The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – I Recommend Everyone Die at Least Once: Mental Health Journey with Tyler Kaulbars

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

I Recommend Everyone Die at Least Once: Mental Health Journey with Tyler Kaulbars Tylerkaulbars.com About the Guest(s): Tyler Kaulbars is an inspiring author and speaker focused on mental health advocacy through personal experience. He shares his journey of living with bipolar disorder and addiction and his recovery process. His upcoming memoir, “I Recommend Everyone Die At Least Once In Their Life,” aims to provide a deep understanding of mental illness from the inside. Tyler strives to normalize mental health discussions and hopes to help others find peace by offering honest insights into his struggles and triumphs. Episode Summary: In this enlightening episode of The Chris Voss Show, Chris engages in a candid conversation with author and mental health advocate Tyler Kaulbars. Tyler Kaulbars shares his profound journey through mental illness and addiction as described in his forthcoming book, “I Recommend Everyone Die At Least Once In Their Life.” Emphasizing the importance of understanding mental illness, Tyler delves into his past experiences, discussing the drastic changes in his life and mindset due to childhood trauma and difficult family circumstances. The discussion further explores Tyler’s personal battles with bipolar disorder and how addressing these led him to a moment of clarity after a life-altering event. With the use of expressive metaphors such as the ‘Warden’ and the ‘prison of the mind,’ Tyler explains how he learned to regain control over his thoughts through medication, meditation, and observation. Offering hope and strategies for others facing similar challenges, this episode is rich with insightful narratives and practical advice for mental health awareness and recovery. Key Takeaways: Tyler Kaulbars’ journey with bipolar disorder highlights the significance of accepting and understanding mental illness for effective management. Overcoming addiction and mental illness often requires a combination of medication, meditation, and self-observation. Reframing thoughts positively and being present can significantly impact one’s mental health and overall quality of life. Cultivating compassion and understanding toward others is essential, as everyone is battling unseen struggles. Sharing personal stories can be powerful in creating connection and promoting mental health awareness. Notable Quotes: “I Recommend Everyone Die At Least Once In Their Life, really in, in reality it means dying to your present life.” – Tyler Kaulbars “The Warden really watches over the prison of my mind and keeps me in those negative thoughts.” – Tyler Kaulbars “Medication, meditation, and observation… give me even more space in between those thoughts.” – Tyler Kaulbars “Every human that is on this planet is going through something that we know nothing about, and all they need is a little love and compassion.” – Tyler Kaulbars Resources: Tyler Kalbarz on LinkedIn: Tyler Kalbarz LinkedIn Tyler’s YouTube Channel: Happiness Compass

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Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, amazing young man on the show, we're going to be talking with Tyler Cowbars. We're going to get into it with him in his book entitled, I recommend everyone die at least once in their life. And we're going to talk to him about that book. I love the title, which really kicks off. So we're going to get into it with him. He's an author and speaker who shares his story of living with bipolar, addiction, and recovery.

His goal is to help people better understand what mental illness feels like from the inside and remind them they're not. not alone. I love having honest, he loves having honest conversations about the mind, hope and healing, and I hope my work helps people find a little bit more peace in their own lives. What a wonderful journey to take. Tyler, welcome the show, sir. How are you? Thank you very much. I'm doing great today. How are you? I am excellent. It's good to have you because there's a lot of mental illness out there. In fact, I'm not sure who doesn't have mental illness at this point after COVID. So give us, say, your dot-coms, where can people find you on the interwebs? Yeah, so the easiest way to find me Tyler Calvars, LinkedIn. That's the easiest way to find me. Also, you could find me on my YouTube

channel, which is Happiness Compass. And those two are my primary areas. Eventually, I'll get a website and hopefully I can have that posted by you here. And you have the YouTube channel as well. Yes, sir. Well, the link for that. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So give us a 30,000 over you. What's inside this forthcoming book? Well, it's a memoir. So it's a whole telling of my story. But in a way that helps people to understand mental illness, whether if they're suffering themselves or possibly a family member that's struggling with it and trying to help someone that's that's suffering themselves. So I was born in Emeriloh, Texas. I lived on a ranch. We had cattle

