TrueLife - Young, Successful, & Miserable - Kevin Holt

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/https://www.kevinholt.me/ One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. We are here with the one and only Kevin Holt. He's a bit of a world traveler. He's an author.

He's got some fascinating stories that we're going to talk about. One of them might even be about becoming a fake priest. I'm not quite sure what's happening here. But Kevin Holt, thank you very much for taking some time to spend with me today. Why don't you introduce yourself? Thank you for that stellar introduction. Introductions are always tricky because I'm not really sure what resonates most with whoever is listening to. And what level I should talk about the Who I am question.

But most people want to know where you're from and all that. So I go with nationality. I'm a Swiss national, but I have an American root system as well. My mom's American. That was Swiss. And I've lived most of my life outside of the U.S. I lived in the U.S. from the age of like four to 20. And then I've spent my adult life living in Spain, Japan, Taiwan, Switzerland for about 10 years,

and I now live in Bali. So I've been, I like the term vagabondor. I'm somewhat of a vagabonder. I like it. Took that from the book by Ralph Potts of Vagabonding. It's excellent. So yeah, I've been sort of, I'm someone who moves around a lot, nomadic creature, but slow travel. So I'll pick a place and I kind of stay there for probably way longer than I should, but that's how I travel.

So people look at me like, oh, you're so well traveling. And I go, well, actually, I'm not that well traveled compared to a lot of people I know that have visited 100 countries or whatever. But yeah, that's a little bit about me. Yeah, it's such a great education. It seems to me that I know when I have traveled, I have not only found out a lot about the country that I'm traveling to, but I think I have more found about how ignorant I am or how the place where I'm from is different.

It's weird how traveling can do that for you and almost be a great education. You must have had a fascinating upbringing traveling around so much. It's an interesting thing that I like to, I discuss in my book a little bit, the idea of how to change perspective. And I wouldn't, I mean, you can use it to ignorance if you want to, but it's just when you're in something, it's really hard to get a perspective on it until you exit it and you have a bird's eye view and look at it from afar. And that's been the case for me because I did most of my schooling in the U.S. system, although I was back and forth to Switzerland. So I have some multicultural exposure. But it wasn't until I really left and got that bird's eye view that I got to see some of the things that I both appreciated about my host culture,

my home culture rather, and some of the things I became critical about. And I think that's really the main thing that travel did for me. But I think it applies to any situation, whether it's a family life or a career or whatever. it's just hard to see it for what it is from inside. Yeah. And there's another guy I talked to quite a lot about this, and he raised an interesting point in that how do you know the culture that you're born and raised in

is the one that's for you? Because he's gone elsewhere, and he's found that he's treated much better by the people in the new places he's gone to, and he resonates much more with the way that they think. So, yeah, for me, I just felt like I've taken bits and pieces from all these different places. And so I'm kind of homeless in a way, I suppose.

Home everywhere and nowhere. Yeah. It reminds me of the old joke where there's these two young fish and they're swimming in the water. And they're just going through their day. And then this older fish swims by him. And he's like, hey, boys, how's the water? The older fish or the younger fish, like, what's water? Like, you don't know you're in it until you were experiencing.

exposed to it. Like you don't know your own host culture is a certain way until you, like you said, you leave it. And all of a sudden you go, oh, that's different. You know, it's different over there. Yeah. Do you think that your, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Sorry. You first. Do you think that maybe this traveling and seeing the world from a different point of view from having relationships from different perspectives was part of what inspired you to write the book? I don't know. I mean, it's just, it's part of my story. I never really set out to write a travel book, though. So, I mean, I do talk about some of my travel stuff in the book as to use an example of something else. But yeah, I'd say that it definitely contributed to a lot of the ideas that I've accumulated over the years.

and the one thing I will say about it though is I don't know it's you can become lost some people really need that sense of identity to wherever they're living and their home culture and that's so sometimes people like to glorify the whole travel thing and I love it but I just want to give anybody listening a little grain of salt with it like you can if you're too I'm pretty open And so sometimes I might be too open to new ways of thinking and culture. And then you kind of, you sort of like lose to some extent what your core is. And I'm okay with that, but I think it can be disorienting for many people. Yeah.

So that sort of leads into the whole identity topic, which is something I like to write about and think about a lot. So the travel in that sense has impacted my ideas regarding that. Yeah. And just for everybody listening, the book is called Young. successful and miserable. And it's by Kevin Holt here. It's a fantastic read. I've read through it from front to back,

but I've gone back and looked at certain sections that I felt kind of called to me and even spoke to other people about it. And again, for those listening and watching, the book is, in my opinion, it's really well done, Kevin. I'm thankful that you wrote it and I'm thankful that I'm talking to you.

It's not only a book that you can read from front to back, but it's one of the books where you can just kind of find a chapter that like, oh, look at this. And you can dig right into it. And not only can you read it, but you can interact with it in that there's sections for you to almost do like a workout in, if that kind of makes sense. Is that when you decided to write the book, did you know that you wanted the book to be interactive like that? Or is that something maybe you do with your journaling?

Or is that just some way you look at life? How did that come about? That's a great question. And thank you for your comments about the book as well. I'm glad you enjoy it. I want to get back after this question. I want to ask you what resonated with you and what some of your takeaways were. But you know how when people say that sort of the muse takes over?

I do. And I don't want to put myself in a category of some brilliant writer because I'm not, right? I've written one book that turned out pretty okay and I like it. But I don't think I actually set out to do anything with it. And it just sort of was almost like I vomited something up. in a very short period of time. That was just, it was just an accumulation of,

honestly, a lot of anger at some of the structures. I found myself in the extent to which I accepted it when I shouldn't have. And also just a lot of things that I've learned from myself and things I've learned from others. Like I had a lot of teachers. And it just sort of came out all like that. And I had done courses like that where you do some self-work.

And I think just in the writing of it, I thought, oh, it'd be cool if actually I put something here where people could maybe write it out and go deeper into it. Because that's, I mean, in my opinion, the best way to do deep dives is just to write it out by hand. And a lot of self-felt books that I've read in the past, they don't necessarily provide that to you. You're just listening to the author's words and that's great. But if you actually have the time to stop and write something out for yourself, it can be more impactful. So I want to ask what you, like, what resonated with you when reading it. Well, the part that really, I was reading the first couple chapters and then the part that really made me stop and put the book down for a minute and go, man, I'm just like this guy.

Or I've been through this was the part that you began talking about how you had been at a company for a while. and you realize the company architecture. And I'm not talking about the building. I'm talking about the framework for leadership inside the building. You talked about how it kind of seems maybe the opposite of how it should be. And then you did a little deeper dive on digitization and how digitization has gone and stripped service. It's stripped the idea of making something great for the illusion. of something better.

And that kind of hit home with me. And I was like, you know what? There's all these people living this illusion. And the way I did it, I looked at my work where I work at. And I work at a multinational corporation. And over the last, say, 15 to 20 years, I've noticed that the level of leadership has gone from people thoroughly understanding the job and wanting to provide a great service

and a great product to someone who's willing. to maybe undercut the foundation to give the illusion of productivity. And I mean, I could kind of hear the anger in your voice a little bit. Like you're like, this is not how it's supposed to be. There's all these people that are, you know, working 12 hours, but they're not really working. And they get mad at me because I can come in and do it in five. Yeah.

And so that to me was the first part of the book that really resonated with me. I have more as well. But can you talk a little bit about what it was that maybe inspired you to write that or lack of inspiration that inspired you to write that? I suppose there was a few things. One was just the feeling of lack of agency in a lot of my career decisions. And that would depend on whoever is your manager at the end of the day. Like sometimes I was, I think that when I wrote that book, I had just quit a job where I had

a very bad manager who didn't know anything about delegating and how to have people give people autonomy over their work. So that was from a situation of not having as much autonomy as I wanted. And also, you mentioned the illusions. And it was, I'm very much, I believe in merit, you know, like doing a good job showing up and being honest. And it just seemed like too many of the incentive structures were based on pretending. Yeah. Like you said, the illusion or the illusion of we're doing something great or we're making progress.

Right. But actually, you're just going in the same circle. slightly differently every year and telling yourself that it's something new. And I think I wrote in the book even. I was trying to be a good guy at one point where I was going to leave. And I gave them like way more notice than they needed. I think in Switzerland there was one month notice at the time at that job. And I gave them like six months notice because I already knew early on this.

This is not for me. I'm leaving. But they penalized me for that. They're like, oh, well, you gave your notice before the bonus gets paid out. so you're not getting a bonus. So I'm like, all right, well, it would have been smarter for me if I just kept my mouth shut, screwed you guys over, took my payout and left, and left you hold in the bag with no time to replace me.

