#001 - Branden Collinsworth - Everything a Man Needs to Hear in 2026

Everywhere I thought we were going to go may have just shifted in the past 15 minutes and in beautiful ways. I'm going to read to you something just to begin with that you wrote. This is called A Man's Worth. We talk about men like they're unbreakable. Like their strength is the only thing that matters. Like their worth is measured in how much they can take without breaking. But here's the truth. Beneath the armor, there's a war one too many are fighting alone. The boy who was told to manor or tough it out before he could name his fears, grew in to a man who drags them like chains in the dark. We applaud his hustle, his grit, the way he walks through the fire. But no one asks him if the fire is burning him alive. And here's the cost. On average, across the world, one man takes his life every minute. Not because they're weak. But because the world taught them to suffer in silence. To wear their wounds like trophies. And bury their pain where no one could see. Enduring in silence might feel like strength. But real strength is something else entirely. It's breaking the cycle. It's saying enough. It's choosing to heal. To the men. Let's cut through the noise. Start here. Name your pain. Stop pretending it's not there. Call it what it is. Anger. Fear. Shame. Grief. Speak it out loud. Even if your voice shakes. Pain grows in the dark. Drag it into the light and watch it shrink. Speak your truth. Don't sugarcoat it. Tell someone, anyone, what's really going on. I'm struggling. I feel lost. These words don't make you weak. They free you. Build your circle. You're not supposed to do this alone. Find people who listen without judgment. A friend. A brother. A therapist. A group. If that feels impossible, start with one conversation. I love this one. Let the boy inside heal. Yeah, him. The kid who clenched his fists when he was told to stop crying. Quick and emotional reading this. Who swallowed tears to avoid the sting of shame. He's still in there. Waiting for you to tell him it's okay to let go. Sit with stillness. The world says keep moving, don't stop. But screw that. Slow down. In the quiet, you'll meet yourself again. Breathe. Let yourself feel everything you've been running from. Stillness will show you what the noise never could. Redefine strength. Strength isn't about how much you can carry. I love this part. I'm going to read that again. Strength isn't about knowing how much you can carry. It's knowing when to put it down. It's saying, I need help. True power lives in vulnerability. Not in the weight of your silence. And then you wrote a little passage to the woman who love us. Fuck. Look past the stoic face. The clenched jaw. We're not just protectors or providers. We're dreamers. Fragile souls stitched together. Boys who grew up too fast and never learned how to slow down. Ask him, what are you carrying? And stay there long enough to hear the answer he's too scared to say. Hold the space. Hold the man. Hold the boy who's still fighting to be seen. To all of us. Check on your brothers. Ask them, how are you really? Don't settle for the easy answer. It's a big one because often the strongest people you know are the ones best at hiding their pain. Can resonate with that. Be the person who sees past the mask, who listens, who reminds them they don't have to carry it all alone. A man's worth isn't in his silence, it's in his truth. It's in how he picks himself up when he's hit rock bottom. How he loves with a heart that's been cracked wide open but keeps beating anyway. It's time to stop running from the shadows and start owning them. To stand up and say, here I am, whole, flawed, human, and still worthy of love. Men, rewrite the script. Drop the weight you were never meant to carry. Speak. Heal. Let the world see you. All of you. Scars, shadows, and light. Because you are seen. You are loved. You have enough. A man's worth. I wrote that after a string of suicides of brothers in Bali. I realized how many people were suffering in silence again and again. I mean, being a man and, you know, going through my own inner space and inner world. Yeah, it was important to put that out. And what was cool is when I put that out, thousands of men reached out to me. And they were like, that's, that was it. That's what I needed. So it's wild. Sometimes you don't realize how, like, just in bringing the struggles of our inner world to life. to the light and sharing it in an open space it also gives others that opportunity and what's beautiful is that piece right there and this is why this piece is so meaningful and it's so cool that you brought it as a opening piece to our conversation was that you know it saved some lives like some lives are still breathing and living and moving because of that and that's that's really special this is why we do this work i'd like to think that the words are potent but just the experience of being in your presence in this moment and you know we were just chatting off camera one of the things that i'm most inspired by is how all of you you are and i'd like to assert that that unbeknownst to you is a lifeline for me because i think i often look at the people who've made it the ones that i'm like to think i'm in the process of becoming you know and i've always been someone who is i just want to go directly to the source who's got it you know and you got it but even from afar we've done a few coaching sessions and it's it's easy to get lost in the illusion for me that there's a level of perfection you know but what i'm most inspired by just in the first 15 minutes having been with you is like you're just you're you you know you're authentic you're a man like all of us with the same conversations the same yeah you know and i suppose that leads to this i have so many questions on here brandon that i'm just i'm dissolving the script and because what i want to know is how have you become so self-accepting yeah that's a that's a great question in my ted talk i opened it with a question and i was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry and he said the longest journey you'll ever go on is the 18 inches from the head to the heart and sometimes that's a a momentary journey sometimes that's a lifelong journey for me is it's been a 40-year journey and the self-accepting thing is is powerful in a world that says you're not enough you know in a world that tells us we are inferior in a world that tells us we need to become more in a world that tells us that we need to become more we need to perform it's easy to compare ourselves to external metrics that actually have no significance or symbolize truly what we are and when we really strip it back like just the truth of it all we are all one of one never has been never will be again another one of us like you are one of one the listeners to this podcast are one of one and anything in you that's the fuck is he talking about destroy and uncreate that because that's just an undeniable fag but that takes a lot of people a long time to fall into love with that and for me the journey of falling in love with that the journey from my head to my heart has been rooted in a lot of pain pain is the portal pain is the thing that opens up the doorways to a deeper understanding of self a deeper understanding of love a deeper understanding of truth and at time and time again it's brought me into a deeper relationship with who i am i was speaking to you earlier about one of my talks that i just led here in la called the level down yeah and in the level down i was talking about joseph campbell's hero's journey this idea that all individuals who are on the path are going to be brought to a moment where there's a call a call to leave behind the ordinary a call to leave behind the familiar and then it's up to the hero in the story to cross into that journey where he has to leave behind everything that he knows to step into everything that he doesn't know into the unfamiliar unknown territory as joseph campbell would say and then there's the descent you go into the cave you go into the tests you go into the pressure you go into the spaces where your identity is stretched you know you're challenged you have to fight you have to battle against you know the the demons of your inner world and then eventually you arrive at the ordeal and the ordeal is what Joseph Campbell calls darkest hour or the dark night of the soul the dark night of the soul is this moment in time in mythic traditions where you are going to have the final confrontation you fight the final boss and always the final boss is bigger and more strong than the hero if the hero survives and i say if because there are some people that don't survive the journey yeah it's just what it is and on the other side of that fight on the other side of the surviving the hero is changed shifted expanded with a deeper relationship to love a deeper relationship to pressure but more importantly than that like a deeper relationship to himself yeah he knows himself physique because he's been forged in the fire and then the final part of joseph campbell's arc is the return you come out on the other side and now you have gifts to share with the world because you've gone on the journey of embodiment within your own inner world and so for me that is where i've landed at you know 41 years old not only have i gone down in the cave one time i've gone down in the cave several times i literally i got scars on my face and my hands and scars in my soul and my heart that remind me of who i am and in the process of going into the caves you realize who you are and that is the aspect of embodiment that a lot of people don't talk about they think embodiment is one of these things where you do a couple courses and all of a sudden yeah you arrive they don't realize that how does embodiment become etched in who you are when you look in somebody's eyes and you're not deviating anywhere because you are all the way here it comes from being cooked in the pressure cookers of life yeah yeah so this is where i've landed and if you've gone through enough tests and you've been annihilated by life enough the only thing that is really true is that you are inferior to a force that is way bigger than all of us and the only thing we can do is put our feet on the ground and lead and live with love and that's that's really what it's all about like 40 years from now i'm gonna be forgotten i'm gonna be a figment of them of imagination yeah so it's important to be humble but also there's a beautiful uh serbian quote that goes be humble for you are made of earth be noble for you are made of stars so it's important to be humble but it's also important to recognize the miraculousness that we are and in those two things living all at once it changes the texture and the walk of how we walk how we see how we love and how we serve when you say it's important to be humble at least in my experience i mean this is a question for you it seems as though the journey has humbled you oh on every level yeah like for me i almost feel as though like being humble there's an analytical humbleness but then there's a lived experience of like i've been through the fire and so i want to know one how is the journey humble i want to know one how is the journey humble i want to know one how is the journey humble i want to know one how is the journey humble i want to know one how is the journey humble you and your reflection on that but two you were just speaking about being in the cave vulnerably i feel like i'm in the cave beautiful and for someone who's been through enough cave caves can describe what the cave is yeah it feels to be in the cave yeah so i'll touch on the cave first and then i'll talk about like this the first part of the question so being um being um in the cave in the cave in the cave i like to i like to i like to use some alchemical metaphors to use some alchemical metaphors to use some alchemical metaphors to explain what that is and in alchemy they explain what that is and in alchemy they explain what that is and in alchemy they call it the negredo yeah call it the negredo yeah call it the negredo yeah negredo is considered the first stage of negredo is considered the first stage of negredo is considered the first stage of the alchemist's journey of turning lead the alchemist's journey of turning lead the alchemist's journey of turning lead into gold into gold into gold this is considered deep soil work this this is considered deep soil work this this is considered deep soil work this is considered in black and mint rather than enlightenment than enlightenment than enlightenment this is where pressure is turned up this this is where pressure is turned up this this is where pressure is turned up this is where the heat begins to cook the is where the heat begins to cook the is where the heat begins to cook the material material material this is the most sacred stage of the great this is the most sacred stage of the great this is the most sacred stage of the great work of the alchemist and it's in the dark work of the alchemist and it's in the dark work of the alchemist and it's in the dark and it's in blackness now think about and it's in blackness now think about and it's in blackness now think about like where everything sacred is created like where everything sacred is created like where everything sacred is created where a baby's born in the dark where a baby's born in the dark where a baby's born in the dark where do our dreams form in the dark where do our dreams form in the dark where do our dreams form in the dark where do our souls come from probably the where do our souls come from probably the where do our souls come from probably the dark dark dark well why are we such a dark adverse well why are we such a dark adverse well why are we such a dark adverse culture like our culture is so scared of culture like our culture is so scared of culture like our culture is so scared of the darkness the darkness the darkness one of my master teachers in the amazon one of my master teachers in the amazon one of my master teachers in the amazon jungle he would say that jungle he would say that jungle he would say that the ego lives in the light and the ego lives in the light and the ego lives in the