Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #95 Michael Trainer

Episode Date: July 8, 2019

Michael Trainer is the creator of Global Citizen, an event that people earn the right to attend by doing good deeds, activating tremendous cumulative impact through collective advocacy, donations and volunteerism. We discuss meditation, Asian culture, meditation, and mindfulness. Connect with Michael Trainer: Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/michaeltrainer/?hl=en Twitter | https://twitter.com/michaeltrainer Global Citizen | https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/ Peak Mind - http://www.peakmind.org/ Listen to the Peak Mind Podcast | https://apple.co/2DF0JRN Show Notes: Dr. Ronald Siegal | https://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/ronald-siegel/ https://amzn.to/2xy9b3b Untethered Soul | https://amzn.to/2J2GZeu A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle | https://amzn.to/2wSCDRk Tribe by Sebastian Junger | http://www.sebastianjunger.com/tribe-by-sebastian-junger Alive Inside | http://www.aliveinside.us/ Peak Mind Podcast | https://apple.co/2DF0JRN   EMCT Mocha -  (Use promo code Kyle at checkout for 10% off)  Get 10% off all foods and supplements at Onnit by going to https://www.onnit.com/kyle/   Organifi - Gold  https://www.organifishop.com/ (Use Promo Code Kyle for 10% Off)   Whoop www.whoop.com  (Use Promo Code Kyle at checkout for 30% Off new subsciption)    Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on: Twitter | https://bit.ly/2DrhtKn Instagram | https://bit.ly/2DxeDrk Get 10% off at Onnit by going to https://www.onnit.com/podcast/ Subscribe to Kyle Kingsbury Podcast iTunes | https://apple.co/2P0GEJu Stitcher | https://bit.ly/2DzUSyp Spotify | https://spoti.fi/2ybfVTY  

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He was a last minute dude. I didn't know who he was. My homie, John Beer was like, hey, you got to get this guy on your show. He's out at Paleo FX. So I was like, cool. Send me a link. He sent me a link to his very first podcast episode with the fucking Dalai Lama.

And I was like, whoa, wait, what, what? And then the link to his website, pinkmind.org. And the two guys on the cover are Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle, who are like, I mean, wizards when it comes to the game of mental, emotional, and spiritual world. People that I've learned from immensely. I always talk about A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle as one of my favorite books.

We take a deep dive into where Michael Trainor got on this path, his work in Sri Lanka, starting a nonprofit charity to end world poverty through music. I mean, just really cool shit. He's got an incredible story and we're for sure running back with this guy because he's absolutely amazing and definitely one of my favorite podcasts ever. Thanks for tuning in. Yeah, let's dive into that. We're already on. We're talking Joshua Tree. Are you cool chatting about that?

Yeah, sure. Of course, man. Whatever you want to chat about. Yeah, so I mean, first of all, one of my favorite places on the planet. Second of all, I was just out there and we've had a good amount of rain in California. So we had the super bloom. So the entire desert floor is covered in yellow flowers. Wow. for bloom so the entire desert floor is covered in yellow flowers wow and uh yeah i mean it's it's

for me i always love to find refuge uh big sir is one of my favorite places there's actually a place called the lost coast which i highly recommend most people don't know about it's uh it's up on the northern coast of california so that's like from from mexico to canada one goes all the way up the coast except for one piece of land and it was too rugged to build so it's like from Mexico to Canada, one goes all the way up the coast except for one piece of land. And it was too rugged to build. So it's literally 40 miles of California as it was 300 years ago. Oh, wow. So you have to backpack in.

And I did a sort of a vision quest solo mission in there for about a week, which I like to do. And, man, it's special. It's just like huge redwood trees that are still like raw up on the on the ocean and then just like finger mountains and you said that's by big sir or that one's that one's north of that one's just north of mendes it's in mendocino county so it's north of san francisco okay uh but joshua trees my go-to usually man um yeah i was just out there actually uh with a couple of uh incredible uh healers from mexico um curandero and curandera and uh yeah man it was it was beautiful we did like a flower ceremony and just really wonderful uh just got me back to where i needed to be hell yeah get you

centered exactly yeah man well there's much much to dive into our homie john beer set us up and i and uh you know i looked you up and i was like damn dude you just started a podcast and you had all sorts of bucket list interviews on your show yeah i'm fortunate you've started some really cool really cool different things you're the co-creator of global citizen which is a music festival dedicated to ending poverty i want to chat with with you about that. And then of course, Peak Mind. And I pulled up the Peak Mind website and I see Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle right there. And I'm like, you got to be shitting me. I'm constantly quoting these guys. I've learned so much from them. But let's shift it back a little bit. I do want to get some background on you. How did you grow up? When did you start to really pay attention

to the mind and to stillness and meditation and all these practices that you're into now? Yeah. I mean, it's a great question. I was reflecting as I was driving through Austin. So I grew up in the middle of Chicago, so in the city. And for me, I always sought to find refuge wherever I could. I grew up also doing sports, soccer, basketball, et cetera. So for me, that was sort of my outlet. So I think coming from a kind of a sports background also, although Chicago is not ideal for it, but I would go out. My uncle lived in Colorado, so I did a kind of a sports background also although Chicago is not ideal for it but I would go out at my uncle lived in Colorado so I did a lot of skiing and for me skiing was like my first experience with meditation you know like that that first sort of sound of silence like being in in in nature and getting into that sort of flow state and so um you know going into the mountains

oftentimes doing sports that was like my first sort of exposure. But I wound up actually going to college out in Maine. And Maine's beautiful, but the winters are brutal. And I actually got pretty gnarly. I was on the ski team and got in a really, really bad accident. We were doing full tuck downhills last day of training. And I shot off a lip

and it had been a really mild winter. So it kind of had frozen over and then thawed. And so I went in full speed over a lip and it was just boulders and ice. And basically head over heels for about 200 feet. My coach, my coach who was just like i think just elated that i didn't die because he watched the whole thing uh he was actually the youngest division one coach in ncaa history i think he was like 24 years old was like i think i just lost my

job and uh and he was like don't move and i remember standing up and being like, that was my best crash yet. I actually skied down. But it was a bit of a wake-up call. I mean, I was pretty banged up, broke a few bones, et cetera. But actually, in that sort of recovery period, I decided to – I was just sort of exploring. I had always been interested in different cultures. But I decided to look into junior year abroad programs and wound up going to Sri Lanka. And why Sri Lanka, I couldn't really tell you, except that I was fascinated by a Buddhist country amidst civil war. That paradox,

