The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Shaolin Warrior Monk: The Hidden Epidemic Nobody Is Talking About! This Modern Habit Is Quietly Killing Millions! Prediction For The Collapse Of The West!

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

From pain to purpose, Master Shi Heng Yi reveals the ancient mind tricks Shaolin monks use to master themselves and break free. Master Shi Heng Yi is Headmaster of the Shaolin Temple Europe and a spiritual teacher, who shares ancient Eastern philosophy to help people master their mind, body, and purpose in life. He is also the author of the book, ‘Shaolin Spirit: The Way to Self-Mastery’. In this conversation, Master Shi Heng Yi and Steven discuss topics such as, the hidden epidemic nobody is talking about, the modern habit that’s quietly killing millions, why the West is falling, and the real reason you’re always anxious.  00:00 Intro 02:13 What's Your Mission & What Do People Come to You For 05:53 Why Are We Suffering? 07:34 How Do We Find Our Purpose? 13:18 Why People Struggle to Find Their Purpose 15:40 What Do We Need to Be Connected To? 21:26 Identities and the Feeling of Lack 26:56 Letting Go of Your Ideas 29:08 How to Break Old Patterns 34:57 Training New Patterns 35:43 Advice for Young Men 38:43 Why Are Young Men Struggling? 39:45 The 5 Things Holding All Humans Back 42:16 Living in a World Full of Temptations 43:23 Discipline 45:25 Be Aware of Your Trigger Moments 49:01 Bringing Light to the Dark Areas of Your Life 01:07:47 Negative Feelings That Stop You From Growing 01:10:49 How Not to Be Affected by What Others Think of You 01:26:06 Ads 01:26:58 Kung Fu and Waking Up 01:32:20 The Shaolin Virtues 01:33:13 Do You Believe in God? 01:36:02 Are You Happy? 01:37:28 What Are Karmic Connections? 01:38:49 What Is Your Daily Practice? 01:43:38 The Importance of Doing Hard Things 01:48:29 How Master Shi Embraces Growth Daily 01:53:05 First Step to Be Comfortable With Uncertainty 01:57:42 Ads 01:59:54 What Is the RAIN Method? 02:03:46 Your Last Message to Your Son 02:05:01 I Couldn't Grieve My Father's Death 02:11:22 What to Do When Things Are Left Unsaid With Someone Who's Gone 02:14:58 What Does It Mean to Master Oneself? 02:25:10 What Is Your Greatest Regret? Follow Master Shi Heng Yi:  Website - https://g2ul0.app.link/okadS79yNSb  YouTube - https://g2ul0.app.link/ja5XXWfzNSb  Shaolin Temple Europe - https://g2ul0.app.link/Usjn5W6yNSb  Shaolin Online - https://g2ul0.app.link/tFVJ6fczNSb  You can pre-order Master Shi Heng Yi’s book, ‘Shaolin Spirit: The Way to Self-Mastery’, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/gKQzAX2yNSb  Watch the episodes on Youtube - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACEpisodes  🚀 The 1% Diary is back - and it won’t be around for long, so act fast! https://bit.ly/1-Diary-Megaphone-ad-reads You can purchase the The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards: Second Edition, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb  Sign up to receive email updates about Diary Of A CEO here: https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt  Ready to think like a CEO? Gain access to the 100 CEOs newsletter here: https://bit.ly/100-ceos-newsletter  Follow me: https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Linkedin Jobs - https://www.linkedin.com/doac Perfect Ted - https://www.perfectted.com with code DIARY40 for 40% off Vivobarefoot - https://vivobarefoot.com/DOAC with code DIARY20 for 20% off Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You said to me the key to breaking this brick isn't strength necessarily. It's the ability to really really focus. So can you show me you smashing this brick? Yes. Master Shao Hongyi is the world's most hardcore monk. He uses his decades of knowledge and techniques to help people control their minds and overcome society's biggest problems. This world is filled with so much choice that it's difficult to take a decision which direction to go, what is right to do.

And so there is a lot of suffering with the skills that you are developing through kung fu training. It involves methods and practices that give you the ability to do this. But there are five hindrances that make it difficult for you to still keep your goal in the mind. There is sensory desires, ill will, dullness, restlessness, and then self-doubt. And to overcome the five hindrances, you recommend the four-step RAIN method. Yes, and with this, I'll make it super simple. So many of us live in the same cycles of unhappiness and suffering. I witnessed it in my life as well because I felt I was never enough.

My father and mother put a lot of pressure in terms of you need to prove yourself. And so I did all these type of practices and methods that made it possible to be where I am right now. I wanted recognition by my father but it didn't happen. Because your father passed away from cancer. Yeah. How does one let go of that and therefore break the pattern? I will show you some practices. Number one.

I find it incredibly fascinating that when we look at the back end of Spotify and Apple and our audio channels, the majority of people that watch this podcast haven't yet hit the follow button or the subscribe button. Wherever you're listening to this, I would like to make a deal with you. If you could do me a huge favour and hit that subscribe button, I will work tirelessly from now until forever to make this show better and better and better and better. I can't tell you how much it helps when you hit that subscribe button. The show gets bigger which means we can expand the production, bring in all the guests you want to see and continue to do in this thing we love. If you could do me that small favour and hit the follow button

wherever you're listening to this, that would mean the world to me. That is the only favor I will ever ask you. Thank you so much for your time. Master Shihang Yi. Based on everything that's happening in the world right now and the work that you've committed your life to, what is the mission that you are on and why is it so important right now? I do think that in this world, there have always been different streams, different forces. One of them leading to the betterment of humanity, one of them leading to the destruction of humanity. And I do think that there are types of wisdom and knowledge existing out there that very

easily without any additional help for anything else can be very useful for the people nowadays. You don't need to go anywhere. The only thing you need to do is take a moment, contemplate about yourself, go into yourself and find the answers there and then decide for yourself which part and what type of contribution would you like to give to the world that you're living in. I ultimately think this is what I'm doing. And what is it that you see people struggling with? Because so many people write to you, they send messages to you, they come and see you. What is it that you hear they're struggling

with at a fundamental level? I would say it's diversity and choice. This world is filled with so much choice, meanwhile, that it's difficult in a way to take a decision which direction to go, what is right to do, what is not right to do. But ultimately it's only yourself who knows the answer, which means it comes to the essential point, learn more about yourself. This is where it starts. Because if you have the wrong perspective of who you

are, what you are, everything else in this lifetime you base your decisions on is just not going to be placed in the right direction. And what are the other things that you hear people suffering with on a daily basis in the modern world with the way that the world is now it's digitalized, we're lonelier than ever, mental health seems to be surging. What are the like fundamental things they say to you or that you infer through what they're saying that they are actually struggling with? So choice, overload of choice and an inability to make a clear decision is number one. So being perfectly honest, I usually do not very much rely on what the people tell me,

what they think, what problem they have. It's just that I look and I can see already what I think you need. And foremost, one of these, and it's very simple. Non-religious, nothing about believing. It simply is the fact you don't use your body as it is intended to be. Very simple. Yeah, you sit, many people sit too much during the day. The body is not active at all. A lot of work, a lot of energy investment is done with the mind. Less energy investment is done really with the body. And that simply means for me, I can see there's a disbalance. Whoever created us, he did not create us to sit with our butt on one place and do thinking work the whole time. I do think a part of why we have been created is to get out on the field and just do

something out there. And what is the cost of not utilizing our body in the way that it was meant to be utilized? Unbalanced energies that can translate into anxiety, that can translate into dissatisfaction, that can translate into continuously searching and never being satisfied, and the most common thing, not realizing how precious the moments are that you have. And instead of replacing them with illusions and dreams and assumptions, which are just not real, meaning everybody is not even Buddhist, it's not Shaolin, it is common understanding. We don't know if we wake up tomorrow. It is common understanding. We don't know if we wake up tomorrow. It is like this.

Yeah, but our plans go, we have five years plans, 10 years plans. We have short term, midterm plans. The truth is, we don't know if we wake up tomorrow. So of course, I don't want to make it like sound negative. So just live in the present moment without planning. This is not what I'm saying. But this is the challenge nowadays. How do you balance out vision, vision with reality? Real, the only thing real right now is this. That's real for us. I can feel it. You can hear it. You can sense it. This

is real. You nearly broke my table. I was concerned because later on you will be proving to me that you can break this brick using your mind and the physical preparation that you've done, which I find really, really interesting, because I tried to smash this brick on the floor and I couldn't. So all of the things you talk about, understanding one's physical mind and mastering it, but also understanding one's physical body, will find out if you can smash through this brick.

But on this point, I wanted to talk about an adjacent subject, which is really like purpose, what to do with one's life. And if we're spending a little bit too much time thinking off into the future, and not enough time thinking in the present moment, I'm wondering how purpose and having a big dream for one's life fits into this equation, and if we should have a purpose, and if so, how do we find our purpose? have a purpose and if so how do we find our purpose? So absolutely there is the field of becoming conscious. Consciousness is a big field. Then we have science is another very, very big field.

So some say okay, is it that consciousness creates matter or is it the other way around? Which one is the fundamental basis? What is the basis of our interaction? So the truth is, the fact right now is, regardless of science, no science, how our evolution develops, right now we are here. Your body, my body, we are here. Your body, my body, we are here. This is what we are having right now at the same time in the way of how this lifestyle at the moment is.

We won't have more than 50 more years to go in that body. So very simple. Without believing, without any religious aspect once again, the truth is the lifetime of what you carry right now and what I carry right now, it's limited. And now just imagine you would be, let's say, the director of your own movie. Jump out of the body and watch yourself. Right now you are sitting like with Xie Hengung Yee, we sit on the same table, and you are writing your story.

How do you want to write the story? You want to afterwards, after this podcast, you want to like feel uncomfortable, feel unsafe, feel unloved, feel like being just unsatisfied with the whole life, cry or anything like this? Or how do you imagine what is a really nice way of living for you the next 50 years? And based on that, purpose can be different. You say, I do like the travel. I do like to invest this lifetime in this body to have the feeling at least that I can contribute something to all the fellow brothers and sisters that are around there. It makes me like I wake up, I like to do it, it gives me purpose.

