Seeking Truths In Relationships And The Masculine Role With Peter King - Replay

A replay of a Change Proof podcast episode featuring Adam Markel and guest Peter King (host of Wired for Impact). They discuss truth-seeking, humility, masculine and feminine dynamics, phases of relationships (incomplete → wholeness → beyond wholeness), ayahuasca and meditation practices for self-awareness, cycles of masculinity, and practical communication for deeper relationships. Personal anecdotes (King’s family losses and father coming out; Markel’s panic attack and ayahuasca journeys) are used to illuminate lessons about resilience and accepting change without judgment.
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Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Barkel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change.
Proof.
Hi, it's Adam Markell and thank you for joining me for another episode of the Change Proof podcast where today we have a replay episode of my conversation with Peter King. He is a relationship and a truth seeker and the host of the Wired for Impact podcast. Peter's main mission in life is to define a universal relationship ideal that people can aspire to achieve, requiring them to fulfill their maximum potential. He shares his work primarily with men and boys to help them to discover their purpose in life. Peter shares how masculine energy can be elevated by relating to the feminine, leaving a powerful legacy of love and impact. He also explains how proper communication deepens relationships and how men could stand up against a society that continues to demonize them. Some of the things that we discussed in our show were was the importance of humility. There is no growth without humility, how our relationship with truth and acceptance of it and a willingness to be uncomfortable leads to more growth and more understanding. We talk about ayahuasca and meditation style practices to stop hiding from ourselves, why he seeks truth, and how the loss of his mother, followed by the birth of his son and his father coming out contributed to his journey of self reflection and and understanding. We talk about the three phases of relationships, incomplete wholeness and beyond wholeness. We talk about the cycles of humanity, the good men cycle as he calls it, and why men need to understand the masculine cycle to raise young men. I know that you're going to love this replay episode of my conversation with Peter King. I look forward to getting your comments by going to Adam Markel forward slash podcast. You can leave any questions or comments for me or for Peter there. Also, if you've not yet taken your own resilience assessment, feel free to go to resiliencerank.com and in just three minutes you'll get those compact solutions to your resilience issues mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. Again, just three minutes by going to resiliencerank.com and for now sit back and enjoy my conversation with the one and the only Peter King. Peter, I want to I want to ask you this question. What's something that's not a part of your standard bio or your standard intro that you would love for people to know about you?
I love that Question out of the gate, first and foremost. Thanks for having me on, Adam. I really appreciate it. I'm honored to be on the program. To answer the question just popped in my head as you were saying, that was truth seeker seeking truth. I've always. I've been very curious by nature, and I have found that the way that I go about seeking truth is a little bit different than perhaps others. I'm constantly challenging my own belief sets. I'm constantly looking for, where have I misled myself? And so in that process of trying to crack my own foundations, I'll find cracks or I'll find. Oh, man, I was completely off from that one. And it's allowed me to build more and more solid foundations as I see it. And I'm always being open to proven wrong on something. At least I try to be. So that's been. That's not necessarily something that weaves its way into every introduction. So that would be that. That's something that I'd add into it, at least for.
For this conversation that really resonates with me. And I gotta tell you, my little monkey mind went off about 20 seconds ago into this arena of, you know, I guess I. I was listening, but not fully listening, fully present. My mind went to. I wonder how many times a day we're actually wrong. Like, have you ever considered how often it is that, you know, me, you, me, you know, the collective we. How often we're wrong?
Yeah. Yeah. Probably more than we'd care to admit.
At least I would raise my hand to that. Probably a lot more than I'm comfortable admitting.
Yes.
Maybe.
Well, and it begs the question of, like, what's right compared to. In what paradigm are you looking of what is right versus wrong? And, you know, I think on some level, because I'm a pretty spiritual guy, or at least I'm interested in that, and I'm exploring consciousness and all that from that perspective. This whole experience isn't true. This. The whole experience is. Is delusional. So, yeah, that we could go down the rabbit hole in many different directions on that one, I'm sure.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's my question, Peter, next is really, how important is humility in that. In that equation for you?
To me, there is no growth without humility. Humility to me, is. Is paramount because we, to me, truth. That the idea of truth is so much bigger than. Than what. At least in my personal experience, than what I had ever thought it might be. So as I've discovered more truth, I've had to let Go of what I thought was true before that. And you can really only do that through an act of humility. So to me, it's a paramount element of expanding our vessels to better understand deeper and deeper truths.