So that's just one example where I feel like the incentives are perverse in a lot of those situations. I've had some really good situations. I don't want to come off like I had this horrible work experience. I've had some great, great ones. And the last time I left was the hardest because I had the best experience. and the team was amazing and I loved everybody there and we were friends

but I couldn't solve the whole hamster wheel thing of illusion of progress when none was really being happening you know yeah yeah I know exactly what you mean it seems to me and it kind of saddens me

when you're with a company when you're with a structure and you have adopted the people there as colleagues if not friends and family that you really care about because you see them every day and you want them to be successful and you want them to be well.

But then you see these rules coming in that are like, hey, I've had a, can I share a quick story with you? Would that be okay? Of course. So I remember being at, being at work and there was these problems with production. And so I took my idea to the center manager at the time. And I was like, you know, I see what we're trying to do here. But it seems to me we'd be much better off if maybe. We streamlined and we re-looped all these different routes.

I worked for a trucking company. And they wanted the actual driver to come in and go, okay, well, we just want more production. So we want each driver to do, you know, roughly about an extra hour every day. And so my idea was like, okay, I get it. Like, I have stock in the company. Let's all be more productive. But wouldn't it be more productive if we re-loop the routes and we changed all the routes? Because they haven't been looped in like 20 years.

We could shave off time. It would be more productive for everybody. And you could get a streamlined product, better service, and everything. And the guy has looked at me and he's like, I don't know how to do that. And I'm like, okay, no problem. I know how I can help you. And he's like, no, that would take too much time. I was like, okay, wait a minute.

So you just want these guys to do it, but you as the leader, you don't want to do it. Like you don't want to hold yourself to the very same standard that you're trying to get other people to hold to? And he's like, you know, I don't want to talk to you anymore. But that's just one. example that upsets me because I care about the place I work. I care about the leaders and the employees. And I think that if everybody is willing to hold themselves to a higher standard, that everybody is going to be better off because of it. So that was my story about that. Thanks for letting me share that. Yeah. It's another example of this thing of, of like you say, illusion.

It's almost like honesty is penalized a lot of the time. And I remember there are very many situations where I'm speaking out of the most recent one I was like almost yelling at people I was like guys this what we've invested a ton of money in this technology I get it and you've sold the world like it's the best thing ever I get it but it's not going to work and I was the one that was closest to it I was like trying to integrate these two tools for like two years and I'm like this is never going to work there's fundamental flaws in the software you can't get it done and but no one wanted to hear it so I like I would tell my boss and then you He is still this hierarchy, right?

I mean, there's a kind of open, open culture there, but there's still important messages often get filtered through a channel from down to up. And whatever the guy in the bottom says isn't necessarily with the person that's top hears. Right. Because everyone in the middle is playing this sort of yes man game, unless you have really good leaders, which are rare. So then I was saying this stuff for years. And then when I resigned to the big boss, who was my old boss,

he acts like he's hearing it from the first time. And I'm like, I've been telling everyone around me, like, I've been shaking people. Like, we've got to do something. It's not going to work. And then, you know, so lack of communication is another thing. And when you see good leadership, it's really nice because there's so much bad leadership. And, you know, I have had some fortune to have really good leaders.

And so I do appreciate it when I see it. But it's pretty rare, actually, the really open, honest communicators out there. Yeah, you know what? I had this idea. Let me know what you think about this. When you said that you guys were creating this technology and it came to your understanding that it didn't work, I kind of think that that is exactly what's been happening in our world for the last 20 years. It seems to me that, you know, boards of directors, CEOs, people at the top have been sold this bill of good of technology. Like, okay, this is going to make everything more productive. We're going to have these self-driving trucks. We're going to have this new technology. that's way better and it's going to alleviate, you know, workforce. It's going to, it's going to create tenfold production. But it seems to me that a lot of the technology that's been sold as a method of solving problems hasn't come to fruition. And now we're seeing these problems play out because people try to implement it and it doesn't

work, but they've already bought it. They're already committed to it. And so they're rolling it out anyway. And it seems to me that in doing so, we've lost. the very knowledge that had got us to where we are. We've lost the people in leadership that started at the bottom and worked their way up. And I'm just curious if you see that as maybe an isolated couple incidents, or do you think that that could be the thin red thread that's woven its way through the world in which we live today? Yeah, that's a really great observation.

And I think that that's probably, I can't speak for everyone else that I had, you know, I was working in jobs like this because I've only been in one particular industry. but I've seen that exact dynamic play out across the industry, which is why I kind of left the industry because I'm like, well, this is happening at my job. I know what's happening at these other companies. So where am I going to go? Because it's all the same.

And I'll take you a step further. I think that that problem you mentioned is probably a huge reason for why people are resigning in droves or they're miserable at work now more than ever, because what was sold as something that's supposed to enhance productivity and create growth, actually for most of the people at, well, I was like middle management and below, but like at those level of jobs, it just makes it into more drudgery because it takes away your creativity. So, I mean, to use an example from my work, I used to do a lot in Excel, and I quite like Excel because I'm a logically oriented person,

and I can think of little formulas to optimize my work and view data the way I want. And then there are problems with that, though, of course, with doing everything in Excel. So then they bring in software as a solution. Problem is, now you've got to do it that way. You can only do it the way the software allows you to do it. So you have way less autonomy over how you control your work. And then what kept happening to me is it took me twice as long and get the job done. Because something I could just do in Excel, I had to do this roundabout way in the software.

and it just ended up being more boring and took longer. And then, of course, you're evaluated on your productivity. And what they gave me made my productivity go down. So I don't know. For me, it was okay, but a lot of people struggled. So, you know, they worked longer and they were just more miserable. And so, yeah, it just hasn't really what they've sold it as hasn't really come to fruition, as you said. So I think that's, yeah, I do think I mentioned.

I forget the exact quote I'm using the book, but I think it's pretty funny, like some drudgery, or something with each wave of digitization. Yeah, that's the part that, like, that was the first part that reached through the pages like, listen to this. Yeah. I was like, oh, I love this guy, man. That's exactly what I was thinking. And of course, like you said, they've already invested millions, right?

And then no one's going to listen to me because it's a message they don't want to hear. So as long as there's someone higher than me that's saying, oh, yeah, yeah, we're. We're doing great boss. They're like, okay, we can forget about that and continue. You know, and they know people are going to come and go anyway, so they kind of don't care to some extent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it seems to me that that's when you begin to see a lot of creative accounting happening.

Oh, yeah, this is totally productive. Hang on me to switch this to a zero, you know, and then everybody loses. Or they defer the cost to another quarter or I don't know. I don't know what they're doing with it. Yeah. It's. And then, of course, the willingness. to like, actually go, oh, crap, like, it's not going to work.

Let's scrap this investment and start over and invests another few million. It's not popular in leadership to report losses or lack of profit, you know. Yeah. No one ever wants to admit they're wrong. But the truth is, if you don't admit something's wrong, it never gets better. Right. You have to be willing to be like, okay, I made a mistake. But if you do that, you're probably going to get fired.

So what are you going to do? You're just going to extend and pretend until you, you know, make pretend it works, I guess. And me, they kept promoting me. So I'm like, I mean, I'm talking shit all the time. Yeah. And you're still letting me get away with it. Like, so you're not listening to me, but you're not getting rid of me. Like, what is the situation?

And then they kept trying to put me on stuff that's like, oh, yeah, we can put Kevin on it. He'll fix it. And then after a while, I realize it's not fixable. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's when you seem to me. like a person who genuinely cares and wants to help people. And I'm stoked that there's people like you in there's probably people, hopefully there's more people like you in buildings and in

companies and in boardrooms around the world because we definitely need it. I wanted to ask you, do you, like you have some interesting stories, almost the trifecta of death that came your way. Like you've been, you've had these crazy experiences, near death experiences that I thought were, you know hopefully everybody has at least one in their life where they come to this road to Damascus moment and it seems like you've had three of them can you share maybe one or two or three of them about what happened and what how do you think it changed you well I'll yeah I think the second one is is good to share because there's sort of a background to it okay um so yeah I've had three as you mentioned I had a near drowning thing and then the one I want to talk about

was a heart attack the year after. So, yeah, that happened when I was 19. And what was interesting about that, there's a backstory, which I don't think I wrote about, but I was at a crossroads. And basically, one route was traveling and one route was going to this business school where I was. And I don't want to give them more details, but basically they were incompatible. So I was doing summer session because I was taking summer courses. And it was like a week before the last exam I had to take.

And if I aced that exam, it would have got me into the business school, at which point I would be confronted with that choice. Okay, do I do I do that or do I do this? A couple days before, out of nowhere, I have a heart attack. It's like 10 in the morning. I'm eating cereal. And like, I'm by myself in the apartment that I was sharing. And I have all the telltale things that, you know, I had the numbness in the arms. It was in both arms.

And I was like, man, this is, this is weird. But it can't, like, it can't be a heart attack. Like, that's insane. Because I was in super, I was an awesome shape. I was playing competitive racquetball for the school. You know, I was in the gym every day. I was playing two or three hours a day. I was swimming.