I found really fascinating. And it was literally on the opposite side of the world from where I grew up in Chicago. And I just loved the idea of going as far away from my reality as possible. And so I wound up in Sri Lanka and I mean, it's like the oldest living Buddhist civilization in the world. I mean, they literally have a cutting of the actual tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment in Anuradhapura. And I wound up actually, which is a whole nother story, but meeting an incredible seventh generation healer that practiced a particular form of Ayurvedic shamanism. And he invited me in to study with him. He didn't have a son and the tradition was on the verge of sort of collapse. And so that was a huge honor. And so I wound up actually living with him for two years

and got really deep into a variety of practices. But meditation became a pretty big part of my life. That is, I never fucking expected that answer to go from that. That's insane. Yeah. It's making me think back to Dr. Strange. When he first gets out there, he's got to heal himself, a Western medicine doctor. I don't know if you saw that movie or into the- I haven't seen Dr. Strange, but I'll check it out right after this it is so good even if you're not in a superhero movies because so much of it contains a lot of eastern mysticism and i'm like dude stan lee the the you know all the marvel comics guy recently passed away i'm like that guy for sure has done psychedelics there's no way you talk about this shit and show it in a movie

without having had like a deep transformative metaphysical experience and um sure enough he's reading the doors of perception in his cameo on the train which i was like i knew it it was a very subtle cue but uh yeah you know he he gets out there to um somewhere in the himalayas and starts his training and a lot of that you know it just, yeah, it's funny because that's like a, that's a hell of an origin story. Mate, it was a game changer. I mean, what's interesting is in that particular tradition, they don't use entheogenic medicine.

So it's, but they do induce states of consciousness unlike any, like I still to this day couldn't, I mean, I don't really talk about it very often, but I mean, I've seen people entranced, literally speaking other languages that theoretically, i was with one of the foremost linguists in the country and we saw a tamil woman keep in mind this is a country at civil war so a woman theoretically on the other side quote unquote in a singhalese buddhist temple entranced speaking classical singhalese which would be like me speaking like ancient Greek or like Zulu or

some language like I theoretically should not know. So like just states of people tapping into the collective conscious, if you will, and just phenomenal. I mean, phenomenological, I guess, experiences. So yeah, I got to check out Dr. Strange, but it blew my mind. I want to know how, I mean, obviously it's much more than you could ever say on a podcast, but what in your estimation is causing that? Because I'm no stranger to mystical experiences and plant medicines, and I think they all have, I think they're necessary, especially at this point in our society. But I'm always fascinated by people that can, that have hacked that without

it. Right. So like, and it's not that one's better than the other, they all work. Right. But, but like, is it the, obviously, you know, the master who's figured that out has a very specific way usually to get to that state. What are some of the ways that you hack that? Is it through chanting, fasting? What's going on there? Yeah, beautiful. So, okay. So, I'm going to sort of take it a little bit wide and then I'm going to narrow in because I think, obviously, I want to sort of share it in a way that's hopefully of most value to the audience. But what was phenomenal about Sri Lanka is it's a culture that doesn't actually have a word for privacy traditionally, and it doesn't have a word for possession. So, if you think about that in terms of the formation of your consciousness, there's a fundamental view towards seeing health as being

oriented in the collective, right? Now, to get more directly into your question so i studied a particular form of ritual like an occult form of ritual like exorcistic ritual that was involved so when someone fell out of balance you would use traditional herbs or medicines you know uh to bring them back into balance and in other cultures around the world obviously that's the context in which a shaman would potentially use uh anheogenic medicine, a plant medicine, to help potentially navigate certain, obviously, either spiritual aspects, health aspects to bring that person back in. In the culture that I lived in, they didn't use entheogenic medicines, but they used trance. So, they would use dance, and they would use, and what's wild is, like like what we would consider the master of

like an art form you know my teacher was a master of like 17 different art forms you know I mean you're you're you know MMA fighter right like you know like there's masters of like you know jujitsu there's masters of judo aikido right like this guy was a master of like like 17 different art forms right he could he could he danced around the world he was a drummer he like 17 different art forms, right? He could, he could, he danced around the world. He was a drummer. He was an astrologer, Ayurvedic physician. So like the level of detail that went into everything that they did to set up the space was exacting, like down to the level at which like even the tree that they carved to make the masks that they wore, like they would go out at the full moon and ask the permission of the deities in the tree i mean like literally like crazy level but but but what that what that basically was was like take

like something like burning man right which i think people can even if they haven't been there they can kind of understand the rituals that they created were like the og burning mass like the whole community would come together and build an entire palm fraud city over the course of two weeks and ritually recreate their shared cosmological worldview, which was kind of like pre-Buddhistic animism meets like Hinduism meets Buddhism, because you're talking about a village tradition. And from sunset to sunrise, they would re-indoctrinate people into their shared origin story, in essence, to make them feel seen and heard and validated. But the fire, the dancing, the chanting, using mantras, all of those elements were central to the states of consciousness, which were induced during the course of the night. And it's hard to really describe with words,

but it's something I can't, just a phenomenal orchestration, a social alchemy, if you will, that enabled the person to come out of that state of disease, because in their concept, disease is imbalance, back into balance. But interestingly enough, for us Westerners who are so focused on the individual, it wasn't an individual medicine. It was the collective that was the medicine. So, it was a really beautiful experience. And one of the things that I've been trying to figure out is how do you apply that kind

of knowledge, which is also, you could say, I mean, obviously it takes different forms, but many indigenous cultures around the world, right, had that wisdom, had that knowledge, some of which were obviously was granted through plants. And now we're in this sort of brave new world, this liminal space, right, where it's like, but yet we're in the verge of technology. So you have these ancient technologies, which have this incredible ancient intelligence, and then you have this now exponential technology and modern way of living. And so for me, and I'm sure yourself as well, the fascinating aspect is how do you use the tools from the ancient intelligence to create epic way of living in modern society? Yeah, you got to bridge the gap.