So it is something very, very personal. And which also means that in a way speaking in these terms right now, I do not believe that every human being has the same purpose when it comes to another type of purpose, which is more or less personally for me, why do I think that in the first place we have been put with all these possibilities? And positively said, I do think it is a blessing being able to just experience. It's a blessing that we have been granted the possibility of simply experiencing what this existence is capable of creating, including everything, including the joy, including the happiness, including the tears, including the heartbreaks, all of this, without the

separation whether you prefer one area or not. The one, sometimes the one goes with the other. But the purpose in a way is just be and experience. The only thing that happens, and which is a big part nowadays, is if you take your current existence too serious. If you completely base your identity, your being on what you think you are. But like I said, it's just a picture right now, yes? But just sometimes make it very simple, jump out of yourself and be the director. Be the director of this avatar. And then it just opens another perspective.

Because in that moment, you just realize it's like a movie. Not everything is always positive, but in the moment where there are times of struggle, still. Not being caught inside your own creation. Identity. Identity, illusion of the self, different expressions for that. It's a very helpful way of thinking. Let's put it like this.

Cause there's so many people that say they are struggling to find meaning in their life or they feel purposelessness. And, you know, I get so many messages from people all over the world saying say they are struggling to find meaning in their life or they feel purposelessness. And I get so many messages from people all over the world saying that they, saying things like, is this it? Is this all my life is? So this is literally also one point that you just mentioned, is that it isn't there more. That has always been a path that followed me along the way. Especially now in the last three, four years after social media, the algorithm of social media really started also pushing us quite out there, more requests were coming of doing workshops, of doing podcasts, of teaching here, of teaching there, of making television show, of participating in movies.

And of course, all together with this, doors start to open, different things start to come in. But at some point, I just couldn't believe that this is supposed to be the purpose. Because it all still had to do with doing, the constant doing. And there I felt in my life now, looking at this, this couldn't be it. So I looked for alternatives, always and always again, especially feeling that along the way of what you would say achieving something, being recognized at something, yeah, but there's another side that goes hand in hand with it that the public doesn't see. There were times I could simply be surrounded with like thousands, thousands of people,

but still feel lonely. It's not what you're surrounded with. It's with what you are connected. And there I felt like there is always again this type of force. What is it that drives you on? Going outwards, going outwards, going outwards, you lose yourself. But this self is the only thing that can give you connection in this life. And what do you need to be connected to then? You talked about being surrounded by thousands and being lonely, and it's really about what you're connected to. What does one need to

be connected to? Maybe before I answer you this question, there's one thing I maybe want to mention beforehand. So when I went to elementary school and also during my school time I actually, for example, joined Christian Christian lesson. So by my parents I grew up with Buddhist tradition, let's say. From the martial art training I also got introduced into so-called Zen Buddhism. Because my father always told me, look son, we are here in a foreign country, you're a foreigner. It's always better to have friends than to have enemies. That's

why I made always friends with everyone, meaning I had a lot of Russian friends, I had a lot of Arabic friends, I had a lot of Turkish friends, multicultural. Also meaning at some point I also got introduced into Islam. Bottom line is taking all of this knowledge from the past into my mind, no matter from which angle I'm watching right now, I do believe that we all have a source. There is a source. So whether you call that source, it's the universe. Whether you call the source, it is the God. Whether this source is the infinite energy, I don't know.

There are so many different expressions to it. But when I look at all these teachings, all are always pointing at one and the same thing. Let's just take the expression of yin and yang, yes? The symbol everybody knows in the world. And there is that nice saying, yin and yang have a mother. The mother sometimes simply being illustrated as one circle. So yin and yang as the expression from duality, polarity, existence of number two. Where do the two come from? They must come from one. So, simple like in our way, you are there, I am here, one, two, where do we come from? There must be something that we have as a common denominator.

And this source is the only thing that can connect us. Because it's not your family, it's not my family, they're still different. That is not enough. Going just looking at we are humans, animals same. Whatever and whoever gave us the possibility to be here is the same who gave you the permission, it is the same who gave you the permission, it's the same who gave me the permission and the blessing. And this is what I think, this is the level of mind, this is the level of connection that never leaves you lonely. This is the one that I mean.

Being connected to the source. Yes. Now for someone that is listening to this and is confused at this juncture and they're asking themselves, what is that source? You've described it in many potential ways, but it's the, my attempt at describing it is, it is ultimately where we came from. That is the source. Is there a better way of describing it for people that might be unfamiliar with the concept? First of all, I cannot speak without it and it would make sense to everyone. That's already the first very, very difficult part. That's why my intention is never to say what is it. The only thing I can do is to give pointers. But ultimately there's only one person who will be able to find it out. And it's not me finding it out for somebody else. Everybody will find out for himself or herself.

So every human being, I do think, is at a different level of his growth, of his development, and everybody gets what he needs exactly in the moment where he is in. Which is why I think everybody at this moment in time is exactly where he needs to be for the next elevation to take place. The only thing you need to do is look at yourself right now and just find out what is it that makes you unhappy. What exactly is it that at this moment in your life is binding you and restricting you from moving on?

And this is the same question for everyone. But what you ultimately need to tackle is different. In the past I sometimes played Super Mario and Luigi. And it's the same if you don't like manage level number one, you won't see level number two. The challenges for number two won't come, the end boss from number two is not going to come. First you finish level one. But once number one is finished, you won't face the same stuff anymore. And there is something

along this line where it sometimes is like a game at the same time. Don't take it so serious. It helps. On that point of we're all struggling with something based on the levels we're at, if you had to try and summarise what the common answer is to what people are struggling with, what do you think that might be? I was thinking about my best friends, because sometimes it's easier to step outside of oneself and look at others. And I was reflecting on the conversations I've had with them over the last couple of weeks

about things they're struggling with. And I would define a lot of it as wanting. So wanting to improve their businesses, wanting to improve maybe their romantic situations and find love. I would say the essence of it, the suffering seems to be striving for something that they're unable to grab. But I wondered if you had a different

perspective on that. Two things that right now would come to my mind. There is always the struggle between doing and being. always the struggle between doing and being. Doing, I would ask, why are you doing? So why? Why do you want to go into action? Mostly, there is a goal. The goal, why do you have that goal? Because you're aiming at receiving something that in the moment where you have it, apparently you are lacking. So that means this type of goal setting, in my perspective, I would automatically refer to it already, that your goal setting already comes from a space of lack. You feel like you're lacking something.

That's why you need to do. You feel like you're lacking something. That's why you need to educate yourself. Okay? So this is the one direction. Now, coming back, maybe sounds again too philosophical. Connected with the source. There's nothing to add and there's nothing to take away from you.

So apparently when somebody has this very, very high ambition of doing something, achieving something, then most likely the chances are there this is not coming from a connection to the source. It is coming from the idea of wanting to nourish or create an identity, an identity that represents something that you think you want to represent. So this is the one area, the doing versus the being. And then the second thing is that ultimately goes hand in hand with this way of living your life is that one thing is being forgotten along the line. The truth of that whoever and whatever you are creating and are intending to create and are intending to gather now and starting to attain things, your attainment maximum is going to last 100 years.

That is the other truth. And I do believe people understand exactly what I said. But there comes the fight now again. The fight between, yes, between this very strong identity that wants to just maintain itself and the other side of just forget about your identity. Be as you are. That's it. No matter what you're going to attain, you have it for 100 years after what is gone. So just be. Don't stress yourself

too much with what you don't have. Well, unfortunately, and this is always going to continue like this, unfortunately there are always three ways how you're going to learn this. Sometimes people just need to have the experience to realize, okay, I did it, I got it, now I realize I don't need it. But in the first place, you need to have it. First way of learning. Second way of learning, you do trust a certain teacher, you do trust a certain guide or a mentor, you just copy the way how he's living his life. So your approach is you just copy because you see, apparently the person lives a good life, so you just copy. Second way of learning. And the third way of learning is you maybe have like a teacher or a master, he tells you some wise words,

you contemplate about it, you think about it, and because you are thinking about it, it already puts you on the alternative path without you needing to try it for yourself. And there will always be people in this world in these three categories. Because simply said, telling somebody, look, don't put your hand in the fire. They're still going to do it. But latest when they do it, like two times, three times, then it's done. But a lot of people never get the thing that they're pursuing. So, you know, someone might say I want to be a millionaire or I want to have a this Lamborghini sports car. The majority of people who aspire to that statistically won't ever reach it.

So they'll spend their whole life just in pursuit. They'll never get the lesson of path one where you try it and you realize that. But maybe that is also already the lesson involved in this person's life. You have this goal in the mind. You put all your energy, all your effort into trying to achieve that. You're 20 years old, you're trying. You're 30 years old, you're trying. 40 years already, you're still trying.