I was lifting weights. I was doing all kinds of stuff. I was like, no, that can't be. So I laid down for a while. And then I started getting this arrhythmia and I could, like, palpably hear it. And then I was like, well, I feel like an idiot, but I'm going to have to go to the hospital. So I drove myself.

to the nearby university hospital, which is about 10 minutes away. By the way, terrible idea. Anybody listening, don't do it. I was too embarrassed to call 911. That's a stupid reason to drive yourself to a hospital while you're having a heart attack because you can lose consciousness and die. Right. Luckily, I did not.

So I got to the parking lot, checked myself in. And I went to the lady there. And I said, hey, I think I'm having a heart attack. And then she said, well, are you doing exams right now? And I said, well, yeah, I actually have an exam in a couple days. She's like, oh, okay, well, go talk to the charge nurse, then she'll check you in. So then I go talk to the nurse. And then, of course, if you've ever been to a hospital in the U.S.

or any kind of clinic, they check you in. They ask you to rate your pain on this infamous scale of 1 to 10 or whatever it is. So I don't know if I diluted myself in hearing this or misheard or whatever, but she said, please rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being no pain, 10 being the worst pain you can imagine. So I don't know if she exactly said the worst pain you've ever felt or the worst pain you can imagine, but I heard, worst pain you can imagine. And I've got a very vivid imagination. So I'm like, okay, what the 10 is like being burned alive or there's medieval torture,

flaying the skin off me or whatever. So if that's a 10, this is like a 5, right? I mean, it hurts, but it's not anything compared to that. So I mark five. I go in the waiting room. So I go in the waiting room and like 10 minutes go by, 20 minutes, 25, 30. No one's coming to get me. And I'm like pale.

I'm shaking. And I'm like almost losing consciousness. I can barely keep my eyes open. So then I managed to drag myself back over to the desk again. I was like, I know you. So it's been like an hour and a half now since I've had. these heart attack symptoms are close to that and i finally get myself you know i'm like look i know you think i'm stupid but i really think i'm having a heart attack and they're like oh yeah they were

just looking for you and whatever so they they bring me into this hallway so it makeshift bed and they once again give me anti-anxiety medicine because they're still operating under the assumption that i'm worried about my exams right so that does nothing right so there's another 20, 30 minutes where like I'm just sitting there like, oh, like just like being constricted, like just there's a vice around my chest, can't breathe very well, you know, and all this pain and stuff. And they finally do the scan and, you know, I come back from the scan. They're like, hey, we think you had a heart attack. I was like, yeah, I know, I've been telling you that for, you know, almost an hour half. And I was right. And then they gave me the thing that it's like nitro glycerin that they put under,

you put under the tongue and that just opens your arteries. And then it kind of went away, like the pain went away in literally five or ten minutes and then I was just like walking around as if nothing happens. So, oh yeah, they thought I smoked crack. That was their, they're like, did you smoke crack recently? No, no crystal meth, anything like that? I was like, no. So it's just, I don't know, it's just this fluke thing that I suppose anyone can have.

I mean, it's very low probability, but basically an artery just randomly spasmed closed and cut off the blood from. to my heart. And I'm telling the story because it's entertaining. But the backstop of the story is that once I got out, once I got recovered, this decision tree was like crystal clear. There was no doubt that I said, no, it's a travel thing. I'm going traveling. Like I had no more interest in the business school thing. I end up taking the test getting in anyway, but I was like, I don't care. I've already decided. So it's an extreme example of, I think, we have this a lot. Like a lot of people have this if you're aware to it where if you have this sort of fork in the road of life

if you put the question out there sometimes you get answers in ways you're not expecting and I think that was kind of what this was it was like the travel is the heart the heart path and then the work is like the logical mind path and it's like heart attack hey pay attention to your heart what do you really want to do you know and then I looked at it and I was like oh yeah that's pretty clear what I want to do. So then I've gone to Spain, stayed there. I was supposed to go for a semester. End up saying like over a year, I got a job there and like bartending, just like had the best time and had no desire before that to really go traveling. But this experience gave me that that travel bug. And then after I was like another six months, I had to go back to graduate. And then

I just left. I took off. I went to Japan after that. Stayed in Japan two years. Taiwan five years. Yeah, so that really opened up a whole chapter of life. I don't know if it's hard to say because it's most impactful when these things happen to you, but even then they don't last very long. It's really only, you know, for a few years you have this incredible gratitude for a life and that you survived and that you can still breathe and stuff. But I think after a few weeks, you're kind of back to normal.

So it really requires reinforcement. You know, just maybe every day do a little bit of that kind of death awareness that you could die anytime and just try to get at what you really want to do. So that's my takeaway. The other takeaways I've had from these experiences is just how like anything can change like literally at any time. And what you think is you're so comfortable with and secure and that's yours and that you can hold on to it. It could be gone anytime. And I've had a lot of different episodes, not only these stories, but a couple other things that have happened were literally boom, everything just sort of changes

very, uh, at a very short time. And I think what it has done for me is allow me to, allow me to sort of surf in the wave of uncertainty more than I otherwise might have been able to. I think that's my main takeaway from all that. Yeah, that's an incredible lesson because the truth is the only certainty we have is this false sense of security that we build around us. Things can happen and they do happen a lot. And in some ways, as horrible as tragedy can be, it seems to me it can be looked at as a gift once you've gotten through the pain or you've getting through the grieving process because it clears away all the detritus and it clears away the, like the, like the,

bullshit. You know, like you said, it was like, here you are, struggling and like, I'm going to focus on getting in the school because it would mean all these other things. And your heart's like, nah, man. Like your heart was literally not in it. You know what I mean? Your heart wasn't in it. And so I, I'm, thank you, first off, thanks for sharing that story.

And thank you for putting it in the book because that's, that's what I got out of it was, yes, these things that we feel are tragic are usually events in our life. where we're at a crossroad, where we've been thinking about something and our body is not in tune with our language or our brain and our body, that mind-body connection is severed. And, you know, the world will grab you by the hand and pull you a certain way when, hopefully when you're making bad decisions, hopefully you listen to it. You could have chose not to listen to that. I'm going to this business school anyway.

And, you know, it might have been two more heart attacks before you decided that maybe you were going down the wrong road there. I did end up circling back to the business world. So I was like, oh, I can do, maybe I can do it later. And then I went to business school much later and then got into that world. Yeah. Yeah. But it's funny, though, I wrote about the migraines.

I started having those around the business school the second time. I'm like, no, I'm just now for the first time thinking about that. I was like, wow, okay. Maybe they're like, nope, this still isn't right. I don't know. It's like, how do we get through to you? Yeah. You're not listening.

Stoverd life child. This is the universe trying to tell you something. Yeah. Tap on his head a little bit. Hit him in the heart, get him in the head. Let's see what we can we take from this guy. When is he going to finally get it? He's a tough one.

Yeah, he's a stubborn one. But on the flip side of that, too, you learn that you can push through your comfort zone and get things done. And on some level, when you tell me that story, how you doubled back, it makes me think that the deal you struck with yourself, Okay, I'll travel now, but then I'll come back. A lot of people would never follow through with that. So, you know, depending on how you want to look at it, you know, I think you can look at it in a positive way. Like, yeah, when I traveled, I learned, and then I doubled back and was true to myself because I made a deal with myself to go back to it. And I kind of, I found a way to double back without sacrificing the travel, which I think is difficult to do, but I got lucky because I did, I did have going to business school, like at the master's level, but I did it in Taiwan.

So I was still like in Taiwan living there and like, oh, I can get this education the same time. And then I moved to Switzerland where I'd never like lived in as adult before and started my career there. So it was still like a new environment. So yeah, I was sort of managed to do it like that. So I was very lucky, I think. Yeah. He was responding to the opportunity. Yeah, absolutely.

How did you find, how have you found being educated in one country and then applying for a job in another country? Do you find that the country that you're applying for the job in tends to look at your credentials from another country on a positive note? Or do they look at it through maybe a little bit of a lowered brow? Well, I'm not sure. But I think Switzerland is a – Europe versus U.S. is a bit tricky because I find that in the U.S. people are much more open. They're much more open to you bringing an experience to a potential job that isn't necessarily what you studied for the last 10 years. right so they might give you start in like sales you've never done sales before but in europe specifically in switzerland everybody's hyper specialized and it's another interesting

like row we can go down about generalization or specialization but there it was probably not an advantage because they had so many people where they had been doing that exact thing for so long like in every industry so it's kind of hard to break into quite honestly And it was also the trap of being overqualified for stuff or under, you know, under, under experience, but overqualified, which is silly. Like there's a lot of job ads out there that for entry level work, they want you to have five years experience. So it was like, how does that make sense?