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basically was like i'll do whatever it takes to find a way back and um i was super fortunate um i wound up getting a fulbright scholarship and went back my uh right after i graduated and basically the u.s the US government gave me a grant to study in this tradition, which was pretty phenomenal because I mean, talk about esoteric, it was pretty far out there. But it was, I mean,

it totally changed the course of my life. And then I traveled around the world for 15 months. So for almost a year and a half of my life, I stood out like a sore thumb. I was all in Asia. I was a tall six foot four white guy. You're taller than I am. Not six foot four white guys.

So I just remember going to New Zealand after a year and a half and blending in. And my consciousness was like a deep breath because it was just like it was wild but uh but man yeah i went i went i went out pretty pretty pretty deep into the asian cultures uh studying learning for about for about two years damn so you so more travel more knowledge more experience most importantly right that very visceral learning and um what'd you take home with you when you came back from Asia? Man, well, to be honest, a lot of it was, you know, I'd love to say I figured it all out. If anything, I kind of broke my whole worldview down. And so it took me a better part of a decade to figure out just even how to be, you know, how to integrate a lot of that information, right? I think a lot of us, especially now, you know, we have access to these states, you know, these ecstasies, right.

These ecstatic states. But the work is in the integration. Right. It's like, how do you integrate this back into your day to day living right into the mundane? So for me, it was extrapolating the various tools that I found to be too infrequently spoken of as we talk in the sort of health and wellness world that we're in. You know, it's a lot of it's about like these ingredients, which I'm also equally passionate about. Right. Like I'm all about like, you know, I'll take the interview intravenous glutathione, you know, like I'll do that. You know, I'll go super micro, but I think one of the things we often lose sight of that I think is a great cause of our social ills is this lack of community. People not feeling connected, feeling disconnected from each other. I think that's one of the challenges I've seen, especially coming back.

To speak very plainly, that was one of the things that drove me to Sri Lanka in the first place. I had some pretty intense traumas when I was a kid and I started to ritualize. And I was basically diagnosed early with an obsessive compulsive personality, right? So I was the guy who was like washing his hands and like checking the doorknobs because I had had like, you know, some pretty gnarly stuff happened when I left home. And so when I was about to leave home for college for the first time, which was the ultimate existential sort of, you know, leaving and embarking, leaving the safety of the shore, I started to ritualize. And it was actually that which led me down this path of saying, okay, I'm ostensibly creating rituals to bring about a sense of ease, right? To assuage a sense of anxiety. Well, cultures have

been doing that since time immemorial, right? I just didn't have a religious traffic or a community in which that made sense, where I could be brought in to feel a part of a bigger whole. And so, a lot of what I've been working on since then is, right, how do we create those, like, the medicine of community, so to speak, in our individual Western age? And that was some of the formation that went into the thinking with Global Citizen and then obviously now Peak Mind, which is, you know, how do you, you know, I'm very passionate about forming a world that works for everyone. And obviously, we're in a place where that's especially ecologically at risk. But it's also my view that we can't, you know, ultimately, the world's a manifestation of our collective internal states, and a lot of folks in the world, unfortunately, right now are a bit lost internally. So to me, I'm interested in both, and I think in the worldviews that I studied, the two were seen as one is a reflection of other. The macro and the micro are in some ways one and the same. But I think culturally, we don't see it that

way. So what I'm interested in is how do we use these meditation, holotropic breath work? How do we use a lot of these practices to get back to that balance within so that we can be effective agents without? And then from that place, I mean, you go into even research now, it's all being validated, right? Harvard showed the efficacy of meditation in terms of like with eight weeks of mindfulness, you can decrease the size and activity in your amygdala, increase the size and activity in your hippocampus. I constantly talk about Dr. Ronald Siegel, who did the science of mindfulness, Harvard professor.

Yeah. It's just so, it's beautiful about that is he bridges the gap between the science of it and then where it comes from, you know, the mysticism behind it. So whether you're right brain or left brain, you know, you're going to get what you want from that. You're going to get something that's palpable. You touched on so many pieces there. I mean, really, I mean, first thing that's coming to mind is as above, so below. And it's like that statement sounds either hokey or religious, or it seems like it's, or if you, if you're, if you do understand that, then, then it doesn't seem that way. But I mean, to a lot of people, it's kind of like,

yeah, but what does that mean? Yeah. You know, but, but it very, very clearly is the case, right? And that can be even on a, even on a smaller level, rather than looking at the whole world, just look at your life. Like if you're doing well inside, it seems like all of your relationships are pretty much doing well. It seems like your work environment, every environment that you're a part of is doing well for the most part because you're doing well inside. And as that goes awry, everything fucking fails. Everything gets bad. You know, your partnership, your wife, your husband, how you parent, everything starts to crumble, right? And it's always a reflection of what's going on inside. Totally. 100%. I mean,

it's the inner and outer game of transformation, right? Like, I think the inner game, the outer game is a total reflection of the work you've done inside, you know, your state of being. You know, I think we have this kind of cultural fallacy that like if only we do certain things then we'll have certain things and then we'll be happy right like if only i like do this then i'll get the girl and i'll like you know get married and i'll be happy or like oh if only i get the car then like you know like life's gonna be freaking sweet always i'll be happy when right when happy when the actual truth is, it's the total reverse, right? Is when you're being a certain way that you attract the having and that, you know, that

leads to, you know, the being is the source of all things. It's not the reverse, right? It's not like you never get to the, you know, the like the have doesn't lead to the happy, right? It's like the happy that leads to the have. But ultimately ideally you also aren't attached right because that's what perpetuates the suffering so it's uh yeah anyway you you sparked the thinking but yeah i totally agree as below so so here's a question that i that i typically get asked as people start to dive into this,

especially when it comes to Buddhism, is this idea of non-attachment. And if you can truly let go of your attachments, where does that lead in this modern world when it comes to goal setting and attainment? And I want a house. So there's certainly some truth to Maslow's hierarchy and the need for shelter and being able to provide for your family, all these things, right? How do you find balance between actually wanting to go out and make changes in the world and make changes to your life and then also not being attached to the outcome? It's such a beautiful question. I mean, I'm an ambitious person. So like, and I'm, and unapologetically so, in perhaps a different way. Like I don't, I don't, like I'm not going to be, I often use the sort of deathbed, which is also used in Buddhism, right?