50 years, you still haven't let go of the idea. Well, at some point, hopefully, you see exactly that senseless approach of how you personally already wasted 30 years of following a goal with the conclusion of two things. Number one, you haven't achieved it yet. Or number two, you didn't have the right way of achieving it. But the bottom line is you have two ways now what to do. Let go of the idea that you need it and redirect your life or redirect your approach of how you still want to achieve that goal

if you don't want to let go of it. But apparently one of these two things is not right. And the more you want your life now, let's say, in future, to be quite different than what you're used to, the more you need to be able to let go. Let go of patterns, let go of the way of thoughts that you had in the last years and months. Now, if nothing changes about that, there will not come a new life. So many of us live in patterns, the same cycles, we end up getting the same results and those results result in unhappiness and suffering and I was speaking to a friend over

the weekend about how one of our other friends has lived in a bit of a pattern and they've been unable to find love and companionship because of some things that happened when they were younger, I think they were bullied. So they have this sort of deeper sense of having to prove themselves and insecurity. And this shows up all the time because when they meet someone, they present a facade which might not necessarily be accurate. And then very quickly, the relationship ends because it was never real in the first place, but this person's now aware of it, but it's still

happening over and over again. They're still living out the same pattern in their life and still getting the same results and dissatisfaction. So when we think about trauma at an early age that results in this sort of cyclical pattern of getting the same behavior, same results, I wondered if you had a perspective on how one can let go of that and therefore break the pattern. So let me draw you a picture. I was a four-year-old boy having father and mother, Asian origin. Being refugees from Vietnam, Laos, meaning they ran away from the war. Coming to Europe, coming to Germany with the idea that for the children to have a better security on the one side, feeling more safe in Germany

without the instability that they witness in their own country. And so of course father and mother with this idea put a lot of pressure in early ages already in terms of you need to be good at school, you need to achieve, you need to prove yourself. So this is the education from father and mother. At the same time, with the age of four, I went into a Shaolin Kung Fu school, learning martial arts, and every martial artist practitioner probably knows teachers and masters usually are not the ones telling you, oh yes you did that very good, yes very well, no they just say okay more, deeper, faster, harder. So bottom line is

from the age of four growing up the only thing that in the way I felt was actually you're never enough. No matter what I brought home in terms of grades, if it was a B, why was it not an A? If it was an A, why is it not an A plus? If I did already 100 push-ups, question is why don't you make 150? If I was fast already, it was still not fast enough. So constantly this type of never enough. Ultimately meaning, and this is all now, I can just tell you 40 years later, but now I can see it. Ultimately meaning that at some point this little boy started simply to build up a shield, build up such a shield to be less dependent anymore on what other people think about me.

Meaning I just started to rely everything in my life purely on what I think. At the same time building up emotional blockages and emotional walls, nothing to penetrate and at the same time also nothing to express to the outside. So now, having entered into like a very new circumstance in my life where I need to take into consideration the opinion and the emotional state of my beloved, of my partner, of my son, I can feel how my old patterns sometimes are still trying to sneak in. So the only thing to do is what to do to break patterns.

Number one, you need to see you have one. And number two, you need to replace old patterns, which ultimately mean patterns, it's habitual behavior, it's habits. How do you build habits? By continuous behavioral patterns that you continuously do. So there is something about consistency and continuity that ultimately builds a pattern. And this is now where, for example, in this field of martial arts, that's exactly what it's about. Consistency of having a training regimen every day.

It's not helpful to like six days per week do nothing and then you go one day to the gym and give your everything. No. It's better you have some type of consistency throughout the whole day. This is what builds patterns, healthy patterns. And so similar like this, I would describe now what is somebody supposed to do. Number one, look at yourself and see yourself. We are all not perfect.

But according to the circumstances that you are facing right now today, what type of character do you think, with what do you want to equip your character that he is able to go through this current times in the best possible manner? What is not useful for you anymore? Try to get rid of it and get your new skills in. And then train those... And then train, of course. ...those new patterns. We don't often think about training some of the virtues that we want to acquire and the patterns we want to have. We kind of think that we have to select them and then we'll do our best to live them.

But the idea that I might have to train certain new behaviors is a really compelling one, because you're right, in the context of any physical development, I have to go to the gym and I have to do my repetitions to build that thing, that strength. But I was just thinking about creating a training regimen for certain behaviours and new patterns that I want in my life and trying to make sure I do them every day, which is not something that I've ever considered. Three months ago, you became a dad to a young boy, to a young son. So you're now in the process of raising a man yourself. And there's a lot of dialogue at the moment in the UK, but also just broadly in the Western world around what it is to be a man and how to raise men. I think much of this dialogue has been sparked by some shocking

statistics that show young men are struggling now more than ever in various ways. I think the single biggest killer of men under the age of 45 is themselves. And also there's just an overarching sense of I think purposeless meaninglessness that they're struggling in school more so than women are. Some forecasts predict that for every two women that graduate university or college, only one man will graduate in the near future. And it's pretty shocking. So when I think about the way that you're intent on raising your young man, but also what it is that young men in particular are missing in their lives, I wondered if you had an answer.

From this moment, there's one thing I can tell by myself what I would absolutely prevent when it would come, let's say, to the education or what I share with my son. Like I said, I felt I was never enough. There was always something that additionally needed to be done, which literally means for me, for my son, there is nothing to be done. There is nothing he has to achieve. If there would be something it is, stay

connected. So in terms of I don't see myself as somebody who is now having the responsibility to shape my son. No, I only provide the framework. I try to provide the most safe framework for my son. He can try out whatever he wants. If he fails, he will learn by himself to get up again and keep trying. So to fail and then to continue, I just want to build up this framework as good as I can to make him feel safe.

But trial and error is what I do believe is the way how you find yourself. So definitely not being spoiled, but at the same time also not like keeping something away from him where I make him feel like he's not enough. So ultimately I do think in the modern way of how to express it in all these attachment theories, Very simple. Of course, it's the secure way of being a stable, own-built, self-made, self-sufficient individual who knows his own value. Why? Because he failed and got up. Why do you think so many young men are struggling? Whatever shows up right now at this moment, 2025, it didn't start in 2025.

Whatever appears right now, sometimes it's the result of how things have been handled, how the education has been from previous years, whether it's the last 10 years, whether it's the last 20 years. So it's not necessarily what did the generation right now do wrong, let's say. No, it's also the question of what did the previous generation missed to keep passing on that ultimately led to the result that we have nowadays. So, and this is the question where I do think it's multi-layered. You gave a TED talk in 2020, almost five years ago now, about the five hindrances. What are

the five hindrances? You described them as five mental states that are holding us back. Let's put the context first. Take a symbol. Just you have a goal setting. You set yourself whatever goal it is. You have your goal. So your mind is set on the goal. Normally. The five hindrances now simply describe there are five mental states that would actually

make it difficult for you to still keep your goal in the mind, whatever goal that is. The number one, for example, is called sensual desire. Sensual desire means you are too desire. Sensual desire means you are too receptive for any type of pleasurable feeling in regards to your five senses. You are being too quickly attracted when you see something beautiful. You're too quickly attracted if you smell something tasty. You're too quickly distracted when you have physical touch. So the first hindrance means you are losing the goal already because in the moment something pleasurable is being presented to you, your mind has shifted already. So that means that first mental state only means, look, be aware of what is it that you are very easily attracted to.

It doesn't say it's bad, it doesn't say it's good, it just says in the context of you want to reach your goal, how to reach the goal the quickest, be focused with your energy. Meaning, be focused with the mind. Don't lose the goal the quickest, be focused with your energy. Meaning be focused with the mind. Don't lose the goal from the mind. Whatever you do from the moment of waking up until the evening, whatever you do, keep the goal in the mind. This is the quickest way of making this goal become real. Number two. Simply said, you don't like discomfort. You don't like challenges. You don't like discomfort.

You don't like challenges. You don't like hardship in that TEDx talk. I described it like you were like walking along the path and then suddenly it starts to rain, but you don't like rain. So instead of you just continue, follow the past, you are starting to make your mind busy about what you don't like. And already that means the mind starts to shift again, losing the focus of the goal. So this idea, hindrance number one, hindrance number two, actually you can easily say it like this.

This is the goal. Two things not to do. Spend your time enjoying. Don't do this. Or spend your time rejecting that things are not the way how you imagine them to be. Both of these things. One is you follow pleasure and the other thing you're rejecting any challenges. Both of these things is something to be aware of when it comes to stay focused along the path. When we think about this first hindrance of sensual desire, is this where discipline this first hindrance of sensual desire, is this where discipline comes into play?

The idea of discipline, because that word is often used, but it's often lacking a clear definition, but also a clear understanding of how one attains and exhibits discipline. Because when I think about the things that require me to have discipline, it is these desires. It is the five gates. It is something I wanna eat. It is maybe five gates. It is something I want to eat. It is maybe

some kind of touch that I want to have, et cetera, et cetera. So is this where discipline is important? No, even for example, like in the book, or even now when we talk about we have the five hindrances, we have the 14 virtues, we have the eight rules, we have the four here and the 13 here and the 16. It's a very good guideline because it makes it easy for us humans to have something like really structured. There are four steps, there are six steps, there are five steps whatsoever. What I want to say is just in this way, it's also that only

discipline wouldn't be helpful if in the first place you do not possess the ability to see it, to realize it, to be aware of it. Meaning you have discipline, but you are never aware actually when is the moment actually appearing right now that this sensory desire is hitting in. You're not aware of it. So the discipline wouldn't help you if you don't have this awareness. So always meaning, I do think that there are different, different qualities of the mind

that come into play for you to adjust yourself properly. I was thinking about my friend when you mentioned awareness there, for you to adjust yourself properly. I was thinking about my friend when you mentioned awareness there, the friend I described earlier, who exhibits the same pattern. And although they might be aware of the pattern, they might say, you know, I have this pattern. I don't believe they're aware of the moment

where that pattern begins, like the singular trigger, which sends them in that loop. So I was thinking the same about myself. I was like, there's some behaviors that I have that I don't like. And although I'm aware of them, in the moment when it happens,

I might not be conscious that the pattern has begun. That someone has said something, something has happened. And then you go on that pattern or you reach into the refrigerator at 1am in the morning and grab the thing or you end up being triggered by something. So I wondered if there's a practice at all to become, increase our awareness of the trigger moment. Yes. This is for example where I very much appreciate so many different teachings that are meanwhile existing or freely available, for example, through the social media, including breast work, including yoga practices, all of them.

If you have a proper teacher, I'm very sure that this is exactly what is starting to raise your awareness for something that in this field when you're spending some time we refer to as energy. If you're not aware of your own inner layer, let's say like this, and somebody insults you, it can happen that like somebody insulted me and then I just started exploding. But the fact is before something explodes, before I explode, first of all something must be lit. Already the small little flame must have been lit. So when I already knew who is it that I'm going to meet,

maybe that already knowing, hearing the name from him already was ah, was already the starting point of a potential explosion to happen. Yeah, so then ah, this was where when this little flame already started being there. And then you literally can feel things like this. You can feel when something has been injected, let's say, into you, when something starts to arise. Because when the fire is already too big, when the whole house is burning, you're not going to put down that fire in any way. You can only put down all of these fires before things come to big.