Yeah. So I ran into that quite a bit. And I'm somebody who was like, I don't need to start here. I mean, I'm new to this place. I just give me any job. I'll work a temp job. Yeah. But even temp agencies were like, hey, you got a master's degree.

This is nothing here for you. I'm like, I don't care. Like, I need to eat, right? I need an income. So it's a little bit different mentality there. Yeah, I've noticed, if we backtrack just a little bit, I've noticed that a lot of the new books coming out, a lot of the new books that I've been reading,

even like I think your book is this way. And I think a lot of the new exciting fields are interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinary. Yeah, I think that's right. Interdispenary. And prior to the last few years, it was this incredible hyper specialization where people that are on the extremes, they're almost not even talking the same language. You know, it's so in depth and so I know the left pinky finger fingernail, but it's way different than the pointer fingernail. And so it's easy to see how we've gotten so separated from each other when in the same field there is.

You know what? It reminds me of this. It reminds me of the idea that there's more numbers between 0 and 1 than there are between 1 and infinity. If you think about that for a minute. Yeah, because there's 0.01, 0.001. Right, right. Right. Right. And there's smaller numbers. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so that that seems to me to be like specialization. Like we can we can break it down so fine that you need a super special microscope. But at some point in time, you've got to pan back and look at the big picture. I mean, okay, we've lost it here. Let's get back to whole numbers here and figure this thing out. But what was, what is your take on the hyper-specialization versus the big picture? Well, I'm glad you brought that up because I was just thinking about this before we started talking today, actually.

There's a great word in German called fach idiot. The word fach means specialization. Idiot means idiot means idiot. So we have so many people who are hyper-special. eyes, but as you said, they only see this little, you know, fingernail, and they lose a whole big picture. And you see that in, I mean, you just look at the, like, COVID and the vaccine debates. Yeah. You can't, unless you have a PhD in this, like, one little trunch of medicine, it's almost like your opinion isn't valid. Like, you're unable to draw inferences from other sources and tie it to

what you've already known. And it's an interesting way of stifling debate on the one hand, on the other hand, we're not getting anywhere because we just have these people talking in their echo chambers and no one else is allowed to participate. And that ties into kind of what we were talking about before with the work culture. I think work was a lot more interesting when we were generalists because you weren't necessarily just doing bookkeeping all day long every day. You might be doing a little bit of that, a little bit of customer support, a lot more variety in your work. And I love those, Sorry, there's a plane driving, flying overhead. But I like the stories from, if you read these books like,

not think and grow rich, but of that era in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, and you have the sense of anything was possible. And people would just walk up to Thomas Edison's company and say, hey, I'm Mr. Nobody. I want to work for a company, Mr. Edison. And he's like, okay, here you go, sir. I gave you a chance. And it doesn't happen like that anymore so much.

There's so many barriers, artificial or otherwise, in the way of that. And it made, I think it made white collar work much more boring, much more like an assembly line, if you think about, you're so specialized. You're just doing this one tiny piece of the process. And I've always been the opposite way. And I always felt my whole life like I was society was telling me I was doing something wrong. Because I've always been super general and I have all these different interests from different areas. but they didn't translate so well into the career worlds. Right.

You know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean. So I don't really know the solution, but I think being more general is good. But then there's an argument of, well, the more we specialize, the more wealthy we become, right? Because all the Western economies are around really specialized labor. So I don't know if there's a way to do that. Maybe we do need to lose some wealth or whatever to figure it out. But I don't really know how we navigate that.

I hope you can figure it out. I think it's going to happen. Like, I think it's happening now because when you are so specialized, you no longer have a difference of opinion. You only have the opinion that was taught to you by the guy who knew the person who was the perfect specialist. So everyone has the same blinders on. And that's why we can't solve problems. It's like, we're going to go to these professionals that all think exactly the same. Okay, well, you're going to get the exact same solution.

And when you said that, you know, when you gave your example about Edison or even your life that you've, lived as a generalist, that allows you to see the problem from a fresh set of eyes. Like, it's like, if you ever have a problem, then you're like, I can't figure it but you go to sleep and you wake up the next morning, you can figure it out because you get this fresh idea on it. You can see it differently. We need that same sort of problem-solving method from different angles of life. And that should be what diversity is. Diversity should be a difference of opinion. It shouldn't be, okay, we need a

this person, we need this kind of person, that type of person, but I want them to all think the same. It's back to the illusion of diversity. Just because people look different and have different genders, it doesn't mean they think different. And in fact, if we take all these different colored people and put them in the same institution,

okay, now you have a bunch of different looking people that all think the same. Nothing's happening like that. You have to get people from different walks of life. And it just seems to be a natural filter process. to filter that out. And I think it gets back to that people don't want to be wrong. So let's hire people that will do what we tell them and think the same.

But we're running from the very thing that would free us, I think. Yeah, you see that a lot in the corporate world too. Because to get a corporate job, usually you have to go to a four-year university. Four-year universities tend to be somewhat conformist in how they want you to think about things. So then you get into a group of, you know, peers already at that level. And then they all go to the same companies. And yeah, they could be from whatever background, any kind of ethnicity or race. But they've learned to think and look at the world through the similar lenses.

So you don't really have that much diversity anymore. And it's also the, when we're talking about generalists, who are the people that used to be idolized? You know, you think about Da Vinci, you know, the Renaissance people. Da Vinci, look at all the things Da Vinci was good at. He had like 15 different amazing abilities because he was so all over the place. And the founding fathers of the U.S., they were all like really diversely educated people. And it's like that exposure to different ideas that ends up being the driver of a lot of like the best inventions and innovations, I think, rather than somebody who's just doing one thing and not looking at anything else. So we sort of lost

We lost creativity, I think, overall by going down this route. You know, there's a parallel I see between what we're talking about and like your book. And that is, let me try to set it up the way where if you think about a like an engine, like there's a bust in a boom,

like a piston goes up and it goes down and it explodes and it comes back. Explodes and it comes back. The same way the tide of the ocean goes out and then it comes in. it goes out and then it comes in and the same way our economy has a boom bust cycle

we expand out and then it collapses and then it collapses and it expands back out and it collapses I think specialization is a form of expansion because it's like it goes way out the same way you would take an ink bottle and smash it against the wall and then all the ink would fall out

and it would be these little spirals and stuff but it's still the same ink the way I see your book written is like there's this premise and then you go and you've traveled to Spain, you've expanded to Switzerland, you've expanded through different relationships, you've expanded through these near-death experience, and then you're bringing it back. And so I'm often, lately I've been seeing this pattern in good books like yours and in life and in the world in which we live.

I'm wondering, do you see patterns like that, not only in your life and in your writing, but throughout the world you live? I do, but I want to ask you a question about what you just said. When you're talking about the patterns of expanding and bringing it back, what do you think of the idea that our artificial delaying of the bringing it back over the last few decades due to Fed monetary policy, people pumping more stuff into the system, delaying exactly what you're talking about? Oh, it's futile.

Like, there's no way. It's like the tide goes out and then I draw a line in the sand to try to catch the way the water. It's like, dude, it's not going to work. It's like a sandcastle. And you can pretend, and you can, you could pretend the emperor is wearing clothes, but there's nothing those people can do. Like there's going to be a radical. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the more you delay, the truth is, I don't know. I don't think it'll work, but maybe if you dug a deep enough hole, it would catch the water as it came back, but I don't think you can stop the cycles. You may be able to delay them, but are you really delaying it or are you just causing pain in different areas?

Right. That's what I'm suggesting, right? Because we've been, it's been delayed for so long and then it's given rise to all these ills that we're talking about. Right. The over specialization, because we're not bringing it back. Yeah. And keep putting it off. I mean, eventually it will. I mean, probably in our lifetimes, maybe very soon. Who knows? Why do you think they're doing that? It's the same thing, like in the companies. It's also, it's politically driven. Who wants to be responsible for the great pullback, right? Nobody. Nobody wants to be like, oh, that happened on my watch.

No way, I'm going to kick the can. That guy's going to. It's like hot potato. Yep. And I just feel like they keep playing hot potato so that they can extract whether they need to in fast enough time. Then you hope the other person that comes in and does it, but they're playing the same game, right?

So it just keeps going on until it hits that critical mass where you can't do it anymore, which I don't think is that far off, to be honest. Yeah. Do you think that we're as guilty, like, do you think we're as guilty as the people in positions of authority? Like, by we, I mean, guys, like me and you doing a podcast right now, like get up and do their thing. Are we just as guilty as the people in positions of authority? Probably. I mean, most people don't really want to do anything about it because it's uncomfortable, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I like my comfortable life and, you know, all the stuff at my fingertips and food delivered my door or whatever. I don't want to go through periods of famine and unpleasantness, but it's going to require something like that. So, yeah, we all put it off either physically or psychologically, I think. And we just, in our minds, we just feel like, I mean, how old are you, may I ask? Yeah, 47. Well, so maybe not the extent that I have, but I've pretty much only lived during good times, right?

if you think about, okay, there have been a couple of recessions. The dot-com burst and maybe the one 2008. But we haven't had any real pain. And we've just had the good life, at least in the West. And we just have this expectation that's just going to keep going. And that we're never going to have to pay that reckoning. So kick the can of the next generation. That's what people are kind of doing.