Right? Because, I mean, if we're committed to truth, and I would think most people would say they're committed to truth, may not wake up in the morning and go, hey, I'm committed to truth today. Or they may not. They may not sort of intentionally or consciously set. Set that out as, as a goal for themselves in the day. But, you know, if asked, are you committed to truth or are you committed to lies? Are you committed to bull or are you committed to something real? I think, you know, pretty much every day everybody puts their feet on the floor, you know, starts the day, goes, yeah, I'm committed to something real today. I'm committed to something truthful today. As opposed to, you know, feet hit the floor and go, I'm committed to being a fraud. That's what I want to be today. The best fraud I can possibly. You know, I want to walk around with such a great facade and be a total pretense to the world, you know. But if we're committed to truth, consciously or unconsciously, truth leads us into some pretty dark, shadowy places, right? I mean, we're in the underworld in our own life experience if we are being truthful a lot of the time. Or is that, is that just my dark, pasty thing?
No, no, no, no. I, I 100% agree with that. And I think you were. You used the word darkness and shadow. And to me, I've done some study of, you know, Carl Jung and, and other psychologists and philosophers of that ilk and I, they talk about shadow work, and it's something that we often tend to not want to shine the light in. They. We don't want to go there. And yet that tends to be, at least in my experience, that's where the deepest growth and the more truth has been found. And so looking at those uncomfortable things, being willing to challenge the beliefs that might be bigger than our own perceptions of what's true. To me, those could be scary places. It can feel like what's dark, and yet at the same time, oftentimes they create the. I'm getting a little bit esoteric here, but they create. They tend to create the contrast. Maybe a better way to say it is when you think of love and happiness and joy, do you really know what that is? If you haven't experienced the lack of that? So the lack of that helps to expand and deepen our understanding of what that love and joy might feel like. And I find that same symbiotic relationship with truth too is what isn't true or what what is, what is. Those uncomfortable truths help us embody and understand a deeper light of truth that.
Makes sense to me. I was in Costa Rica just recently, within the last month, let's say, for an. A wonderful retreat. I go to this place called Rhythmia.
And were you there with some other people that we know? I don't want to necessarily name names that they don't want to know.
Yeah, I know like a lot of people that do go to Rhythm. It's funny, not always want to say it out loud. I think, I think Joe, Joe Rogan had had a guy on his show recently who, I'm not going to mention his name. He's a comedian who was there the week before, the week before I was there. I'm really fortunate to be able to go there as a facilitator. Oh wow. And as a participant. So it's, it's the best of both worlds really. And, and so last time I was there, time before this time was like last February and this comic was there, celebrity comic and, and he was Joe Rogan show, talking about it. But he, but they never mentioned the name. And maybe that's because they don't want to blow up, you know, blow up the place. Meaning, you know, like that too many people try to get there or whatever. But in any event, I don't, I, I'm happy to promote their good work and I mean they do really good work. Jerry Gerard Powell, who's created it, founded it, it's just a superstar. And you know, as a inter. In terms of impact, like he's, you know, you're, you have a website impact now they have, they've had some serious impact on a lot of people. And so this last, this last visit there, as I was both leading a, leading a training and then also participating, I got kicked in the teeth royally, man. I mean, ayahuasca, for those of you that have never either heard it or don't know what the heck it is, it's plant medicine. It's not, it's not a, it's not synthetic. It's, you know, I'm not a, I'm not a big, big drug experimenter. I've done my share of things but, but I'm a, I'm a middle, middle way guy. So I trust myself to not get like too, too far gone with things. But this particular you know, time there the first night, it's like four journeys in the week and the first journey is on, on a Monday night. I taught that afternoon. I go into ceremony that night and it was darkness from start to finish. It was just six hours of being in the underworld and you know, there's just no light, no light in the, in the underworld. And again, not to be too, I don't know, too coy about it. I was just pointed in the direction of who I've become. Like there's sort of three intentions or three questions that get asked throughout the week and one of them is show me, you know, this request that the medicine, the plant medicine show you who you've become. You don't have to ask that, you don't have to inquire there but, but it's, it's cool if you do because I think when you ask a good question or you ask pretty much any question, you're going to get an answer at some point. Well, I got, I got the answer like right out of the gate and it was, it was just tough, you know, to be, to be shown truth that, that, that I am so good at evading or, or keeping it a safe distance, keeping it away from damaging my precious ego or damaging my self esteem, whatever, you know, damaging my ability to, to have the audacity to speak and speak publicly. You know, like, I think it's a really, really important thing that you can balance your. The confidence to do certain things in life and yet to have humility, to have the humility that's sort of in, in harmony with, with confidence. So I would love to just get, you know, generally any comments about that and also, do you. You've been to rhythm yourself? Just curious.