Meaning, we must find a way to be directly grabbing the root, grabbing the core, or grabbing the source of the explosion. And the only way that I know is you need to become more sensitive for everything that goes on in your body, in your surrounding, in everything. This Any awareness does play a role. And especially when it comes to becoming aware of your emotional states, this is absolutely inner work. This has nothing to do with doing work out here. It's inner work. How does one begin the journey of doing that inner work? You give trust in the vision

that when you are investing your time right now to become more aware of yourself, of your emotional state, that this is going to benefit your life. That's the starting point. You believe in it. You believe in it. So you don't do it because somebody tells you you're supposed to do it. You do it because you genuinely believe this is the way. Yeah. I want to know more about myself. I want to really understand what is it that I made out of. You want to figure out, is there something inside of myself I tried to look away for many years,

but I know it's still there and was afraid to look at it? All of these things. There's only one way to make yourself free. You need to become transparent. If there are spots inside of ourself where there's no light yet, it can't be. It can't be. Bringing light to everything that has been in the dark. This is another area of the past which at some point everybody will face. And even though that is, even though that this is now just like a saying but just the idea. Whatever you're doing, whatever you're thinking, whether people are around you or you're alone,

just imagine there is one who always sees what you're doing. So live your life based on that. And that person is you? Also. Who else is it? It's the elevated version of you, but it's true. It's you and you. Once I've shone a light on that area of me, so I have greater awareness of its existence and it's now transparent, is it a case then of what is the work I then have to do to make a change in that context?

So we're talking here about managing one's emotions and getting a grip of one's emotions so you can avoid being triggered or perpetrating the same patterns in your life that have led you to the same outcomes. First you believe that it's possible to change, you gain a greater awareness of the parts of yourself that you've kept in the dark that you might want to change and then what does one do from there? Because I came let's say from this martial art field yes, also meaning the Tao is teaching or the principles of Yin and Yang have always been a part in there. Let me put it like this. Whatever you are thinking, saying, or doing has a consequence. So this consequence that you have created or that you are intending to create, ask yourself, what is that consequence actually?

Does it make yourself, does it make your being, your interaction with people, does it make it feel more light, more pleasurable, more enjoying, more free, more nourishing? Or is the result that you are about to create going in the other direction? Meaning you're nourishing conflict, you are nourishing aggression, feeling like you are carrying the suffering of the world on your shoulder, feeling like there's a burden on you, feeling like there's a stone on your heart, feeling like you're being put under pressure. All of these expressions have something to do with density, have something to do with pressure.

But then when we look at, no matter which tradition it is, Buddhism, enlightenment, freedom, liberation, elevation, no matter what it is. You see, it is just two forces in the world. Two forces in the world. One aiming for limitlessness and the other one aiming for restricting and very clear boundaries. These are the two forces. And this is exactly now turning the view upon yourself. What are you made out of?

Your patterns, the emotional states that follow you within a week? Within a week, looking back the last week, what was the most dominating emotion you felt inside yourself? Was it one that had the character of limiting yourself in a way? Or were you in an emotional state like through the week? This was light, it was cool, liberated, free, uplifting, joyful, which of these? And this simply gives you exactly from what to what do I think you need to transform yourself if you want this. If you want this, if you want this. So and why do I think that this is the goal?

Lightness. Lightness. Let's just imagine after this conversation, your best friend or your best girlfriend is going to ask you, so how was this conversation? And even so that we are maybe just talking three hours, four hours, even if you spent two days long explaining to your best friend how this conversation was, it's not the truth. It is not the truth. How is this conversation?

How is this conversation? How is this conversation? Even right now, we cannot even speak about it. I tell you how this conversation right now really is. Yes? How you want to describe this? You will be the only one ever knowing how this is. It doesn't matter who's going to ask you afterwards, what you're going to tell them. You want to feel it?

You need to experience it. There is no other way. And this is the nature of words. This is why these ancient stories come. For example, one master and his student walk up on a mountain early in the morning, then the sun rises up, and then the student says, oh, master, what a beautiful sunrise. And then the master slaps him and never takes him to a walk anymore.

And you say, why was the teacher so hard to him? Because in the moment where you give something that you experience a word, you limit its nature. You naturally limit its nature. You naturally limit its nature. So how does this now translate into into what we can do with this knowledge? Whatever is being dense and it's limiting, I don't think it's the way.

I think everything for us to practice is look beyond limitations. Look beyond the words. Look beyond the shape. Practice to look beyond the superficiality of things. This is where the meaning lies. This is where part of the realization lies. I think in my life I want to be liked, but the way that my life tends to operate is I might aspire for that, but then I fall

into almost a bit of an autopilot and I run the same pattern throughout the week and the same, I respond in the same ways to the same external stimulus. So although one might aspire to be freer and to be less agitated or to be, you know, all those things, I quickly fall back into my old path, my old autopilot, because life does seem to come at me pretty quickly. If I look at my calendar, it's just full every day. So I wake up and like I woke up this morning and I'm like with one eye open looking at my phone schedule to figure out like what day it is and what that means and what I have to do and what's just happened and oh the podcast has gone out I've got this email from this person and there's my calendar oh and I'm late for by 20 minutes and although I might have the day before said to myself that this week we're going to be joyful and light and free. It feels like the week hits me like a truck and then boom autopilot. So our goal is set in a

way and now comes the next realization just because your goal is set doesn't mean this life is going to give you exactly what you're looking for. Meaning Meaning, you really must make sure how important is that goal really for you? Because I witnessed it in my life as well. So at some point, when it started to become a lot public, the calendar went full. And at some point I said to myself, okay, now it's becoming too full. Let's start to settle down a bit. Let's start to stay a little bit more in the background. But then still like requests coming in still and then you think, ah, come this one still.

But ultimately it's really up to you. How much do you really want it? And it's going to continue like this until you will ultimately come to the point, and it's going to come quickly, I do think, where you realize for yourself that it's an infinite direction of possibilities. They will never run out. But you will still have to figure out what is it that you really want from your life. People will say, well, I want to have a mansion and I would like to have a private jet and I would like to have a beautiful partner or I'd

like to have a trophy. Valid, absolutely understandable as well but I do think that this universe is gonna let you realize your lesson in the way how you need it. You're going to have your mansion, you're going to have your beautiful, beautiful wife, you're going to have it all. There is something that's going to put you back on track. There is something that's going to put you back on track telling you, you need to readjust.

It's why? Why, why, why? Because it has always been like this. We come with nothing. We go with nothing. What does it mean? This universe is going to make sure that you're going to go with nothing, which means at some point before it's time for you to go, you will be faced with the fact of Before it's time for you to go, you will be faced with the fact of learning the necessity of letting go of what you have attained in this lifetime. And if you have not learned and have not understood that this is going to come, then I think it's

a very, very hard awakening. It's a very painful awakening to realize, to have this realization that you have spent 70 years, 80 years following your goal. And now there is no other choice. You have to let go. Yeah, it's not my invention. It's just my observation. And this is why in, now maybe let's jump a little bit. There are literally in the ancient traditions, in the text of Chan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism,

it's very simply said like this. How do you know that you have practiced this past, this tradition in a decent manner? It is simply by feeling inside yourself how easy, how willing are you actually to let go of what you have? If you feel that you are mentally attached to things still, mentally attached to possession, you're far away from the state of being what this Chan Buddhism, what this Chan teaching is wanting to like reveal to you. What it also means is, if you have the possibility of attaining everything that you were speaking about, you are absolutely happy to do so.

You can own everything. It's never about promoting to have this is not good. No, but to have attachment, at least in this type of tradition, will have consequence. So it's not about what is it that you possess. It's about what of these possessions are possessing you. That's it. And therefore, is it possible to possess things and to pursue the possession of things while also having a relationship with them where they don't possess you? Can I go in pursuit of getting a, what's something that one might want, a sports car? And is it possible to then have the sports car and pursue it without

it possessing me and therefore me avoiding the consequences that come with that unhealthy relationship to possession? Because in your life there must be things that you're pursuing and you get those things. So your book sells a million copies, your YouTube channel does exceptionally well. You pursued those things. Let's start with the sports car. It depends on the rest of the circumstances. So let me put it like this. If the salary that you have, for example, is just as much that you can pay your rent, nevertheless, you want to have that sports car, therefore take a loan, then buy the sports

car. It's very probable you're going to be very attached to the car. Simply because out of the situation you bought it from, you didn't buy it from a position of abundance. So this is already not a good starting point to afford something that you actually cannot afford. So differently it is when you have the possibilities and you just spend the time and spend also the money on the sports car and see it what it is and realistically see it what how much time you let's say spend with it. I do think the excitement in the beginning is there for a week, maybe a month that's

already long, but it's fading. And at some point, there will even be a day you don't even see it because you're busy. Then there will be a week when you see the car once standing around somewhere. And then there will be a month passing by where you are traveling the world and you're not even sure anymore when was it the last time that you were writing it. And these are things like when you observe them and actually realize it's the truth. This is how the development of things with possessions is. In the beginning it's always like you want to have, you want to have, and diving into this type of mentality of really understanding wanting, wanting is the one part and then realizing how is life really, do you need it?

Is it necessary? Can you afford it? It's the second part. It just opens another perspective And then you just decide for yourself. Yeah. But so whether something is possessing you or you can possess something without being attached to it very much is linked to all of this. From which position did you buy it from? Did you attain it from? And then the second thing is how much time do you literally really

spend with it? The second of the five hindrances is ill will. A negative emotion such as dislike stops you from chasing a goal. Can you give me some context on this one? What do you mean by ill will? Well, no, kids, I make it super simple when it comes to the five hindrances. Literally it's like this. Whatever appears in our life, if I have my goal set right now, what you are not supposed to do is to witness something. And now if you have like the number one, sensual desire, sensory desire, what we tend to do

is we like start to pull things towards us. That's number one. The second thing, what not to do, this is what it all belongs to that family of non-judgment, is like when ill will, something appears in your life, something you witness, you meet a person you don't want to meet, you get a message you don't want to read that message, whatever it is, and you try to avoid it by doing actions in order to push it away from you. So what it ultimately means is don't do any of them because whatever you try to hold onto, the nature of thing is that this is happening.