Like, monks would actually, like, meditate on the skeletons of their masters to focus on the nature of impermanence, right? Like, the fact that we are all ultimately going to die. But I think thinking about death, you know, the warrior's creed, right? Like, it's a good day to die. Like, if you actually utilize, I feel like, that notion of impermanence, then it goes, to me at least, to a question of true values. And from values, I mean, I think from values, all else springs. So if having a house because you happen to be a loving father with, you know, an incredible family is part of your value system, right? Like, to me, that's not in commensurate with a spiritual practice whatsoever, right? Like, if you are, however, you know, feeling like, not until I have this particular house in Beverly Hills.

It's got to be a $2 million home. It's got to be. I got to have a $5 million mansion with eight Lambos in the driveway. And then I'll have the Victoria's Secret girlfriend. And then I'll be like, everyone will see. It's like, that's a total fallacy delusion, right? It's like that in no worldview, even those people that have that, has that led to happiness? But I think you can, I think the two, so I'll use the monastic tradition because you brought up Buddhism. So, there's, in the West, we often look at the monk in this sort of like, I've renounced the world, right? I'm not attached

to anything. I'm going off to a cave and I'm meditating, right? Well, that is a part of the tradition, but there's also the village dwelling monk which is the the paradigm that i always resonated with right the bodhisattva which which forsakes their own enlightenment to support the enlightenment of all beings and goes into the into you know the maya into the delusion into the muck of village life of society right and it's like all right you know like let's help everyone along let's let's get this party started in the form of like you know how can we support others in the raising of their consciousness and that's a different path but i think that's the kind of

world we live in right like i don't think we're not going to go back in time you know we live in a materialist world but i i still think that you can be oriented towards materialism and be sort of unattached. I mean, one book, which I don't know if you've read, but have you read The Surrender Experiment? No. Mate, highly recommend it. Sounds good. The last like three medicine journeys I've had, I've pulled the surrender card from Sherilyn. Okay.

I got to get you that book, man. I'll send it to you. So, I read that book at a really pivotal moment but what i liked about it was here's a guy who takes the spiritual practice of like getting letting his ego get out of his own way and what does that mean it means that like i mean i'll let people read the book but ostensibly the guy starts from like basically nothing and like even against his own egoic or individual needs he kind kind of says yes. It's like, whatever comes to you, he says yes. And he follows the course of saying yes, ultimately,

literally to becoming a billionaire, even though that was never his intention. But that was part of his spiritual path, right? And he winds up channeling those resources to his community, etc. But it wasn't that like, it wasn't like he was obsessed with being a billionaire it was more he was committed to a path which he felt would elevate his his values his vision his his his spirituality if you will and in that all the things he was looking for came well not even looking for all the things that sort of one would want came and he lived this like incredible life but it's a beautiful book he wrote a surrender experiment and untethered soul i haven. He wrote a Surrender Experiment and Untethered Soul. I haven't read Untethered Soul yet.

Oh, Untethered Soul is hella good. I don't know if it's the same author. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my wife's favorite book. No way. And for those listening, I mean, I constantly talk about A New Earth. I've read A New Earth.

I just finished my 13th time. I read it at least once a year. It's an amazing book by Eckhart Tolle. And this Untethered Soul though is it's almost like the the even more layman's breakdown of a lot of those same teachings yeah it's just in a fucking incredible book totally man damn okay same guy yeah same dude same guy yeah you love the book it's it's it's good and funny enough like i mean i won't get too far off but like even reading that book was wild because i was like on a trail on Semescal and these like loud dudes were walking up behind me and I literally paused and I took the book out.

I've never taken a book on a hike. I had no, I just, you know, it's like sometimes your intuition is like, whatever. So I take a book on the hike and this guy notices me reading the book. And as I walk to the top, I'm, you know, I'm doing a solo hike, whatever. I'm like, ah, will you take a picture for me? Cause it's a beautiful hike. And, and, and if you ever come back out, I'll, I'll take you on it. It's fricking my favorite, but you can see 360 all of LA Pacific ocean downtown. So we take a photo. Yeah. Blah, blah, blah. He starts talking and this guy winds up becoming, I mean, financially totally free. He's good, good for life. Um, but has this

incredible wisdom and he winds up being like you know what i'd like to uh offer you you know usually i'm he's a very expensive coach he doesn't need to to do it but he's like i'd like to gift you three sessions and this guy becomes like like literally helped change the direction of my life and it was all triggered by me having this book the surrender experiment on on me so it's like it's like also just like kind of in a way following not to sound woo-woo but like you know i feel like also following the signs it's like it's wild how things can unfold if you're listening yeah yeah so and i totally agree with that that's something where it's like you know this idea of synchronicities

yeah it's it goes beyond coincidence and happenstance. Yes. You know, like there is, and I think that's something that is really important about, you know, something challenging like ayahuasca or the heroic dose of mushrooms or anything. It doesn't even have to be that, like a really deep holotropic breathwork session, something that unlocks a piece of you where you can begin to remember

that this is so much bigger than we can possibly imagine and there's a lot of it the just the magic of reality you know like like that's it's it's like that that i pulled this innocence card too and this for sure sounds woo but i've never pulled a card that didn't resonate with me yeah and so i pulled this innocent card and uh it's talking about you know and many, many lessons I've had in plant medicines have been to be more childlike, to laugh more, to play more, to not take shit so seriously. And so this goes back to the child medicine, but it's also that innocence of the child is knowing and believing in the magic of the universe. Like that it's not just nuts and bolts, fucking A to Z, what we believe in Western medicine. It has so much more to it than that, you know?

100%. I mean, it's our delusion to think that our individual kind of like egos have figured out the game. You know what I mean? And I think what you're referring to when you talk about holotropic breathwork or plant medicines, it's like, these are tools that have been used for millennia to tap back into the collective wisdom. Right. That is I mean, just think about it like it's like thousands of years ago. I mean, now we're uncovering structures. Right. Like in in in the Mayan Riviera.

Right. Or, you know, down in Peru where it's like you have these elaborate architectural sites, which they're now figuring out because they're cracking the code of measurement, that literally were a representation of the cosmological, like the cosmos, right? These were like astronomers, pre-telescopes, etc., that literally formed entire architectural marvels at the same time in a variety of cultures around the world in ways that like theoretically across thousands of years exactly like yeah there there were you know there was a different form of wisdom right that that is that that people were accessing and tools that they were utilizing and not to like overly romanticize right like i'm sure there were you know profound challenges as well but but i think what we're uncovering now is exactly what you're mentioning, right? Whether it be plant medicine, holotropic breath work, meditation, a variety of these different tools have been used because of what they can induce in terms of tapping us into a wisdom that's bigger than ourselves.