Yeah. The silver lining that I try to pull up over myself is that in times of radical change, there's radical opportunity. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll become a multi-millionaire or Robin Barron or one of these Carnegie individuals. But it does mean that you have an opportunity to ride that wave back in and you can change who you are with greater intensity and flow if you go with it. And for me, like I've been a UPS driver for 25 years. and I've been lucky to travel around the world. I love reading, and I've found myself over the last, ever since COVID hit,

like, it's fundamentally changed me who I am. Like, I've been able to, I always like helping people. And I try to volunteer when I can and help people. But when COVID hit, I decided, you know what, I'm going to start a channel. I'm going to do some podcasting. And today I'm talking to you. And I think you're an awesome person. and a book is awesome.

And I've spoken to other people who are really cool. And I've gotten to learn so much more. And I've created all these new relationships because of the great pullback, because of the recession, because of COVID. And my wife and I's relationship has become better. And she's gotten to work from home a little bit. And it's fundamentally changed the way we spend money because we don't have a whole lot of money anymore. And so I think that to see the change.

change and try to build a dam and not change is futile. But if you can kind of understand a little bit or at least see the direction things are moving, then you yourself can move with it and you can change and use it as a catalyst for that change. So I think that there are some silver linings if you're willing to accept a little bit of pain and just know that pain is change and that we're always changing. So you should embrace this pain and then embrace this. this change. Yeah, it sounds like you're talking about developing resilience and just at least mentally, perhaps financially with ties or whatever and just to be able to respond

to what comes. What's the alternative, right? Hold on, you know, going down with the ship. Slat down the wall. Not that I subscribe to that, but I'm sure many people do. Well, I think, I think you, we've probably both done it before and we know it doesn't work. Like, you know, when I was oh man in 2010 my son died and for me that was like it took so long you know i held on to that ship for as long as i can because it meant death and i didn't want to hold on and i couldn't let go i'll die if i let go my family will die if i let go i can't let go i'm i'm the dad i'm i'm the husband i can't not let go with this and that you know everything died relationships died part of me died my relationship with my wife almost died

I lost my kid I lost everything man and as as you finally let go you begin to understand you know maybe there's a gift here and that sounds so fucking crazy

but no it doesn't sound crazy at all I fully agree with you you know I learned like that's what that is when I learned the purpose of tragedy The purpose of tragedy is because there's something bigger than we can understand. There's something bigger than we can comprehend.

And the purpose of tragedy is that something this bigger force believes you. It chose you. Hey, this is going to hurt really effing bad. But I'm going to take you through it. And when you come through the other side, I think you're strong enough to come out of that aside and help people that it's going to happen to. So I'm going to give you the site to see it happening. I'm going to give you the site to see the abuse before it happens. And then I'm also going to give you and entrust you with the privilege of helping those people get through that event.

Because you can do it because I chose you to do this. And I started thinking like, God damn, like somebody loved me and believed in me enough. Call it God or Gaia or Buddha or Mohamed. Call it whatever you want. But there's this force that loved you so much. It caused you the worst pain possible. because it knew that would change you because it knew that you can go help other people

and that's when I learned, okay, let go. I know you can't let go. And so now when I see other people that are white knuckle in it, dude, I'm coming over to you. I see you, hey, hey, what's going on? What's up with these white knuckles, man? What are you doing? Just let go.

I can't let go, Georgia. Yes, you can. Like, I think that that is what allows you to change. Part of you has to die so something can grow back. Part of you must die so that you can move forward. And it's very painful, but it's necessary. Yeah, totally. There's something in, I mean, I've never lost a child.

I imagine that's pretty much the worst experience possible. But I've gone through other things where I think it just teaches you that you just have to surrender. I mean, sometimes you just feel like completely helpless in the face of whatever this mystery. is like it can give it can take away whatever you can lose everything at any time and I have like been to that point too where I'm just like like like not I give up that's a little different right right right right right kind of you know kind of like yeah all right you know surrender is such a great word surrender to it and whatever happens happens and you do learn to be thankful for it yeah because you do go through that death and rebirth and on the other side of it I

I'm sure your experience as well, but when I went through, I went through like a depression maybe about two or three years ago, like after my wife left me and then some other stuff happened. And I'd never even come close to feeling depressed before. And this thing just like caught me and I got wrapped up in it. But when I came out at the other side of it, I was like, I felt like a whole new person. I just felt like this sort of indestructibility inside having gone through it. And okay, that didn't kill me. Like, I survived this. Yeah.

I'm good, you know? And then you sort of, for me, it was a natural kind of, like, oh, like, oh, even more after that, because it sort of taught me, well, I, maybe I don't have, maybe I don't have anything. But as long as I've got what's in here, you know, as long as I got my health, then you can't, you know, I can't take anything else away. It's a way I felt anyway. No, that's, it's brilliant. And once something like that happens to you, you can see the lessons that are,

trying to be taught by antiquity. Like, if you read a lot of the old scriptures, like you look at Abraham, like sacrificing his son. If you look at like the Aztec culture, there's all this talk of sacrifice. And what if those are metaphors for like, you know, you must sacrifice everything. And when you do, you can learn something new.

Like for me, going through these incredibly painful loss, be it a wife, a child, a job for some, people. You know, it's, it's this loss that allows you to identify with the lessons of the past. There's always talk about sacrifice, but you don't understand sacrifice until you've lost the thing that you thought you couldn't live without. And now all of a sudden, you realize, not only can I live without it, but I'm better because of it. And it's so hard to come to that

because it's so hard to square that, to square that is like, how can I be better that I lost this thing that I love more than anything in the world? How can I possibly be better? But that's probably a pretty good meditation for people to think about. Can you be better if you lost the thing that was most important to you? Like a lot of good can come from thinking about that. Maybe four grams of mushrooms and that thought for a while can fundamentally change the way you see the world.

Yeah. is where, yeah, like you said, psychedelics have had traditionally, ancestrally had, you know, a huge role in reminding people of this because, I don't know, maybe everyone has to go through something like this in their lives. I don't know. There might be some blessed people that never do, but I suppose you can anticipate it through some psychedelic practices and especially the one that does it for me the most is ayahuasca with the Tema Skal Sweat Lodge. I've never well

it's like it's brutal it can be brutal the one I've done it with the shaman I went with he he's really he's like relentless with this with the sweat lodge and he actually makes us drink it

and then go in the sweat lodge and stay in there for like three hours whoa and it's intense it's intense and you feel like you're going to suffocate you don't have water there's just you're always aware

of death Yeah. And you're not really going to die, but it just feels so intense. And it's so hot in there. Like, it's hotter than any song I've ever been in. And you get to a point, like, I remember a few times where I just literally was on the dirt in sort of child's pose and like complete surrender. I was like, I can't even sit. Like, I'm that defeated. And the only way we could get through it sometimes is through singing these powerful songs. And there are times where like you're on the, you're on the, you're on the, you're on the, you're on the, rank. I'm like, well, I can't take this anymore. I'm going to die or whatever. And then there's something in there, some little power or will that's like, no, right? And then you start, you start getting pumped up and you start with the drums and like that brings you back, you know. And it's almost like you, you look at death and you're like, no. And it's really powerful. That is awesome, man. Have you done that a couple times or? I was going to have done probably maybe nine or ten times.

Wow. Not every time with the sweat lodge, but probably like maybe four like that, three or four. The first one I was like, I didn't even make it. Like they went through four rounds and I didn't know that. And after one round was like 15, 20 minutes. And I thought it was over. Like I was literally, I can't do it. And they're like, nope, there's three more.

I was like, oh, I'm out here. I had to leave. Like I had to leave. I can't do it. Yeah, it's really intense, but worth it. And it does feel like a rebirth. You come, because you go in naked, first of all. So you go in there and then you go through this kind of death episode.

And then you're literally crawling because you've got no strength. You've just been dehydrated. Yeah. And the effects are still on. You're like crawling out of this thing that looks like the womb of the Mother Earth. Wow. Up to the other side. And then you kind of like, you know, you're cold and, you know,

naked in a ball kind of just like you just been born again. It's, yeah, it's, it's amazing. That's, that's pretty close to, to,

I mean, that's, that's as close as you can come to being reborn. It's just a full shutdown and reboot, you know? Mm-hmm. But I think there's a lot of power in there. I think that,

you know, when you, when you come to those crossroads, you see, you see the world differently. I mean, you, maybe you,

and it makes sense if you start looking, back in indigenous ways. Like, there's a, there is a process for becoming a man. There is a process for becoming, there's a right of passage. You know, if you think about, just think about that language, a right of passage. Like when you go to the birth canal, that's a right of passage. When you climb out of the sweat lodge, that's a right of passage. And maybe that's something that in the Western tradition, you know, we have failed to do.