and horses and kind of all the great stuff that you see on Yellowstone. And our, in our childhood, my childhood was idealistic. Broke horses. We rode them. It was just, it was an amazing time. And all of that suddenly changed with a single event. And we ended up moving into Florida. And so at the age of 12, I was in this new area, really had no comprehension of how to survive around the beach and beach-like people. It was just so different, man. Post the alligators, crocodiles, whatever. Yeah. So we had no idea how to survive there. So it also put me in a place where I felt very alone because my family was working very hard. We had all, we lost all of our money, all those things. Oh, really? And it put me in a place where I spent most of my time alone because the school

system had gently asked me not to come back. Oh, wow. Spent most of my time at home, homeschooling, if you want to call it that. Can I, can I step in here? Because I want to, I want to play this out a little bit more. So it sounds like your family kind of went through a cathartic moment financially where everything was lost and then you had to move to Florida. Correct. It was all part of that moving to Florida. Yeah. And you probably as a child were very most children, they sense the stress. My dog sent stress. And you probably saw the stress to your parents. You probably saw the issues. You were, you were feeling, I'm sure, part of the loss that they were, right? Yeah. And at that age, at 12 years old, you can't really comprehend how

much or how little power you have over things that are happening. And so for me, I took a lot of, a lot of that weight onto my own shoulders. And I had no way of actually doing anything about it. It just, it became very overwhelming for me. Yeah, you're a child. You're not, you're not supposed to be processing stuff like this. No. And so, it's supposed to. Yeah. And so that's when that mental illness that was already probably there kind of just took off. Because at that point, the negative thoughts really started to to bear down on me. That was about this time where everything came out. And so one of the things that I mentioned in my book,

I was trying to figure out how to express or explain the type of feeling that you get, that you get from being bipolar, for example, having a depressive episode, because at that time I really was going through that. And so I developed this character by writing my book that I call the warden. And the warden really watches over the prison of my mind and keeps me in prison, keeps me in those negative thoughts, keeps me from having normal, I guess normal thoughts, keeps me in that focus of I'm never good enough.

And that's a big part of my story is trying to help people understand mental illness in a way that makes sense. Yeah, because you don't have certain types of mental illness. It's hard to understand what someone else is going through and walk a mile on your shoes. You don't understand someone else. But, you know, it's really hard to understand if you don't have it. I mean, I understand, you know, ADHD and OCD because I've had it really bad throughout my life. But I've never, the only time I've ever experienced bipolar stuff is, we've used to a girlfriend or two. That'll do it.

I don't hang out with guys much. So that's kind of how it is kids. I'm sure there's guys that have bipolar like yourself. but I wasn't trying to date you. But you're going to have somebody out there going. And so, yeah, it's, it's, I've seen the effects of it and it's not fun being on the other side of it. If you have somebody who is going through the ups and downs, that's not fun at all. Probably why I'm still single.

Well, and also, don't you think one of the things that I really try to focus on is normalizing having a mental illness. I think the concept that I'm mentally ill for me personally, prevents me, if I don't accept it, it prevents me from getting the help I need. And so when we see people that are going through these issues with no medication, no psychotherapy, none of those things, it puts a bad taste in the mouth of the rest of us that have interacted with them. And my goal, I hope one day is that we can normalize this idea that it, it's okay to have to be bipolar it's okay it's no different than someone having diabetes or some

other disease really and if if and that's been so helpful to me and that's really probably the most important thing that i try to get across when i'm writing this book that's what i'm thinking about how how can my story help someone else accept who they are i don't know if that helps you kind of get that 30,000 foot view, but that's really... We all have our things that we have to deal with in life. We all have our waste that we have to carry. And sometimes we all, many people went through a lot of traumas, especially in childhood that shape us throughout their life.

In fact, most things in childhood, if you study CIA and FBI profiling, most things in life that we do come from our childhood. Were we given enough attention? No. Well, then we kind of over attentionize as adults. A lot of comedians have some really messed up past. And that's kind of what makes some comedians because they had to find humor to deal with the horror. And that's why a lot of commit suicide, too, or drug out.

They're dealing, they're using comedy to heal or try and heal the woman. I wouldn't say heal. They're using comedy to drown out the noise. And people do that with alcohol pills. addiction, recovery. I remember watching years ago, there was this, I forget his name, but he was a doctor who's on MTV

with Adam Carole for a lot of years. Oh, yeah. And he had a rehab clinic and I think Locker Center where I grew up. And he, and they brought a little movie stars and all that crap in, rock stars and stuff. Dr. Drew.

