THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Starting A Spiritual Revolution w/ Rainn Wilson

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

This week we’re going to make it RAINN! Dive into uncharted territory and unlock the secrets to a spiritual revolution in this mind-bending interview!Buckle up, my friends, because we have a truly remarkable guest on the show this week—none other than the extraordinary RAINN WILSON! While Rainn is widely recognized for his brilliant portrayal of DWIGHT SCHRUTE in the iconic series, The Office, his real-life thoughts and beliefs may catch you off guard. Brace yourselves as we embark on an extraordinary journey that goes beyond our preconceived notions.We kick off our conversation with a topic that often goes unspoken in our culture—DEATH and the transformative SPIRITUAL and PSYCHOLOGICAL implications of this inevitable phenomenon. As we share our personal experiences of losing our fathers, you'll gain invaluable insights including: The significance of a SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION in our current timesThe harmonious coexistence of SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITYRainn's personal battles with ADDICTION and ANXIETYLeveraging pain as a catalyst for personal successThe profound impact of RELIGION on our livesCultivating our capacity to LOVE betterThe transformative power of being OTHER CENTEREDExploring the realm of TRANSCENDENCERainn also provides thought-provoking answers to some of the most timeless and profound spiritual questions:Why do BAD THINGS happen to GOOD PEOPLE?What is the PURPOSE behind SUFFERING?I won't spoil Rainn's answers for you, but rest assured, they will leave you pondering deeply.This powerful episode will be a catalyst for you to embark on a profound introspection of your own SPIRITUAL PLACE AND PATH in this world.Get ready to experience a mind-opening journey that will shape your perspective and leave an indelible mark on your soul. 

This is the Ed Milett Show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm really excited to talk to this man today because, you know, it's interesting. I was really a fan of his work. I think probably my favorite comedic television character of all time, seriously. I know it's my wife's for sure, is Dwight from the office. I mean, like, the favorite character of my wife ever, and because of that, how much belly laughing I've done in my life because of this man, probably mine. And then I start digging into him,

and his work outside of acting, to me, with all due respect, is 100 times more compelling than his prolific acting career, and I mean it. I read his entire book in one sitting and then I handed the book to my wife and said, you need to read this and she read it in one setting. And I just think because his work affects me and the things that I'm the stage of my life, what Reigns talking about is the most important to me. So my guest today is Reign Wilson. His book is called Soul Boom, right here.

Why we need a spiritual revolution and I couldn't agree more. So Rain, welcome to the show, brother. Ed, what a fantastic introduction. I gotta say that my favorite radio slash podcast hosts, wife is your wife. And I don't mean anything disrespectful. And I'm also wondering if they won the single sitting

of the reading of my book happened on the toilet or not. It was not. It was actually on a chair on the beach. So not quite. Although, although I'm 52, so I had to use the toilet three or four times as I sat there and read it, but I held it because the book was that good.

So anyway, I'm really a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you for your kind words. Really excited to dig in. I mean it, man. You know what? I want to go all over the place today. So for your kind words. It really excited to dig in. I mean it man You know what? I want to go all over the place today So we're gonna get into as quickly as we can alright something weird about me that I think is weird about you But that more people should do We're going deep in the beginning. I think about death a lot and

I do Because I find that it causes me to be more present and want to live fully in the moment because I know these moments to some extent in my body are fleeting. And my favorite people think about the end of their lives more than other people do. Whereas a lot of people sort of I think they literally believe thinking everybody else is going to die except them. And it's a really profound thing. So you talk about that in times of the context around the book.

So I know you do as well, but just speak to that topic and why it matters and why maybe we should do it. I love that topic. It really, literally, is my very favorite topic in the world. I want a slight digression. I was visiting a friend in New York yesterday and they've gotten a little puppy. And we were talking about death.

And I was like, well, the puppy, this puppy is going to die anytime you get a pet. It's a 10 to 15 year time bomb of grief for any family. And they all looked shocked. And the wife looked shocked and the kids looked shocked. And they obviously hadn't spoken to the kids about it. No, I'm not suggesting you traumatize your children by talking about the death of the cute little puppy. But I do think culturally, we do not speak about this topic, which is maybe the most important

human topic of all time. It is something that you and me and every single listener right now has in common, we are all going to die. This is the only culture in human history that has refused to talk about death and shunned conversations about death. Death has been a part of the ongoing human conversation for 100,000 years. In fact, the earliest evidence of spirituality in humanity

is the earliest evidence of humanity, which are burial mounds, 100,000, 200,000 years old, where people are buried with Impliments they're going to need on their journey and their continuation of their journey. Spears, you know dead pets, a sled, The list goes on and on weapons, jewelry, books, The list goes on and on. Weapons, jewelry, books. Humans have always viewed death as a continuation of an ongoing journey. And I think we need to dig into this conversation. And again, just how you framed it.

We dig into conversation of death to better frame the experience of being alive. It's interesting because it's almost like in our culture day, we're all like, we all know it's happening, but we're all kind of lying to each other. We're just acting as if it's never coming. Or I think, all denial. Yeah, denial, or like maybe like,

I'll get around to that stuff later in my life. I think a lot of people think that too. Like right now, I'm gonna kind of get my career going. I'm gonna do the X, Y, and Z, and then, you know, have a little bit of fun, and then when I'm old, I'll get around to it. And I find that for me anyway, I'm by the way, welcome to your Motivation Week, guys. We're starting out with death,

but I actually think it is incredibly motivational because it causes me to feel so blessed to be alive when I have the conversation. And for me, and I think for you, we have a lot in common, other than I'm not nearly as funny as you are and haven't had a career like you've had. But beyond that, I can't bench near as much as you can.