Swinging away. It's going to move away from you. And whatever you try to avoid and push away from you is just a question of time until it's going to move like pretty close towards you. It's going to come towards you. It's going to come towards you, okay? So that means also in the way of how it's expressed, don't touch the water. If you don't want to have a life that is too shaky, don't touch the water.

Because in the moment you touch, your touch is the initiation for the ripples to appear. Same way, you want to follow that goal, you want to have it easy along that goal. Don't touch any additional water along your goal. Don't touch it because you like something and don't touch it because you dislike something. Because when you walk towards a goal and you do here and here and here, you're just going to ripple your whole surroundings, which ultimately means your energy is being just drawn away from your initial

goal. That's how I would say it is. And ill will is one of these expressions of you don't like something and then you invest the energy there. You like something and it draws your energy back to there. And ill will is similar in this category belonging to this idea of don't push, don't pull. As you've become more popular and you've got millions and millions of views across the internet, your TED talk, I think from the link, one of the links that I saw had some

20 million views and it probably has tens of more millions of views all over the internet. There's gonna be more and more people sending you messages, interacting with you and saying amazing things, saying not so amazing things. We experienced this obviously as a podcaster. You receive all kinds of feedback from everybody. When you think about how you manage that and you manage other people's opinion of you, does this tie into ill will?

And I guess the ultimate question is, do you care what people think about you? So there was a time I cared a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, very much. But within the last five, six years, I really had my hard lessons being perfectly honest. Number one thing I need to learn is also to really not take things too deep into consideration, especially from people that I've never met in my life. Number one, that is the first area I needed to learn, which means everything that's on social media, everything that is publicly available.

This is one thing. Why? Because what they judge or if they judge or what they comment, they can only comment on the character that is actually being available to them. Which is ultimately what? Which is for example also let's say that person, She He Ngyi, named She He Ngyi on that cover. Always like having a good uniform in a way representing something, yes. But I'm simply not limited to only this type of representation.

And this is something really, really important in general now to bring out there to the world. It is not good. helpful if this idea of putting people on, on how you call it, on higher pedestal or podest is not a good idea. The idea of raising somebody up to be our guru, raising somebody up to be our master, raising somebody up, oh yes, he is the special one. All of these things are doing exactly the opposite of what I'm trying to bring into the world, of what I do believe is the key, especially in these times right now, worldwide. It is to become aware of the real and the fake.

This is the current situation that we're in, that the threshold, that the line between whether something is real or whether something is artificial or not real, it's becoming so incredibly slim, that line. This is why at the moment our world seems so fractioned. There are the ones which are completely about, let's go into the nature, and then there's the other fraction which is all about going into the technology into everything that's available nowadays. Where ultimately meaning at some point you will be able to just spend your whole life

in your living room because everything you want to see and want to partially experience you just call it into your living room. It's going to be possible at some point in time. So, how do we get to the point? Yeah, exactly because of this. It's not good if people raise you up and make you unhuman. And this is what is being attacked.

So this is number one that takes a little bit the pressure off from me to take it too seriously. Because I just know they are seeing something, but it's a fraction of what I am. This is number one. Second realization at the same time was, Second realization at the same time was it's also not helpful or wasn't helpful and let's say was also a lesson for me. Even the close people, even the very close people in my surrounding that stayed with me for eight, nine years, sometimes even such close people don't know who you are. It can also happen.

It hurts double as much as people saying something about you that don't know you. Now you have people that you thought know you and still they didn't get you. Also very painful. So ultimately leading only to one thing. It only leads to one thing. You would have right now the impression of, so what's the only way? Just go your way regardless of what people think. In a way, yes, but have understanding for them.

And no ill will against them. Have empathy for their lack of understanding. Yes. That is ultimately the only thing that me as a result for the current state of being, that I took as my consequence. Yes. So be careful, be very aware who are you letting into your circle

and ultimately rely on yourself and maintain your, sorry to say, but it's the heart. Maintain the purity of your intention. One of the things that I've noticed in your work is that you have this huge emphasis on being able to focus oneself. And when I talked to you about this brick, I think just before we started recording, you said to me that the average person on the street might not be able to break it. But if someone was really, really strong, they might be able to break it.

However, the key to breaking this brick isn't strength necessarily, it's the ability to really, really focus. And when we talked about the five hindrances, they will sway us from focus, they will distract us from that ability to focus. So you've cultivated that ability to focus, which culminates in you being able to smash this brick with your hand. And it's not necessarily a strength thing, you're saying. It is this connection between mind and body focused at a particular moment. So can you show me you smashing this brick? Absolutely. Do you put the brick in the middle of the blocks

or do you just put it there? Put it like this. Oh, okay. I can see it hitting down. I just chop it down on one side. Do you have another brick? Yes. There's another one here.

You're going to pick your brick. Two. Oh. Oh. No. One is too easy. And... Fucking hell. Damn. So what were you doing then in the lead up to that?

Just have your hands like here to the front. If I touch you like this and only to here, yeah? See, it's like I don't have a good feeling for you. I don't have a good feeling for your body, because it's like, it's superficial right now. What I do is, like, when I touch you, no, so it's not this type of touching you. When I touch you, I literally try to sense your body structure.

I feel like inside you, where is the tension, where is the relaxation inside the body? So it's like we call it, I'm reading your body. I'm reading your body. How is it, where is the energy locked, where is it dense, where is it loose? So the same I do with the stone. When I touch the stone, I literally feel inside, it sounds funny, but I feel inside the structure of the stone. I feel the density of the stone in my fingers. And then I just see, okay, now it's zzzzz... I know how the energy is going to come down. I know how the energy is going to come down.

And then I just like, see how does it fit together. So on the one side, I feel the structure of the stone. On the other side, I know what type of energy is going to come in. Those two I combine, and then I just boom, do it. That's it. That's it. And how does that translate to life generally? Good question.

Because it's not a problem I have day to day. But that ability to understand the energy of something and the structure of something and then really understand, be able to cultivate your own focused energy when you need it. understand, be able to cultivate your own focused energy when you need it? I do. So do you need to have this ability to live a proper life? I don't think so. But somebody who is able to break the stone like this

definitely possesses some type of skill set, raises the probability that you can do something with that mindset in your daily life. Which means already the only way to do this is you know what consistency means. You know what patience means. You also know what like endurance means or like training means. And all of these character attributes that make it possible to break the stone just also builds the foundation, I would say, to integrate this now into other areas of life. So it's not about the breaking of the stone, but at the same time it's also an expression of the human, your body is capable of doing a lot of things.

And this is just one of them. There are so many extraordinary abilities that people can do nowadays, but all of them have one thing in common. You have a vision, and you find a proper way how to nourish that vision, that the vision becomes real. Similar like this. And you find a proper way how to nourish that vision, that the vision becomes real. Similar like this. So this is a consequence of a long journey of several character traits and attributes,

which you've cultivated over a long period of time. And this is just a symptom or a consequence those things. Yeah, that's exactly the thing. Similar like, you know, when nowadays you look at any type of competition sports, the event itself, the competition is being recorded, that one minute performance, or that nine rings or that three minutes. Yeah. Yeah. But everything that makes it possible for them to perform

in that one minute on that show, nobody sees what is lying in front of them. Similar like this. With less than one second, the stone is broken. But it took a few years to be able to do that one second. And how long would it take me to learn how to do two bricks like you just did then? How long do you think you would have to spend training me? You're looking at my hand.

Because it's important, because it's literally not only about, it's not just about the focus of the mind. It's not just about the focus of the mind. It literally is also about building the density, now physically speaking, the density of the bone structure. So I can just give you, if you like, a little example. So what we do is this part and this part of the arm, we just smash it like this. Oh my gosh. This is like a... So like this.

OK. You just try like one. Just go, go, go. Oh my god. Yours is like steel. Yeah, and this is what it is, yeah. So it is changing you. If you want, you can touch, you can feel it.

Yeah, it's like steel. Mine's like polystyrene. You can make comparison to that. Well, yours just feels like steel. It felt like I was hitting a bar or something. OK, so you've got to build up the strength here. But still, to answer the question, I do think three months, but dedicated training. And what would that training look like?

So right now, as I explained before, this is why I also like in the book, I mentioned one of the grandmasters that I also learned a lot of the methods from. This is now, let's say, it's a stone. Stone belonging to the family of earth, because, OK, earth. Now, in Asian tradition, we have the five elements or the five transition phases. Wood, earth, metal, fire, water, like these five elements. So the proper training starts with the so-called wood training.

So we are using a lot of wooden material to actually condition our body. So you're not going to break stones, you break like, first of all, wooden things. After wood is no problem for you, then we go to the next layer, which is going to be stone. This was this one, for example, after we go to the next layer, which is going to be stone. This was this one, for example. After stone comes metal. And so like this, we go through all the layers until your body has increased in its abilities. You know the frequency of wood, you know the frequency of stone, you know the frequency and vibration of metal. And this is how we increase our ability to just be able to

actually maintain our strength in the field of all five elements. You can break metal? Or you can hit metal? You can hit metal. You can hit metal. Okay. You can hit metal. Thank you.

Fascinating. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. A business is only as good as the people inside it. Thank you. Fascinating. Thank you. Thank paying to promote your role on LinkedIn makes all the difference because you'll get applicants seven times faster

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that you wouldn't find anywhere else. So when the time comes to make your next hire, make it count and promote your job on LinkedIn. Head to LinkedIn.com slash DOAC. That's LinkedIn.com slash DOAC and terms and conditions apply. I was really thinking a lot about these virtues. In Shaolin tradition, virtues are a guiding system in both martial arts and daily life. A Shaolin warrior practices thinking deliberately and mindfully about the virtues of everyday life for his or her life. And there are two categories of virtues, the virtues

to be expected and the virtues to be learnt. What are these virtues that you speak about in the Shaolin tradition? Prior to somebody entering now, let's say, into the temple and wants to learn from there, first of all, we also as teachers want to find out what does the character of that personality already possesses. And these are, for example, what we are looking for are ultimately the virtues to be expected. Virtues to be expected are, for example, self-control. A certain amount of self-control. A certain amount of discipline. So self-control, what does that mean in this context?