Thank you. And it was interesting to me watching the show, because I remember I like to study people's stuff. It was interesting. to me how many of them had sexual trauma as childrenhood or massive trauma from childhood. And it was interesting to see that they were using the drugs to make that noise go away, make that haunt go away. And that's a lot of people do that. And that's why we need to not

throw people away because they get into drugs and addiction or whatever they're addicted to. I've lived in Vegas for much of my life. And addiction problems we see they're out of control. It's the worst place to move if you have addiction personality. So now let's clarify a few things in this book as a foundation. This book is not on Amazon yet, and it's coming out soon. Do you have an anticipated release date? Well, that's part of what my purpose for this show and many shows that I'm talking to is to just get the word out about this book and about concepts in the book.

I don't know if you are familiar with the agent process, but in order to be published, you have to get an agent. And that, by far, I wrote the book from start to finish. I've edited it three or four times. That has got to be the most difficult thing of being an author is working to try to get an agent. So that's part of the story here. My focus right now is getting an agent so that we can get it published. And I'm certain I'll find one. It's just a matter of time.

Yeah. You got to put the numbers out there and share the story. If you had a talent underneath the rock, no one will find it, right? That's right. So you got to get out there, get all the shining going on and all that good stuff. So with the book, I love this title. Let's get into this title. I recommend everyone die at least once in life.

Did you happen to have something happen? Or is this? Tell us about this. So it's interesting because the concept of that title, I recommend everyone die at least once in their life. Really, in reality, it means dying to your present life. But to me, personally, I actually did die. October 19th, 2022, I took my own life and was resuscitated by a stroke of pure luck without even really getting into it. It's more specified in the book.

But basically, I had my phone was off for weeks and my family was trying to track me down. And so the police got involved. And as soon as I turned my phone on to say goodbye, it got pinged. the police came out and saved my life. Oh, wow. In that moment of being resuscitated, I was in this field. My back was against the grass and they're performing CPR. I'm staring up at the sky.

And as I'm coming back, I realized for the first time in my life that I had been searching for answers outside myself. I had looked in religion and making money. I was a very successful business person. Every use of drugs, not use of drugs. Religion, no religion. Girlfriend, no girlfriend, a wife, house, all of those things. And I had never found the happiness that I saw it.

And laying on the ground that moment, I'm thinking, I never looked in the one place that is always with me. It's inside, right? So that changed my perspective on life forever. ever. There's no way I could ever go back because I've seen everything. And I realized that, man, the one place I didn't look is where it was. And that was true. And that's what I've found. And so that's why I wrote the book and titled it that way, I recommend everyone die at least once in their life, is because that can happen to anyone without them actually physically dying.

They just have to recognize that all of these things, by the time we get to, to the end of our life, all of these accomplishments are going to be worthless. Yeah. You know what I mean? The only thing that we have that we can take with us is right here inside. There you have it. That's the... Yeah.

I love that. I love that. And that's really true. It's really something to think about because we focus on so much bullshit in the world. We do. Marketing and TV tells us, I sound like a broken letter line from Fight Club. TV tells us we need to be chasing cars and do that. I love the comment that you can find club.

Why do guys need to know what a DeVe is? Like, why do we know what that is? That's why. So I... Sorry, I just wanted to say, along with that is that it... I'm not saying in any way that we shouldn't participate in life. Sure.

There's a lot of people that will come out and say, oh, well, you drop everything and just go to a cave and, like, never come out, man. I'm there now. You're yourself, right? But what I found is that once I was able to disconnect from those things, then I got to choose to actually participate in them in a healthy way. Where I wasn't so attached to them that my whole life was teeter tottering on whether or not I was making enough money or whether or not I look good enough or whether or not people accepted me. None of that stuff matters until I let it matter, you know, until I allow it to be part of my life.

It's, it's been an interesting ride. Yeah. I'm going to share a story that I don't think I were shared. I'm probably shared on my Facebook, I'm sure. I'm going to share a story to affirm what you're talking about. So I had childhood trauma. I had really bad ADHD as a child. I would go to the door and check the door 20 times a night.