Yeah. And for people who are, I'm sure if you're listening to this, you at least nod your head once or twice. But if you're like, I can't believe I'm still listening to this garbage, check out Rupert Sheldrake, any of his stuff. And if you can listen to him on Joe Rogan's, I think he might've come back on recently. I'm not sure, entirely sure of that. But he talks so much about this thing that he's coined morphic resonance.

And it's basically this collective consciousness that we can tap into. And it's on every field. So he does studies on, I think, little ducklings, where he creates in the lab. You're familiar with this, yeah? Yeah. Yeah. So for the listeners that aren't, I'm not trying to educate Michael here.

I just want to clue you in. I think he's studying ducklings. And he has, he puts them in on a metal platform that has an electrical charge when he chooses. And he creates in the lab, a smell that doesn't exist in nature. It only exists in the lab. It's a, it's like a synthetic form of citrus. So the second he pumps that smell in, he then electrifies on a low level, but enough to not feel good underneath their underneath their little feet, little duck feet, and it shocks them. And then of course, like Pavlov's dogs, he plays that little synthetic smell and all of a sudden they start panicking because they know they're going to get shocked.

Right? So, all right, that's not a great experiment. Of course that's going to happen. But then he takes the siblings of those ducks and puts them in there. And he finds that by playing this or excreting the smell, they too panic. So he's like, okay, there's something epigenetically that's been passed down from their kids. All right, still not that far out. Now he flies in ducklings from a different continent that have zero relation to the ducklings he's been studying and he does the same experiment with them puts the smell in the air and they panic so they they talk about the hundredth monkey theory where like if you teach 99 monkeys something once you teach the hundredth

monkey relatively most the monkeys are going to figure that out just like overnight they fucking download that information right yeah so they're proving this stuff scientifically. And that's kind of really something that fascinates me. And probably another movie you haven't seen is Thor. But he says, I come from a place where science and spirituality are one in the same. Yeah. And we really do see that with guys like Dr. Bruce Lipton in The Biology of Belief and Dr. Joe Dispenza and different people that are kind of really bridging the gap

of the metaphysical to what we have in our nuts and bolts materialistic reality. 100% man. And it's, you know, it's interesting because part of what's held me back is actually like, and it's beautiful to talk to like, you know, like many would probably perceive you to be a jock, you know, like, and yet, you know yeah like you're like professional amm and at the same time you're so much beyond you're so much more than that right and so for me it was like coming for i grew up in the midwest you know i lived in new york was i'm you know but at the same time i was like i've i've been deeply interested in in the in this study for a long time and what's wild is now like research is actually like validating it, right?

Like I was passionate about community and it's like, okay, hang on. Like Harvard just released the longest longitudinal study of its kind, basically determining that the biggest corollary on your long-term health, bar none, is the quality of your long-term relationships, your community.

They're looking at that in the blue zones. They've been studying that. Of course that trickles into the health and wellness scene, but like, well, what is the French paradox? Why can they get away with eating garbage and smoking cigarettes and drinking espresso? Because they're so joyful. Yeah, because they're walking places. They're connected to one another.

They have a sense of community and certainly nationalism. There's pros and cons to that. But they have nationalism there in a positive way. And yeah, you can look across cultures with that. I think a great book is Tribe by Sebastian Junger. And also, if you're not into books, listen to him on Rogan. Phenomenal, phenomenal guy. Such a good conversation. My buddy, Dr. Chris Ryan, just finished his book, Civilized to Death, which, you know, it's not out yet. But yeah, he talks, you know, at length about the need for this. And even if you just look at something very simple as like the success of CrossFit or the success of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, it's because you belong to a community when you enter into

that. Even if you're overtrained or potentially going to get choked out, you have a sense of community. And that's what draws people back. Yes. You know, I forget, I was on a,

I was on a panel at PLA effects and somebody said 50% of all signups to Globo gym, you know, gold, whatever, never show up once 50% right. 50% I was like, damn,

that's a good business model. It's outrageous. But the small box gyms, the places where you can go, I mean, Orange Theory's blown up, SoulCycle, things like this, because you go, you go through something challenging together and you build community with the people that you're in there with. 100%. And that's just on the physical level. Totally. Imagine when you actually have a real community and you have multi-generational learning where you're not disconnected, you have elders you look up to that are very wise, that still have a zest for life and haven't given up and aren't opposed to change. They can stay up with the times and they're still

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Thanks for listening. Oh, man. I mean, like those elders, we started off with the 82 years old and we were, you know, dancing, literally dancing all night. Like basically the degree to which, I i mean that's another interesting part like in sri lanka i literally i said i lived with a family that the grandchildren would would pay their respects to their grandparents before they left every day and before they went to bed every night you know i'm like that's something i think about because i feel like we've lost reverence for the

elders you know obviously in a lot of traditions we've we look to the elders and i think we have you know this you know our particular materialist, which does sort of play off of people's insecurities to get them to consume things they think they need to feel whole, basically has sort of romanticized perpetual youth. But there's such a virtue and wisdom and experience in our elders. I've brought this up before, but I do want to say that the caveat with a lack of respect for our elders here is that there's a difference between elders and olders. Yeah, that's true. The olders are like the grumpy old men who bit. They were bought and sold on the concept of I'll be happy when. So they lived the life they didn't really want to live

in pursuit of retirement in pursuit of i'll be happy when and that never came along and so they're bitter because they realized like that shit never actually happened that was all a fucking lie it was a fallacy and here i am now without my health without without wealth because my pension has been cut back or fill in the blank. Yeah. But they're, they're not exactly great people to be around. And I can say that about my, my granddad was an asshole, you know,

like he was a total asshole. And I, that's, those are my, most of my memories are of him yelling at me, you know, and I've had, I've had good interactions with his wife,

my Nana, and, and plenty of older people that stayed side where I was like, because it stands out. Like when you see that here, it does stand out. You're like, oh shit. Yeah. You know, but like abuelos and abuelos, like there's different, like there's, that's like, that's the opposite side of that coin where far more of them are looked at as elders and they have a zest for living and they're in the kitchen cooking and they're yelling at people to get out