I have not. I was invited to go on that specific trip. I know Robert Glover was down there and some other folks that we know. And so I'd gotten that invitation and I was very close to going and it just wasn't in the cards for me this particular time. I have not done an ayahuasca event just yet, but it is on my radar. I'm fascinated by that whole idea and it's for me personally, compared to my upbringing, this was, it's very, very outside, off the reservation, if you will, from, from my religious conservative upbringing. And yet at the same time, everybody that I've talked to that have experienced it and the more that I understand about it, I shown about it or whatever when I was in a. I was in the Tony Robbins platinum group and we went down to Brazil and we were on the Amazon and. And so there was a group of people that did it. And I decided I wasn't ready for it just yet. But anyway, I'm fascinated by the idea of our minds and of our, as I better understand brain chemistry and neuronic connections and beliefs and how we form these, these connections in our brain and well, what happens. You were talking about truth a minute ago. What happens when you have these beliefs that are not true? I'm not loved or I'm not worthy. And those are the deepest untruths in our egoic human experience. What happens when those connections are so, well, grooving in our head? And is it possible that an ayahuasca type thing could flush that out? Can. Can. You know, it's like defragging the computer, so to speak, and reorganizing thought and bringing it back to coherence. I've been doing a lot of work with Joe Dispenza in the last year and gone the meditation route, which is, I think, as I understand it, almost a similar end game, if you will, by heightening consciousness, tapping into higher frequency, better understanding our true natures. I'm just absolutely fascinated by that whole world. It's something that I've, as I mentioned, only been into for about a year, but I have not done specifically ayahuasca one yet. I've experienced some pretty metaphysical things in the meditation space in the last year or so.
You know, you don't need, I mean my ex, you know, just my own personal take on this is that you don't need to do it in order to get there. I've been able to, to get to a certain place through, I guess you, you know, for me, meditation is the practice of being present. Somebody shared that with me years ago and it's super simple and I'm a simplistic, I'm a simpleton. So something simple I can, I can wrap myself around and use. And so yeah, just being present and I have a presence, getting present and presence process in the morning that I use, which is like a meditative process and that can take me right to the. Right to the end game, the end point of a journey, quickly. Breathwork is magical. And so for anybody that's never done breath work or been facilitated in breathwork, I think breath work is also just wow. I mean you can go very, very deep in breathwork. And I also do recommend that folks interested explore things like ayahuasca in the right environment because, uh, there is a. We're really good at hiding from ourselves. Like I'm saying, we. Now, of course, I am really good at hiding from myself. And I know that I'm no different than anybody. Not no different than you, Peter, or anybody else. So I just feel like that's. That's probably true of human, you know, the human condition.
Agreed.
And the thing about that too is you don't know when you're hiding. That's how good you are at hiding. You don't know. But when you're in an environment where you've been. Are being facilitated through in expert ways with shaman and people that have been doing this indigenously for thousands of years, you know, and now it's been passed down, this legacy, knowledge and education is passed down to another. Another. Another leader in that space. Um, you know, there's. There's just so much to be gained from it. And humility. I mean, that's the thing is that that first night of that journey, of that week, I just got knocked to my knees. And I think I was there the week before. Our mutual friend George. George Bryant, was going to be also facilitating, I think next week. And yeah, I mean, it was just like. So I got knocked to my hands and knees and, And I needed it. I had been knowing a couple of weeks before I was heading out there that just. I could feel stuff all tensed up in my neck and my body was just feeling really. Yeah, just really stiff, you know, like, we can't get too stiff, right? Because at some point we're so stiff, you know, we're done. Yeah. So your, your, your being a truth seeker, I think it's just fascinating because it is. It's. It's like constant vigilance. Right. To be a truth seeker, it's not an easy. You don't get sort of a day at the beach, you know?
No. In fact, I tried to hang it up at one point when I was in my marriage and things were not going well. And I. On paper, everything was.
Was good.