It was insane. And I was aware of it too, but I would go back to bed and my mind would start mucking with me. Oh, what if was that last night or was that tonight? You locked the door. And I would, you'd be like, okay, I know I locked the door. Well, was that? That could have been last week. And it'd fuck with you.

And you're like, okay, well, I'll go check the door one more time for the 10th time tonight and make sure it's locked. And there were other idioticocracies that I had. My brother had it too really bad. He would wash his hands till they bled. And so we had some issues as children in a tough environment. And a lot of it happened around when I was like 10 or 12. And as I grew up, I found myself being a savior type person. Well, I was always trying to fix everything.

I was always trying to save everybody. I was constantly on the bandwagon, the soapbox for issues. and there's nothing wrong with that. There's a degree of that. It needs to be. We all are responsible for our society and our democracy in America. But I would just probably spend way too much time on it. In fact, at one time when my dog was in hospice care with me for cancer for a year and a half,

I was just really screaming at people on the internet trying to change things and fix things and save the world and people and blah, blah, blah. And then I had this epiphany when I finally realized that I had it dealt with my childhood trauma. And I became aware that all that work that I was doing to save everyone else, all the societal policies that I was trying to influence and trying to get people to be better people, I wasn't trying to save them. I was trying to save me. And I was missing the point because I wasn't supposed to save the world. I was supposed to say that 10-year-old. And that really hit me like a ton of bricks because I didn't figure out until it was in my 50s.

And a lot of wreckage between here and there. And so that was really powerful that I realized that all my behavior, all my screaming on the internet, everything that I was doing. And the sad part was I brought up my dog being in hospice care. I was ignoring my dog who was dying and giving me the last year of life much of the time during that period. And so once I had this epiphany, I found a picture of me, I think somewhere about the same time, and me as a child, 10 or 12 or something. And I realized that I'd been trying to save the wrong people this whole time. I need to save that boy. And so I keep a picture of that boy in front of me on my desk.

And I'm reminded every day that there's one person I need to save first before everyone else. But your oxygen mask on first before you can save others. And that's me. So I hope that kind of help Concrete's and seconds The Motion on your story Of maybe why it's more important And maybe there's someone out there

Is going through what you and I went through I went through the periods where You consider ending yourself I'm going to try not trigger you to Ending your life Because that brain just whips The shit out of you It whips you

It just whips you It just whips shaw In your brain And it wakes up and it just beats the shit out of you 24-7. And you finally do reach a point where you go, the only way to stop this is to kill this thing. And it's either that or else you're just going mad.

And you think that's the only way to stop it. And so after you came out of your situation that where you saved you from death, how did you find your way or how long or what other sort of journey did you go on before you found your footing on maybe it's me i don't know so first of all thank you for sharing that story that thank you that right there chris is why i'm doing this because i'm going to think about that all week that's that's so power when you're vulnerable like that it's so powerful it changes people's

lives dude so you and me when we share our stories yep and and the fact that you own being you know ADHD all that it matters dude But getting back to my story, so what ended up happening is they took me from that field to a mental hospital. I was there for quite some time. And that's where I found, there was not a moment in time between me coming back and to today where I ever wavered on getting better. And so I got really lucky along the way. And that's probably because I was very vulnerable like you were just now. And I also owned it and I wanted to get better.

So I met with a team of doctors. And the doctor was amazing. He goes, I want you to think about what your issue is as having diabetes of the brain. That's an interesting way of it. For me, I started laughing because I'm like, dude, I hadn't heard a joke in a while. But it was true is if you take your medication on a daily basis, it's going to keep that diabetes of the brain. Right. Think about someone that's diabetic.

You can never cure it. You can never cure being diabetic. And that's the same with me. And so what he was setting me up for was this concept of, hey, medication and therapy are great. But dude, they're not going to fix you. And that's going to require action on your part. And it actually empowered me because now. I'm like oh okay I can actually do something about my life and so I I break it down in

something that people can can remember which is medication meditation and observation so medication gives me this which is just a small space between thoughts like what you were talking about when when those thoughts flip on you and you can't escape medication gives me just a small space to escape. Meditation, on the other hand, if I'm doing it consistently, gives me even more space in between those thoughts. Then observation gives me even more space. And so observation looks like this. I still hear the warden. The warden still lives in my mind, to this day. I just recognize his thoughts as what they are. Dude, they're crazy. I'm crazy.