If I'm self-controlled, what am I? You don't let your emotions run over you. Even if something makes you angry, but in this context, it's not honorable. It's not respectful to now shout out, you shouldn't do it. You should like be able to maintain your emotional states, maintain your temper, let's say, also, at least to a certain extent. This is where I would say it comes to self-control. And the second one you said was discipline.

So discipline meaning you have, like I said, even if it's called the virtues to be expected, expected means they should be visible somehow, but not to the fullest extent to what people are capable of. Okay. Discipline just meaning this understanding that if you come to the temple life, you know it's going to be difficult to wake up every day at the same time and then start to go through the daily structure. So it needs some type of commitment, let's say.

It needs some type of, I know it's hard but I'm willing to do it, this type of discipline. This is also, in a way, expected. And then another one is simply to be benevolent as well. So that's kindness and compassion for your brothers and sisters. Kind of. It goes, yeah, the virtues sometimes swim into each other, but this idea of why do we have these virtues in the first place? And again, it's like in Star Wars.

The force, what you're learning, the cultivation of energy, the skills that you are learning, these are very, very powerful things. But what makes the difference between somebody possessing this power and using it for the sake of humanity or somebody using it for the not betterment of humanity? It's the character. The power is the same. It's the character. The power is the same. It's the character. It's the carrier of the power. It's the one who is responsible to hold this power, to maintain this power.

That one must be trained as well. And this is where the virtues hit in. The virtues are building the framework of the character, of the avatar, ultimately, that is then receiving all different types of training, skill training that we that at least in the Shaolin tradition, we would say it's good to know them. Same in business really, I looked at a lot of these virtues and I thought they're all the kinds of things that we're looking for in a good team member. So discipline, self-control, modesty, benevolence, humility, respect, righteousness, trust, loyalty, willpower, perseverance, persistence, courage and patience. So ultimately, like I said before, in the Shaolin, traditional texts is broken down into 14 different virtues, four of them to be expected, another five virtues of action, another five virtues of

the mind. Just simply when you will later on fly through it again, the virtues of action. What does it mean, virtues of action. What does it mean, virtues of action? It is how should you behave? How should you behave? Behave in a loyal way. Behave in a trustful way. Behave in a respectful way. Behave in a courageous way.

So this is the how should you do something. And the virtues of mind, for example, they say, what is it that nourishes the way for you to put the virtues of action into practice. How can you be? How can you learn to behave respectfully? Because naturally, if people like insulting you, you don't behave respectfully towards them. So how can you still behave respectfully, still be loyal to people.

How do you do it? Well, then this is where it then comes to the virtues of the mind. To really learn, to be patient, to really know what does it mean to be persistent, to persevere during your training. And this is ultimately how I would describe it to easily understand. Do you believe in a God or do you believe in a religion? If someone asked you which religion do you follow, what would your answer be? I would call it the religion of oneness. The religion of oneness.

The religion of I do believe that we are connected at some way. And it is my journey. I don't want to just intellectualize it. I do think it is a... the path is to lay out and remove all the friction and all the obstacles to just realize that it is like this. Yeah, this is maybe also like a very essential point along the complete line, whether somebody reads the book or whether somebody watches all these type of YouTube channels. I myself always grew up in the need to attain something, to add something up on top of my life. attain something, to add something up on top of my life. This tradition, the whole tradition I'm talking about, is actually quite the opposite.

That's why in the latest videos or publications, for example, I often mention that actually there is nothing I can give to anyone. It's not that you miss something in your life. Remember, you're not in a lack. But in the moment where it feels like we are meeting and I give you something, when you even think that I'm giving you something and you are about to receive something, that's not

the right state of mind already. I have nothing to give you. The only thing that I really try to do is take stuff away from you. Take things away from you that are covering, that you see that you are complete. What things tend to cover us that need to be taken away. Everything that builds up identity. Everything that builds up a stronger and stronger identity. Everything that you keep from the past in your mind.

The more that you keep the past in the mind, the stronger your identity is. I do think this is one correlation that also goes hand in hand. The more you keep past elements inside your mind, the less likely you will be able to break free into the future and open up for the possibilities that this lifetime might still have for you. Are you happy? It's a difficult question. I'm not searching for happiness. I'm searching for peace.

So my state of what I'm aiming for, I would say it is peace. Because happiness for me, you are taken by this word, if there's happiness, there is sadness. If something can rise, something must fall. If you can attain something, there's something to lose. That's why it's difficult, that's why I stopped the moment. I don't know what type of happiness you mean. Being satisfied with where I'm standing, yes. Does it mean

that I don't have hard moments? I have hard moments. And that's why for me, like, what is it I ultimately look for? I would call it, it's just peace. Are you at peace? More and more, yes. More and more? This one, yes, more and more. What's in the way of your peace? I would call it karmic relations, karmic connections, that you just think like, you cannot avoid them.

You cannot avoid them anymore. What is karmic connections? Karmic connection meaning because your mother gave birth to you, automatically whatever your mother is doing or not doing, however the state of health of your mother is, is going to affect you. In a way. So there are sometimes people in this world, you have a closer karmic relation towards them, so what they are doing is also going to affect you.

And in my case, it's the same. So, meaning, so literally, real life speaking, so my son, yes, he has a very strong karmic relation. He's on the one side, my own flesh and blood, together with my beloved. But it also means the way how my son feels, it is affecting me. And this is something that I still need to regulate, learn to regulate.

Which also sometimes means, I mean, if you only sleep like two hours per night, then it is like this, but you have good training to still maintain your peace afterwards. But these are simple things, yes. And what is your practice in terms of your routines? What you do every day that brings you back to yourself so that you can regulate yourself? From the moment you wake up in the morning, are there any routines that you try and execute every day? Number one is, or one of the first things, is really try as often as you can to remind yourself and put yourself in that proper state of what you think you are.

what you think you are. I wake up and try to not already have any type of thought from yesterday in my mind. I try to wake up empty. Let's call it like this. And meaning also try to at all moments immerse myself as much as I can in the present moment. That's what it is. Live in the here and now. How you do this? To live in the here and now. Stop jumping into the past and stop jumping into the future.

Then you live in the here and now. But you must practice it. And literally meaning how you do it, make yourself empty. Because the only thing that fills your mind with past and future is your thoughts. The mind. So if I watched you for the first hour when you woke up in the morning, what would I see on a typical day? I wake up and sit on the sofa and still I just sit. So just being awake and just breathe literally, just realizing slowly scanning my own body from the inside, going through the body.

So really making sure in a way that everything that's going to come up during this day is being perceived very consciously by this. It's like I slowly build up my energies, prepare, this is how I would call it. It doesn't look very special looking from the outside unless I wake up and I mean the Sun is asking for something then of course I have my duties to do but if I can really have my day after waking up still the next hour is still I spend alone this is what I prefer to do. And do you do exercise in the morning? Yes. What do you do? Push-ups, sit-ups and standing practice.

What standing practice? You know, partially it's also some of them are like mentioned in the book. But literally it is what it sounds like. I choose one position that I'm standing in and then I hold that position for 15 minutes. Why? So let's take all the spiritual part out of this, because there are some positions that are looking so strange

that at some point I also ask myself, how would somebody even invest his lifetime standing and putting yourself through such a position? Well, there must be a reason why in ancient times it is kept as a secret practice to stay like this. And since I discovered it, I do have to say that it's not this one at some point. The squatting monkey is called. This is a practice that builds up what we call energy.

How do you build up energy? It is by giving your mind something where you need to have willpower to maintain it. Willpower and development of energy go hand in hand with each other. The will to live. The will to keep going. The will. The will to keep going. The will. The will. Strong will, iron will, energy is also very high.

And so literally some of these positions are so demanding on the body that in order to maintain this position you have to have will. You need to create something about yourself where you are pushing yourself. And this is, when we have time, I show you the exercise. And this is why I do it. So how important is that for everybody's life to do hard things, do you think? Because it's very easy not to do hard things in the comfort world we live in. When I mention it and then you directly look up in a way to me or any professionals who

then do this type of training. Of course, it's beyond any you need to learn and do the hard stuff like this. But one thing is for sure. This lifetime, living a life as a human, definitely is not easy. Let's put it like this. Living this lifetime is not easy. The more wishes you have, the more difficult it becomes. The more ambitious you are, the more you will have to face. So bottom line is, I do think that in the moment where you just on a regular basis put yourself consciously

and willingly in different situations and circumstances that actually represent a little bit the structures of life, there are moments in this lifetime where you are going to be super tense, super tense. And then it's good to know already how does it feel and what is it that you can do? Well, to learn and release the tension. That's why releasing tension is also a big part of the exercises. The one thing is learning to release tension. The other thing is like when you are too sloppy, when you're too slacky, how to increase your

tension, how to increase the energy level again for you to get back into structure again. So it's always this balance. And ultimately, how does it help people to know the hard stuff? Well, because I do think that it is symbolizing this way of life. It is symbolizing the patterns of what you are going to go through in this lifetime. And so you're almost training to do hard things, because hard things are an inevitability of the life we live. In this training that I went through, for the moment, maybe take all the spiritual part out, simply the Kung Fu training, the Shaolin Kung Fu training, there is a saying which is Shaolin Kung Fu literally means walking through the valley of pain.

So what does it mean? When you are doing stretching, stretching, stretching, stretching, it's going to be painful. When you are doing strength training, it's going to be painful. When you do conditioning training, it's going to be painful. When you do conditioning training, it's going to be painful. So the whole path on this martial art journey, it is just filled with working yourself up to the level of where it feels uncomfortable, getting some consistency into the practice until the point where that uncomfortable feeling just started disappearing. Why? Because somehow you broke that initial comfort zone.

But then it doesn't end. Now, next level. Until you're building up, first of all, whatever we're doing later on, I will show you some practices. It's not that I do not feel pain. I also feel pain. Maybe I feel it later. But the essential part is that my connection, my relation between the pain of the body towards

what would it affect in the way of how I take my decisions. That is a different one. I feel the pain, but at the moment I feel the pain, but I see no necessity to still change something about my way right now. Why? I can take the pain. Whereas when you are not used to this pain, you feel it and then it tells you, let's say, it's painful, the mind says, okay, it's not good, and so you directly change something. And this is just the difference.