Like, our right of passage is like graduating college. Hey, congratulations. You graduated college. Was that a near-death experience? Did you become a man or did you become a woman? Or, you know, it's not the same type of right of passage as the rights of passage that have been in folklore and in humanity since the beginning of time. Yeah, you go in your book was called Terra, Tara Sacred, right? Terror before the Sacred. That's exactly what it's about.

Yeah, that's, I mean, you talk about that quite a bit about the absence of ritual. especially for men, I think. Yes. Because men seem to need it more. Because women have the natural one. They get their period. And it's very intense for them. Yeah.

And their relationship with their child is just, it's so much more than, at least in my opinion, like my wife's relationship with our daughter and our son is, I'm jealous of sometimes because it's so pure. And, you know, I once heard this quote,

that said the difference between a man and a woman and the relationship with their child is when your child's sick and the wife can't stop thinking about it but the husband just gets up and goes to work and does his day. I can compartmentalize that but my wife can't. She's like we need to fix this.

She's got 102. I notice she's sweating a little bit. She knows every detail and it makes sense like she carried her in her body for like nine months, you know? So yeah, I agree. I think that there can be more rituals for men and there's should be and somehow that's been looked down upon for the last maybe 30 years or so yeah i mean i'm

starting to see it in in Bali where i'm living now where there's more more of these men circles i don't do they have those where you are not i'm sure they do but i am i'm not a member of any yeah me neither i've been to one before and i see the value in it but it seems to be more and more that there are some things like that and groups organizing they're more just talking sessions though. It's not the same as we're still missing that initiation right into manhood. And I haven't seen too many great substitutes for that in our society, unfortunately. And I think it's leading to a lot of lost men, especially when you hit our age. Like, I'm going to be 40 this year, where I don't know, I was thinking of this a lot lately because my father died a while ago.

So he died when I was 26. And you're talking about the relationship between mother and father. And I would, for me at least, or I think maybe in generally you can say this, but I think I was tied to my mom a lot more as younger, right? Sure. You see people on their deathbed or dying in war, they reach out, they call for their moms, not their dads. Yeah. But there is a certain age where I feel like the dad. plays more of a role. I feel like we don't feel it till we get older.

Yeah. And unless we've had that initiation or the wise elders, men in our community, we're sort of missing something. There's a void. I haven't found anything to really address that other than Freemasonry, which comes close. Free Masonry comes close to that. Yeah, you had mentioned that you had found out that your father had participated as a Mason. My grandfather. Your grandfather. And all of a sudden, it's like you find this group of men that can be mentors to you that maybe knew some, obviously, that shared a similar passion to your grandfather. I think that there's something to be said about that. Yeah.

And like if we're talking about Freemasonry, I got to put this like disclaimer out there. Right. Because there is a lot of stuff I've seen about Freemasons taking over the world and there are the hidden cabinet behind the World Economic Forum and all this stuff. my official statement is I don't know. Okay? I don't know or not if that's true or not. It could be at the highest levels of the organization. They get together and they plot things.

You can't put that past any group of people. But all I've seen from my limited, I've only been a member for a few years, and not recently because of COVID. I haven't really been to meetings. But all I've seen is a group of seek, it's like gentlemen's school. It's like guys that generally seem to be good people

that are trying to be better. That's what I've gotten from it. And they use ritual to teach certain things, and there's a camaraderie, and there's sort of that bonding thing that happens. And it's an imperfect substitute for probably what we used to go through in more primitive days. But I think it serves its purpose pretty well.

I'm happy to be a member. Yeah. I just wish there are more things like that. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I remember as a kid watching the Flintstones, and they were all part of the loyal order of the water buffalo. And it seems like men, our grandfather's age, it was more, it was prevalent that every town had a lodge of some kind,

whether it was the Moose Lodge or the Elks Lodge or, you know, there's all these lodges for guys to get together and be like, hey, I'm having this problem in my relationship. Hey, I'm having this problem with my kid. Hey, I'm having this. And the same way that maybe a young man that was indigenous to America would go to the elders. We don't have that for young men now.

You might have teachers, but you don't have this area where you can, where it's easy to go and pick a mentor. I was lucky when I found some really great older guys in my life that I just attached myself to and I got to learn from. And I learned a lot. You know, some of it was pretty painful, but there's something to be said about an older guy

that can tell you, hey, you arrogant little, you don't know what you're doing. Why would you say that? And like, young men need that. Like, and maybe your dad can't do that for you because you don't have a good relationship. But if there's somebody you admire that you respect, and they can grab you by the collar and be like, you are such a dummy. What is wrong with you? Or it doesn't have to be negative. It could be like, hey, I notice you're doing this.

How about this over here? But, you know, I, let me just take one more shot at this here. One of my mentors told me a story about a group of elephants. And he said that he had read about this two young elephants that went to the zoo. And the zoo had had them for like five years. These young elephants were two boys and they were going around the whole park, just crushing everything and tearing down fences and mowing down trees. And the zoo people were like, you, what are we going to do these elephants, man?

We have to put them down. We're going to ship them away. And so they made all these calls. and they called this elephant park in Africa somewhere. And the guy said, no, no, look, they're just young. They're just young kids, man. They're young boys. You need to bring in an older elephant.

That guy will show him what's up. So they brought in this older elephant. And sure enough, within a matter of, like, months, they started watching the older elephant. Like, wasn't tearing stuff down. That wasn't breaking things. And when one of the younger elephants would go and break this fence, the older elephant would walk over there and smack him.

They're like, what you're doing, dummy? That's not what you're supposed to do. And, you know, so it's this. idea of guidance. It's this idea of looking at someone who's been through situations. And that's the story behind mythology. That's the story behind the Homeric

verses. That's the Iliad, the Odyssey, the hero's journey. It's Joseph Campbell. It's there. And it's almost like these things are smacking us in the face. Like, hey, you guys forgot, man. Got to lead. And I got to be honest, Kevin. Like, in your book,

I think that there's so much wisdom there. Like, I gave a copy of your book to my nephew because I thought there was so much wisdom in there. So thank you for that. I think and when I see your journey, I see you traveling and making these decisions about, okay, I'm going to travel here and then I'm going to go to business school or here's what I have, here's here's a guy that's running his way up through the corporate world and find some problems there. And it goes out of his way to face the threshold guardian. You know, like it's so, it's so Joseph Campbellish to me. Thanks for doing it.

I appreciate those words, yeah. Yeah. We need more of those kinds of things. I don't know. I think within every or maybe not every man, but within a lot of men, we love our women. We love the homes we create. But there's something missing.

And it's maybe because we're somewhat feel like we're caged wolves or something. but there's something with like we need that man just being around men just being men without filter or without being told that we're disgusting or whatever yeah so I definitely think that we can do way better there yeah what would that how would that look like I mean would that look like maybe

it might look like joining a men's club or something like that but what advice would you give to maybe your self 10 years ago or 15 years ago to kind of fill this void. Well, yeah, I've done it with Freemasonry to a certain extent, but anybody who's listening that's thinking they need something like that, if you can't find a men's circle, just try starting one. And it can be just something amongst your friends, you know, it doesn't have to be any real formal thing,

but you should make it somehow ritualistic or ceremonial a little bit. So a lot of the circles I've been to, they do, you know, they do it at night. They usually put like kind of soft lighting and they might even have, I forget what the word is for, but you know that piece of wood smoke that they light the wood and then they kind of put it around you. Like an incense or something or like a... There's a word for it. It's slipping my mind, but it's literally a specific piece of wood that they light on fire and then it just makes, It just makes smoke and it has a very distinct smell.

And they use it a lot in ayahuasca ceremonies and things like that. It's not frankincense. No, no. I just, I don't remember the word for it. It'll come to you later. Yeah. So they'll do that. And they'll make a little ritual out of it.

Doesn't I do anything elaborate. You don't have to bless people with crystals and stuff like that. But just the sort of set, where we talk about psychedelics, set and setting, right? So try to create the setting for a calm, a calm, a, calm atmosphere that allows people to share whatever they got going on. And if that's you, if you're hosting it, then you kick it off with whatever we want to talk about and see what happens. You know, it could be something good.