I'm crazy. That's a crazy thought. it's okay for that thought to exist because guess what? As long as you're in control. And just understanding, that's why I believe there's so much power in accepting, accepting my diagnosis of being mentally ill, being crazy, because then that gives me the right to have crazy thoughts and not do shit about them. I think we all do. I think we all have crazy thoughts.

Of course. But we have that awareness or hopefully that self-actualization that we, and that's probably the distinction people have to realize if they're in addiction or recovery. Well, number one, first acknowledging, like they say in A, hey, I may be the problem, and I have a problem. And it's okay to say that, like you talked about earlier. It's okay to speak out because this is how we help each other. We help lift each other. I tell you my stories. You tell me yours. You learn, you grow. I learn, I grow. Hopefully people use it that way. Some people listen to shit. It's just a waste of air. But most of us are going to grow from it. They're going to, oh, hey, I know the guy.

that had a thing like that, and this is how I got through it. But, yeah, sharing these stories really helps. And it's a reminder, too, because sometimes I forget about stuff. And then I have someone like you come on the show. I'm like, oh, yeah. I think it back to that. Let me ask you this. You talked about meditation really helping.

A lot of people, meditation has really helped. I'm a big fan of Sam. What's his face? He's a big. Yeah. I think you know him talking about. Sam Harris? Sam Harris, yeah.

Yeah. I just not getting references this morning. I got you, though. Yeah, I got you. We're a good team. So, you know, he's really big into meditation. And one of the things that saved me was about the time that I was hitting the wall and thinking about bringing it all to an end, just to stop, just to shut up that mind that some people call it the monkey brain we've had on the show. I like your thing, the warden, because it kind of keeps you in prison. But someone came on the show and I talked to them privately after about my struggle, and they said, have you read Eckhart Toll? and I hadn't. I wasn't aware of anything about Eckhart Toll. And so I started getting into it and being present. And that's kind of what meditation does to you as well.

You kind of become present, right? Yeah. You try and shut down all the noise, all that monkey brain crab. And you try and be here in this moment. Yeah. And I think a couple things. I wanted to mention something that you said, and I don't know where it was in some of your comments.

But the beautiful thing about what you, you and I are talking about, Chris, is that this is not, even though this might be high brain stuff, this is, these are things that every human on this planet can recognize and identify with. It doesn't take a lot of knowledge to realize some of the stuff that we're talking about. For example, being present. So meditation is a great way to get present. And I like to think about meditation in all kinds of varieties. So I personally will do the traditional legs crossed, eyes closed, that type of meditation for sometimes an hour at a time.

But I also work out a lot. And to me, that is a moving meditation to me. I'm in the zone. I don't talk to anybody. I've got my headphones on. Listen into some music that's got me in the zone. And it just helps me focus on the present. But any time we're doing that, whether that's in nature or even,

a conversation like this with you and I, like I'm having a tough time thinking about anything else other than what's going on and that's a great thing. That's a beautiful thing, right? So that's meditation. Meditation is just simply exactly what you said. Being here, because that's all we have. When religious concepts talk about eternity, that's eternal. The present is eternal. It's always here. We can't change that. We just have to be part of it. And I think mental illness, somehow changes that script and tells us that we can either control the future, change the past, make ourselves better, or do something different. Instead of just going with the flow, we don't go with the flow when we're mentally ill.

Lots of good comments here. I think this is a friend of yours from your YouTube channel. Hey friend, I'm so proud of you. Good job, Jack. Thank you for your comment. Yeah, and so you help people navigate this and it is, I still have really bad ADHD, especially since increase my testosterone. And man, that thing just runs. It runs totally. It was gone. When I had low testosterone, it was gone.

And it came raging back as soon as we got testosterone again. But that's good. It's a CEO disease. A lot of people use, you can, if you can tame the dragon a little bit, or most somewhat of it, I'm not sure I'm fully in control all times. But if you can tame the dragon a little bit to where you can ride the horse and go, stop, go. Okay.

I see what we're up to here. Let's knock this off. I think that self-awareness is really hard. Do you feel you had a addictive personality? Did you get into some different things that were impacting you? Can you give us a, if somebody's out there in the same situation, can you give us a look at what that look like? Yeah, so addiction, addiction and bipolar, or really any mental illness, but all I can speak of is bipolar. But addiction and bipolar are pretty much hand and a glove. They go together. It is very common for someone with bipolar. to have addiction and vice versa. Really? Yes, very common, extremely common. And the reason for me, I can't speak to anyone else, but I'm pretty sure this is probably consistent, is I needed the warden to shut the fuck up. I needed him to stop.