Yeah, well, I got one thing I can help bench you. I tease, I tease. I love that actually. But I thought, I've always thought about this even since I was a little boy, but my dad died a couple years ago. And I ended up writing my book after my dad died And I get the feeling that this has always been a part of a dialogue you've had

But that perhaps I think your dad passed away actually around the exact same time my father did and I'm wondering if that sort of accelerated the Conversation for you if that experience shaped your belief systems differently when it happened experience shaped your belief systems differently when it happened. Ed, you're right on the money. My father passed away in July of 2020. And I had already begun work on the book, but that's when I knew that I wanted one of the central chapters to be about death. And it's spiritual and psychological implications, because it profoundly affected me. My mom took off when I was about a year and a half old and I stayed with my dad. So my primary parental bond was with my dad.

And we certainly had our disagreements. It's hard to be intimately bonded with someone who is incapable of expressing intimacy. And that was a challenge. And that was for so many men of his generation, right? He was born in 1942 and, you know, kind of World War II baby. And, but one of the most powerful transformative experiences I've ever had was seeing my father's body laid out on the table as we were preparing it for burial, and I tell some funny stories in the book about trying to find an appropriate goal to hold

water with which to wash and prepare my father's body for burial. But putting that aside, seeing my father's body lying there, I had a profound kind of mystical transformative experience, which was, this is not my father. This is the vessel that carried my father. And it was just profound. It hit me in the gut, it hit me in the brain, it hit me in the heart. And now I believed this beforehand. I believe in God. I believe that we have souls. I believe that we are immortal, beautiful, mystical beings, children of the divine that are continuing our journey beyond this physical plane for all eternity. I've believed that and known that to be true for a long time. But it was so visceral when I witnessed this. And I didn't experience his death as like the snuffing out of a candle like, oh, he's gone, it's dead. It was just very clear, like, oh, he's not here anymore. He's moved on. He's passed on.

This whole idea throughout the human experience, like, oh, we move on. We pass on, we're moving through. He rode around for 79 years in this beautiful Robert Wilson meat suit. He had his flaws. He had his perfections. He had his beautiful warm heart and his sparkling personality. That's gone now, but it's not gone. It's gone, but not gone. It is passed.

And this framed again, this conversation about death, but so many spiritual conversations need to begin with death. I say at the beginning of the chapter, let's begin any conversation like this. Let's start at the very end. Bro, first off, there's a part of me. It's surreal that I'm having a conversation this deep, this quickly, from Dwight.

And now I'm realizing from the office office I'm realizing that it's you, but I have to say something to you. I hope everybody gets some comfort in these two middle aged men who've had some accomplishments in their life, sharing such a similar experience. My dad died about three months after your dad passed. And I have to tell you, brother, I was with my dad when he passed my sisters and my mom and I. And after he passed away, they didn't, we had to wait for the, the paramedics to come

take him to what would be the funeral home. And my sisters weren't comfortable spending time with him in that room. And I don't think my mom was either. And so I ended up having the blessing of about an hour with my dad's former body and I alone and the blessing was I can't even get over the fact you just phrased it this way. I had this, I've always been a believer, I'm an energy guy but I'm a follower of Jesus and I know you grew up with a Baha'i faith. One thing I love about you is respect people of all faiths as do I do. So I've always known I was at faith that there that this was true. But the most profound confirmation of the truth of the soul, I can't believe you worded it

this way was about a minute into being there with my dad's body. I went, oh dad's not here anymore. Yeah. He's not here anymore. And it was so incredibly powerful and beautiful and reaffirming for me I I really knew dad was gone and And that let me know dad was not that meat suit that you just described that was the greatest confirmation of that in my entire life And so I just want to second what you've said because it's incredible to me that we both had the same experience within a few months of each other We both wrote books about the same time. And the other thing you say in the books, and she went there on spirituality. So I want you to talk about this, is you said, we need to reinvigorate the word spirituality.

That's actually a direct quote from you. And I agree with that too, you know, like real specific religious people are like, oh, spirituality, that's not doctrine, You know, that's not this or that. Here to me, spirituality can lead to whatever you're, if you wanna choose a particularly religious, a religion practice, mind's Christianity, but whatever you, but the spiritual part of this, because a soul is a spirit. So I have no idea why spirituality gets a bad word, you know,

or why in some circles it's, you know, somehow a negative thing to believe in spirit or soul. So what do you mean when you say reinvigorate the word spirituality? And why do we need to in our culture? Because I think you get to something real deep here and it's really true. Right. Great question again. You're good at this. You're very, very Good. So for some people, spirituality means ghosts and sayances, and literally like spirits and weegee boards. So that's not what I'm talking about. For some people in Western culture, especially

in the big cities, spirituality is a very vague concept that has to do with crystals and incense and yoga classes and inspirational quotes. And I'm not meaning to denigrate that. That is a very important part of spirituality itself, these ways that we get in touch with our own souls. But that's not exactly what I'm talking about. For some people, it means church on Sunday and it means doctrine and it means orthodoxy

and it means fundamentalism. That's also not what I'm talking about. I am talking about the quote from my favorite quote of all time from father, pair, a pair, Tehart Deshardin who said, we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. And that's what I witnessed with my father's corpse. He was a spiritual being having a human experience for 79 years in that body. And he's continuing his spiritual experience in whatever plane lies next that awaits him after this one.