Yeah, I think it goes back full circle to the boom and the bust and the moving in and out of the tides. I think that you and I are similar in our nomadic nature. Like we've picked up and we've left everything to go make our own way because that's what we were taught to do. You guys make your own way. but now you're seeing the regression of the tide and it's like okay us men that were nomads we've went out we've discovered now it's time for guys like us to come back and share with people hey here's what

we learn and maybe it's guys like us that should be starting the men's group maybe we are the closest things to our grandfathers so it's up to us to show the younger guys maybe we're the older elephants you know maybe it's our turn yeah yeah and anybody thinking watching this thinking well i don't have anything to share well i guarantee you have something to share like you've been through something that other people haven't or interpreted your your experience in a certain way. And I think there's a real need for this. I think loneliness is just, people are lonelier than ever. And men are bad at making connections. I mean, women are amazing at it. When I see what my girlfriend does, she makes best friends with someone in 10 minutes,

is exchanging numbers and they already have plans to meet and stuff. Guys don't do that. I don't know if it's like you don't want to be thought of as gay or something or I don't know what it is. But guys just don't really do it. But they want it. They want it. They're like almost all guys love to be invited to things, but they don't want to be the inviting. Yeah. So maybe, you know, excuse me, I got a cough.

Yeah. So yeah, why can't it be whoever's listening, just be you? You can be that person to reach out. You can surprise who shows up. Yeah. I think there's something to be said about influence and relationships and learning. And, yeah, it's sometimes I think about it from, like a war standpoint

because that's what guys do. If you look at the way like even colonialism or you look at the way battles are fought like you send out sometimes you would send out like recon to go and check everything out and then they would come back and it seems like if you look at our world as a giant

war, all our societies like as a giant species of war like we've gone out across the globe and we've sent people out there to fight and conquer and now we're all coming back to talk about okay, here's what I learned. Here's what we're doing.

It just seems like a good strategy to do. Can I answer your question? Yeah, man. What do you got? Just like, have you, I mean, you read a lot about this kind of stuff, probably more than me in terms of ritual and things like that. Have you read anything interesting about past rituals like that men would do for other men? In certain cultures, it stuck out.

Yeah. There's a really good book called Black Elk Speaks, and it's about this medicine man. And he talks his, I feel silly because I don't remember exactly what tribe he was from. However, he speaks a lot about the indigenous experience and what it was like for him. And in a weird sort of way, he was someone who, he was like the last medicine man from his tribe. And he was reaching, he was taught by an older, like his grandfather, not his father, but his grandfather. And so he was the guy that was given the keys to the rituals and the ideas. And the book is so beautiful and so inspiring, but also so sad because he's saying, I got no one to give the keys to.

That's why I'm writing this book. That's why I'm telling these white, that's why I'm telling everybody, here's the keys, which one of you will hold them? Here's the keys. Which one of you will have the courage to stand up and do this? Because here is what happens when no one. has the keys. Society around us falls. It doesn't matter that I'm an Indian. It doesn't matter what tribe I'm

from. What matters is that we forgot the way to treat ourselves. When you ask me if I read about men's groups, this was the ultimate man's group. It was this guy who came out and is telling the world, like, the time is now. Here's the keys. Here's me,

you know, an Indian guy writing a book. We have oral traditions, but I'm trying desperately to reach out to whoever I can and using these methods that you guys use. So that's the one that comes to mind when I think about ritual. And he spoke about a similar sweat lodge. And he talked about the transformation of ideas. And the way he spoke about ideas was through a similar type of trip that he had about you know, seeing the eagles, seeing the animals, seeing his, his connection to nature, which I think is a big part of a man's group is our connection to nature. In the world we live in today, a man is defined by how much money he makes.

A man is defined by his consumption patterns, but nothing could be further from the truth. I know tons of men that make tons of money that can't even run a mile. What kind of a man is that? I'm not trying to be rude or disrespectful, but if your body is at a point where it is breaking down, but you have tons of money, you should rethink what it means to be a man. You should rethink about some of these decisions that you've made

because it's probably not too late. How can you throw a ball with your child if you have millions of dollars, but your arm doesn't work? You know, you've spent all your money, and I think you write about this in your book, you spend all your time working for an entity, a corporate person that doesn't care about you. You put all your time and your money and your, the best times of your life when you're a young man and you can be with your wife and you could be with your kid outside at a picnic or hiking or surfing or snorkeling.

You're at a corporate boardroom talking about how do we give the illusion of productivity? That's not a man's group, damn it. That's not a woman's group. You should be out there doing something, like whatever it is, having your hands dirty in the garden. But yeah, thanks for asking that question, because I love to rethink of that guy's story. I'll send you the book. Everybody should read it to me an audio book. Yeah, yeah, read it.

It's awesome. It's something that will fundamentally change you if you let it. But I think there's tons of stories out there. Have you read some other rituals and things about men's groups? There's an interesting book called Iron John, a book about men. However, I wish it would be more specific. So that's kind of why I asked a question. I hear a lot about these rituals and what men used to do for other men.

And in this book, it talks about there's one thing that they do and it involves pain. It's like the wound. And yeah, I don't want to do it justice. but check out that book and they talk about the wound so part of the these initiatory rights involved I think the administering of a small wound to the boys and I can't remember what it's supposed to be symbolic of but I think it's served as a reminder and that was as a key in all in a lot of them yeah shared pain shared sacrifice check that one out iron John it's pretty cool yeah I think in the book I think it's in um black elk speaks where he talks about

about the ceremony that the boys would go through and it seems almost barbaric like they would cut them and hang them so they were almost dead you know and and there's other stories about them dancing in the sun until they get to the point of dehydration and they fall like that's the point like you have to go till you almost die yeah exactly it's it's that that death like the simulated death that men go through and then you understand another man only when you have seen another man in his worst moment and you have been through a moment like that can you identify with that person

and like the same thing we were talking about how when I when I watched when I went through what I went through that's how I can see other people going through it that's the same thing when you've been through terrible things now you have this ability to see other people going through it like that's what makes you a leader that that's what can make you

a leader that's what can make you a man is that the shared tragedy is like, yeah, you went through it. So guess what? Now you can go help other people through it. And you can save them in a way. You can be the guy that when someone's down on the ground, they're crying because they've lost everything. You can be the hand that walks over to him and pulls them up.

Like I think that that is the- Like, yeah, you're fine. Yeah, hey, hey, congratulations. Not literally, but in a tough love kind of way. That's one of the things that my mentors have done for me is like I'm crying like a baby sometimes and they're like, hey, congratulations, man, you did it. Yeah. You're like, what? No, you don't understand.

I've lost. Like, yeah. No, no, I do understand. And congratulations. Now you're one of us. Yeah. And it's like, oh, oh, this is a graduation ceremony. And that comes back to the wound that, you know, a lot of warriors or even if you look at football players, they'll like have a brand on them.

Like you think it's probably something dumb, but do these people that went through a ritual. They went through a sacrifice where they seared this thing into their skin and all of them have it. And all of them have a story about how they got it. It's, you know, maybe it's a story about your first love or the first. I tell my nephews, you're not a man until you've had your heart broken. Let me hear your story. Well, who's the first girl that broke your heart? How did it happen?

And I hope everybody has that story because that is a right of passage. It's like, hey, congratulations, you made it through. You didn't kill yourself. You didn't kill the other person. You know, you made it. Congratulations. It hurt, didn't it? Well, now I got good news and bad news for you.

The good news is that no one's ever going to break your heart like that again. And the bad news is no one's ever going to break your heart like that again. You know what I mean? Yeah. Hey, I hope it was beautiful because it ain't going to happen like that again. I hope all those times where you thought that this person was the most beautiful thing in the way. hope you embrace that because now you're scarred nothing can grow there you grow something will grow there but it won't be the same man it was pure wasn't it it's beautiful think about that person man and

finding your heart a spot for them and always remember them remember the good parts and remember the bad parts but that's the ceremony like every day is a ceremony life is a ceremony and if you can see those rituals you can get through your day with passion you can get through it and be like ah this is this is goddain this happened to me and then you'd be like oh you know what i'm pretty lucky look at this thing you can you can see it. And I was telling this guy yesterday on my route that I do, you know, sometimes life will throw you, life, nothing hits harder than life. But sometimes when you're having the worst day, something beautiful happens. And for me the other day, there's this little kid on my route. He's probably four, a little Japanese kid. And he, I've known him since he was two. And he didn't

even speak any English or when he was two, you know. I remember last year, all he could say was, yep, Yep, and I was, this kid runs out of, when I put my truck, he runs out of his house and can be looking for me, waving, and I'll come over, I start talking to him, hey man, do you have a good day today? Yep, you want to see the back of my truck? Yep. You're going to eat lunch today? Yep. Hey, who's your, do you like race cars or trucks? Yep. Like, that's all he can say, but it's so damn cute. And like, I see him look at me and like, he's so enamored by the truck and his parents will come out and like, but it just, it just hit me like, God, man, I'm so focused. on how silly or how things I don't like. But here's this new life in this world, and he's so excited that he just wants to interact with life. And it makes me look at my life and be thankful for I am. And when I see, you know, something that because my kid died, whenever I see a little kid, especially little boys, man, like I miss my son, man.