I could not. And so at the age of 14, I started using, and it was like I had found heaven. I'd found the thing I was looking for. Because it stopped those negative thoughts. It stopped me from wanting to harm myself. It stopped me from thinking about how terrible a person I was. But unfortunately, as we all know with drugs, is that they only last a short period of time.

Eventually, they turned on me and made it even worse. Oh, yeah. Just compounds of the problem. Yeah, it went hand in hand. And I would inevitably, I would get my life together because the other side of bipolar is your super achievement-based and you can do anything on the planet. I'd get my life together, and then I'd crash and burn. And when I crashed and burned, I needed more drugs to cover that up. Yeah.

The addiction can be such a horrible thing. I've lost people to addiction, and I've seen enough of it in Las Vegas. They really lie about how well, only about 15% or no, it's more like 35% in Vegas. Yeah, it's a real problem. You have to really be careful who you choose as friends. They'll rob you. People with addiction of any kind, especially where they'll steal money to gamble. Like gambling addiction, they say is the worst because you don't die.

You live forever if you have gambling addiction, right? So you just have to clean everybody else out for money, including yourself. And I've seen people that are so crippled with addiction and gambling addiction, that they literally have to have their paychecks sent to their family. and their family has to give them money to survive and control their stuff. Because in Vegas, they'll work for two weeks at minimum wage. And Vegas has this whole thing where they go, oh, you want your check cash. And in Vegas, they make you wait 24 to 48 hours for checks to give you credit because there's so many bad checks and scams that go on with the addicted gamblers.

And they'll steal checks and try and cash them and stuff. So they make you wait for your money. Up here, if I put money in the bank, I think it's all right away available to me. Yeah, in Vegas, they give you $100 and you got to wait for the other. So, yeah, because it's just that rampant down there. And so you have to be careful. But, yeah, I would see people that they weren't able to function as adults. Do you have to give some of them, oh, Vegas has a scam.

It's not really a scam, but it is a scam. And what they do is they say, hey, your bank will only give you $100 and then you got to wait 24 to $4.4. hours for your check, which is a problem if you're getting your check on Friday, right? And so the casinos go, hey, you know what? You know how those banks hold your money? We'll cash your check in full and we'll give you $15 worth of chips if you come cash your check with us on Friday. So Friday, everyone's down there. And I know people that would walk into the casino with an addiction problem to gambling. And they would have spent two weeks. weeks, all of their money that they got on their check, that was two weeks of 80 hours of work,

right? They would spend that in two to four hours. I don't mean, I know. And then you'd be like, how are you going to live the next two weeks? I have a, there's a, there's a casino about 30, 40 minutes north of me. And I used to love that place. I went back in the day. I haven't stepped foot in that for almost four years because of that because it's just I don't know I don't know what's going to take me out and so I kind of just I've kept my life a lot more smaller and more impactful but yeah it's it it was it was tough for me too gambling was a serious addiction for me if you if you some people have an addiction

personality some people don't people who don't have an awareness but yeah people who have an addiction personality anything is anything you know is is bad for them I don't know if I don't know I've never really studied this. I don't know much, so I'm just tossing this out there. But does it help if you come up with habits that you can be addicted to, they're healthy for you? Like, I've kind of learned to program myself to drink protein drinks with fruit in them that I blend up every day, it's frozen fruit. And I've taught myself as a ritual. I don't have an addiction problem, but I've kind of taught it that that's my little pattern. And so I learned to gamify it, kind of like I learned to gamify ADHD a little bit. I keep this,

pedometer club potomodoro clock on my desk yeah i think it depends on who you ask but i am a huge proponent of finding an addiction that is safe that you can get into yeah mine is working out i love working out yeah i love too it's it's real meditative if you focus on the discipline yeah and you just go there and do your thing and and i like to research stuff like i love learning about things and so with working out it's given me the ability to like research how to work out better, eat better, any of those kind of things. So I'm a big proponent of that, especially in the beginning when you're first trying to get clean from using or from gambling addiction. I think that as time goes on and you learn more about yourself, depending on what program you're using. But if you're using a program, learning more about your underlying issues, there does come a time when there is some freedom.