of their way because they know how to do it better than their kids do. Totally. Even though, even though their children are now adults with their own kids, you know. I love that distinction. Yeah. The older, just the olders and the elders. Because I mean that, it's actually, you know, it's a great parallel to like, you know, just because you're, you know, there's like, there's sort of being on your path and then there's just getting older, you know? And it's like, ideally on this journey, which we only,

all only get one of, right? And time is the thing we all have in common and our greatest, most precious resource. It's like, hopefully you're doing, you're doing the things with the people. I mean, to bring it back to the sort of deathbed, right? Like I know I've done the exercise. I don't want to be on my deathbed thinking like i know i've done the exercise i don't want to be on my deathbed thinking oh damn you know yeah i wish i had gotten a lambo or like yeah like i wish that you know the exactly the things that the grumpy old the grumpy old men that you're referring to and i had those some of those in my own life it's like it's because they didn't live right they they died with their their song still in them right so it's like and it was it was

interesting because the launch of the podcast, that actually, so I started recording four years ago, but coming from Global Citizen, which was this, you know, we created this beautiful, big platform. I felt like doing a podcast for me, like, especially talking about topics like this, coming from the world of like philanthropy

and, you know, working with the kinds of folks we did, I was like, oh, dude, that feels super small. My ego was really messing with me on philanthropy and you know we you know working with the kinds of folks we did i was like oh dude that feels super small my ego was really messing with me on it you know and so i i started recording like four years ago never put it out and then and then i went to a fleetwood matt concert and they did this tom petty tribute and i was like man i always want to go see tom petty you know and he died and i was like i literally could have seen him the year before my buddy was throwing a festival and i was like it was a phone call i was like oh i'll catch him next year right yeah that whole like ah next year phenomenon and then i was like i'm never gonna see tom petty i never got to see him and then that

that was the catalyst for me being like all right time to sing your song doesn't matter how many people show up to the stadium but put your song out there and to me that's that's the like end of life if you don't want to be the older the resentful cat you know it's like whatever your music is there's a great quote i love by howard thurman it's like don't ask what the world needs ask what makes you come alive and do that because what the world really needs is for people to come alive you know and to me that's like that's what's up powerful yeah man i love that yeah i love that well let's i mean you touched touched on it. Let's talk a little bit about that. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but you started a music festival to end poverty?

Yeah. So, you know, this context to sort of bridge it, you know, in places like Sri Lanka and traveling through India and going to the Himalaya, you know, you see, you know, across the subcontinent, you know, the see, you know, across the subcontinent, you know, the horrible, horrible poverty, you know, I mean, poverty that makes, and not to in any way compare realities, because everyone has their own struggles, but, you know, people that don't even have access to clean water, you know, I mean, water kills actually more people every year than all wars combined, which is, which is... And the way they die is not, it's not uh it's not something you ever want to picture oh no man i mean like it's an afferent extended bellies yeah worms growing inside them and

die of dehydration it's slow and fucked up death yeah it's not something that happens overnight it's really bad and and when you talk about suffering i mean you know i i was i was in uganda and literally saw a girl like digging into parched earth with the jerry can you know those yellow water cans. And there was this much dirty water. And there was a line of people behind her. I mean, like, that's just tragic. And then I went miles away.

I was working with the Greenbelt Movement, which is Wangari Mathai. Look her up. Amazing. First African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She actually empowered women across the African, across, well, Kenya to start with, to reforest the country. That's right. Okay. I've know you had check on and he's going to talk about the quality of he talks about the quality of soil um you know talk about inner and outer work you know our microbiome the soil i'm totally inner outer connected completely connected they're selling

soil-based probiotics right now i was just talking to dr michael russio about that yeah because we're not in the fucking dirt anymore that's gonna take a supplement for it and that's it and that and many of our diseases so i won't fast forward too far to peak mom but what what sort of so global citizen um so i was we were focusing on diseases like polio and malaria which are still endemic in the developing world we don't see them as much in the developed world. And we built this, basically, we were like, we don't want to, per what you're saying, right? Like, it's horrific to talk about the distended bellies, but it's necessary. We have 1.3, at the time, 1.3 billion people living on $1.25 or its equivalent around the world. And that's just not right, right? We are all in this together. And like,

it's not right for our shared humanity but we didn't want to guilt and shame people right what i call poverty porn the like sally struthers like i'm going to show you the picture of that poor child in africa with flies and like give up your cup of coffee yeah cue the shitty music these animals are dying right yeah exactly adopt one today yeah it's it's terrible i saw that that just drives me i can't even go into it but that drives me bananas. So we were like, okay, how do we start a movement based in hope and inspiration

where people want to be a part of it and it celebrates our shared humanity? And I think the coolest thing that we did was we were like, and this was actually our great disruption because we wanted to host it on the Great Lawn in Central Park. So one of my favorite albums growing up was Simon and Garfunkel's concert in Central Park.

The magic of Central Park, Stones never played there albums growing up was uh Simon and Garfunkel's concert in Central Park um the magic of Central Park stones never played there's beetle never played there so you have like a piece of real estate that's like Prime in the world um and all these artists would love to play there but you can't actually sell tickets so what we did was we turned that on its head and we said well you know what we want to educate people around these issues so we'll make it so you have to learn about the issues to get points and take action around issues affecting extreme poor. We're not going to even ask you for your money, but sign a petition with the Gates Foundation around, you know, polio vaccines or, you know, volunteer or do a variety of different actions and you get points and those points enter your chance to win. Now, you know, so you got Beyonce fans, you know, Jay-Z fans fans neil young all of whom have

performed on the global citizen stage all those fans then become part of this broader based movements and extreme poverty so long story short uh we had this crazy vision it was let's throw a music festival because music is such to your point i mean talk about medicine i mean literally like in terms of alzheimer's my dad unfortunately has dementia, but you look at the great movie Alive Inside, you can take people that are totally nonverbal and put their favorite songs from their childhood around their ears and it's like, they come to life, right? Like music, we don't even know the degree to which it's medicine on an individual level. And then obviously collectively, it's like the universal language, right? So we said, let's build a movement through music and inspire people around our shared humanity.