So that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the essentially divine nature that all of us have. That is our reality. Our reality is that we are divine beings. And we're having this visceral, tangible, And we're having this visceral, tangible, three-dimensional consciousness-induced experience as a human being on planet Earth, and until we're not anymore, and we move on. So this experience, which has to do with our divine qualities, right, the spiritual virtues that we carry with us, kindness, love, humility, honesty, our connection to our higher power, our connection to nature, all of the aspects of the,

what I would call the higher nature of humanity as opposed to our more egoistic for lack of a better term, animalistic aspects of our humanity. And I don't wanna denigrate animals either, who are beautiful and perfect in their own way. But when we are driven by our animal impulses, as I have been at times in when I was wrestling with addiction, with depression, with anxiety, and times in my life,

when I was just kind of driven by my own ego, my own wants and needs for greater status and to be loved even more than I was, which are, those are the more animalistic parts of ourselves. So that's what spirituality is. It's our relationship with our soul. It's not in conflict with science. Science and spirituality are two sides of the same coin. There are two ways of the same coin. There are two

ways of looking at reality itself. Science is all about the physical laws and what drives the universe, the forces, the matter, the energy, and it's also a system of learning and knowing things. And it's also a compendium of knowledge. That's super important. But spirituality also has a compendium of knowledge, which have been the world's great spiritual teachers and leaders from the Upanishads and the Vedas from 4,000 years ago, through the Bhagavad Gita, through the saints, and the Dhammipadas of the Buddha, through the Bible, through the Quran, through the Holy writings of Baha'u'llah, the prophet founder of the Baha'i Faith, and many other faith traditions,

that's what I mean by spirituality, sorry to ramble. No, you're not rampling in the least, and you're my dude. I think I'm falling in love here. So, oh my God, we got a bromance. Well, a lot of the things you're saying, and I want to go back in a second, but I want to just unpack that for a minute.

I, especially as I've gotten a lot older, I've spent more time on that, and I have to go back in a second, but I want to just unpack that for a minute. I, especially as I've gotten a lot older, I've spent more time on that, and I have a faith, but I've also done things outside of my faith. Like I have done yoga. I do work on breathing techniques. I've had to create some structures in my life to get present with myself. I'm really good, like right now,

with being present with other humans. I've actually, that's pretty, I'm something I'm good at that. I've not always been really present with me and I've avoided me for a long time. And I too, I've been struggled with addiction, but I, you're so courageous to talk about the fact that you have, but I have struggled with my mental health from time to time. I have certainly had bouts of depression and I still live with anxiety and worry to an extent for someone who's got such a wonderful life like I have almost to a ridiculous nature. And so I just encourage everybody, you know, these spiritual things

have increased my ability. I'm in pretty good shape and one of the reasons is I want to take care of this body because what my soul to be housed in it as long as I can. And I have my wealth and my contribution in the world has increased the more I've been able to get out of my ego, even though I still struggle with it, and into the service of other people like you talk about in chapter 8 where we're going to go to in a minute. But since you mentioned it, I want you to go back a little bit because you have had struggles with, you know, you've said I was an addict. I'm a people pleaser. And that's amazing for me to know because it's such a prolific career.

I mean, talk about Dwight, but you've had all these other shows and all these other characters, all these other awards in your life. What were those times like for you? How did you get out and do you still regress back into them from time to time? There's a lot of questions and points made in there. I'm not quite sure how to tackle this. So let me just go back to the very beginning

and say that when you're a year and a half old and your mom takes off, that'll, that'll f*** up. And that caused in me a great deal of anxiety from the get go, right? When I was raising our son Walter, me and my wife were raising Walter, I witnessed him at a year and a half, two years old, the same time that my mom left and his need for his mom. And just like he'd be scared and just reach out. And he just, he'd go off on his own, play with some toys, but then he would need that, that, he would need that presence, that mother presence.

So that was ripped away from me, right? And my entire life has been trying to fill the void of that basic abandonment anxiety with other things. And sometimes they work great. You know, when I started drinking, it was a couple of years, it was awesome. It was really took the edge off. It was fun. It was social. It was great.

It worked until it didn't, didn't work anymore. I've tried drugs. I've tried porn. I've tried overeating. I've tried social media. I've tried fame. I've tried workaholism. I've tried overeating, I've tried social media, I've tried fame, I've tried workaholism, I've tried codependence, I've tried a lot of different things to fill that essential

human void. And I'm so grateful for that experience. I was talking to a friend of mine who's an actor and he's like, rain, you're so lucky, you've hit bottom so many times that you, uh, this kind of set you on your kind of spiritual quest. So I guess for me, I look back on those times, those dark times in my 20s, other times in 30s and in my 40s, now my 50s, I'm floating on here. I'm loving my 50s. Hey, listeners, check it out, I'm floating on here. I'm loving my fifties. Hey listeners, check it out. Rain in its fifties. He's in the flow. He's it's golden. It's the golden age. I'm a golden eagle spreading my talons and spreading my saliva of evangelical spirituality all across the podcast universe.

We went off the rails there for a second, but he's back. He's back. I'm back. I'm back. Sorry. I'm sorry. I had a flight of fancy, but it's true. I love my 50s. It's amazing.