And it gives you some freedom from that addictive personality. It doesn't ever go away, but there does come freedom for sure. A lot of people call that back mind, the ego mind. Some people, like I said, we had somebody that came on the show. They named it the monkey brain. You call it the warden. What I've learned is becoming aware of him and his existence and what he's up to. And understanding why it's built that way, the reticulating activating systems is designed

to remind us of stuff so we don't forget. But it also reminds us of some things that we regret or feel guilty about or wish we hadn't done in the past or our failures and stuff. And it likes to remind us of those things so that we don't repeat those patterns. The only problem is it's sometimes it's just got nothing better to do but to drive you crazy with reminding your shit that you're just like, yeah, that's the 50th time you brought that up tonight. We don't need to do that.

And so one of the things I learned, I know, I think somebody tip me off to always. made to deal with it is I talk back to that person. No, I'm not talking like I'm mad shit. The world sky's going to, or I'm talking myself and five other personalities. But I don't know what it is. It usually happens now mostly at night. And so when I'm laying in bed, the monkey brain will start running. I remember that time that you, I don't know, you, you, you were mean to somebody.

Oh, do you remember that time? And sometimes it just comes up with really stupid shit because that's what you're, that's what that monkey brain does when you're sleep. It gives you dreams. because it's busy and it's trying to entertain itself. And I learned to just talk back to it. I don't know what it is, but it'll give me these pseudo, I'm not fully asleep yet, but I'm kind of halfway,

and it'll give me some film of falling or dropping. I get that a lot. And I'll just come around and be like, hey, stupid, why do you keep reminding me of this? And then I think the other thing is to forgive yourself. It's somebody on the show that talked about this. It's very important to say out loud so that your monkey brain hears it. Okay, that was a mistake, but I forgive myself.

And I'm going to work to never do it again, but I forgive myself. So then when the monkey brain brings up repetitive shit to me, I go, hey, we've forgiven ourselves for that. You don't need to bring that up to me anymore. Or if it comes up with something really dark like a dream or those pseudo dreams between sleep, I just, I'll just be like, dude, what the fuck is your problem? man why don't you give me some positive dreams or something important and then that kind of shocks it and shuts it up i think that's where i got it someone someone told me that if before you go to bed you if you say

you want a dream in color black and white your brain will do it or if you go to bed and you go i want some positive dreams i don't want the nightmares tonight yeah that up on yeah and a lot of times it will listen because that's but that that brain is designed to listen to you so if you say i'm a loser my life's worthless. It goes, cool, I'm going to show you out of the ways. You're a loser. You're a wife's worthless. And maybe you should just go jump in a creek.

And so that really helps me. A lot of times I'll shock it in the middle of night when I go, yeah, don't do that again. That whole, whatever that falling thing was, knock it off. Give me something positive. I want to dream about daisies or beaches or Bo Derek running down the beach. I want to dream of just something positive for love of God. Just everything you do is darkness, monkey brain. And in your case, the warden.

And so that really helps me shut that little monkey up. Yeah. I believe a lot in positive self-talk. I think that a lot of the ways that we're raised, especially in this country, is to shame and guilt ourselves into doing things. You're not good enough. So you need to do this. And for me, that didn't serve me.

It made me worse, dude. it's it that's dangerous for me those type of conversations in my own mind are extremely dangerous and what i found to be more effective for me is to be more positive like what you're saying is to talk to myself positively sometimes i will talk to the warden and tell them to shut the fuck up because that's what needs to be done but most of the time i try to realize dude i i believe and i have been the recipient of putting positive out into the world brings positive to me even this podcast that we have right now this this conversation I feel has been a very positive conversation you and me and I really don't try to of course I want this book to be sold of course I want someone to pick it up but at the

end of the day I know that if we talk about stuff that actually matters that's going to be more important than anything else and that's the way I live my life is even in my business I have a business that I run and I treat my employees dude as as as good as I can I treat my customers as good as I can I treat every person that I interact with as best I can because, well, it's not even for a reason now, but in the beginning it was because I had treated people so poorly my whole life that what if I just did it a little bit differently, dude? What if I just tried to be more positive? And that has changed my life. I have a beautiful wife because of it, a beautiful son because of it.