And so we launched the first Global Citizen Festival on the Great Lawn in Central Park. Had Black Keys, Foo Fighters, Neil Young, John Legend sang Imagine. Raised $1.3 billion in new commitments for programs serving the world's poor by leveraging the hundreds of thousands of actions of global citizens who took action to come to the show and that's grown since then i left when my dad got diagnosed with dementia about four years in we were the organization was then on very firm footing and i left to to form peak bond because i realized okay we were focused on diseases like polio malaria and then i realized in the developed world like where we live and where what i saw with my dad and dementia was like, I did this deep dive into brain health and realized, hold up, like half the population in the world now is obese, more than half actually.

And you have half the US population is pre-diabetic, half the Chinese population nearly is pre-diabetic, you know, and a lot of this is based on this Western diet and lifestyle. So there's a whole new like, there's a whole new form of disease that's about to be a scourge on the planet is a scourge on the planet and dementia is but called by some type 3 diabetes and then i realized like my dad you know he was on took antacids his whole life drank diet coke you know like you know was eating you know bread with glyphosate and you know the food pyramid which has now been debunked you know that he grew and not to say that you know not bread with glyphosate and, you know, the food pyramid, which has now been debunked, you know, that he grew up. And not to say that, you know, not to defer responsibility or accountability or, you know, blame anyone else, but it's just to say I saw in my dad

this devastation of like watching the person you love, you know, the most on the planet sort of fade away. And I realized that so many people are going to face that around the world. And a lot of these practices to bring it full circle are integral to us maintaining that collective health and well-being, which is going to be necessary at this critical juncture in history, right? So, to me, I'm still very much passionate about the ending ending of you know incredible injustices around the world like extreme poverty and i believe that it's going to take a revolution in consciousness you know within for us to be able to hold the space i mean

they say in the next 12 years right like we're at a place of you know we we are right now already not to be like a doomsday but like amidst mass extinction on a species level right so it's like no doubt you know the planet will continue whether we as humans continue is is is a question um but you know i'm passionate about hopefully you know in whatever small part i can play you know uh turning people on to live the best lives they can and in the process hopefully you know also be recognizing their connection you know the interdependence that we all share. And so that was the, that was the, really the catalyst for Peak Mind was like, okay, how do we still create impact in the world, but how do we recognize that it starts within, right?

So how do we look at impact from the inside out? Damn. So good. Well, well, I mean, you have, you have released your podcast and of course, I think for many people that first pull it up, they're going to see that you interviewed the Dalai Lama. That's pretty fucking special. Talk to me about that interview. Talk to me about the energy in sitting.

Were you face-to-face? Were you through Skype? So, no. Okay, so the context of the Dalai Lama was, okay, so I left Global Citizen. I took a bit of background okay so I when my dad might so my dad was battling cancer and was doing chemo the whole time we were building Global Citizen and I have a very deep relationship with my father and you know he's had my back in ways you know during my darkest hours he's had my back and my back. And so I was like, Dad, I want to have your back.

You know, he was still, you know, pretty sharp cognitively. So I said, I'll take you anywhere in the world you want to go. And I knew he loved history. He was too humble to ask. I knew he loved history. I knew he loved nature. So I took him to South Africa, went and visited Mandela's prison cell, had the best trip of my life. And it was on that trip that I decided, OK, I'm going to leave Global Citizen.

I didn't know yet what i was going to do so i did a 30-day meditation cleanse and on the 30th day um i so i live in los angeles right on the beach i went down to the beach and at the risk of sounding woo-woo uh i i felt i felt called you know wim hof style to jump in the ocean because freezing it was november in the middle of the night so i stripped down and i jumped in the ocean i'm sorry there's no point there's no point in the year where southern california's water's freezing no but okay fair enough okay it's not maybe it's not wim hof style and i have done i do do the ice fast but it was cold let's just say it wasn't a leisurely swim in the ocean and i and i also lived in norcal and you're right it is colder uh but it was it was it was cold let's just say it wasn't a leisurely swim in the ocean and i and i also

lived in norcal and you're right it is colder uh but it was it was it was not let's just say it was not a it was not a bath bath water temperature gotcha and in the invigoration i was like i had this crazy idea i was like because i the meditation had really served me and i had seen you know that the efficacy that could have on the brain um and obviously my dad's disease was rooted in the brain and so it was actually in that moment that i decided i wanted to host the dalai lama's 80th birthday it just came to me as an idea and i and it was a freaking crazy idea because i have no i didn't have any connection to the dalai lama but i was like you know what i was working with my friend quake who who's nelson mandela's grand uh, who I'd met through the course of Global Citizen and was also part of the impetus

for me going to South Africa. And I realized Mandela's birthday, or not his birthday, but Mandela Day is actually like within two weeks of the Dalai Lama's birthday. And it's just like, there were just different, you know, kind of following like the trail of like things that have been going on in my life. I was like, let me see if this crazy idea which was the same thing with global citizen right it's like this big crazy idea that like you never thought you could ever pull off um came to me and i was like all right i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna declare it like who knows if it'll happen but i'm gonna go after it like like i'm committed you know and so um the initial idea was to get 80 different meditators. So I'm from Chicago, kids on the south side of Chicago. I don't care if Deepak talks about meditation, but if Usher

or Common talks about meditation, maybe they're interested. So I talked to, we had a big festival on Earth Day, talked to Common, talked to Usher, folks like that. And the whole idea was like, who are the popular figures like we did in Global Citizen, right? Where it's like, we're bringing in the Beyonce's, the Jay-Z's, the Neil Young's, the different genres of influence, right? Because you also need to speak to people in our society.