I had a beautiful wife, two loving, great kids, a nice home, great income. And, and, And I remember thinking to myself, why can I not be happy? Why is. Why is this not fulfilling for me? And I. I literally was like, all right. It seems like from my perspective, most people seem to live a fairly happy life, working 9 to 5. Now, they don't necessarily absolutely love it, but they have their moments, they have their weekends, they have their breaks, and they seem to be okay with that. And I'm like, I am going to. I'm going to have to just do that because that's where I'm at at the moment it took me, I think it was, it was like literally a two week intention, or I had a longer intention. But within two weeks I got to the point where I was like, I can't turn this off. I don't know how to not do this. I'm. There's a calling within me. There's. There's something about me where I'm. I just seek deeper knowledge, deeper truth. And so I couldn't turn it off.
Was that a point of conflict for you and your spouse?
I mean, certainly. I mean, it was what sort of bubbled up the uncomfortable truths of our relationship. And truthfully, in a way that was absolutely serving us that we didn't necessarily see at the time. And on that quick note, I just mentioned to you that we had a wonderful holiday season and a big part of that was my ex joining my family for our, for our vacation. And it took a long time and it was a long time coming. But I had this thought the other day. Is your marriage strong enough to survive divorce?
Oh, that's an interesting question.
Right. And I. The reason why that came to me was because my wife. My wife, my ex. See, there I go. My ex. Wife and I have a better relationship now. We communicate better. We are still connected, obviously through our children, but even just in a spiritual sense, we have an undeniable spiritual relationship that we didn't know we had when we first started dating all the way back in high school. But now that we're adults and have been through some stuff, it's like, I, I don't, I never felt. Not married to her, even when we were separated, just because we had that connection on so many different levels, emotionally and financially and spiritually. And, and so anyway, I, I don't know where I was. I don't know how we started with this, but I don't know. We're here now.
Well, I'm fascinated about the communication piece, among other things, because your work in the world is about relationships. So, I mean, not every relationship is meant to be, you know, the, the till death do us part kind. Right. I mean, and that's just the reality of. And not a. And not a terrible reality is what I'm hearing you say, right?
100% if you set that intention. I, you know, there has been times where we've both wanted to, you know, strangle each other, et cetera, but, but there is a deeper intention to ultimately turn the page. Every day is a new day, put the past behind us when it's when it's appropriate, when it's effective. There's times where we need to revisit the past in order to have healing. But the communication piece is massive, and it is something that led me into relationships, that. And my mother's passing. And about a year after she passed, my father came out of the closet and told us he was gay. And at the time, I just had my son. And so I was having, you know, just really profound, deep reflection on, well, what does it mean to be a man? What is it to be. To. To be a good father? What did I not have that talk about the shadow and uncomfortable things. It was like I wanted to go into that space of what I didn't receive growing up so that I could be very clear with what it was, so that I can make sure that I bequeath it to my son and give him that experience. So all of this stuff to me converges with this journey that we're on. The truth, that is that we're seeking the ego that we're shedding to better understand our true natures. If you believe, like I do, that we're spiritual entities.
Yeah.
So it's. It's. The communication piece is massive.
It is. And maybe the most important communication. I mean, it's just convenient to say this, I suppose, but, you know, it's the communication with ourselves, and it's back to that same kind of thing. You know, can you speak? Can you receive the truth from yourself? Can you seek it to begin with? And can you. Can you. Can you deal with it? You know, can you accept it? Because, you know, just going back to that. To that week of mine, that truth. It was devastating that night just to. To be. Just to be confronted, you know, like. And I won't be, you know, too. Too. I don't know, cheeky about it. The. The truth I got was that I'd been behaving like. You know, like I just was. And so then it was. Even the idea that I could. And this is all under the influence of this. This beautiful medicine, you know, Mother Ayah, as it's sometimes referred to. Ayah. And, you know, to be able to say, I'm an. I'm not saying, you know, that that's a good thing at all to be an. But to. To say to yourself, you know, so if that's. If that's it, I mean, if, you know, you. We can rationalize everything. I could say, well, I've just been an here and there, you know, that doesn't make me an. I'm Just act like an A sometimes. What's the difference? I mean, strip it away. So, okay, you know, it leads to more questions. So if I am, does that mean I'm unlovable? Does that mean I can't be forgiven? Does that mean I can't love myself? Does that mean I can't improve and get better? Does that mean I have to be an tomorrow or in the next minute simply because I was one yesterday or a minute ago? I mean, it's just remarkable how much this. The truth, you know, like the. Like the biblical or what's been interpreted, you know, that it's. It's. Can. Can free you, can give you great freedom. I'll save that, you know, for a little bit later, maybe, in the discussion of where it went from there. But. But a. I mean, what. What made you be a truth seeker? Is there. Was there some catalytic thing that said, hey, this is. This is my path in life to seek truth?