And I made a promise to myself, like every time I see a kid, that's my son. When that kid runs out, that's my son. When I see a mom holding their baby, that's my son too. I'm going to try to do something for him. I always try to bring a little toy or a magic trick or something, like show them. And a little part of me gets to imagine for a minute, hey, that's me and my son. That's me and my kid. And so this kid gets to live his life.

And I get a little something out of there. But that's a ritual because of what happened to me. You know, I had this moment. And now I get to share that moment and recreate that moment for other kids. And that kid will never know that I think he's my son, but I do. And a part of him is. And, you know, I get to be his dad. And I think that we can all have those experiences in life if you're willing to go through the pain and you're willing to understand life as a ritual.

And I wish that I could share this with other men that are going to go through this. And I guess that's kind of what I'm doing now. So thank you for letting me do it, man. One way for sure. It's a beautiful story. Hey, man. I appreciate you. Thanks for letting me share it, man.

I guess a lot of it's just about bearing your chest, you know? it's so hard. Strike me down, if you will, but. Yeah, I'm right here. I remember, remember that scene in Forrest Gump where Lieutenant Dan's like, you call this a storm?

Yeah. I always think about that. Like, when things get bad, you just be like, that's nothing. Laugh at death, you know? Yeah. And I,

sometimes, you know, you see people out, out and about people that you think might be crazy or homeless people who's talking to themselves. And maybe they're laughing at the creator. Like, man, There's nothing. I'll be homeless forever. What? It's nothing. That's nice to imagine that.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's probably not that way, but maybe, maybe I think you can learn from everybody. Whether it's you manifesting your ideas onto someone else, whether it's you seeing yourself and that other person, I think there's so much out there that you can learn from if you're just willing to look at every situation like a learning environment. You know, if you're vulnerable, like you said, if you put your chest out there, you're probably going to get smacked. You're probably going to hurt, but you're probably going to get smacked. You're going to. I've been punching the face a lot. I've been beat up a lot, you know.

But I think that's life, you know. How else do you know how far you can push it until you've been punched in the face enough times? And I think that's what the, from what we were talking about before, that's what the wound is, right? You give all the men, they go through this experience in these rituals where they have a near-death experience where some of them like actually will poison boys to the brink of death basically wow and they give you a wound but so much of these wounds we're just talking about they're not physical wounds right if i see you've got a missing leg okay i i see you had a wound

but if you your emotional thing you went through i can't see it on you right i think as i put that wound so that it's visible to other men and they're like oh yeah yeah you've been there you know yeah this I think that this is a lot like the mystery schools. If you look back into the Pythagoreans or even the Mason's is sort of a mystery school. We have a death ritual, by the way. Do they really? Yeah. What's that look like?

It's basically, it's like a death awareness thing. Basically of your own death. And they're supported by brothers as you kind of like deal with it. Yeah, it's good. powerful. Of course it's powerful. Like that's, these are the kind of things that, and it's probably why,

it's probably the reason they want you to seek them out because only when you seek them out do they know you're ready for the experience, right? Like you can't just go and pick someone off the streets and be like, hey, I'm going to take you in this ritual, but, you know, you can't teach anybody

that anything they don't want to learn, right? Yeah. It's like when the saying goes right when the student is ready the teacher will appear and then you've got to seek it out that that says it all right there it really is it really is and you know i i think that we're all that teacher and you don't know who you're talking to you know you don't understand the person across from you may be a high ranking official in some secret society you don't even know of but they could be teaching you. You know, it's weird how, like the teacher shows up.

The teacher shows up. And that means the student shows up. And that means that the teacher sees himself in the student and the student sees himself in the teacher. It's this transfer of knowledge. That's what ritual is. That's the understanding behind it is like, I'm going to show you these beautiful, horrible things.

That makes sense, you know? Yeah. And you're going to learn them. Congratulations, whether you want it or not. I've chosen you or you've decided that you've, on some level, you've decided that you want these trials. It's the same thing. I think it's the same thing with the Zen master, right? Like the anybody who goes to a psychologist ought to have their head examined.

You know what I mean? That's a great call on. But yeah, that's the thing. I've heard some interesting Zen Coens and some interesting stories from people that wanted to go learn from a Zen master who was a horrible Zen master. Not that because they wanted that experience. And like the guy's going to give it to you. You know, he's going to throw stuff at. He's going to punch you in the face.

Like, that's what you want. Like, you want that. You went there. What, they hit him with a stick or something? Yeah. Like, they do all kinds of. Like, that's, that's Zen. Like, you have it in you.

Right now. you're already there. But if you want to go to the ashram and sweep up for 30 years, be my guest. You can do that. I heard a good story. I'll share it with you. It's that there was this Zen master. And he saw this promising young student that was he would be at the temple every day.

And he would go and he would pray for five or six hours. And one day the Zen master comes down and he sees this young student who's praying. and he is focusing and he is meditating. And the Zen Master walks over to him and says, what are you doing? And he's like, oh, master, I'm meditating so that I can reach enlightenment. And the Zen Master sits down next to him and he sees this brick. And he picks up this brick and he spits on it and he starts rubbing it with his hand.

He's just rubbing it, rubbing it, rubbing it, rubbing it, rubbing it, rubbing it, rubbing it, rubbing it, rubbing it, rubbing it, rubbing it. And his students like, like, Master, what are you doing? And he's like, oh, I'm going to rub this brick until it turns into a diamond. And the student says, master, doesn't matter how long you rub that brick, it'll never turn into a diamond. And he goes, oh, so you do understand. You walk away. You know what I mean? Like, there's, there's, it's beautiful, but it's tragic.

But that's the same thing that like they're showing you life. And some people need to have a master there to show them that. And the master's trying to snap you out of this idea. that you need him. Like, yeah. You already have it. But if you want me, if you need me to hit you with this stick,

I will. I want you to get it. And sometimes like people, people mistake that stick for something else, you know, and they just stay there. And the more people stay there, the angrier the Zen master gets

because he's not getting through to you. It keeps, smack him harder. Get out of here. You can't do it. There's a thing people have about seeking authority, elsewhere. Yes. Yes. And we're our own authority at the end of the day. But people like the illusion of being under somebody who knows what's going on. Yeah. And some people never weather through

some people don't graduate past that. I think probably a majority. A lot. A lot of people. It's difficult to know that it's you. It's difficult to know all the good things that happened to you or you. It's difficult to know that all the bad things that happen to you while simultaneously not your fault at all. Like how do you square that? Like that's hard, man. There's no, there's you. Yeah. Right? And you reside in everybody else. It's all you. Every person you see. Every event, it's you. All these books, like, I'm looking at all these books in my library. I'm like, how did I write all these? You know? I mean, like, it's crazy.

Yeah. Who will these? You know, and I, it's beautiful in some ways. And I, I'm thankful, man. I would talk to you, Kevin. And I know, for everybody listening, the book is called Young, Successful and Miserable. Young, successful, and miserable. And it's a fascinating story.

We've only begun to touch on the first couple chapters. But Kevin and I are going to be talking for the next few weeks about life, about the book, about how to make yourself better and rituals. And I'm sure we'll be touching on. things that have touched our lives and those around us that we care and we love and stuff. So that's what we got for today. I would go another hour, man. I got to, but I got to go. Yeah, me too.

I'm also like a slow energy from the whole COVID thing. I'm sort of running out of steam today. Yeah, man. Me too. Me too. Well, I really enjoyed this, Kevin. I enjoy talking to you. And I enjoyed the book.

And I'm looking forward to our further talks. And I hope that people will take away from this, the feeling I have right now. I hope the people, I hope there were some things that we said that can help other people. Where can people find you? And what is it that you hope people take away from our conversation today? You can find me at kevinholt.me. My book is there for, I think only audio and PDF is there. If you want a physical copy, it's on Amazon, but I have no way to print them myself.

I've also got a breathing course on that website. It's the fundamentals of breathwork, Pranayama. The reason I put that on there is because if I feel like anybody who's trying to change anything, you've got to start with your breath because it's so many things come from your breathing and breathing correctly. And if you really want to surrender like we were talking about, then that's sort of like step one is you got to go fix your breathing. We can check that out there. And yeah, basically anybody watching, I hope you hope you,

hope you enjoyed it. I hope something that we said resonates with you and makes your day just 10% better. Yeah. Yeah, me too. I can't, I'm going to, I'm going to take that course. I can't wait to download it and check it out. Yeah, I'll send it to you. Okay. Yeah, I'll reach out separately. Okay, well, hang on one second here. I'm going to end this broadcast and then I'll talk to you a little briefly and then I'll let you go. Everybody, thank you so much for listening to Kevin and I. We're totally blessed that you're here listening to us and reach out to both of us we'd love to talk to you yeah thanks for today helloa