light and in one of my poems called the level down in one of my poems called the level down in one of my poems called the level down it i have a piece that goes uh it i have a piece that goes uh it i have a piece that goes uh the ego loves the light is sustained by the ego loves the light is sustained by the ego loves the light is sustained by its own visibility but when the lights its own visibility but when the lights its own visibility but when the lights go out so too does its relevance go out so too does its relevance go out so too does its relevance and my quest is to touch something deeper and my quest is to touch something deeper and my quest is to touch something deeper so the darkness the cave is so the darkness the cave is so the darkness the cave is paralleled and and paralleled and and paralleled and and represents the negrito the negrito is represents the negrito the negrito is represents the negrito the negrito is this opportunity where the ego shuts off this opportunity where the ego shuts off this opportunity where the ego shuts off long enough long enough long enough and we're given an opportunity to really and we're given an opportunity to really and we're given an opportunity to really tap into who it is we are at our core tap into who it is we are at our core tap into who it is we are at our core when the lights go out who are we at our when the lights go out who are we at our when the lights go out who are we at our core core core those are the caves that we have the those are the caves that we have the those are the caves that we have the opportunity to go into and every one of opportunity to go into and every one of us at one time or another doesn't matter us at one time or another doesn't matter us at one time or another doesn't matter your socioeconomic status doesn't matter your socioeconomic status doesn't matter your socioeconomic status doesn't matter your skin color doesn't matter your your skin color doesn't matter your your skin color doesn't matter your religious background you're going to be religious background you're going to be religious background you're going to be pushed into the caves at one time or pushed into the caves at one time or pushed into the caves at one time or another another another you're going to be pushed into the you're going to be pushed into the you're going to be pushed into the winter seasons winter seasons winter seasons again in a culture that is so again in a culture that is so again in a culture that is so fascinated with spring summer fascinated with spring summer production being seen leveling up production being seen leveling up production being seen leveling up nobody is focused on the level down yeah nobody is focused on the level down yeah nobody is focused on the level down yeah and when they do level down what happens and when they do level down what happens and when they do level down what happens oh i'm in the cave it's a winter season oh i'm in the cave it's a winter season oh i'm in the cave it's a winter season i gotta do everything i can do to get i gotta do everything i can do to get i gotta do everything i can do to get out of this yeah yeah out of this yeah yeah out of this yeah yeah does the seed at winter time under the does the seed at winter time under the does the seed at winter time under the soil say i need to get out of this soil say i need to get out of this soil say i need to get out of this moment under the soil where i'm moment under the soil where i'm moment under the soil where i'm incubating and getting ready for spring incubating and getting ready for spring incubating and getting ready for spring no the seed prepares it pulls all the no the seed prepares it pulls all the no the seed prepares it pulls all the nutrients in because it knows that the nutrients in because it knows that the nutrients in because it knows that the winter season is important to prepare it winter season is important to prepare it winter season is important to prepare it so to sprout and blossom in spring so to sprout and blossom in spring so to sprout and blossom in spring another thing in our culture when people another thing in our culture when people another thing in our culture when people are put in the dark nights of the soul are put in the dark nights of the soul are put in the dark nights of the soul when they're put in the cave spaces when they're put in the cave spaces when they're put in the cave spaces because they don't know how to navigate because they don't know how to navigate because they don't know how to navigate the dark the dark the dark they numb themselves through the dark they numb themselves through the dark they numb themselves through the dark they scroll their way through the dark they scroll their way through the dark they scroll their way through the dark they they they fall into their addictions because the fall into their addictions because the fall into their addictions because the dark becomes this confronting space dark becomes this confronting space dark becomes this confronting space instead of feeling into the dark instead of feeling into the dark instead of feeling into the dark and so in the cave the biggest and so in the cave the biggest invitation is to get present, to feel into it all because it's an amazing opportunity to feel what can only be revealed in the dark and in being and revealing and being feeling and revealing what is in the dark that becomes the inevitable energy that allows for us to blossom in the spring seasons. This is an important space that we get to go into and it's all about the frame. In a culture that is obsessed with light, we don't have a frame for dark. That's why I love Bane in Batman 3 when he's like fighting Batman in the bottom in the darkness and he's like, you've merely adopted the dark. I was born in it. It's like the greatest, like one of the greatest movie lines there is because he's learned to move in the dark. He's learned to accept the darkness and I think that's a part of the human experience is learning to accept that both dark and light are teachers. They have to accept the darkness. They have to accept their own unique teachings. They're both master teachers. But if we only get fixated on the light, then we're quote unquote fractured. When we integrate both dark and light, both yin and yang, both moon and sun, and this is what all indigenous cultures talk about, then we are more integrated individuals. So anytime we get an opportunity to sit in the dark, it is an incredible opportunity. Yeah. What does it look like from a tangible standpoint to sit in the dark? And the dark has over glamorized the light and the light has amplified, you know, it's like, especially online. It's been my, one of my greatest dances and dichotomies is some seasons are calling that I'm calling me to be offline. And at the same time to forward my mission, movement, career, everything happens online. You've got to post every day, put it out, you know? So what does that look like in our modern culture to be inside of the dark while there is this, what so much consider this massive opportunity to forward a calling that exists over your life? Yeah. You know, the beautiful thing about the current state of our world is you could actually bring people with you in the dark. And that's what I've done through a lot of my writing is my writing, you know, like when my mom passed away, the beautiful thing about this day and time is that you can bring people with you in the dark and that's real. It's better than being like, yo, figure it out. Look at me, yo, I'm on top. I got it. This is what you got to do. 10 steps to success. All you got to do is level up this way. It's different than, Hey guys, I'm going through something. My mother just passed away. And I just want to let y'all know that even in the grief, there's purpose. It's as simple as that to still move whole, move with love and move truthfully. And that's the key. It's like when you embrace the darkness, all parts you live, I was telling you like in the early stages of being with my partner, it was like, I'm going to be in this truthfully. And I brought conversations to the altar. Like, Hey, like I don't feel as attracted to you right now. I, feeling pulled towards other women this is like my own nervous system yeah like calibrating in real time yeah this is some of my inner world some of this yeah darkness work that i'm going through here here is all of me yeah and then all of a sudden in all of me coming to the table it opens up the doors for all of her to come to the table when all of us can come to the table opens up doors for everybody else's stuff to come to the table because at the end of the day when we peel back all the layers every one of us is carrying something heavy every one of us known pain every one of us it has a dream inside that we're fighting for that nobody sees and when we really start to dive into the human experience we're a lot more similar than we are different but if we only glamorize the light it's really easy to like start comparing you know accolades and and trophies rather than actually comparing the truth of our inner space yeah it reminds me of i mean there's an age-old saying in the personal development and spiritual development world that what you hold in the dark holds power over you yeah and you know i seem to get that in so many aspects of the word of the phrase but when it comes to and i'm so fascinated by this and just since you said it out there i want to i want to ask you about it how you have been able to be so honest with the feminine like the the woman you love the most in the even in the things that might bring up everything she's ever feared for example you said to me are you cool with me you said one of the first thing you said to her when you first met her you were dating four other women and you told her and she knew and there was nothing to hide and over time like the starting five and narrowed down and now you're just now you're just dating her but you've even shared with her when i when i go to different parts of of bali i mean i've been in a lot of different places with her and i've been in a lot of different places with her and i've been in a lot of different places with her and i've been in a lot of different places with her and i've been in a lot of different places with her and i've been in a lot of different unimaginable ways yeah deeply powerful yeah yeah that's the thing it's like once authenticity becomes your calling card you don't need to spit game anymore once you become a safe space in your inner world and you're radiating from authenticity and potency very high level women are attracted to that because you're a space of safety yeah and protectedness and integrity and it sounds like that it's not just in you know how you do one things how you do everything sounds like that just radiates in every area of your life i do my best yeah because i immediately when you say you don't have to spit game anymore i immediately go to like the podcasting space for example it's like games just coming through you on behalf of the level at which you're radiating from inside of yourself yeah that's potent yeah what i want to know i have so many questions that have emerged just from this the first is you said first of all like this ayahuasca experience do you think you deserve these goddesses reminds me of a mentor of mine when he said to me he was he said he was walking along the side of the road one day and he's like i'm ready to date and he paused on the side of the road he's like would i date me yeah that's real and the answer was no and he said he spent a year dating himself and that was a form of getting back in alignment that's that's powerful and my question for you is when you talk about getting back in alignment from a tangible perspective what did that look like and what did you have to be honest about that you were previously denying that's a great question so the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step i believe that's laozu and the only way to transform oneself is to take a step forward into the process of becoming of transforming i always say and people hate to hear this but i always say it took me 20 years of nothing changing to get to the one year where everything changed 20 years of chopping wood carrying water 20 years of putting in the the reps and then boom all of a sudden people see like my instagram they see my following and they're like wow like how did he arrive they didn't see the 20 years of soil work yeah the 20 years of therapy bringing the right teams investing in the life coaches trusting life coaches and then the 20 years of soil work and then the 20 years of soul and heart to travel when i had no money hopping on a plane broke to egypt and to greece and going to india and you know with a hundred dollars and like trusting that i'm gonna find my way like every time my soul called me i took the leap and in taking the leap the teachers appeared you know we we've spoken about the quote a couple times in our conversations about like when the student is ready the teacher will appear but when the student is really ready the teacher disappears yeah so like i was ready and in that process all the people and places started coming into form that were going to help me with my healing journey yeah yeah you know i've been a performance coach for 22 plus years a lot of people think i got into it to help other people first i actually got into it to figure out how fucked up i was because like that's why i'm in the podcast yeah yeah it's like what people like you want to do these amazing interviews i'm like no i want to learn why the fuck i'm going wrong here i want to sit across from the greats and like like this is for me yeah we just happen to be able to record these conversations and give it to the world it's always for us first and so yeah like i had to go to you know the deepest parts of the training space because i needed to understand what was going on in my mind and then i needed to go study psychology in the ivy like i'm trying to fucking understand this crazy mind that i got yeah i had to go to like my phd neuroscience because i was like why are my neural pathways running this way wow how old are you when you my phd i was i've been