No. For me, I think I was born with it. I think. I think we're all born with certain gifts and. Or callings or pursuits. And. And that for me, just when I started to consciously, on a more mature level, understand that and see that it was different than others, and I had that same question, like, when did I start doing this? And it was kind of one of those things where I just always. I kind of always done that. So I think it was just something I was gifted with, if you consider that a gift.
Sure. And so in relationships, for example. And again, I think it's funny, I tell this story of. I wrote a book called Pivot some years ago. Um, and. And in the. In the book, it. It tells. It starts with a story of me having a. A moment in the emergency room. You know, electrodes tie, you know, taped to my. You know, stuck on my chest, and my heart beating like, you know, out. Like it was outside my chest. Fingers tingling, sweating profusely. I think I'm having a heart attack. And I. I'm really deeply afraid of dying and of dying in that moment in particular, because I had. You know, I have four small kids, and my wife is standing there next to me as I'm lying on this gurney. I'm so weak, and I feel just so. So filled with shame that I'm putting her through this and. And I'm going to leave her, you know, like, I'm going to make her a widow with all this. Just all this stuff to deal with. And I didn't have a heart attack. My heart was fine. Doctor said you're having a panic attack. And that's what it was. I had a, had an anxiety attack. And that was, that was the moment for me when I left the hospital when the doctor said, hey, you're, you're getting the, you know, this is a pretty, pretty good gift you get today because, like, you're gonna walk out of here. There are guys who come in your age, you know, late 30s, with presenting in, in, you know, these symptoms. They don't, they don't always leave. So I did walk out. I did realize I was. Had been given a bit of a reprieve. And I looked up the sky with my wife's, you know, holding my wife's hand and I said, thank. Thank you, God. You know, I don't know they ever said thank you, God before in my life, but I did that day. And that was the, that was a moment for me that put me on a. Kind of like, I got to find something. I gotta, I gotta get some truth. And then, and, and Scott Peck. M. Scott Peck. Dr. Peck wrote a book called the Road Less Traveled, which is a phenomenal book. That was the sort of the opening for me in that arena. But even when I left the hospital that day and I didn't know what to do, you know, I, I. There was sort of like a. There was a bit of a crack in the door. You know, it was a little bit of light, it was dark. Because I was confused. I didn't know why my life had gotten me, you know, I didn't know where I was, even though. Yeah. Married to my college sweetheart, I had four healthy kids. My, my business is great. I'm a lawyer and I'm making tons of money, but it was dark. It was just sheer darkness for me, especially in the morning. I don't know if you've ever had trouble waking up or that early part of the day that was really miserable for me. Just put my feet on the floor and would feel like instant dread, you know. You ever. Has that ever been a.
Yes? Yes. It's. It's in that, it's that little window where you're just coming online in the morning from the unconscious to the conscious state. And it's. Yeah, I've absolutely had those moments of impending doom. Just. Yep. Something not good is going to happen in the world, in your life. So, you know, and it's sort of.
You know, low level or not so low level anxiety. Right.
Yeah.
So in the past, you know, or in this, this distance after that event, you know, I didn't know what to Do. I was having trouble not only waking up, but falling asleep. And maybe people can relate to that, too. So it's taking Ambien to get to sleep. And if I woke up in the middle of the night, I would have trouble getting back to sleep. And it was one particular night I did. I woke up and had trouble getting back to sleep. And I sat down and I turned on TV and was watching this old movie, Jerry Maguire. And I normally, you know, that Jerry Maguire movie leads me to something that I did that I won't talk about right now. That. That literally changed the trajectory of my life. But the thing I don't normally think about is that in that movie, there's this wonderful line. There's all these Hollywood lines, show me the money, right? Cuba Gooding says, jerry. Or to Tom Cruise. And then Renee Zellweger at some point says, you know, you had me at hello. Right, Another great Hollywood line. And Tom Cruise says something like, you complete me. And I remember saying to my wife, Randy, one day, I go, hey, baby, do I. Do I complete you? You know, Peter, what do you think she said? Just take a wild guess.