You gotta speak to the masses. Yeah, exactly. And that's the, we live better or worse. We live in like the Instagram, so influencer television movies, like that's our reality so let's use that as a tool and um and so long and short of it was i wound up host hosting this event force whittaker came i mean ghost dog is one of my favorite movies dude if you've not

seen ghost dog do yourself a favor modern day samurai in new york city broken down epic epic movie so that was like that was that was incredible but basically wound up hosting um i wound up having the privilege and for me i was channeled by wanting to like which was interesting my my my why was like wanting to make my dad proud while he could well he still had the cognitive wherewithal to know like what was happening and so that was my why like that's really what drove me also this obviously wanting to make a difference for the collective ironically my dad at that point was pretty far along and like i don't you know this is like crazy sequence we're literally like we're and by the way like i'll tell you another day the story of the dalai lama like the seven months in

lead up i mean like i had no idea what that was going to call forth from me to be able to make that happen um but just needless to say it culminated in him actually showing up which was not sure at all i mean talk about committed like i was personally like six figures liable you know you got like forrest whitaker flying in, you've got hundreds of people coming. And, you know, the gentleman's 80 years old, he's a global figure, you know, there's no replacement, there's no like, sorry, Dialama couldn't make it, you know, like, but we've got this guy. Exactly. So it was literally an act, which for me was a spiritual exercise in commitment, unequivocal commitment, and in a way, faith, and just sort of, you know, with any big vision, it's way bigger than yourself, you know, incredible team that comes

together to make it a reality. But he walks in, and my dad actually has no idea who he is. Like, he doesn't recognize him because he's pretty far along. But my mother, interestingly enough, who's like tough as nails, wonderful woman, but just starts bawling. And I just start bawling. Like, she's like, I feel like I just met Jesus. Like, literally, his presence is something, you know, I can't even describe. I mean, granted, I had spent seven months focused on it and didn't know if it was going to happen. So, I'm sure there was a piece of like, oh my God, this is actually happening. But the moment I met him, I literally bowed over and he offered me the scarf, you know?

And I'm leaning down and we touch foreheads and I just start like, like the floodgates just start flowing. And so actually the long and short of it is, I wound up hosting his birthday party, like literally found out he loves, like, Snickers. Got him, like, a Snickers cake. But hey, watch out for that type 3 diabetes.

Yeah, exactly. Wasn't necessarily on brand, but it was mostly a symbolic act anyway. But needless to say, it was just, like, this, like, beautiful moment of, like, literally presenting the Dalai Lama with his, you 80th birthday cake and hosting this you know beautiful meditation hopefully people can check it out um uh it's just peak mind with Michael Traynor but basically you know it's it's structured that particular podcast was structured as I wanted it to be I wanted to create the container I didn't want it to be about me so it's literally like i asked for it to be and it's a very special i'm told um discourse on meditation and the mind and and particular forms different forms of meditation for cultivating the mind and so it was actually like a very rare talk

and gift that he offered to the community which we then recorded which which is the pod the first podcast so it's we're fucking linking to that show notes for sure yeah for sure it's linked in two parts and and then i offered my questions to the audience because i wanted them to have the opportunity to ask so like i mean but like you know like some of the questions were just epic you know i mean we had like an 11 year old girl asking a question we had a buddy of mine ask a question about like how you know, like some of the questions were just epic. You know, I mean, we had like an 11 year old girl asking a question. We had a buddy of mine ask a question about like how you deal with like challenging circumstances. I mean, talk about man's in exile, you know, like this, like, but like we all have challenges in our life.

How do you deal with that? So long and short of it is it was, you know, one of the most epic days of my life and became the launch of Peak Mind. And then it became the first uh first first and second podcast episodes so so to answer your question yeah it was a seven month journey for uh for that ultimate you know culmination um which is still i'm still sort of processing today but man it was uh i still feel so blessed and so fortunate to have, you know, played, you know, whatever, whatever role humbly in the listening and being able to host that, you know, space for, for his presence. And to your point earlier, and I wanted to mention this, you know, you said you keep getting this, you know, getting called to this notion of like childlike innocence.

There's no one I've met in my life that to me was more the personification and and we and this here's this exalted spiritual teacher so joyful so not taking himself like seriously so not like i'm the guru right like literally like sees himself as he's like i'm just a you know like i'm just like a you know like such humility but like such joy like aloe black who's great musician uh friend of mine you know he's like, I'm just a, you know, like, I'm just like, you know, like such humility, but like such joy. Like Aloe Blacc, who's a great musician, a friend of mine, you know, he's like joking with Aloe Blacc about his hat. You know, I mean, he's just like joking all the time, like literally stopped. And like, I have this beautiful picture.

I wanted to host it outdoors because I feel like every time I see him talk, he's in this like horrible hall with fluorescent lights. So a friend of mine has a ranch. We did it outdoors. And he literally walks by this tree and he stops and just kind of like pays respect to like the tree and i was like man just like his way like the whole and everyone like there was every just his way of being everyone was welcome everyone was honored everyone was seen everyone was heard again sort of bring it back to that sense of the collective and i was just like more so even than the words just his presence like his way of being again the beingness was such a teaching for me because i was like wow

man you know like just like joy just presence seeing validating appreciating everyone around him it was game changer but yeah man i feel like we're just scratching the tip of the iceberg here but um that does wrap us up all right brother well thank you for having me man dude my absolute pleasure seriously uh and we'll run it back again for sure in the future where can people find you online and talk about your podcast? Yeah, so podcasts just launched. I've got about 30, 40 episodes, some really exciting ones about to come out actually, but it's Peak Mind with Michael Treanor,

iTunes, Spotify, all the channels. Yeah, I think people are going to be pretty stoked. So I've actually been spending the last four years recording. I'm just now launching it. So everyone across perform, you know, right now already on there is like Maria Sharapova. Laird Hamilton's about to come out on the performance side. A lot of our mutual friends like Dr. Mark Hyman and Ben Greenfield, Dave Asprey on the biohacking, you know, help them on the side. And then these incredible global figures like His Holiness dalai lama and folks like that so and then you can find me on uh on just at michael trainer anywhere on social uh peak mind.org on the

web but man i'm just i just also want to honor you man i i so uh appreciate your energy like we're newer newer friends connection but like we met at paleo fx and just like i will honor and acknowledge the fact that like you just came in with like, like this huge heart, man. And I just honor the way you show up in the world. And, uh,

I'm grateful for this first, uh, first conversation. I can't wait for more. Awesome brother. Thank you so much. Yeah, man. Pleasure.

Thank you guys for listening to my dude, Michael trainer. If you haven't seen Dr. Strange, make sure you watch it. And if you feel privy to it have a little microdose to LSD while you throw it on

because that's how we saw it in the theaters in 3D and it's awesome definitely makes me think of some of Michael Trainor's training obviously you know one is a very Hollywood depiction

and versus the real world depiction but really cool stuff thank you guys for listening I hope you enjoyed the show if you did leave us a review on iTunes, it tells us how much you love it. Want to get the word out about this name change and hopefully y'all are still sticking around, even though the name has changed one final time.