I've got friends that love me because of positivity, man. And because I love other people and I'm compassionate to them. And that's all that matters in life, dude. Well, it was designed to be a warning brain. It was designed to warn you. Hey, don't step on the, don't step over the cliff and you might kill yourself or. But now I've got to do. So it's just like, yeah, it's just, it's got a pile of all your mistakes over 50 years.

Yeah, like I say, and meditation or working on being present, I think, yeah, Cartol also promotes meditation. helping to stop being whip shot by that mind, and then you're in control now. Because a lot of people don't realize they're on an Amac pilot, and that thing's running everything back there. And once you can take... Can I say something about Sam Harris when you get a chance? Yes, please do. I didn't mean to catch off, dude. No, you're fine.

Go ahead. It's something I was thinking about when you mentioned Sam Harris was his focus is simply on gaining a presence of mind. It has nothing to do with a religious perspective. solely solely on getting present right now. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, you're fine. And I totally agree with you. And this is why this stuff is so important.

It was really helpful and saved me. It saved me. I probably wouldn't be here today if my friend hadn't had a conversation with me about a cart hole. And it was just like the perfect drop in your lap. But this is also why it's important to talk to other people, folks. If you have problems, talk to somebody. Talk to somebody.

But don't talk to just any moron, because there's a lot of. morons last time I checked. Talk to somebody who has a professional license and knows how to work with people like yourself and this thing. I see too many people buying crystals and all sorts of stupid-ass bullshit when they just need to. And you've got to take self-accountability too. Some people just don't want to do that. So, and so as we start to round out the show, give people your final pitch out. We'll have links for your upcoming book on the show and your website that you might build. And then your YouTube, of course, links. Give people a final pitch out to all of that, if you would.

My final pitch is this, is that every human that is on this planet is going through something that we know nothing about. And all they need is a little love and compassion. So that's really all I got. I would love to have people contact me for speaking engagements, which I do for charity. And also, I've got my upcoming book, if there's an agent that just happens to be lying around in the weeds somewhere. But that's all I got.

I really just, that's really my most important thing. People are suffering, stuff that we don't, can't even comprehend. And just to be more compassionate. That's it. Be more compassionate. Be more loving. Oh, we all need to do that. We are, I think the thing we need to bring back is we are all stewards of each other on this tiny little planet, this tiny little lifeboat that is running through the universe that kind of has a pension to kill everything and everyone.

And it's not, it's, it's dark a little bit, right? and so this is why it's important to learn these things and grow. And if you're one of those people out there who's trying to save the world and everything and trying to make everything shape the way you think it should be, realize you may have some issues that you need to deal with and maybe the person you really need to save is yourself. Now, I don't know if that's true. Maybe you've already saved yourself and now it's time to go out and save the world.

But I'm constantly reminded that there's one person I need to save. And I, I, that sounds a little selfish. I used to hate it when people talk this way because I'm like, you sound really selfish. Save yourself first. But it's really true. That's why they tell you on the plane. The oxygen mat, put your oxygen mask on first. You can't save other people if you're both dying of nowhere.

Right. So, and then what's the YouTube channel link again? Happiness Compass. And it's at Happy Compass 2019, if you're looking for it on YouTube. Well, thank you very much for coming the show. and thank you for being honest and sharing your story. That's such a beautiful way to share with people that might be going through the same journey and they're trying to find the way out.

And you certainly have helped them today. I appreciate our conversation, man. This is great. You and me, Tyler. It's wonderful to have you. So pick up Tyler's book, search for it. I recommend everyone die at least once in their life. And I'm coming out with a similar book titled,

I recommend my enemies die as often as they can in my life. No, I'm just teasing. I'm just teasing. Maybe not. I don't know. But that or at least they just stay buried in the backyard. Let's put it that way. Callback joke.

Anybody check this dude's backyard. That's like a callback joke. We bang on the show all the time. So Tyler, thank you for coming the show, sir. All right, man. Thanks. Thank you.

And thanks for us for tuning in. Order up his book. Watch for his links on the Chris Voss show and all that sort of stuff. Thanks for us for us fordusts for Chis forchus for us for us for us for us for Chris Faw has one, TikTok, and all those crazy places in it. Be good at each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.

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