Yeah. I wish I was feeling when I'm feeling my 50s and my 30s. Oh my God. Do you? Do you think I want to go there? I'm going to ask you a hard question. I've had no one's asked you this because I get asked it. Do you think you would have accomplished what you did

if you felt this way? So I've wondered this about myself too. So here's what you got. We got two dudes now in their 50s who, in your way, you've also, you not just hit the bottom, you've also hit the top, okay? You're humble, but you hit the top in your career. So, you know, the award shows all the different things.

So you also hit the top. And it's interesting because if you pick apart achievers and you put us all in a room, most of us, you know most of them I know most of them. Most of us have a lot of that stuff you just described a minute ago that we've leveraged to produce results in our life. And so, there's a toughy, man.

How much of this is a toughy, man. How much of this spirituality, you know, love in this time in my life is just the time in our life and, or is there just a healthier way to achieve great stuff? You know exactly what I'm saying. Those things that you had compelled you to go to the extra call, you know, take the extra meeting, You know, prep a little bit more. So it's tough.

I struggle with this as well, because it's easy once you get to the other side to go, yeah, you know, and so you should be meditating and praying and all that other stuff. So I'm, what's the real answer to that? Is the answer that you think you could have done it anyway? Or is the answer that there's like a nuance

somewhere in between? I think it's the hardest question to answer when you're on the other side of success like you and I have been blessed to find ourselves. Had... Had my mother not taken off, I keep coming back, forgive me for getting all therapy, but had she not abandoned me as a toddler? Had my dad and his stepmom not had such a dysfunctional marriage, had I not grown up with such tremendous pain trauma and imbalance throughout my life, I never would have suffered the way I did in my 20s, which drove me to seek to succeed and make a name for myself and make a mark.

If I had a healthy balanced childhood, I'd probably be an English teacher in Suburban, Seattle, Washington right now. There's nothing wrong with being an English teacher in Suburban, Seattle, Washington. It is beautiful. You're educating 30 kids a year or 60 kids a year, teaching them the love of language and reading. It's a beautiful service I'm not denigrating that at all, but for me that brokenness, you know, is where the light comes in and drove me to great success. Now I was miserable through a lot of it and frankly ed I was through a lot of it. And frankly, Ed, I was, I was, you know, on the office. And I've only been talking about this recently. It was some of my most miserable years of my life, where the early successes in the office. I mean, it doesn't get better. I was an unemployed

actor for 15 or semi-employed actor, broke for 15 years. And then when I'm 38, 39, I get the office, all of a sudden I'm making money. I'm working with like geniuses, like Steve Carell and John Krasinski and Jennifer Fisher and BJ and Mindy. And I'm playing one of the most memorable incredible characters in American television history, making bank, I'm like getting nominated, I'm getting movies, and it wasn't enough. And

that is the human condition. And that is the great imbalance that the Buddha wrote about so much when he said life is suffering. Life is kind of being wedded to this chronic dissatisfaction. Yeah. Um, did that chronic dissatisfaction drive me to quote unquote, greatness? I mean, if you call, playing Dwight greatness, but you know, I wrote a couple books. I started a couple companies. Um, I've achieved a lot. I've made some money and it was driven by that chronic dissatisfaction,

but I was miserable along the way. Is there a way ultimately to achieve greatness without having something so messed up and broken in your circuitry? I think there is, there's got to be, but that takes a lot of work, foresight, wisdom, and discipline to get there. I agree. And I think I'd love someone to write a book, maybe it'll be you and I, but I actually think that for those of you listening to it, because first off, I'd love someone to write a book, maybe it'll be you and I, but I actually think that for those of you listening to it,

because first off, it ought to give you hope if you come from any sort of dysfunction in your family, that hey, most of us that have achieved a lot, it's made me the reason we did it. Say use it. Yeah, use it. We nailed it. And I think there's a way in our lives

to leverage it and heal at the same time, because I don't think healing happens in one instant anyway. So mine's been a journey that's still continuing, to leverage it and heal at the same time. Because I don't think healing happens in one instant anyway. So mine's been a journey that's still continuing. My dad was an alcoholic and my audience knows the whole story on that for the most part. However, I do think you can simultaneously start working on growing and healing yourself. Well, at the same time, leveraging these things

that obviously we're blessings. Ironically, it's a blessing that your mom left at a year and a half. Ironically, it's a blessing that my dad was a drug addict and an alcoholic. It certainly doesn't feel like it at the time, but now you got two guys talking about their lives in a room, and your mom doesn't leave. My dad doesn't party and drink. We're probably not having the conversation.

So it's clearly a blessing, and it can bless the lives of other people. If the other chapters in your book end up having some redemptive quality to them, like what you and I are attempting to write in our lives now, my favorite chapter of your book is eight. First off, that's my favorite number. My dad would also come home and have eight beef eaters, gins, by the way. It's my favorite number. Wow. What do you mean, come home It's why my it's my favorite number What do you come home?

But the reason it's my favorite you know my mom had five husband so maybe my mom and your dad hooked up at one point Hopefully mom. I hope you're not listening to that but probably Hopefully probably not mom having said that why chapter eight is because I think that's where a lot of the answers lie and So in chapter eight and Reigns book, he goes through a really wonderful list of, kind of building your own perfect religion, so to speak. So I'm gonna go through a few of these points with you because these are the things that I think you can do

to both heal yourself and leverage this stuff at the same time. Not everything on the list does both of these things, but I've compiled the parts of his list that I think do both. Okay? So, first thing you said is, be a force for love. I think that's a way to simultaneously be healing yourself and leverage the fact that, you know, maybe not everything in your life has been perfect. So, can you speak to number seven, which is force of love? Wow, that's so cool. It's cool.