So it's not that I became numb. No, I just feel there is an additional layer that I can observe about myself. It is painful, but it's okay for right now. And that's a habit you've learned, I guess, over time. That's a process you've learned, which is you still have the same stimulus, the same feeling, but you tell yourself, you've learned to tell yourself a different story about that feeling, or you've turned, you believe something differently about that feeling. Many people would feel the pain of, I don't know,

starting a new career journey, starting a business, whatever might be painful. And they would tell themselves the story that that means they are not good enough, or they shouldn't do it, or that it's a threat, and they might stop. Whereas, because you've cultivated this new relationship with pain,

you're able to do these things and tell yourself a better story? I spent my lifetime for some part to really wanting to build up my body and build up the skills related to the field of martial arts. So I want to build this up. Other people want to build up their business. I do think there is something similar in the way of building up. When I build up my body, how do I really build up?

How do I make my body grow? It only works if I find a continuous way of exposing my body to situations outside of the comfort zone of what I know. Elsewise, it wouldn't be called growth. If I every day just do something towards the body that the body already knows how to do, there's nothing growing. So the idea of understanding where is the comfort zone of my body. Then on a regular basis, very little, must not be a big jump, but very little, extending

this comfort zone until the body naturally takes it as a habit in raising the bar of where your comfort zone actually is. Always a little bit, always a little bit, always a little bit. But this only is possible, I think, by what's called going over your limits. But now comes the thing. You can go over the limits by really exaggerating and risking to be injured, or you make the idea of going over the limit consciously, aware, carefully, still going over the limit, but in a still controlled way, let's say. You know it's the limit now, but at the same time, at some point, you also realize our

bodies, our mind is so intelligent. Before when we are stretching, at some point you feel like everything is going to rip apart. But I know, and this is why if we would stretch, even though you say, ah, it hurts, I know we can still go more. You think, ah, but I just know, because your body is so intelligent that before something serious really happens, he tells you way before that, that be careful. And this figuring out where is really this limit, this is what makes the difference.

There is a limit, yes, but this limit still has a range of where we can still move inside. And I do think that this as a general line applies to everything if you want to grow. And step by step by doing so, the comfort zone extends. So how is something new supposed to enter into your life? Well, there's only one way, exactly the way that many people are also afraid of right now. Go into the unknown. But that's exactly what it is.

If this table is our comfort zone zone and you just stay on here, you will never know how beautiful London streets are if you just stay here. You need to go into the unknown. You need to slowly walk your, find your way out here. But that means that going into the uncertainty is nothing bad. For me, I'm really, really happy uncertainty is existing in this world.

Because I cannot imagine how boring it would be if I would already know with certainty where I'm going to be in 20 years. Is there something practical one can do to get better at stepping outside of their comfort zone? Because in our everyday lives, stepping outside of our comfort zone might just mean putting our hand up in a meeting or doing a public talk or starting an Instagram page for our cupcakes or it could be small things, it could be learning how to run. What's the first sort of small step one should take to develop that habit of being okay in the uncertainty of our growth zone?

Some people say, just start reading. I do think that people who do like reading, this is something. Meaning, always look for something new to learn. Always realize that the things able to still be discovered is way bigger than what you think you know. And that means exactly the way of how you also describe it now. Exactly. The last 20 times you stayed quiet, the next time you raised your hand. Whatever it is, just don't stay in the old patterns. Break

the cycle. This is where I would say a great potential lies in. The thing that holds us back is fear. Yes. How do we overcome that fear? So am I fearless? No. Do I fear a lot of things? No. I do think there's only one thing that ultimately makes you break free from fear, which is to

find a way and wake up from that dream. You don't take things too seriously in this lifetime. To just change, let's put it like this, change your perspective. Rationalize things if you like. It's similar like fear and worry, yes? At least when I look at my worries I had in the last month, well, for sure 80%, 90% of all the worries just didn't happen in the first place. 10% might somehow came true, but then again I asked myself, good? So the 10% that came true, even though I had the worries, what could I do about it?

Coming to the conclusion, nothing. Nothing. And then something just really started to shift inside of me where I literally let go of something. Let go of this idea that everything is like one-directional, that everything that you're going to encounter in this lifetime is going to be beautiful. Everything in this lifetime is going to be peaceful. Everybody you're going to meet along your journey is going to be well-hearted towards you. No, it's not. Because in the moment where you have well-hearted people, you have ill-willed people. And in the moment where there is success, where you want to be part of the success story,

you're going to be part of the failing story. And in the moment where you want to be part of the light story, you're going to be part of the dark story. This is how it is. This is the world of what we call it's the world of yin and yang. This is the world of birth and death, of aging and sickness. And this is why in the ancient traditions more and more, even nowadays, why in the first place there is this whole idea about liberating yourself, breaking free and all of these things.

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A strong body starts with strong feet. We were talking about the five hindrances and the first of those was the sensual desires, which we talked about and the second was ill will. The third is dullness, lack of motivation to move forward in life. And the fourth is restlessness, unable to focus on the present moment. And the fifth is skeptical doubt, indecisiveness and not trusting yourself.

And to overcome the five hindrances, you recommend the four step RAIN method. What is the four step RAIN method? Yes, I do think it's called RAIN method that has also been taught to me because it's easy to remember what is it that you're supposed to do. Like I said, in this context of putting it simple, you have set yourself a goal. There are five mental states that could make it difficult for you to reach that goal. Those five mental states are these five hindrances. Yes. Could you read those out for me again?

So sensory desire, sensual desire, here ill will, dullness, slost, torpor or restlessness, and then ultimately indecisiveness or self doubt. Okay. Now, what does the RAIN method tell you? Number one, it tells you with the R, recognize, recognize or realize. So along your journey every day, just sitting somewhere, contemplating, learn to realize in which mental state are you actually finding yourself right now? This is just the recognition the realization of where you are The a stands for acknowledge or acceptance

So even you know, the second one was called ill will or actually it's called aversion to denying something Pushing something away from you. Very important right now. Same here. You recognize something inside of you, about you. Of course, second one, accepting it, acknowledging it is important. Yes. I, meaning now investigation.

Investigation meaning, okay, I see I am dull. I see I'm restless. Okay, I accept that I have this feeling right now. Now investigation meaning, okay, what is it like? How did I get into this state? Have I been there this morning already in that state of being? No, this morning I really felt good. So what happened now since the morning until now that put me in this state of restlessness? To who did I talk to? Was it a message that I received? What is it ultimately that led to this feeling of restlessness? So really investigating, like a detector, investigating.

So and ultimately, the N, difficult one, but it is standing for non-identification. And non-identification meaning, I mentioned it before, even if you just use it as a picture right now, as a concept if you want. But try not to identify your being too much with your body and too much with the mind. And if you don't identify with the body and not identify yourself too much with the mind, also you do not identify yourself too much with all the things that you investigated that you felt like were nourishing your restlessness. If you had one last message to share, and that message was a message you had to share for your son, because one day the inevitability of life means that you do have to have one last conversation,

and we don't always get to choose what that one last conversation is but if you do get to choose that last conversation with your three month year old son once he's able to process it a little bit better, so he was 18 years old, what would that message be? Concepts are concepts, theories are theories. Be careful, be aware of what you are keeping or what are you nourishing in the mind. Never restrict yourself to any concept, never restrict yourself to any identity, never restrict yourself to any lot of things. Yeah. Something along these lines probably. I read that when you lost your father that had quite a profound impact on your life and

your way of understanding the world. Your father passed away from cancer when you were sort of roughly 28 years old, roughly around 2012. And this, I read, gave you a deeper sense of purpose. How did that impact you as a man? Yeah, let's see, just imagine like when I talked before about enduring things, going through my childhood and always receiving, let's say, to never be enough. But still, I mean, still I had this internal fire going to still always give my best, but for the sake of my parents. And so, yeah, from the age of four, elementary school, give your best.

High school, give your best. Studying, give your best. Study school, give your best, studying, give your best, study again, okay, I do again. So all the time, not because I necessarily wanted all of this, it's because for the sake of my parents, for the sake of they are the ones who allowed me in the first place to in a way be alive, yeah, also thanks to them. So this was in a way my expression of what they say, as long as they are alive, I listen to them.

So, and then, you know, walking all the way up to this academic education, then finally graduating, like after 20 years, yeah. And then I just returned from the graduation back to Kaiserslautern, the city where I lived, and that was the last year I spent with my father. So literally meaning spending so many years in this academic education for my father, and now he's not even there to witness that it has been done for him. This was like a point where I thought like, yeah. Yeah, this was the one area that stuck somehow a little bit hard.

And then the next things, I call it maybe small, but it's not so small apparently because I grew up in, let's say, this Asian tradition with, let's say, different type of beliefs or rituals or ceremonies that we do. One of these things was that when my father was still lying in hospital and it was clear that it's just gonna take a few days until he would pass away. He for example also said, well he only said it to me because you know I would be the only one who is able to do it. Don't cry for me. Because he couldn't say to my mother she cannot handle it. Couldn't say to my mother, she cannot handle it.

Couldn't say to my brother. Yeah, but because I trust in the, I trust in the, in the tradition, the reason why not to cry when my father passed away. Yes, because we do think the body is there, the body passes away, the spirit sets itself free. And when the spirit simply realizes that all the sons are there, the family is there crying, the spirit in a way is still bound to this realm,

bound to the earth's realm, let's say. And in order to be able to help my father actually to get on a, to move on quicker, to move on quicker. That was the reason why it is sometimes so important to don't show any grief in the moment when a beloved one like passes away. Yeah, but all of these things, yeah. No, like spending so many years for my father, then he's not there to realize it, then not being able to cry, and then being in all this very, very hard field and always like over achieving and no problem

working 16 hours a day. Well these are all the things that made it possible to be where I am right now. But at the same time I just do feel like, especially the moment now when when my son started to come and all of these things I just felt like there's a lot blocked out well there's a lot that still needs to be released for the sake of my son and son. Yeah. What is it you needed? And when did you need it? I would call it recognition being recognized by my father at some point to finally somehow say you did well is enough. But it didn't

come until today. So I still keep going. I never heard it from my father. From a mother, I also don't hear it. Well, maybe in a different way, but I do think it is the father's recognition that you probably aim for. So these are absolutely things that do shape my character for sure. Many people will be able to relate in their own ways and maybe their parents have now passed on or are no longer with us. I'm wondering if there is a way to hear it from yourself? Yes, there is. There is. And again, this leads to the fact of sometimes it's very, very helpful to really shut the world, shut the world out of you and spend time with yourself. And actually create what you think you were missing there.