in the last three years i'm still in now yeah well actually i took a pause because i i don't feel i need it okay but it was an amazing journey three years in my phd and just for the people listening how old are you i'm 41 so 38 you started your phd 38 phd yeah master's degree when i was uh 27 i was getting my master's degree in psychology but it was all for me it was all like how do i figure out how to be the whole list version of me yeah and that's been the journey you know one door open to training training open to psychology psychology open to yoga yoga can open to martial arts martial arts open into the journey of plant medicine and all of it has led to the journey of love yeah because now i'm in this relationship dojo yeah and my beauty goddess and she's kicking my ass every day making sure that i'm like learning the thing and it's it's a part of the integration process and that's the key right this this day and age the key word is embodiment totally there's so many coaches people out there who are not embodied one thing i want to ask you just purely from what's coming up in this piece of the conversation and using that word embodied it sounds like in your journey you've never placed money as the highest value embodiment of becoming whole has always been the highest value and i'm bringing this to light because it's been maybe the deepest dance of my life i grew up one of my first mentors said to me billy he said the way he described my upbringing back to me is he says success was modeled but stability was not and the dance between my own search which lives in my heart deeply in my heart at the core of everything i'm looking for is to be whole to be embodied to show up with power not from my head but from the deepest fucking place inside of me and i grew up in a world in which i was going to five-star resorts with my family and the nicest schools and it's almost like there's a part of my psyche that wants to it's like i can't be okay until i'm back there you know and knowing that in my core i can't be okay until i'm back there you know and knowing that in my core my highest value is is embodiment it's to get through that and so when you're talking about going to india and and going traveling i'm doing that i've done that the past six years you know like i'm 27 and i have less money now than i had at 20 years old but not because i haven't made money but because everything i have is being poured back into teachers and coaches and mentorship and travel when i hear people talk about i don't have the money for it i did that that doesn't mean it doesn't resonate with me because like if it feels like there's a value system error you know and so i'm curious i don't know entirely where the question is coming from but the world i know and so many of the people closest to me don't understand why i'm doing the things that i'm doing and that in moments in the absence of the right people around me makes me question my choices like should i be paying for mentors or should i be saving this money for something else should i be spending my greatest investment on coaching and therapy and travel to understand myself when some of my homies haven't spent a dime on themselves and they can't sit in a deep conversation with me but they have they've bought a house already yeah yeah how do i how do i wrestle with that dance yeah i mean in a society that tells you that accolades and money is the pinnacle everybody and their mama is going to jump on that train to try to become successful but when we peel back the layers again like it doesn't matter how much money you got it doesn't mean you're going to be happy or fulfilled in 2020 and this is the first time i've ever talked about this on a public in a public space i got brought in to work with the owner of zappos and he was worth billions of dollars and he was also addicted to drugs and i got brought in behind the scenes as like an emergency high performance coach to help set up his system to get him off being addicted and he had all these enablers around him that were on payroll and eventually he ended up blowing himself up in a garage by doing too many whippets uh the nitrous he was addicted to nitrous and he was like i'm gonna go to the hospital and he died a billionaire had all the money in the world wrote one of the books on corporate happiness delivering happiness and was extremely addicted and it showed me that it doesn't matter how much money you have it's like right everybody in our culture it's not just about being a millionaire if you can be a billionaire that's like consider the pinnacle and if you're a billionaire you're going to be happy you're supposed to be fulfilled you're supposed to have it all together that's not the case at all and so i've had a couple of years where i've been through a couple different experiences on the highest level of the game in my training career to show me how miserable so many people are with so much money i got another guy that i know he's worth like 500 million dollars every time i talk to him i say are you any happier he's like not really when's the last time you had some space just to breathe and be by yourself 20 years how's like your love life i got a new chick like every week do you have do you feel like do you feel full no not not completely well what is he chasing because for a lot of people who chase the money, they end up feeling like duped, like they got played when they arrive at the money and they're like, why do I not feel any different inside? So then what, what's, what do we chase? What's the thing that we know will provide fulfillment to the human heart again and again, it shows like service to others, to be able to be in service to others, to be able to be seen and wrapped in community, to be able to be stretched as men, to be able to be tested on a regular basis. These things bring more color to life, to be able to be thrown into the unknown. There's nothing better to bring us into present moment than to be thrown into a new environment where our neural pathways have to come back online. The problem of the sterility of our current world is that everything is designed for comfort, but in throwing ourselves back into the, the colors of life, it opens up the doors for a deeper relation to life. And we realize that like real wealth has nothing to do with money. Real wealth has everything to do with peace. Real wealth has everything to do with the quality relationships in our life. Real wealth has everything to do with bringing our gifts online in the most powerful way. The paradox is when you're living from peace, when you're living from alignment, when you're living from your gifts, when you're living from mastery, money just comes and it's always just enough. It's like, why does a person want to be a millionaire? What's the, what's the reason? Somebody just say it one time, like, all right, one day I'm going to be a millionaire. My marker of success is to be able to do what I want, when I want, where I want, with who I want, how I want, anytime I want. Yeah. Whatever money allows for, that is it. Why do I deserve to demand that money? Because I've spent 20 plus years chopping wood and carrying water. This is why I deserve that type of money. That's a different type of alignment than just some frivolous, like, let me get some millions. Let me get a fly ride. Let me get a fly house. Let me get all these superficial things. And then I'm good. That is a one-way track to like depression and emptiness. And this is why we see so many men committing suicide who are super successful. Anthony Bourdain, uh, Robin Williams, top of the game, and they are taking their own lives. Why? Because if it was all about success on the outside, you know, there's, there's a deep knowingness that there's something deeper than that. Yeah. I think there's a deep worry that finding success on the inside will not then inevitably lead to. And I think that's the game. You know, it's almost like we have, so many examples for men in the world that have found success on the outside. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm missing this, but it sounds, it looks like all the people we look to that have found success on the inside, at least a lot of them are in an ashram somewhere, you know, or they're living on a mountaintop in the Himalayas, you know, and you're a rare breed in the sense that you've been able to find it from my understanding and just the energy that you bring to the time I've spent around you, that you've mirrored both. You know? And so how do you, how do you respond or what do you say to a man who is like to the concept that in our modern culture, we are, we are, we have so many examples of people who found success on the outside and we're not getting the insight. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then the alternative is in many ways, maybe we're starved of those that have found success on the inside, but mirrored that with success in the world as well. Yeah. You know, I want to like paint a picture of like an indigenous community. Yeah. Like an indigenous community, there's some people who are like just members of the community. Some people are the community storytellers. Some people are the community cobblers. Some people are the community warriors. And then there's a chief. What makes a chief a chief is his ability to lead, his capacity to hold, his capacity to know the best direction, the best thing for the tribe. And in being the chief, he is also bestowed with bigger responsibilities and bigger rewards. He's given more power. He's given more capacity because his capacity to hold has been earned. And forged through the fires. The beautiful thing about like leadership, embodiment, having enough war wounds and scars to lead people into a deeper expression of themselves, to lead people in a direction that is true, rooted off of lived experience, is the rewards that come from that. When we step into leaders of being a leader of a community, when we step into being a leader of a space, when we step into the space of being able to share our lived wisdom in a way that helps people become more integrated whole humans, that inevitably will bring more resources to that person who is holding that space. So for me, what it's been about is like bringing my lived experience back, going through the battles and wars that very few people go through, the years committed to mastery, the years committed to specialization, it makes me very niche, because nobody has lived what I've lived, because nobody's lived what I lived. To have access to my specialized knowledge, the exchange is in our modern society, energetically, there's a monetary exchange, but it's all energy exchange. And it's always in direct proportion to the embodiment that we move with. What's cool about going on the journey of mastery is like, I have a choice point, I either charge a lot of money for my time, or I give it away for nothing. I don't have to move in a range, because one, I know what I've walked through, and nobody's walked through that. But at the same time, like, I can also give it away for free, so it's a dance. And it doesn't have to be, you don't have to be some like broke, dirty, smelly hippie living in an ashram. Yeah, I think many of us, like that's the image that we see. Like the guy who's found peace inside of him has decided that he's going to abandon all worldly desires, and now he doesn't want money anymore. And that makes that journey of going in would scary. It's like, I got to, fuck, if that's the outcome, I don't know if I want that. Yeah, that's the thing though, so many people forget it can all be spiritual. Like, I can love deeply and pray deeply, and also have a deep love for rare J-1s. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, whatever is going to be an extension of the love that you are, you can have that. Totally, and it sounds like it's just, there's a requirement to dissolve the, you know, you mentioned the word codependency before. And I noticed for myself, my therapist has described it to me as disorganized attachment. It's like, there's anti-attachment, there's avoidant attachment, there's disorganized attachment. And I notice how sometimes I'm scanning. Especially with those closest to me that love me most. Right. Like, how am I being perceived so that I can manipulate who I am to be what they need me to be? You were given a lot of, like, validation from your sports career, correct? I was, totally. Yeah, so like, the better you performed externally, the more validation you got. Totally. So for a lot of athletes, it's hardwired in us at a very young age to perform. Totally, even for my family, you know, my mother was a pro dancer. She played soccer for Manchester United, you know. So I learned very early on that love is equivalent to equality and consistency of performance. Right, right. That's the beautiful thing of the journey is when an athlete goes in and takes their inner world as serious as they take their outer world. As they bring that high-level performance into their inner space, that's when they become unstoppable. Yeah. And that's where everything is going. All the fingers are being pointed back to our inward space. Yeah. Everybody's now talking about mindfulness and yoga and gratitude and breathwork and sleep and sunshine. That's because everybody's realizing, like, the inner world first. Totally. And then the outer world becomes amplified. Yeah. And that's the opportunity of our lifetime, is never before in history have we at the click of a button been able to access all the world's wisdom just like that. Yeah. Like, thousands and thousands of years. Yeah. Of wisdom we can access with just a button. And therein lies the paradox, right? We've never had this much access. And humanity's never been so fractured. There's never been so many people completely lost in the sauce. I was just now in the Andes and I was speaking to some beautiful, beautiful women weavers up in the, they're called the Warnies, up in the mountains. And the translator asked them, "Do they ever feel anxiety?" And they're like, "No." They're like, "What is anxiety and depression?" "No." They're just in the pocket of living. They're just moving through it. they don't have time to be depressed because they're not on