You went right in there. That is so awesome. So let me back up a little bit and talk about that. I have several chapters in the book about religion itself because I think that kind of liberal western urban democracy has wholeheartedly rejected anything and everything having to do with religion. Mostly for very good reasons, you know, so much of contemporary suffering has been caused by religion. And, you know, generational trauma caused by religion, I get it. But what we've done, as I say in my book, is we've thrown the spiritual baby out with the religious bathwater.

And there is a lot to learn from organized religions. And there's a lot to praise. And there's a lot to connect with. And a lot of what we're missing in the current mental health epidemic that so many young people are going through can be found in religion itself. Wow. Yeah. can be found in religion itself. Wow, wow, wow, wow. So, and that is a transcendent community.

That is people gathering together with purposes larger than their own ego satisfaction. So much of Western culture is geared around my ego and how do I satisfy it? I want more social status. I want more comfort. I want more material things. More material things gives me more comfort and more social status, right? So we're on this drive, we're on this treadmill to achieve for the wrong reasons. And those things have been proven time and time again by social scientists and psychologists to not bring us happiness and well-being. And yet we pursue them frantically and manically as if they do because we've bought the lie that has been instilled in us by the Madison Avenue and the mainstream

media and social media that we're going to find happiness once we have enough stuff. Now moving on to the force of love, I talk about these building blocks of religion. There are universals and one of the central ones that is in every faith tradition and needs to be in any forthcoming, upcoming faith tradition, is a kind of love that's next level. It's radiant hearts, the size of basketballs, with as deep as possible compassion for the other, for those that are different than us,

where we are uniting people in bonds of love where our action is undertaken every day with great love. And yeah, yeah, yeah, sounds good, Dwight. But how the hell do I apply that to my life? Yeah, yeah, whatever. Jesus said it better. Well, he did say it better. He said it better. And he lived it better. Well, he did say it better. And he lived it better. And how do we emulate the deeds of Jesus? How do we not just kind of pledge our love and devotion to Jesus?

How do we emulate Jesus? Well, it takes some training. So you start small and you just flex that love muscle. It's just like working out your epic man bod over their head. You start with little small, you know, exercises and you build, but you can do the same thing with these spiritual attributes. I listed them before. They're the little sparks of the divine that we carry in us, kindness, humility, honesty, creativity, imagination, you know, inspiration and love. And we can get better at love. We can exercise those love muscles. That's what she said. And to even greater degrees, one

day at a time. And I've really undertaken this practice over the last several years and I find myself going into the world being just more loving. Let me bring this back around and say one last thing. When my father died, I was heartbroken for months and I had a realization. As messed up as he was in so many ways, he was also had this incredible quality where every room he went into, he made a better place. And this really, I'm going to, I'm going to start crying because it really, this really affects me deep in my heart. Every room my dad went into, he made better. He uplifted people, he connected them, he was kind to them, he listened to them. He would look in their eyes and he would tell a joke and he made every room better. How few people I've known in my life that make every room they go into a better,

more healed, more uplifting place. I strive to emulate that. And that's the kind of love muscle that we can grow, we can spread, we can teach to our children, we can share with our friends and our family. And this is how you start a spiritual movement. It starts with something that small. Man, how good is this freaking conversation? My gosh.

Right. It's so good. My dad did that too when he got sober. And, man, I've worked really hard. It is a muscle. Like I work on my, sounds, by the way guys, if you're wondering, well, I want to know about how to make more money.

I could tell you I've made a lot more money. The more I've walked in the rooms and coming to a room, trying to spread more love in the room. Even making business deals, I'm just telling you, when someone has this sense that you love them and you care about them, that you have their best interest in mind, it takes barriers down. You imagine if we had political leaders actually do the things that that range of reference thing here, it's what I think is time I remember. Here's another one that has changed my life and that you list. It's so good, you guys. His word, I told you when I introduced him, it's so good. But one of them is service to the poor. This is just not talked about anymore. It was like when I was growing up or

even in the 60s, this was a benchmark of how we treated one another. And service to the poor. See, I have this saying, I say, when you're feeling the most helpless, get helpful. And I think helping all people matters. But I do think, and when I say poor, I want you to talk about this. To me, that's financially poor. For sure, I think that's the real nature of it. Someone who's just not got the means or the background or the opportunities that you may have had, but also it sometimes people are spiritually poor.

Some of them are emotionally poor. And just being in service to people will completely change your life. My life changed. Ray and I should just tell you, my dad came home from his first AA meeting and I was living at his house in the same bedroom I grew up in after college. He's like, look, I got you a job. And I'm like, what is it? And he's like, I can't believe you're asking me this.

You're eating out of my fridge. Just get your ass down there tomorrow. Whatever it is, take it. Some guy at the meeting got you this job. So I go down there and it was an orphanage called McKinley Home for Boys. And I was an athlete and a very ego-driven guy. And instantly I'm thrown in this environment where I'm completely unprepared. I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a dad myself,

but I've got 10 boys that are eight to 10 years old that I'm now living with that are like my sons. But what happened to me that transformed me was all of a sudden I was forced into service of the poor. These boys come from poor families, they were poor in every way. Their parents had molested them or were dead or were incarcerated, and they were from financially poor families.