Create it because you're the one who creates it. That's exactly what I do think that when we were speaking about it right now, of course we could say that what is it that I was looking for from my father? Fact is, I'm not going to hear it from him anymore. So I need to hear it, of course, by myself. And this is where it comes to all these types of practices and methods that many specialists now they also like emphasizing, regardless of how you call them.

And what are those sentences in particular that if I was your father, you would want me to say to you right now? Well, something like, you did well, you did enough. I see what you are doing, but now take your energy back and give it to your son. Give him everything that you feel you didn't receive from me. And if you heard those words from him, how do you think he would change? I do think there will be change. And I do think there is already change. This is maybe like the part where like specialists now they would say it's not necessarily an area of the conscious mind.

I do think that these are talks right now more dealing with subconsciously is stored inside our, let's say in our mind. I think this is where it plays a role, especially when it's about patterns that come up. It's not consciously. When you're conscious enough, you can regulate already a lot. It's the subconscious things that you are not aware of that are still a part of your life. And if you wouldn't have asked about my father, I wouldn't even think about him for one month is all not a problem.

Yeah, but I do still think that these are like very, very deep layers that just translate a lot unconsciously into the way of doing things and way of how I see things also. And this is where I feel like it probably would help. Have you grieved his passing? Yes. I do think at some extent when the 49 days, that's the period of where it's normally said, don't grieve at that time, 49 days. Afterwards I did, yes.

But probably there's still a lot more to release. You've written this wonderful book which describes the way to self mastery. And it's a really transformative book that I highly recommend everybody checks out I'm gonna link it below. When we talk about self mastery what is it you mean? What is it to master oneself? So growing up like I said in this field of martial arts, I met a lot of masters. I met a lot of grandmasters. I always went looking for other instructors, looking for somebody outside of myself to

be a mentor, to be a guide for me. But at some point, always realizing that everybody, no matter who it was, they possessed some type of skill that I wanted to learn from them. But there was one thing that in a way, none of them in a way could help me with. And that was how do I run my own life. I can learn skills from you, I can learn skills from here, I can improve in this area, in this area. But putting all these skills, putting all this knowledge, putting all the advice, putting it into a structure, into a frame, and then to run my own life with it, there's only one person who can do this.

Yourself. And this is where I meant that don't rely on a master for him to run your life. Don't rely on a mentor, a guide, whatever, to run your life. This whole journey is about you learn and acquire the skills and acquire the knowledge and acquire whatever you think is necessary to bring out the best version, let's call it like this, the best version, the best refined potential about yourself, about what you believe you are capable of bringing out about yourself. Meaning the master is already sitting inside of each individual. It's just that we don't nourish that master

inside of us enough. And who in particular at this moment in time do you believe would benefit most from the message inside the covers of this book? That your well-being about yourself is being dependent on any third parties, anything outsourced. So if the government you feel like, if any decision from the government affects you, read the book. If like your colleagues at work affect you by what they say and what they think, that's also something. Every time when you have the feeling your well-being is dependent on something that you feel you have no influence in.

Because this is exactly, this is the antidote. This book is literally telling you, don't outsource your wellbeing to anything that you cannot influence or control, which literally means place the emphasis and the foundation of your well-being only on things that you have influence on. Which one is that? Your body and your mind. Of all the things we've discussed today, is there anything, anything at all that you think is the most important thing that we missed?

For the person that sat there at home, and I'll give you a persona of the person, they are they're feeling a little bit lost in their life, they're feeling like they could do more, they're maybe lacking in purpose and meaning in their life a little bit, and they're struggling in various areas with their relationships, maybe a little bit with work, and they're feeling the normal pressures of life that we all feel. Is there anything for that person that's listening now and that's gotten this far in the conversation that you might say in their ear right now? It's sometimes really nice to see the full picture. The full picture of me is I didn't start like being on the cover of the book.

I didn't start like having all the abilities and skills that I have nowadays. I didn't start with all the social media channels as they are right now. I started actually in the poorest area of the city in Kaiserslautern that until today is known to be like the area where people do not like to go. This is where I come out from. So was my life always easy? Well, I don't think so. But there are just a few fundamental things that meanwhile after like 40 years meeting

people, talking with people, looking into the world, being able to actually see some type of structures in the world, I do believe that what you might call successful people or people that somehow made it in whatever way you think is made it. I do think they have something in common. There is something in common amongst them. Okay? So and one thing that I would definitely say is to really be able to endure is one area. Really having that persistence, even though, okay, today is not working, everything goes wrong, yeah, but like not like cutting it off like suddenly.

This type of persistence and consistency, it's like just knowing and trusting. Okay, let's do it again. So literally trial and error. Hard times, good times. To just understand that this life is like this. Up and down. There is an up and down. The one, the success doesn't come without the failure. The brightness right now that is being seen from people. Yeah, but there's another side that built the foundation for people nowadays to shine. And just to understand, a lot of things is possible, but it's never one-directional. And now to put things really literally into practice, one of the easiest things, how do

I know what should be the next, what should I do tomorrow? What should I do tomorrow? Okay? Look at yourself and ask yourself, what is the most disturbing, whatever it is, from the last week in your life? What is disturbing you about your life the most from the last week? You can even extend it to what is it, which emotional state is it that followed you primarily

in the last one month. And then maybe investigating it, okay, what is it that brings up that emotion that stayed inside of you? What is it? Is it somebody who triggers it? Is it something that triggers it? So really boil it down to the point that you actually see,

this is what blocks me right now in my life. This is literally what blocks me in my life. I want to move into the future, but this here, it follows me, it blocks me, it takes my energy. It's this one. I can literally see it. No, that is the one. Now invest all of the energy to figure out the solution for this one. Because if you took care of this already the last half year, the chances are very, very

high you're going to have it the next half year, which means you're going to have it already for one year. And if you do nothing about it, it's going to be two years. And it's going to be three years. And in three years, you still sit there and complain that you were not able to move on. Yes because it's the same pattern and it is the same hindrance still in the life. And this is for example how I know what is my next area of development? The one that, let's say, shakes me the most at the moment.

If I think about literally, I think about is it something in the business area that shakes me? No. Is it something in the family area that shakes me? No. Is it something in the relationship area that shakes me? And like this, you find out, okay, that is the next one. Let's tackle it.

And so, and we will always find something that in a way like we would say we could optimize. And I do believe that in the moment where you say, no, I have arrived, I think then there's really nothing to be done. Than just to be free. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're going to be leaving the question for. And the question that has been left for you is,

And the question that has been left for you is, what is your greatest regret? I would say that 40 years long, whatever I said and whatever decision I took in the last 40 years, I could decisions through and I gave comments to do it the way that I wanted because behind it my mind was always supporting all of this. Just in the recent months, I had to take a decision. I would have wished to have a little bit more time to make it to make the transition more pleasant, but I couldn't. I had no choice. And so despite of not feeling that it is the right way to do it, I still had to do it. And this is what I regret. It's like firing someone, letting someone go. Kind of like this, yes. Thank you. Thank you so much for the message you're putting out into the world because

it's an increasingly necessary message because we're, I think we're all searching for answers and a variety of different reasons. And your message, as I read it throughout the book, the striking thing about it is it's a simple one. But that doesn't mean it's an easy one, but it's a very, very necessary one. And for anyone that does relate to the things we've described today, and the situations we've described that people are feeling at the moment, I'd highly recommend you give this book a try, because it is a completely different message. So thank you for writing such an incredible book, and thank you for the wisdom that you've put out into the world. I highly recommend everybody goes and checks out your YouTube channel because there's

much more content there and you're a real star on YouTube. Your TED Talk is a smash hit sensation that's changed millions of people's lives as well. So thank you again for your time today. It's been a huge honour. Thank you, Stephen, for the invitation. Appreciate it having this conversation. Thank you so much. I'm going to let you into a little bit of a secret. You're probably going to think me and my team are a little bit weird, but I can still remember to this day when Jemima from my team posted on Slack that she changed the scent in this studio and right after she

posted it, the entire office clapped in our Slack channel. And this might sound crazy, but at the Diary of a CEO, this is the type of 1% improvement we make on our show. And that is why the show is the way it is. By understanding the power of compounding 1%, you can absolutely change your outcomes in your life. It isn't about drastic transformations or quick wins. It's about the small, consistent actions that have a lasting change in your outcomes.

So two years ago, we started the process of creating this beautiful diary. And it's truly beautiful. Inside, there's lots of pictures, lots of inspiration and motivation as well, some interactive elements and the purpose of this diary is to help you identify, stay focused on, develop consistency with the 1% that will ultimately change your life. So if you want one for yourself or for a friend or for a colleague or for your team then head to the diary.com right

now. I'll link it below. I find it incredibly fascinating that when we look at the back end of Spotify and Apple and our audio channels, the majority of people that watch this podcast haven't yet hit the follow button or the subscribe button. Wherever you're listening to this, I would like to make a deal with you. If you could do me a huge favour and hit that subscribe button, I will work tirelessly from now until forever to make this show better and better and better and better. I can't tell you how much it helps when you hit that subscribe button. The show gets bigger which means we can expand the production, bring in all the guests you want to see and continue to do in this thing we love. If you could do me that small favour and hit the follow button, wherever you're listening to this,

that would mean the world to me. That is the only favour I will ever ask you. Thank you so much for your time.