instagram they're not comparing they're just living so it's like because there is the buffet of all in front of us right now it's so easy to get lost in paralysis analysis the key again is like focusing on the things that come us bring us to life yeah focusing on the net positive focusing on the simple done better focusing on the quality of our inner world so that we can partake in the buffet in the most aligned way and it also sounds like what you keep bringing up in really everything i'm asking is the quality of your relationships yeah you know in every story there's someone i want to ask how you found those people or rather how they found you and how you you know i want to go to the temple of mastery in a minute because you call it the temple keepers yeah you know even when you were speaking to me about kamal earlier and you said he's got he's got 20 brothers my heart like is like when you say that i'm like how do i get 20 brothers you know i want 20 brothers that like i can be all over the place and that i we got you where where are they yeah i mean that's the the dysfunction of our modern day society is that we've lost trap i was talking yesterday about to a whole bunch of people about what used to make a whole human once upon a time all human consisted of the individual the family system the community system the clan and the ancestors we've lost connection to the ancestors like imagine if right now you knew 10 lineages back what you were standing on no and your great great great great grandpa was like yo billy i got you yeah this is the path this is the wisdom that's been passed down through our entire lineage we've lost clan like where do we come from truly what holds us truly communities fractured at best everybody is talking about like yo i want to be a part of the conscious community i want to be in community that is like even the conscious community is filled more ego than yeah it's not a real it's not a real community and we've lost the family systems fractured in so many ways so what are we left with we're left with just individuals trying to initiate themselves for the purpose of being the best i once upon a time it was never about i being the best i for me once upon a time it was how do i become the best individual for we and in being the best individual for the we the community the community would wrap the individual in all of their love so that the trials and tribulations that they had to go through inevitably became a part of the community evolution yeah we've lost that so what do we have to do first we have to remember that we have to see the the fractures yeah you can't move if in a dysfunctional system if you don't see the fracture krishna murthy said it's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a mentally sick society we live in an insane asylum and if you're well adjusted to it what are you you're insane so the the counter culture move is to know the frameworks of health that once upon a time held us as humans and so we've lost a lot there's a lot of grief in losing community as a whole and in knowing that then we get to rebuild we get to double down on our friendships yeah we get to create a standard of being a lighthouse for our friends to making sure they know what it feels like to be loved to make sure they know what it feels like to be with somebody that gots their back and in doing so raising the standard is you know i always talk about the g7 in doing so you begin to attract people who are down to like really ride yeah you're able to like choose some of your chosen family and some of your blood family to be part of this like integrated team yeah that is down to like get your back through any and all trials and tribulations yeah do you know the story of i mean i'm sure you do you share the tapes with me the girl with the scar on her face yeah can you tell the story yeah i mean so there's this beautiful beautiful story um that francis weller one of the most potent teachers of our time speaks of where a young girl had hot water thrown on her face her mother had a fit of rage and there was hot water thrown on her face and the anthropologist was that was there said that they've never seen a girl that was more happy she like radiated happiness and one of the reasons why was because when the hot water was thrown on her face the entire village was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die the village came and they wrapped themselves around that girl and they said this has nothing to do with you you are loved you are beautiful you are whole and we still love you and because of that the trauma of that experience and trauma is simply when we are we are we encounter an intense experience it overwhelms the nervous system and there's nothing there to integrate it instead of it being a trauma it became an initiation because she came up against an intense experience but there was a community to help her catalyze it she walked through that experience and came out on the other side more whole how many times in our society are we hit with a wound hit with a fracture hit with a a trauma and there's nobody there to hold us this is the grief of what we have lost as a as a as a society yeah you know totally i mean it makes me it has given me just hearing that story has almost redefined what trauma even means to me because the way i relate have come to relate to it and i'd love to understand your perspective on this is that trauma is not so much what happens to us as much as it is what we make it mean that's i mean and in the absence of community we we default to what we think it has to mean you know whereas like this example this girl has boiling water on her face she's got a big scar on her face in the western world that you would immediately predict insecurity bullying problems she social anxiety yeah and it was the antithesis of that yeah which speaks to trauma is not what happens to us it's what we then internalize that to be and how that that's it alchemizes inside of us what the nervous system decides it is and that's the difference between trauma and initiation you know traumas are going to happen but when there's meaning underneath the trauma and it is wrapped in a community system rooted in love yeah traumas are alchemized yeah in our current society when as men especially when we are going through challenging situations instead of bringing it to the altar of community we internalize it and we go through it on our own why that is why so many people so many men especially are like pressure cookers ready to push and they're not going to push and they're not going to push and they're not going to push part of that is there's a concept in the dsm this is like the psychological handbook with all the like psychological disorders the dsm dsm yeah there's a there's a term called normative male alexithymia and normative male alexithymia is this idea that men are disconnected to their emotional bodies like men have lost the art of being able to feel and when a man cannot feel that's when things become lodged that's when the pressure begins to build that's when instead of feeling things and allowing our feeling body to integrate the wisdom of our somatic body it becomes internalized the pressure builds they don't have the tools to move that pressure and i understand why some men are just like i can't do this anymore i'm out this is also a dysfunction of our modern society the reason why suicide is going up it's not because it's harder necessarily it was hard once upon a time but it was a communal hard it wasn't i'm doing this hard by myself it's like i actually get to go on this journey with my brothers and they're gonna hold me as i go through this pain totally and even as i look at my and your background in sports the training was hard yeah become a pro athlete yeah it's hard yeah you know it's 20 years of every day showing up but the hard never felt hard you know because it felt like there was a shared pursuit towards something and i think i mean at least the way that i've i'm hearing that you have related even before when you were talking about the darkness it sounds like the darkness has not been the problem or is not the problem as much as it is the way we relate to the dark that's it and the way that you've approached the darkness always is this is not going to swallow me that's it or let it swallow you or let it swallow let it swallow you completely beautiful quote and so maybe it's like i'll be okay i'll be okay like there's gifts here yeah it's like how do you matthew mcconaughey we were speaking of earlier what made interstellar so dope he jumped into the black hole fully and he ended up changing the game yeah it's like if you're going to go in the dark let us swallow you swallow you whole and trust that on the other side of that that's initiation yeah a contained encounter with the unknown yeah and you know the ego is like bro i'm not gonna go into a space that i have no idea and the nervous system receives you know validation and security from staying safe so when we talk about this idea of like being swallowed whole what what can that look like in a real sense diving into a healthy relationship for the first time never been there that's that's scary speaking your truth for the first time putting all of yourself on the table for the first time demanding that your friends be better friends for the first time walking away from a job that fucking sucks for the first time stay on the friends well just say that demanding that your friends be better friends yeah you've always accepted just average yeah to ask for more could be stepping into the dark completely because it's unknown so i mean the way i've always related to this is like if your friends aren't being good friends you just find new friends hang on or you just go through an initiation process with your friends yeah that's an option too and see if they survive the process yeah wow some will some won't you know this is why the pro concept is so important because like college ball to pro ball is different level some of your guys get to go pro some of them don't yeah when you go pro and you're on a pro team especially if you're all pro if your teammates are slipping what do you you ask them step the game up yeah how many of us are looking at our friends and being like bro you got to step up as my friend yeah not many we just expect our friends to be there and if there's no standards then anybody can come into the game and be like bro you got to step up as my the space with dirty shoes on and desecrate the space this is why like to truly honor oneself especially because like all of us have some pain all of us have been through something to truly honor where we are at no matter what our age where we're at in the exact moment in our lives it's a disrespect to everything we've been through to not hold a high standard for the people that come into our space only people who don't truly respect themselves allow people to come into their space and act any old way but any like high level pro yeah there's a standard any ashram you go to there's a standard any temple you go to there's a standard and so that is the invitation is like raise the standard and the higher the standard is able to be raised is directly correlated to the depth of the work that we do on ourselves and naturally people weed out exactly always culture people always weed out from the status yeah that's it yeah take me in the temple of mastery what's the temple of mass temple of mastery is a framework we call it psychic architecture and it is a framework to help people orient themselves in a world where most people don't know where they're going this chain here the reason why it's an arrow is because an arrow is precise it's not pointing in many different directions it's one way and it sits above my heart because it points to my heart that's my focus love is my mission temple of mastery is all about psychic orientation in a world of chaos and speed and so what we have broken it down to is nine pillars the first are external pillars or external structure and the latter part is like internal structure so we talk about mission where are you going most men don't know where they're going women move a little bit different but when a man doesn't know where he's going it is easy to fall into toxic patterns it's easy to begin to self destruct so mission is north star this is my my direction this is where i'm going i don't know how i'm going to get there but this is what i'm focused on so like love is my mission yeah it also holds everything that i do if the mission's big enough it should be able to hold all aspects of me it holds my training it holds my art it holds my writing the foundation of the the temple we call the personal philosophy this is how the mission is lived on a daily basis so my personal philosophy is live with love lead with love and love every day this is how my mission is enacted on a daily basis then there's the pillars the pillars are what hold the connect the mission to the personal philosophy this is what holds the temple up these pillars are removed the temple begins to crumble so my pillars are family home love health and god one of those are out my pillar my temple is not strong so this is what we call the lock those in, the game changes. When you walk into a room and somebody's like, this is my mission. It changes the texture of everything. This is direction. It's also very attractive. A woman, for my single brothers out there, when a man knows where they're going, a woman will fall right in place and like get behind that. When they don't know where they're going, it is easy for a woman's nervous system to be overwhelmed because they don't feel safe. So external structure, internal structures. Internal structures are the codes, like Bushudo codes, the yoga codes that one lives by, like values in action. But I think values is a little like overrun word, but I love like codes. Like when you walk into a temple, there's codes of conduct. How do you move? How does a person move when they walk into your life? What's the codes that you expect from them? In my life, people know the code. They know like we don't have excuses. We don't take shortcuts, things like that. The rituals, I mean, there's so many self-expression, freedom, health, vitality, play, like