But I was almost forced by circumstance into service. And my life altered because I found every day that I left there, I felt richer by serving someone that was poorer than me. And so in the book you talk about this and about just like reevaluating this in our culture, but as a human, I think I can transform your life and it's another way to heal yourself as you're still leveraging the things

that have happened in your life that aren't so good. So I'll give it to you on that one. Yeah, I know that a lot of your podcast audience wants success in business and in entrepreneurship. And I value that very much. I'm cut from the same cloth. I'm a big believer in entrepreneurship. But you touched on something earlier that I think is very important. Who wants to work with someone with a small life and a high drive in a tiny little life and lots of greed?

No one wants to work with someone like that. So the more that in our spiritual practice, whether you're a Christian, Buddhist, whether you're spiritual, but not religious, which is the largest growing religion in the United States, we want to turn being self-centered from being other-centered. This works on a lot of different ways. It's kind of this reverse psychology. In happiness studies, so I've done this show that's out now called Geography of Bliss. I travel the world looking for happiness.

But if you read anything about happiness and positive psychology, you find that being other centered actually makes you happier. So this process of service to others, and thinking about service to others, you can start it for selfish reasons. Start doing it because it will make yourself, it'll make you happier, and it'll bring you more fulfillment. And actually other people will be drawn to you like a magnet because you're engaging

in this process of serviced others. And then before too long and Ed, you might have found this to be true as well. Like you may start doing it for yourself and maybe your own glory and to feel better. And then all of a sudden you just fall in love with the doing of it. So serving the poor, I love that. And I wish I was kicking myself like, oh, that's really good. I should have said, well, poor doesn't just mean material poverty. It can be poor in spirit and poor in humor and in friendships and connections. But just look at the data, just look at the data around gratitude

and how that can help you, how service to others can help you, how it makes you, gives you a happier, richer life, because at the end of the day, there's, you know, I end the book this way, this is something we talk about on this TV show, The Geography of Bliss. And it comes down to human connection. There was this study done at Harvard called the Grant Study.

Maybe you've talked about it on your podcast before. Fascinating study. Many books have been written about it. 300 men being tracked for 80 years about happiness and well-being. And it all boils down to one thing. It's all connection and community. It's just connect, connect, connect. So I think it's the most fascinating study of all time. And I believe it or not, brother, there's something going on here today that's insane because I had him on, I think three weeks ago. No kidding. The guy who took over from George Vailant, the new guy.

Yeah, he's great. He's got, by the way, he's got a joy about him. That's wonderful too. All right, I got a couple of things for you. It's amazing. You just said that. I can't get over that. What's transcendence?

What is that? So for me, transcendence is what it's all about. I'll tell you a story. I started acting in high school. It's something I'd always kind of wanted to do and secretly long to do. And I was in this play in my high school called Pigmalion. And it's the play they based my fair lady on. And I was playing the father, this cockney father.

It's this English play from the 1890s. And it's funny. It's a really smart play. And I was in the middle of a performance, we had like four performances. It was like performance number two. And I was doing this big lecture. I'm this poor Cockney guy lecturing these rich people about life.

And I gesture over here and they kind of all look over in that direction. And I look over here and they kind of all look over in that direction. And I look down and I see a bowl of chocolates that are on in the set dressing, you know, sitting on a dresser. And in the moment, I pick up the bowl and I dump the chocolates in my pocket and swiftly put the bowl back down on the table. I'd never rehearse that. I didn't plan that. I didn't pre-think that. Completely in the moment, I reacted in the character. And of course, it brought down the house. And that when I had this inhalation of like, oh, oh my God, I get it. That's what acting is.

I discovered it. It's that moment where, and's a moment of transcendence, where it's not rain, it's not rain's brain, it's not rain's consciousness and his willpower. There was a lot of training that led up to it. There was a lot of work, a lot of rehearsal, a lot of learning of lines and getting into character and trying to see the world through that character. But all of a sudden, I had this moment of transcendence that transcended the home drum that transcended the the sweatiness and the hunger and the itchy pubes and the itchy armpit.

And I need to take a poop and all of this kind of humanness. And it's something sublime. And I talk about this a lot. I find for me, I find it in art a great deal. But also one can find it in church service, one can find it in singing, one can find it in nature. These are the moments that we strive for as human beings to connect to something larger than ourselves. This is how I feel like we connect through the divine. And this is an impulse. This is an impulse that's been around from day one with human beings, an impulse to transcend our humdrum daily lives with something more meaningful and cosmic and uplifting. Brother, just wow.

My dad's sobriety, the first and foremost foundation of it, that changed our family's life, is really a form of transcendence, which is they basically say, you said one day at a time earlier, but you surrender to a power greater than yourself. And it's actually how you phrase transcendence in the book, the kind of the subtitle. And most of the things I've done in my life that have affected other human beings

were transcendent moments. So like I speak, we're gonna get to know each other when you come back to LA, but I speak and I have the blessing to speak on really big stages, 20, 30, 40, 50,000 people sometimes. And people always ask me, what do you do before you go out there, aren't you nervous? I'm like, yeah, I get nervous.