Oh, my gosh. From a woman's perspective, hell, yeah. I'm all of you. If I'd asked anybody that, I did it, yeah, you're nothing without me.
I know, right? So that's so funny. She looks at me and she goes, are you out of your mind? You don't complete me. And we had done some relationship training workshops and things for a bunch of years, and we would. We would sort of, you know, tell. Tell that story on stage because it was. It was an interesting moment, you know, to. To explore whether or not anybody can complete us, like in. In an intimate relationship, whether it's, you know, marital or not, as a lot of people don't even get married these days, but you're with somebody and you're committed at some level. You go, you know, is it isn't another person's job to complete you? I do want to get your take on that because you are an expert in this field of relationships and, you know, is, you know, whether that's relative to communication or some other thing. I mean, I'm just going to throw that potato in your lap and ask what you think of it.
Well, to preface my answer, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants that I have learned some of this stuff from, but that I went and applied it in my own relationships and also reflected and better understood it myself. So I'll preface it with that. David Data has A great model for this, where he talks about the three phases. And I might, I'm going to twist it a little bit to fit my own needs here. But there's like three phases of, of the journey of relationships. You have that incomplete stage where you consciously or unconsciously are seeking out that love and validation approval from somebody else. That was the. One of the mistakes that my ex wife and I made when we first came together is we were essentially two incomplete people seeking the love and validation from something outside of us, that is each other. The next phase is wholeness, which when I first heard that I was like, wait, wholeness is the second stage. But anyway, the second stage is wholeness. And wholeness is when you really start to create boundaries and have a sense of self. Without those boundaries, you don't know what's outside or what's inside your sense of self. And as I went through my personal development journey, I started to better understand my own values, my own personality, my own strengths and weaknesses and where I began and where I stopped. So creating those boundaries helped me create a greater sense of wholeness within myself. At least that intention. The third phase is really beyond wholeness where I believe when you come, when two whole people come together, they can create something that which an individual person cannot. And you see this and you feel it. More importantly, you feel it when you're around a couple who bring that to. They elevate each other in ways that the other person cannot. Um, I'll share one other quick thing that was. That's been really beautiful for, for me to learn. It's very humbling and something that I think women innately have within them that feminine energy that helps uplift the masculine. But on a, on a more practical level, I was taught in my personal discover personal development journey. I was told one time that you can have, you can have one or the other. You have two options. You can either have a closed in heart, a boxed in heart that's safe and your heart is safe and in that protective box but it's confined. Or you can have an open heart that's bleeding and full of life, but because it's open it's vulnerable and therefore it's going to get bruised. And I have found in my relationships with women that some of them, not all of them, but some of them who, who elevated, who sought to elevate that. There really was a third option which was when you're with a partner that is humble and that seeks to love and they can put a box around your heart or they can Seek to put a box around it to help protect you and to have somebody else do that is incredibly humbling and also very deeply loving. So when I think of communication, when I think of incompleteness and wholeness, I do think that there is this masculine feminine design where we're supposed to. Obviously we're supposed to come together biologically, but spiritually I believe that these, that those energies do constitute wholeness. Now I don't think you have to be in a partnership to have that. I do think that we, and I would guess that you would agree with this too, that we all have feminine and masculine within us. So there is a wholeness within us that does not require something outside of us to, to complete that wholeness. But I do think in this human journey with the illusion of separateness, with the illusion of incompleteness, that a man and a woman can, can bring together more of that spiritual union that I always say that I think of a feminine woman who is mature, who has done the personal development work, who is in touch with her spiritual nature. I think her, her expression of femininity will out express any man who is in touch even with his feminine and vice versa. And so I think we are clear channels of that masculine and feminine energy on a practical level in this human experience. Those two coming together I think creates a wholeness or a beyond wholeness like David Data was talking about, that is beautiful and enriches each other, but then also enriches their offspring and then the community around that. It's something that I think our world is sorely needing, something I'm very passionate about because it seems like we don't have a clear sense of what that ideal relationship ought to look like.