creative freedom to move how I want. I mean, the codes are locked. Then there's the rituals. The rituals, any sacred space is moved by rituals. These are the things we do on a regular basis to, that are rooted in the codes, that support the mission, that are backed by the personal philosophies and honor the pillars. Morning and evening, what are the things we need to do to honor all of that? And then there's the championship rings. The championship rings are like goals in action. These are some objective, measurable goals that are going to stretch a person and challenge a person to a point like if you achieve a championship goal or ring, it's like popping a bottle of champagne, you won the championship. And this helps like people orient themselves like, all right, I have this structure. Now there's these goals that I'm going after. They're supported by my rituals. They're backed by my codes. They live under my mission. They're embodied through my personal philosophy. This is like how I'm moving through the world. Then you have your G7. We call them game seven homies, game seven friends. These are the guys, championship game in a soccer football match, championship game in a basketball match. You can get the ball to your person and know that they're going to take that shot and they're going to make it. We also call these people temple keepers and temple desecrators. Temple keepers are people in your life that honor everything that you've built, honor the structures, honor the codes, honor the rings that are going to hold you accountable to that. Temple desecrators are people that walk into your temple with dirty shoes on, disrespect, respect the codes, don't honor the mission. The key is to keep the temple desecrators out, double down on the temple keepers. And then finally, the final part of the temple of mastery is like this big halo around it. And you see, like even in describing it, there's, you, you all can see the temple. It's there. Even though it's not there, it's in your inner world. It orients, it holds the energy. There's around it as a halo. We call it the boundaries. Simple. The boundaries are the moat around the castle. Who gets in, who gets out, who, when, when the boundaries are locked in, it really becomes like a force field of like what can permeate and what can't. That there alone, that there alone done right will change the texture of someone's life. Yeah. So let's do it right for a moment. Can we break it down each one? Yeah. Yeah. The first one is personal philosophy. First one's mission. First one's mission. How does someone define or clarify their mission? It's really about that thing that calls you forward and a mission should be so big that you probably will never achieve it. Love is so big. I have a friend, his mission is liberation. I have a friend who, who wants to amplify and shift the hearts of all men in New Zealand and Australia. That's a big ass mission. Mission done right should be able to hold everything under that. Everything you do. That's why I said like my writing is under the mission. My training is under the mission. My. How and when did you know that your mission was enough? Through a breakup in 2019, beautiful Venezuelan woman left me for some, this whack dude. I was so upset. And, uh, in Brazil I declared like, I was like, well, what is it all for? And I was like, it's love. And I was like, I think that's a good mission. And that's when it became our mission. And it's changed everything. Yeah. When we have a mission, it holds us to a standard. When we don't have a mission, we float operating in excellence before that, because 2019 is not too, not too long ago, but you've been in the game for, for years. So what, where were you before that? And my question is because I'd like to define my mission as belonging. I think it is. And the way that I can resonate with that now is because if I was to be honest, I think it's what I've been in search of my whole life. You know, I felt like it was, uh, I only knew it on a soccer field. I didn't know it anywhere, but when I'm 34, 36, I don't know, does that, does it evolve? Can it evolve? You know, how, how has that journey evolved for you? you because 2019 you were how old 2019 i was 32 33 so a man's 22 listening to this right now trying to define his mission like a decade later he might decide his mission is love but he's not there yet the mission can evolve or maybe it can't for some people it takes decades i always say don't waste my pain it took me 40 years to get there but if it's 20 years old 22 years old you can lock in your mission do that yeah instead of floating abysmally through the 20s which i did in a lot of ways because i had to learn i didn't have anybody initiating me yeah for those that are listening to this that are young it's like lock in to that mission take the time to decide what that is and if the mission evolves it doesn't have to be static let it evolve but having the mission locked in changes the texture and a man needs a mission a man needs direction otherwise he's going to be led by anything yeah can the mission be and i'm thinking purely for myself but i mean it's a little bit different for me now i think i'm pretty clear on it now but i'm i'm trying to bring something to the younger men here who may be listening can a mission be that i don't know my mission but i'm gonna go discover it because i'm hungry to know can that be a mission the mission can be exploration exploration yeah the mission can be right now this season in my life my mission is self-knowledge and maybe it evolves over time that's a great mission yeah the mission could be to be the healthiest human i've ever been the mission could also be something that's powerful yeah it sounds like it's like what i'm hearing you say is it's much easier to define a mission when you're not making it eternal in the sense that understanding the mission can evolve i can have this mission now yeah like i don't know my stuff with my dharma yet yeah but right now my mission is to get in the healthiest place that's it and boom now you got a north star now there's direction it's as simple as that clear yeah and then and then eventually you might land it like love is my mission yeah and now it's the whole universe and all that that's where i've landed okay yeah that's a great style it's amazing let's move on so after mission comes personal philosophy this is how your missions lived on a regular basis a daily basis so for me it's lead with love live with love learn from love for a guy who maybe says like all right health is my mission i'm going to learn from love i'm going to learn from love i'm going to learn from love is my mission it's important to find what that mission looks like yeah so for me it's belonging how would we break that down yeah how would how like what would be a power statement for you what initially comes up is to make every human feel as though they belong in my present boom what does that do for you if you live with that philosophy every day it makes me feel like one i'm not alone but two i'm contributing to a world that is more unified more connected and also that as a result of that i'm helping everybody see that they are uniquely important and powerful as a soul how does that organize your behavior on a daily basis it softens me softens you it makes me more compassionate yeah you walk into rooms and you're different right i'm different yeah i'm i am not trying to big myself up or be above it it levels my perspective of everyone in the room no matter where they come from how many followers they have on instagram right like do you feel like you belong in my presence there you go that's my perspective of everyone in the room no matter where they come from how many followers that statement alone is the mission embodied look at how that changes the texture yeah i feel it yeah you're like moving through the day and because you are in this mission and you are living your personal philosophy instead of going into starbucks and being like i'm not even looking at this person in their eyes i'm down on my phone yeah there's a calling and when the mission's right and the personal philosophy is right there's markers you know if you're living it and you know if you're not living it yeah simple as that yeah that's powerful yeah beautiful what's the next one pillars pillars pillars are like what hold the ceilings of your temple up connect your mission to your personal philosophy if these crumble these absolutely fall apart so mine are health god family love and when these are really locked in it really shows you what you're standing on and the final one for me is home is home home inside myself and home outside myself so what are the pillars that hold you up yeah so when you speak to family what does family mean for you family is my biological family and my chosen family my biological family they're beautiful and crazy all at once my chosen family is the the soul tribe that i've collected over all these years so without them what's it all worth yeah you know home home in my inner world to feel home in myself but also adult back home you know home in my inner world to feel home in myself but also adult back home house that can hold my goddess and everything that i want this fly inspiring in a place that i want these are all like pillars that allow me to be my best self so without these pillars it's easy to yeah to without these it's hard for the temple to be to stand strong yeah so i would say that for me this is the phase where my building would at this moment begin to crumble because there's certain pillars that i don't i don't fully have locked in the ones that i want to touch on the reason i asked about family is because i've had a challenging and confusing relationship with those i love i love them so much i laugh with them so much and i have such a heart and like this beautiful beautiful relationship uniquely with each member of my family the eldest of four children um my parents have been going through a divorce the past year and i've learned a lot about you know some of the things that i've repressed from my childhood that are coming up now and it's bringing up a lot of anger i don't know how to interact you know so that pillar for me i i don't know what to do with that pillar yeah it doesn't have to be the pillar doesn't have to be necessarily this complete pillar that is not dynamically evolving at the moment the pillar just needs to be really what you know needs to be in place for for your temple to remain strong if the finite family dynamics you're working through and you're on the journey of making that healthy it doesn't mean that family is not the ultimate pursuit of like what that pillar looks like strong like a home somebody might be in the process they don't have their home base set up yet but then but knowing that the home piece locked in is going to make that pillar strong it orients the energy so you're defining the pillars not by where they are now yeah by way you've intended exactly that you know that this is what needs to be in place beautiful these are also these check your vibe these are vibe checkers because like love is one of my pillars what does that mean yeah what does that mean well it holds me down like if i'm moving from hate i know that i'm disrespecting the pillar similar to the mission these are there to keep a person's energy and heart aligned to the temple yeah to hold the energetic structures of our lives yeah to hold the energetic structures of our lives god yeah let's do that i i want to ask you god yeah let's do that i i want to ask you god yeah let's do that i i want to ask you you said i got the pillars on lock you said you said i got the pillars on lock you said you said i got the pillars on lock you said that before yeah the first question that came up for that before yeah the first question that came up for me is how does someone get god on lock me is how does someone get god on lock me is how does someone get god on lock god is is is locked that's the key to remember god is is locked that's the key to remember god is is locked that's the key to remember god is now god is in every breath heaven is god is now god is in every breath heaven is not a place you go to it's a place that you grow to not a place you go to it's a place that you grow to in the present moment rooted in love in the present moment rooted in love in the present moment rooted in love you know what i mean like i remember i you know what i mean like i remember i you know what i mean like i remember i was going through a breakup and i looked was going through a breakup and i looked was going through a breakup and i looked down on my fingernails and they were like down on my fingernails and they were like down on my fingernails and they were like mad long and dirty i hadn't like looked at mad long and dirty i hadn't like looked at mad long and dirty i hadn't like looked at my fingernails for like 30 days my fingernails for like 30 days and i was over there trying to figure out and i was over there trying to figure out and i was over there trying to figure out the meaning of the universe the meaning of the universe the meaning of the universe and i'm like i don't even know how my and i'm like i don't even know how my and i'm like i don't even know how my fingernails grew fingernails grew fingernails grew like god is yeah you're looking to find like god is yeah you're looking to find like god is yeah you're looking to find yeah your life but you you ever cut your yeah your life but you you ever cut your yeah your life but you you ever cut your toes yeah yeah god is god is everything toes yeah yeah god is god is everything toes yeah yeah god is god is everything and what's beautiful is god is and what's beautiful is god is everybody's own relationship some like god i have my relationship like god i have my relationship like god i have my relationship with god you ask anybody what their with god you ask anybody what their with god you ask anybody what their thing is there's a relationship even thing is there's a relationship even thing is there's a relationship even atheists have some type of relationship atheists have some type of relationship atheists have some type of relationship yeah it's just defining that