And one of the things I do before you go out there? Aren't you nervous? I'm like, yeah, I get nervous. And one of the things I do before I go out there is I actually surrender. Yeah. And I ask, in my case, Holy Spirit to just take over and allow that power greater than me. I've had moments on stage where there are things coming out of me and words coming out of me that aren't even vocabulary that I possess and thoughts I didn't have

and things that didn't write down. And I thought, wow, that really works on speaking on big stages. Why wouldn't I do that I possess and thoughts I didn't have and things I didn't write down. And I thought, wow, that really works on speaking on big stages. Why wouldn't I do that when I walk into a business meeting? Why don't I write before you got here today? I wanted to use the restroom and I just said a real quick prayer. I just said, hey, please use me, please let's spirit take over

because I know my limitations. And that also causes me to have some form of humility as I've gone on this journey in my life knowing that I don't have all it takes on my own. I've got to rely on something greater than me. And it's, I pray every night as people probably know, but like I was raised Catholic, I pray on my knees every night. And one of the reasons I do that is that's kind of like a form of surrender. It makes me feel small. And then I'm not this big thing. It also makes my life much more manageable because I'm not riding through this thing alone all the time. I'm so grateful that we're like talking about such deep stuff.

It's ironic that it's with someone who's made me laugh so hard in my life. But I'm super super grateful for that. Now a lot of people are going to say they're listening to us and you talk about this. They say, well, yeah, it's great. Whatever you believe God is, whatever your belief in God is, if there was really one, why does so many bad things happen? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good people get cancer young?

Why do we lose children? Why do we hurt one another so deeply? Why would a loving God allow these things to take place? By the way, I wonder that stuff sometimes. I'm just curious as to what your answer to that is. You're going to ask me one of the great deepest philosophical questions in human history. And what do I got? Like four and a half minutes to answer it. Whatever you want to take, you can take it all you need. I love it. I love it. I have a section in the book. Yes. I have a chapter on God called the notorious GOD. And I have a section on suffering.

And it's a very important question. And it's an important question on a number of different levels. Before I dig in with a couple of ways of approaching suffering, I just want to say that the Buddha addressed it directly. And he said, my goal is one thing and one thing only. It's the study of suffering and how to end suffering. And part of the four noble truths, truth number one, is that life is suffering.

So there's a lot of answers to relieving suffering in the study of Buddhism, which has helped me tremendously. in the study of Buddhism, which has helped me tremendously. We are not, as a culture, talking about suffering enough, what is the purpose of suffering? Because as evidenced by the fact that the number one thing that psychologists point to with young people of why they are struggling so much in this mental health epidemic is they don't have resilience. So how do you build resilience if you don't understand suffering itself? And that leads us to death. You talk about death, you talk about suffering, and that builds resilience. And you understand that suffering is a part of life. It's not something to be avoided at all costs.

Parents have to raise their children to understand that suffering is a very real part of their life and is going to be with them hand in hand until the grave. So that's, that's an important thing. Now putting that aside, huge. If we are souls having a human experience and we're continuing on our journey, some people would say to heaven, some people would say Nirvana, the happy hunting grounds, whatever it is, we're continuing on our journey. Some people would say to heaven, some people would say Nirvana, the happy hunting grounds, whatever it is. We're continuing our journey without our meat suits. Then what is our purpose on earth? Well, our purpose is to grow those spiritual qualities that I've been talking about. We're in, we're inhabiting Fleshy Soul Growing Machines, Ed. And one of the ways, one of the principal ways that we grow our souls is through suffering.

So there is a divine purpose to suffering. The Bible talks about this, the Bhagavad Gita talks about it, the Buddha talks about it, Baha'u'llah, from the Baha'i faith talks about it. And this is the importance of suffering. That's number one. Number two, think of all of the suffering that we could end and reduce if we weren't fighting each other and building instruments of war constantly.

So this is, I go to Star Trek, okay? You said we're going to talk about Star Trek. I'll bring in Star Trek a little bit. Star Trek, to me, is a very spiritual vision of humanity, because humanity has solved all these problems and on planet Earth. Incoming equality is gone thanks to technology. Racism has been solved. Diversity is embraced and loved in the future.

Equality of women and men has happened. There's a harmony with the natural world and with science in in Star Trek. If we stopped building, you know, missiles and weapons and tanks and drones and guns and bullets and put our focus towards healing cancer, healing heart disease, reducing pain and suffering, increasing our health care system, we would get rid of a huge portion of that suffering. Now, is there still going to be a storm where a building collapses? Is there still going to be a tidal wave and people are going to die? Are innocent children to be born with diseases? Yes, they are. And but that is part of this human experience. And what I do in the book

is I inverse it and be like, well, are what people are asking for is a life without suffering? Because what would that be like? First of all, it defies science. The idea that we are born effortlessly. We don't cry when we're babies because the mother's vagina opens up to the size of a football to let us effortlessly out into the world. We never stub our toe. We never skin our knee. No one ever gets sick. Everyone dies at the age 100, peaceably in their sleep.

Like that's absurd. So we see that there is a great mystery and a great purpose to suffering. Wow. Brother, I'm going to play that part back for me. So I've had a rough couple days. Two things I've done is surrender. And the second thing now after you've said that is in retrospect in 52 years of my life, almost all of the great growth of my life came through some form of suffering, sometimes crisis, you know, stuff like that. And so it kind of is a gift that just doesn't feel like

one in the moment. And I needed to hear that from myself right now. So thank you. They're telling me only get to ask you one more question because we're bumped up on time here. And so I'm gonna, first off, I want everybody to go get soul boom. It's right here, I'm holding it if you're watching the YouTube.

