more of our own humanity in the process of what it means to, to be here in this realm. I watched a clip recently on the, on the gram and this guy, I don't know who it was, just came up in my feet.

And he was talking about how he, because of a really bad accident, he, he, couldn't feel anything, right, like sort of a form of paralysis. And it was so beautiful because he said, when I got back, you know, and I started to heal, it took months. He said, I really enjoyed pain, not because pain is good, but because I got to feel. And I really think, you know, that's one of, if we were to look at this through some bigger lens of the universe that we talked about right at the beginning, that gods have sent us to this particular dimension of planet Earth, I really feel the ultimate intention of what it is to be human is just to feel. Fill in the blank, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't have to be joy and like, you know, euphoria and orgasm. It could be like fucking heartache. I mean, I love the fact that I love my dad so much. It hurt that he died, you know? It's all an expression of love, right, in different ways. And that, to me, is the gift that it is to be human. And so whenever we deny ourselves feeling something, you're cutting off what it is to be alive and vital.

And we're so programmed to like, well, we only want the good shit, right? Like don't want the bad stuff. And it's like, no, there's joy in all of it underneath. It's just the capacity to feel itself is the opportunity that is to be human. That's saying, I don't know what the truth is, but I know what love feels like.

And we are here to have that feeling experience. And thank you for the continual reminder that your presence is to remember that power, you know. And your gift, as I've shared many times, and the articulation of the inner dimension is second to none. And, you know, I'm just grateful for the mirror that we get to be for each other.

And it's been a pleasure to spend more time with you, you know, even going to Mexico for a week and getting, I mean, we're just constantly joking. Anytime we're with each other, it's just one big shit show of just laughter and playfulness. It's amazing. And I love that you get to, that you let that shine, you know, and you have been more and more as well on your own journey.

And how I truly have felt, even since I've met you, like the arc of the impact and scale in which you're serving on the planet is like a rocket ship that's just taking off. And I get to see the events that are coming and the books that's eventually coming out soon. I hope. I just can't wait to continue to witness your journey, man. So thank you so much for sharing yourself today. I really got that.

That hit heart. Thank you. That means a lot. I mean, what I'm left with as you say that is, we just need to play more. Let's play more together. Let's spend more time together.

It's always a joy to be on here. You're one of my favorite hosts, just not only because you're a friend, but just because of your intelligence, your awareness, your brilliance and your genuine care for asking questions and wanting to make your host feel seen and heard.

And I've always felt that. And I hope today was impactful for people. And I hope your words, you know, as I say from your mouth to God's ears. And it feels like things are going well. And it's definitely very humbling to see the impact my words seem to be having on people out there. And I can't think of a life that's more fulfilling than one that makes a difference. And having you as a friend as part of that. The best gift, man.

What a joy. Thank you so much. We'll link everywhere, people, all the touchpoints that you have from your freedom mastermind to the free offerings and social media platforms. People can find that all linked down in the description below. But is there any aspect of that you want to point people towards before we head out? No. I mean, just the usual places. I mean, I'd love for people to explore freedom, the platform, because I think that's my legacy that I'm most proud of because there's like now 90 plus hours.

It's got all my live events that people can't attend. People do fly around the world, which is still humbling to come to. to an evening event and we're going to eventually go around the world. But if you miss out on that and you want to watch them, they're all housed in freedom. And we wanted to make it super affordable at just 29 bucks a month. So that's something that if people are looking for support, they're looking for insight, they're looking to free their mind, then that's all in there. But otherwise, I'll just keep doing what I can to help bring freedom to the masses.

And check out Peter's YouTube channel, which you guys have recently activated. And I love seeing it's an important platform, I think. And I'm glad you guys are starting to post on there. Yeah. Yeah, we realized that that was. avenue we weren't exploring too much. So thank you. And yeah, last note from me for everybody that's been tuning in, you know, we recently did a survey and got a few hundred responses from the community. And it's really unique and so different to like hear from a few hundred people who are

part of your community, the values, what they really see and their perspectives on what's being created here with the podcast and community. And I would just, just, you know, in all with the level of intelligence and insight and care and compassion of the people that's cultivated through these comments and numbers on a screen, you know, but to really feel the hundreds of thousands and millions of people that tune into these conversations. Yeah. It is like one big Earth family. And even like me sharing vulnerability, like some things that I've been working through,

you know, I feel like also this community has been become a space for me to be able to, you know, share and open up in my own process, as I hope it is for you. the comments sections and the people that you get to meet through the events and things. And so it's just a special thing we get to do in this day and age. Very fortunate. We're very blessed. Yeah. Thank you, brother. Much love. Thank you, everyone. Until next time.

Take care.