for me god yeah it's just defining that for me god yeah it's just defining that for me god is a censoring force that continues to is a censoring force that continues to is a censoring force that continues to keep me locked in that is my keep me locked in that is my keep me locked in that is my relationship and my relationship alone relationship and my relationship alone relationship and my relationship alone wow so the pillars are super important wow so the pillars are super important wow so the pillars are super important you have those the mission the personal you have those the mission the personal you have those the mission the personal philosophy and the pillars locked in philosophy and the pillars locked in philosophy and the pillars locked in the external structure is locked when a the external structure is locked when a the external structure is locked when a man's moving with that alone man's moving with that alone man's moving with that alone it's a different ball game now how many it's a different ball game now how many it's a different ball game now how many men do we know that have it all on the men do we know that have it all on the men do we know that have it all on the outside and look like they got it all outside and look like they got it all outside and look like they got it all together on the outside together on the outside together on the outside i got my mission i got my personal i got my mission i got my personal i got my mission i got my personal philosophy this is where i'm going this philosophy this is where i'm going this philosophy this is where i'm going this is what i'm about look at my body look is what i'm about look at my body look is what i'm about look at my body look at everything i'm at everything i'm at everything i'm okay well now let's get into the inner okay well now let's get into the inner okay well now let's get into the inner world yeah world yeah world yeah the inner architecture yeah codes that the inner architecture yeah codes that the inner architecture yeah codes that you live by you live by you live by codes these values like the bashuto codes codes these values like the bashuto codes codes these values like the bashuto codes or the the yogic codes yoga codes of or the the yogic codes yoga codes of or the the yogic codes yoga codes of like ahimsa like ahimsa like ahimsa non-violence satya truthfulness non-violence satya truthfulness non-violence satya truthfulness uh tapas fire of action svadhyaya uh tapas fire of action svadhyaya uh tapas fire of action svadhyaya which is self-study ishvara pranidhana which is self-study ishvara pranidhana which is self-study ishvara pranidhana which is surrender which is surrender which is surrender these codes orient one inside a system these codes orient one inside a system these codes orient one inside a system in jujitsu you have jujitsu and you have in jujitsu you have jujitsu and you have in jujitsu you have jujitsu and you have the codes of being inside a system once the codes of being inside a system once the codes of being inside a system once you understand the forms form leads to you understand the forms form leads to you understand the forms form leads to function function function form leads to function when we are form leads to function when we are form leads to function when we are moving with the right form we function moving with the right form we function moving with the right form we function properly properly properly codes orient the system codes orient the system codes orient the system codes are codes are codes are what you what you what you move with what moves you and how the move with what moves you and how the find my personal philosophy yeah discuss the pillars now i'm with the codes from a tangible standpoint where do i begin you just mentioned some of the yogic terms yeah what what what are like your highest what what are the some of the most important things to you that's one of the things you could ask like for me it's like self-study that was a big one for me there you go so self-study and learning that's the code what's another one um play boom that's a code yeah music singing so art oh self-expression self-expression yeah okay the code um i don't know what else how many do you have how many you could have one you could have 20 that's your it's your temple that's cool it's your architecture that's that's the cool thing there's no right way it's like so when you said fire like that comes up for me that's really online for me right now is when if i can use the anger that's coming up inside of me that i've repressed for so many years when i do use it i feel so powerful if i use it in an integrated embodied healthy way how would i take that like i've never felt more of a man than i have in moments in the past few weeks when that anger has come to me how do i use that and that becomes a code yeah i mean it's more about using that energy to fuel the mission you know anger as an emotion like used right is alchemical so it's like the emotional body when the codes are locked in teach you how to use your emotional body to propel and to push the mission forward it's that inner work so like a code of play or peace is going to help orient your emotional body rather than if you had no code at all got it yeah yeah even the one when i when i mentioned self-study the first thing came up was like yeah self-study more you would study the anger you study that emotional space it gives orientation yeah yeah yeah okay beautiful clear next one what next one i would say is championship rings before rituals championship ring should be meaningful like why does a person have the goal to be a millionaire yeah is it an alignment with the codes is an alignment with the mission is an alignment with the personal philosophy and is in line with the pillars if not then why is that a goal yeah championship ring should be fueled by that yeah because it's in support of the ultimate mission yeah and so it's important again to have some meaningful objectives that pull a man from his mediocrity into a higher level of performance and you know you're doing it right there's a concept called challenge point theory you have three circles this is by my dear brother dr guadagnoli she had him on the podcast he's amazing there's the comfort zone there's the stretch zone and then there's the panic zone the closer you get to the edge of stretch where the panic zone lives learning becomes optimized and this is where there is the greatest net positive gains in learning and self-expression and growth and this is researched across the board so a meaningful championship ring should push you to the edge of if it's too much into the panic zone yeah you're gonna just fall apart if it's in the comfort zone you're not growing at all yeah and dr guadagnoli just shifted this concept from calling it the edge of stretch to the sacred space and and i'm sure he's going to write a book about it but the sacred space is where pressure reaches this optimal space of challenging the individual to have to level up just a little bit like this keynote i just did i never have done a keynote with nine days of prep i usually prep for months i had nine days to put 50 hours of work in to talk about something i've never talked about publicly yeah i was stretched yeah championship rings done right are supposed to stretch you that's why if you achieve it you like celebrate yeah you celebrate yeah so championship rings are in service to all of that and then the rituals are how on a daily basis morning and evening what are the things needed for the somatic body to be primed to embody all of that temple of mastery and move towards those championship rings so let's say let's say on these championships rings for a moment i noticed for me um i've done one of two things in the past one is set a championship ring that is too big that it's almost impossible to get there it's too far out so i'm setting myself up for failure you know it's like that's like a hall of fame ring yeah you know versus a championship ring so from a timeline perspective when you're saying championship rings what's the timeline on these rings some of them are like what's always when we set these i have people revisit the temple of mastery once a year okay so championship rings live within that year there's like five championship rings three championship rings for a year i have a guy right now his goal was to get his first song hip-hop produced in a world-class way done by march amazing and he's he's there you know for me one of my championship rings this year is to write my book not write it but get it out yeah these are like stretch goals that are when it happens it required me to become something and how do you define a championship ring that like i'm trying to think put it in the context of me so this podcast for example there's an ultimate hall of fame ring where we want to be totally filters through the mission and the personal yeah yeah the conversations that i want to bring into the world but from a year-long perspective i'm trying to define a championship ring it feels like some of the metrics or what those goals are they feel almost like out of my control i mean like are we going to get a million views or are we going to reach this many people so what would be a what would be a championship ring that i could define this year by as it pertains to this well if it's a million views there are ways to make that happen organically and authentically and it's going to require you to hustle it's going to require you to to market it's going to require you to have the conversations to make every person that comes through this podcast nucleus feel like a someone you know and back in the day when i used to work in the hotels we used to call it valet to valet service somebody rolls up to the hotel the moment they get out of the hotel the best hotels they knew your name yeah touched your hand yeah you went through the entire journey they come back to the valet after they spend their time at the hotel thank you love when people come into an ecosystem like that it's different yeah so it's like beginning to like really like if the goal is that yeah dialing the system dialing the system so that it is in service to that but that is a worthy championship goal maybe a championship goal is to go develop deeper brotherhood what do you got to do you got to get out of your own way yeah you got to make sure you call your brothers up you got to hold them to a standard invite them into your world more maybe you go see them yeah these are like things so it's like the championship ring supports our movement without that it's easy to float yeah then the question is is this in service to the world or is it in service to the world yeah it's in service to my mission yeah is having this podcast go to a certain space in service to the mission and personal philosophy it sounds like it so it's a great way to embody it but like if you're doing it for just metrics it's different than if you're doing in service to the mission this is where i found the challenge and it's like like i know that when i think about the metrics in my heart of hearts in the deepest place inside of me it's not because i want to be famous it's like it's because when i think about the mission and where we are as a culture and how divided and lonely we are these conversations are needed you know i really believe that that's it and i also look for the people in the podcast space that are optimizing for views yeah you know i heard about a guy the other day who he is i won't name drop but he's building one of the biggest podcasts in the world a young guy but then i i spoke to someone who knows him and they just been in a room with him uh for one of his episodes and they said he spent the whole time looking down at his ipad prepping every question and asking the question in the way that would bring a clickbait so that he could optimize for views and the the conversation itself was the guest the guest wasn't in it it wasn't but there's a guy building the biggest podcast in the world and so i think the reason for me with the podcast is that it feels like it filters through the lens that the world needs more deep authentic meaningful conversations that are not optimizing for a scroll it's gonna it's not gonna integrate you know so yeah you gotta trust that you gotta trust that and like that's the beauty of championship rings and so as a as a man and women too but as a man having an objective is hardwired into our primal nature when we know where we're going when we know how we're moving it brings a lot of confidence into our somatic system yeah when we don't it's fractured energy yeah yeah okay so rituals rituals what would need to be done on a daily basis to bring all that in the world online one from us yeah so what does that look like for you you're traveling you've been all around the world in the past five months yeah have you have you been able to maintain and manage these rituals on a consistent basis well one is movement every day unfortunately at day 1099 stays straight i went i got sick i went and laid down for 10 minutes and i fell asleep and i woke up at 1205 and i had to start my streak over at 1099 days straight i was that was happening recently i was so pity i'm on day number 20 28 right now i was so pissed off i was so mad man i was with my girl i like like for a week i was like fuck yeah i missed it i woke up you can't even deny it and you easily could have yeah i've been on instagram right now like i'm a 1001 no no i'm back man 12 1205 a.m i woke up and i lost my streak but for me it's like movement every day no matter what sometimes it's morning sometimes it's night sometimes i gotta be flexible with it in the morning time is gratitude god and love gratitude god and love what does that look like grateful for being here god thank you for everything and how how much can i love myself in that moment sometimes i just take 10 breaths and i just try to breathe into like loving myself because it's a journey right nighttime it's just closing out purposefully powerfully right now i have a beautiful reading practice that i've i've leaned in these support like my my energy and my somatics so that i'm i'm optimized so that i feel good and i'm able to do what