Go get it. Why we need a spiritual revolution. I think we've touched on a lot of reasons today. Why and some solutions in your own life of how you can create a life revolution through the principles in the book. You got Rain Wilson and the geography of Bliss, the TV show and metaphysical milkshake, by the way,

is the pod. So I love that. I want to step out of this just for a second, but it'll tie it all together. Was it worth it? We talked about the top. So was it worth it? All the sacrifice, all the suffering, everything you had to go through the 15 years of being

relatively not very well known, and then all this stuff that's good, but also not good that comes with the success. So take everybody into success for a second. You can do it from a spiritual perspective though if you want to. But I get asked this often, like, is this really worth it? Like all this price paying, you know, all the rejection. And I have my answer as to why. And I'll give it to you a little bit right after you answer. But if someone asks you that, hey, man, it's like climbing to the top, by the way, becoming the best English teacher

in the country, if that's what you chose to give your reference earlier, or become Emmy nominated, or become a well-known person. Is it worth the pursuit of that stuff? And if so, why was it worth it? That's an interesting perspective. I don't quite know how to answer that. You know,

when I look back on it and say, you know, was it worth it? Was the hard work worth it? Was the suffering worth it? And the difficulties along the way? And the difficulties once I arrived worth it? Yeah. Absolutely it was. I am, man, I am so hashtag blessed. I mean, I really, it's incredible. I mean, dude, dude. So many actors just as talented as me have never gotten on a TV show. And then so many have gotten on a TV show that didn't go anywhere. And then so many have gotten on a TV show that went somewhere, but no one really watched. And then so many have gotten on a TV show that went somewhere but no one really watched.

And then so many have gotten on a TV show that people watched, but then once it was done, it faded from into obscurity. I got to do this TV show that lasted, we had success, people watched, it ended, and people still watch and refer to. I'm really, really lucky. I know that's not exactly what you're asking, but it is been worth it for me because,

again, from a spiritual perspective, I'm growing my soul. Am I happier now, wiser now, more filled with well-being, more filled with purpose, more filled with connection now than I was five years ago? Yes. More than 10 years ago. Absolutely. More than I was five years ago. Yes. More than 10 years ago. Absolutely. More than 15 or 20 years ago. Abs of **** and loot late. You know what I'm seeing you. Can I tell you what I see in you as a friend, a friend for an hour now?

Yes. And I found this in myself. The pursuit of success is a real self awareness journey. Yes. You know, how do I improve? How do I grow? How do people leave me? How do I grow? How do people leave me?

How do I do it? And then somewhere in there, for almost everybody, it morphs into a self-awareness journey, but it actually becomes a spiritual journey. Because you reach these conclusions of, I probably couldn't have gotten here on my own. And is this all there is? And it, and all, my faith, my spirituality, is almost my success I've had, has become almost a confirmation

that there's gotta be a higher power because I'm not that great. But at the same time, had I not had all these failures and these ups and downs in my life, I wouldn't have ever looked at myself. I would have never looked at my life. Like it was a great mirror, the pursuit of growth, the pursuit of success is like life's great

mirror. And it's like this laboratory of who am I? Where do I come from? What does this mean? What impact is it making? What impact do I want? Let me jump in here because I got to say something because what you're saying is key. For some reason, I don't know why. For some reason, I've always had a deep driven desire to better myself and to get to know myself more and to dig into life's biggest possible questions. I've had an insatiable curiosity and a need to grow and understand myself. And I've been in therapy for 20 years. It's been amazing for me.

I'm not necessarily recommending that for everyone out there, but Jesus, to spend one hour a week out of that, how many hundreds of hours there are in a week, to spend one hour, exactly 50 minutes, to spend one hour just kind of talking about my patterns, my habits, looking at my traumas, trying just kind of talking about my patterns, my habits, looking at my traumas, trying to make commitments to better my life, to to unearth stuff.

Like this process, the therapeutic process, my recovery process, and 12 steps, my reading of mystical pathways, my journey as a member of the Baha'i faith, and especially in raising and being a part of my precious, precious family, like I think that's where you start. Like any listener right now, like you want success, start with a deep curiosity, get to know yourself better and better, work harder, read more, study, ponder, meditate, pray, converse with like-minded others, serve side by side, but deeply, richly, curiously engage with the stuff of being a human being.

Man. I want to say something to you. Thank you for doing all that in your life, because God's using you, man, in really powerful ways. You have impacted me in my life through your life. Because God's using you, man, in really powerful ways. You have impacted me in my life through your work. The book did, by the way, today's conversation is taking it to a completely different level. And I have a very deep sense that there will be another one here on the show and probably personally.

We're going to continue this unlikely bromance. We're going to hit some sushi back in LA. And this is only part one of our conversation. Let's get a continuation of this conversation in the near future for real. Right. I want to do that as well. I just want to say, um, behalf of millions of people, thank you, man. This was profound and everybody listen, go get Reigns book, soul boom. And if you enjoyed today, share the show.

That's all I ask for. It's the fastest growing show on the planet because you share it and you share it because of stuff like this happened here today, man. This is- Congratulations on all your success. It's well deserved, man. I can see where your fans line up.

You have so much to offer. And it's been just an honor and a pleasure to be here. I'm sorry, our conversation has been cut a little bit short. No, man, I love it. And I'm very grateful for today. And it's just one that's going to continue. All right, everybody. God bless you.

Max out your life. Yes. This is the end of my let's show. you