i want to do it in my body this all supports the mission this all supports the philosophies this all supports the championship brings and so meaningful rituals that are in alignment with all of that is also key we we become what we do on a repeated basis when we do like meditation one morning it might not be huge yeah but meditation over time studies show it remaps the entire brain yeah so i'll break this down with you because i notice again that i do this thing where i set myself up like every day i'm going to get up at this exact time and then i'm going to do this for five minutes and this for 10 minutes i'm going to do this for 15 minutes but some days it just doesn't happen like that you know the commitments come up or i get inspired at 9 p.m and then you know like something comes to me but the the way that i've set it up is like it's impossible i'm virtually impossible to succeed inside the framework that i've developed for myself so how can i develop a framework that's going to work over the course that's going to stand the test of time well maybe one of your codes is more peace and play well if your rituals are not reinforcing peace and play and the report instead reinforce reinforcing rigidity you got to change it totally it's just simply yeah so it's about it's it's a beautiful opportunity to like pressure test what works and what doesn't work that's so good and one of my codes peace and play but the but the yeah i've been living within is too much so there's there's incongruency yeah and so again this is why i'm why it's important just like really get clear yeah like it's all there the data's there just nobody takes the time to to structure the world that they're living in and this requires a lot of like really hard conversations like all right i say i want this championship lifestyle well why do you want this championship lifestyle is it because you want this championship lifestyle or because you saw on on youtube that david goggin wakes up at three in the morning starts doing push-ups and that's the way to go or because somebody else well is that actually best for you a lot of people similar to what you were saying about the book earlier in the game how things shifted a lot of people don't realize like in david goggin's book the end of the book of can't hurt me he talks about damn i was doing all this because i hated myself started stretching he's like every day i'm gonna start stretching for a couple hours and all that nobody talks about that part of the book yeah everybody talks about david going hard yeah they don't talk about all the hard because because he was fucking hurting inside so yeah it's like asking yourself why are these rituals why are they in the rituals yeah why are they in place and if they're they're not supportive of like your well-being yeah it's okay to shift one of the things that was really inspired by by timmy who he went on warrior warrior seven warrior seven so last time i saw timmy he'd just come back from india and i joined him for one of his morning practices and i kid you not it was a two and a half hour meditation love fucking journey on the beach in yogananda's thing at swami's beach amazing and we started it i think we started at 8 a.m went till probably 10 30 11 and he said i do this every day i'm doing this every day right now two and a half hour practice he said then i work for a few hours then in the evening go to the gym see friends do it again and i was so inspired by that because we live in a culture especially in the world of the preachers to ambitious young men that if you're not up at 5 a.m working by 8 work until 16 hour days which is impossible if you start at 8 you're failing that's it so how do you how do you relate to that sort of world and what would you say to a young man who's coming up in that space who wants to make something of himself in the world but is trying to navigate the dance and the balance between peace and play and joy and nurturing his spirit so that he can't show up yeah yeah i mean we have to understand like the roots of the system that we have been brought up in and the system that we have brought been brought up in has been designed to condition humans to move like pavlovian dogs at the ring of a bell stand in line at the ring of a bell go to class nine to five you know school trains us to be nine to five cog workers and we're not going to be able to do that we're not going to be able to and so if you're going to play that game you're playing a game that is oftentimes run by individuals who care more about bottom lines rather than one's own purpose coming online and it's so it's important just to understand the framework we're living in first once you understand the framework you can begin to shift it and begin to change it people ask me all the time like what do you do when you're not working and i said well that's the thing i don't work i purpose and it's 24 7 my purpose is 24 7 i'm always in it it's never inside the codes and that's it when you're playing that's purpose too yeah yeah like all the time so when a person knows their mission it reorients you go to work in a nine to five and you don't know your mission you're floating in their mission when you do know your mission all of a sudden you're like all right i'm here at this job right now but i'm gonna use whatever i can to funnel it towards my mission how do i have the conversations like when i was working at the wind hotel for three years as a spa attendant i was just taking care of all these like naked rich like pineapple juice and towels and taking them to their spa appointments i hated it and i loved it at the same time and every person that would come through there i would be like so hey what's your favorite book you've ever read and they're like oh man that's interesting question these just rich dudes coming to this spa they would give me the book or they would say the book i would that night go to barnes and nobles i would stay up almost all night and try to read it because a lot of these guys would come in for like three to five days i would come back the next day and be like hey yo i read the book yesterday you told me what do you think about this they'd be like are you serious and then they would start mentoring me so it was like i had a mission beyond where i was and i had to maximize the moment of time in that mission for it to like help me step into a deeper level of myself deeper level of greatness so it's like for those who are like stuck in the nine to five it's like again figure out the mission yeah maybe the mission right now if you're just starting out is deep exploration yeah people used to tell me when i was at the wind hotel they're like bro hey all you did is add your book i like my bifocals on and like my book they were like you were the biggest nerd be the biggest nerd while you're in it yeah but that message is be the biggest be the biggest nerd when you're in it inside the mission inside the mission like i'm a fucking nerd there you go yeah yeah i'm staying there get yourself like a little little bow tie like some glasses belonging man you know what i mean big old yeah yeah belonging man yeah like like timmy like timmy is like me only dreaming he's like dream sauce yes that's it that's it that's it that's it yeah i love that i also am inspired by what you just mentioned about you reading the book and coming back yeah a big part of my my um work at the moment in one of the pillars that i'm solidifying i share this with you and i'm coaching the session is uh re-solidifying solid mentorship in my life and what i'm hearing you say is that like people will show up for you when they know you're showing up for you that's it yeah people see it yeah yeah there's nothing more beautiful than like a a young man doing the work i want to finish the temple master i want to go back into this because i want to i want to pause but then come back to the conversation about grief cool and then i also want to touch on your uh like philanthropic work cool something i know is that i probably throw in as a pillar in my life is because where i want to go but i i just my life is starved and stripped of meaning in the absence of that and i just haven't maybe put it in place or really known how to i think um so i want to go back to that but um we just finished with rituals once after rituals after rituals is your g7 this is the temple keepers and temple desecrators so the g7 g7s are who are the individuals in your life that are going to show up for you when the game is on the line and it's really important to get clear certain people support the mission certain people see you certain people bring you to life certain people invoke a deeper level of energy to you and certain people don't and so it's really important to decide who is on your championship team and who is not yeah and this is a hard conversation for a lot of people this is a hard space for a lot of people yeah yeah but this is essential - Yeah. - To make sure the people that are in your life the journey you know what I mean yeah totally and how I mean the first I went to Peter Krohn's mastermind last year and in every module it's funny module one says first thing you gotta do clear space yeah module two keep clearing space you get to the end of the module if you haven't yet cleared all space keep clearing space that's amazing and I just thought that was so powerful because this is a man who's influencing millions of lives his career is blowing up in unbelievable ways there was a thousand there's thousands of people inside of this mastermind and the homework was clear space you know so like how does one go about the process of because we all know you know we know who those people are yeah I mean that's that's it that's trust in what you know and then also the mission the philosophy the pillars the goals the codes yeah do people support those or not and when those are locked in it really shows like who's supposed to be in the crew or not like you can't win a championship team with like like right you can't win the FIFA World Cup if you take like some random amateur soccer players football players from a B team no right no and even I mean like on my soccer I've shared this on many occasions but the teams that I played inside of that won the most were not didn't have the best individuals with the best team and I also played in teams that you know I went to college and we were the number seven man class in the country it was like number 15 in the whole country player and then I went and signed my first pro contract and on paper the team I was playing in was filled with like youth world beaters at that level and we didn't win anything yeah so it's like who's on your team it's not always about having the most talented team it's about having the most aligned team yeah sometimes mentors are good sometimes mentors are just not not yeah I heard that I mean I know you share a lot about Kobe and I've listened to Kobe a lot but just the way he made everyone else better and the story he talks about I think it was Phil Jackson where he said Kobe you gotta Shaq's back you gotta score less points so that Shaq can be I just think that's so profound it's like oh you gotta now dial it back a little bit so Shaq can come up so that because if we're gonna win the championship we need Shaq it's like whoa yeah so like creating that piece of the puzzle is a game changer and it has to be there because we can't do it alone so might as well build the world championship team around you and at this juncture I got so many G's yeah around me yeah because also I hold them to a standard so we attract what we are sometimes and the key is to remember sometimes we need mentors sometimes we need pupils sometimes we need brothers in arms sometimes our spiritual mentors aren't even alive Muhammad Ali is one of my most totally greatest mentors ever like that spirit is with me Bruce Lee yeah is one of my greatest mentors ever I want to read his book yeah so it's so bringing all that into the G7 changes the texture I think we especially as young people coming into this world we need to learn how to piss each other off yeah of course that's alright how how help me understand like because when you say when you said you said to me I don't know it was on camera or off camera you're like I saw that at the time I found like yo you gotta like step up your fucking game yeah yeah and maybe even you might get in a scrap you might get in a fight yeah men it's okay it's okay I think every man should have gotten in at least a couple fights in their lives it's important yeah to know who you are yeah I've had my ass beat one time by this dude named Gary my first Gary the African the first the first like the first month in college okay me and this dude got us some beef and at that time I was a little cocky I thought I was shit Gary whooped my ass yeah I learned that I was cocky I learned that I was cocky I learned something yeah I've also had to fight and I'm obsessed oh totally and the thing is it's like a lot of times people are afraid of confrontation but like you don't really know yourself until you learn confrontation and a lot of people don't know confrontation and so instead of that they just internalize or they become liars totally or they they mangle the truth yeah there's nothing better than having a beautiful conversation that is hard on the other side of it there's always and often times it's masked in I've noticed it's masked in the disguise of like a groundedness yeah yeah but it's like that's fucking like I am starving in my life for more men who are gonna show me their frustration and anger and like pissed off yeah absolutely and I'm starving to be that yeah absolutely fucking sort yourself out yeah exactly exactly yeah okay so yeah so championship team and then most importantly is just the boundaries and boundaries is a little more ethereal but it's like the boundaries are just the boundaries within yourself to like make sure you stick to the plan stick to the to protect the championship temple that you've just built the temple of mastery it's like alright boundaries don't keep people out boundaries show people where the door is that's my brother Mark Groves he said that so it's like alright you have built all this infrastructure so now are you going to let just anybody just come on in or are you going to keep it in lock most importantly are you going to have boundaries with your own self most people don't have boundaries with themselves but they want boundaries on other people if a person can't keep their own self in check how are you going to keep other people to respect the space once all that's there the temple of mastery code alone if one person just implements that game changer they are ahead of 99% of people in life who are just floating yeah yeah it gives confidence it gives direction yeah it gives color it gives purpose yeah substance it gives substance all of it's there and it's deep yeah when you sit with a woman as a young man listening to this and you're like yo these are my values this is my code these are the rituals I live by this is where I'm going this is what I've committed to these are my mentors this is my teacher that's attractive yeah yeah it's a lot different than just like uh well Friday I'm going to go drink with the homies and don't really know where I'm going yeah totally it reminds me one of my mentors has been a godsend in my life Juvon Langford said to me two things that I never forgot the first thing he said a man without a plan is bound to get lost that's good and the second thing he said to me he who is unclear becomes a slave to the clarity of other people that's good that's real good I just thought that was so powerful like if you're unclear the only thing to do is go and get clear and this temple of mastery is that it's clarity clarity and alignment lead to speed yeah in a day and age where we're trying to go somewhere fast once the structure's in the speed happens so speed's not the problem structure's the problem that's it everyone's wondering and a lot of the world is like just slow down just slow down it's like whoa no no no create the structure create the structure and operate it within the structure form leads to function when it's when the form is right the foundations are right the function happens but if the form is broken how does it work so good yeah amazing um before we continue how are you doing on time I'm we're good yeah let me see real quick yeah I have to at the airport in like in like 15 10 minutes yeah yeah okay we'll wrap soon I wanna touch on something we could talk I could ask you 400,000 questions but I wanna go into um you mentioned the lineage ancestors uh huh my perspective on ancestors and the reason that we have lost connection to something deep inside of ourselves is because I think we live in this culture today that is so um hyper focused on blaming our parents and blaming our familial systems for what they created and I really wanna get your perspective on this because at least the way that I've seen you speak about your father and mother is with so much reverence and um can you just explain that to me in a world that is so you know like was so easy to wanna talk about how much our parents fucked us up you know yeah yeah I mean the truth is like yes our parents have messed up yes our parents are not perfect but if it wasn't for our parents we wouldn't be here yeah so anybody who's like upset about their parents like don't forget that if your mom and dad didn't come together you know that person would not be in existence one's mom carried them for nine months and that's just wild in itself you know my mom had mental illness my mom was dysfunctional in a lot of ways but my mom was my mom and she loved me and because of that I'm forever grateful my dad I didn't meet until I was 26 years old yeah he had his own dysfunction and I was like I'm not gonna be able to live and he had his own things and he was so grateful. And if it wasn't for them coming together, a white woman, black man, I wouldn't be who I am. So I got to pay homage to them forever to the end of time. Did my mom give me trauma? Yes. Did my dad give me trauma? Yes. Is my trauma something that happened to me? No, it happened for me. It was exactly what I needed to alchemize. So thank you, mom, for being mentally ill. Thank you, mom, for your struggles. Thank you, mom, for raising me in poverty. Dad, thank you for not coming into my life until I was 25, 26 years old. Thank you for being absent. Thank you for being emotionally unavailable because all of that helped me become deeply available, deeply connected, deeply in love, deeply in my heart, deeply devoted. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be who I am. So I'm so grateful for them. That's why when people are like, oh, my parent, my, yes. But if you're in this whole thing that it happened to me, then of course you can pick all the ways of like all these generational curses. But don't forget that just as our parents gave us generational curses, they gave us generational strengths. And like, we got to like honor that too. And that's, that's it. So yeah, my mom and dad, like so much homage to them for being imperfectly human. Amen. You know? Yeah. Big time. It's a big question that I've been asking to find out. Mm-hmm. You know, because, um, I just see that place throughout the world today. Everyone's talking about, I mean, one of them, I have a, I've purged a lot of my anger through this song. You ever listen to Russ? Yeah. Yeah. One of, one of Russ's songs, I can't remember the name of the song, but the song starts with fucked up dad and a fucked up mama taught me that love means drama. Hostility was a problem solver except nothing ever got solved. Go figure. I'm trying to reconfigure my brain. It's triggered by arguments. Of course, my girl. Is on the fence and I've moved through so much of that, but then I also think about the other side. It's like, Whoa, I wouldn't be in this situation. Yeah. My life if in the absence of that. And so when I was thinking of it, I started, um, I wrote something and then I put it into chat GPT because I wanted support because I wanted to bring it here, um, to get your thoughts. And I thought it was really interesting what it put out. It called it the age of ancestral. Amnesia says we are living in a time where it has become fashionable to blame our parents, to dissect them, to diagnose them, to explain ourselves through their failures. And sometimes that analysis is necessary, but here's the dilemma. We have learned how to critique our elders without learning how to honor them. We speak fluently about trauma, but rarely about sacrifice. We analyze their emotional limitations from the comfort of vocabulary. They never had access to. Yeah. Yeah. Many of our fathers were not taught to feel. They were taught to endure. Many of our mothers were not taught to process. They were taught to survive and survival built the ground we stand on. Reverence does not mean blindness. It does not excuse harm. It means remembering context. It means acknowledging that progress without gratitude becomes arrogance. You are not self-made. You're inherited, inherited resilience, inherited endurance, inherited imperfect love. Yeah. You are the imperfect elder. You will be the imperfect elder. And the next generation will see your blind spots clearly. The question is, will they also remember what you built? Because a culture that forgets its ancestors does not become enlightened. It becomes unanchored. That's it. That's it. And so it's important to honor the elders and in a culture that is always trying to turn back the hands of time. And instead of honoring our ancestors, our elders and putting them on altars of community, we stick them in retirement homes. Nobody wants to get old. Everybody wants to discard our elders. And going back to the five pillars of the five levels of being human, the ancestors. So my mom and dad are now my ancestors. And thank you for exactly what I've been given. And that's the difference between being a victim and a victor. A victim is a victim. And a victim is a victim. And a victim is blaming all of their outside circumstances on where they're at. I can't stand victims, bro. It's one of the things I just do not have time for. A victor is somebody who says, you know what? Yes, this happened to me. Yes, it was painful. Yes, it hurt me. And I'm going to choose man search for meaning, Viktor Frankl. I'm in this concentration camp. Let me find the meaning in this. Yeah. There's a huge difference. I just personally don't got time to deal with anybody who does it, see the power and meaning. That's why gratitude is so important. No matter how bad it is, be grateful. I got some people in my life that are so blessed and so miserable. Always finding something to complain about. Those are the people you cannot be in my circle. But then there's the people that find the beauty in the smallest things. And that's the beauty of it all. Yes, our parents, like it's about honesty, right? It's like, yes, our parents hurt us. And yes, they gave us gifts. And that's that, that poem you just read is powerful. You should, you should frame that. Yeah. Yeah. It speaks to even the way that I want to be into, look at and through my own parents and familial systems. You know, because I think sometimes I have a tendency to look at them through that flawed lens. And as they say that like, that's a boomerang, you know, what you look at is looking back at you. Yeah. Are they alive? Both of them. Both of them. Let me tell you, bro. It's, it's one thing when your parents pass. You're going to be changed forever. And you have the opportunity to like call them, bro. I would give up everything to have one more conversation with my mom, to be able to call your mom, to be able to call your dad, to hear them bicker and go through their things that annoy you, bro. It's a blessing. Because one day it's gone. I remember when I was looking at my mom's body in the morgue, fuck me up. When I looked at my dad's body at the morgue, fuck me up. And they never come back. So it was like, everybody who's coming back is like, who's complaining. If you got your parents alive still, lean in and do the work and have the conversations that you need to have. And if you're hurt, be like, dad, I'm hurt. Mom, I'm hurt. Let's explore this, but don't like waste the opportunity because eventually, and this is a fact, if you live long enough, you're going to, you're going to be there when your parents take their last breath. And so if you have that opportunity now, like don't let your ego hijack the moment of being with them. Thank you. I want to, I'm going to wrap this up here, but I, I saw this question and I just think it's so profound because you've put out so much content in the world. You've put out, you know, I don't know how many thousands of shares on social media and you've been on podcasts and you've run decade plus of your own retreats and deep medicine journeys. You have so much to say, you know, and I just think it's so profound because you've put out so much content in the world. You have so much to say, you know, and I just think it's so profound because you've put out so We can run this back 50 times over and it wouldn't be enough. But if everything that you've ever put out was removed from the world and everything you'd ever written on substat, all your poems on Instagram, all your retreats you'd ever ran, and you had 60 seconds to leave something useful behind, what would you say? Great question. First, um, I'm going to quote Elder Muhammad Ali. "Service to others is the rent that we pay for our time here on earth." And the greatest service that we can do for ourselves is to fall deep in love with who and what it is we are. Life is meant to be a challenge, and there are two ways to look at it. Life is happening to me or life is happening for me. In the pursuit of the goals that are most meaningful to our hearts, it is meant to be challenging, but there's a framework that always opens the doors to a deeper, positive, more love centered relationship with our goals. And that is I get to, I don't have to, I get to do this work. I get to go on the journey. I get to be broken. I get to become whole. I get to live more. I get to lead more. I get to go on the journey of deep expansion. And in that space, everything changes. And so it's important just to remember that, like, love is the way. Love is the answer and the question. And life is always working for us. It's always on time and it gives us exactly what we need. Not always what we want, but it gives us exactly what we need. And our job is to then get out of the way and do the work and then get out of the way. And that's really, uh, you know, my message to, to the world is just like, stop, breathe, take it all in and just enjoy this beautiful gift that is life. Cause so many of our ancestors sacrificed everything for us to be here and what, you know, what an honor to be alive. Brandon, this has been such a gift for me. Thank you for having me, bro. Yeah. It's been such an unbelievable honor and I could have, I could have sat here and chatted with you without cameras on for, yeah, going and I'm sure. sure we will at some point and just to close this out for the people who are listening who want to dive deeper into you and your work and where you got coming up where can people find you one and what's on the calendar for you yeah so this year is a year of deep art and so there's a lot more spaciousness i'm very technologically illiterate i like to be in the garden and pretty much the only way you can get a hold of me is through instagram that's like my medium and sub stack my team has been telling me to get a website forever i've never had a website and uh i don't really market any courses because i just trust that whatever's supposed to be will be so like tap in and uh for those that are listening you know just remember that the world is a better place because you are you nobody nobody is you that is your power don't forget that i'd assert if you're listening to this and inspired by what brandon has said i mean his poems alone have touched me in unimaginable ways and reached into layers beyond my mind and led to choices that have quite literally shifted the direction of my life so yeah don't take it lightly when he says go check out instagram i know a lot of people say that and it's like uh okay like go there respect thank you yeah game recognizes game as you say game recognizes game i'm grateful for you boom