No, I think it is confusing and I know you do a lot of work with men and boys as well and how to understand, better understand and relate to the feminine. I'd love to hear more about that. I'm particularly curious just because I think the landscape has shifted. I mean, I'm in my, I've had kids and all that. I'm not just kind of making a start in the world and I've been with the same woman for 30 plus years, but the landscape is very different now. I think for four young men, boys turning into men and young men, I would say, you know, that are in there even in their 20s and having, you know, to figure out or navigate. I mean, that's a statement, but it's also a question. Do you think it is different? Has it changed? And how do you, how do you work with Those, you know, young men.
These days, it's undoubtedly different. I'm sure you've heard the saying, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create bad times, bad times create strong men. Well, we're in that good times have created weak men phase, and we're starting to tip over, I believe, into the weak men create bad times phase. So it's helpful to understand, understand that landscape so that we know what we're at, where we're at, and what's needed and where we need to step up, etcetera, as men.
Say more about that. Yeah, I don't want to digress you too far, but that's a really, that's a really powerful statement, Peter.
I mean, so to me, we are. We're in cycles. We are energy. This is something I'm now leaning into my Joe Dispenza experience. Everything is energy, literally on a physical level. If you get down to small enough, if you break apart an atom, if you deconstruct, there's nothing there. It's just space. It's just a little vortex of energy. And so what are. What's emblematic of energy, if not cycles? Waves. Right. And we see that in relationships. We feel it, you know, we see it in economics. We see it. Our whole world is waves and cycles and all these things. And so part of that cycle that we're in is what I just described. There's actually a very fascinating cycle called the Titler Cycle. There's a gentleman by the name of Alexander Tytler who in the 1800s discovered that democracies and empires followed this very predictable set of cycles that sort of maps on top of the Good Men cycle that I was just talking about, where you start off with liberty and freedom. And it moves into essentially. But I'm kind of giving you the paraphrase model, but goes into abundance and from that, abundance goes into apathy, and then apathy goes into corruption, and corruption goes into bondage, and bondage goes into liberty again. And you have that. You start the cycle. So I think to. To understand our place in that is helpful because, number one, as things tend to get a little bit more volatile or turbulent, that it's helpful to know that we are in a cycle and that this, this will play out. There will be a spring that's coming, that's another cycle, winter falls, spring, summer. And I think as men, how we fit into that in raising new young men is to understand the masculine cycle. The masculine journey, which tends to be linear, starts off in the page stage. And moves into the night stage, which is sort of that teen to early twenties. That's the stage of a man's life where he's really seeking to find out what he's made of. Um, it's typically a selfish stage. The Hawaiians, the Hawaiian culture, I love what they've done. They, they call it the three Fs, where a young man, his three, his three Fs are focused. You can, I'm sure you can think of a couple of them, but one of them is food fighting. And it's, it's like, it's very self serving and. But then as he matures, he goes from that night stage into the prince stage, where that energy tends to. Once he kind of finds out who he is. We talked about wholeness before. You find a sense of who you are, you have that sense of wholeness. This is what I'm bringing to the table that, that energy tends to. It gets boring almost if you're constantly just serving your own needs. It's like, I want to uplift others, I want to help, I want to serve. And so that energy sort of shifts outward. It's typically when a man starts to have children, a wife and children. And so in that prince stage, he's now looking to, to give. And the three Fs then turn into feed, family and fend, I. E. Defend, which is more serving his tribe, his community. And then from that prince stage, Alison Armstrong, who was the one that taught me this, talked about this stage prior to becoming a king, which is the tunnel stage. And a man oftentimes will reach a point in his life. It sounds like you might have hit this with, with some of what you've shared today, but where a man tends to go into the tunnel, which is a very bleak, dark, very trying period in a man's life. It's typically when as he's been building his kingdom, the rug gets pulled out from underneath him. Whether it's his wife cheated on him or a business partner stole from him, or there's a health scare or something that really rocks him to his core. And I have, I have put a little bit of a different light on that where. Because I've worked with men in that, in that stage and I want them to just slow down. Breath. Work is huge in this period. But it really, to me is a spiritual. It's a sacred time in a man's life where he's burning off all the impurities spiritually, but also in his actual life of essentially just answering the question, what's not Necessary. It's a minimalization process to streamline and to strip down. Get rid of all the bull, get rid of all the stupid stuff you have in your head about ego and just get down to really raw, real. Who am I? What is this purpose in my life all about? And how do I give and how do I build a kingdom to ultimately bless and leave a legacy of love and contribution in the world? So that roadmap, I think, is very helpful for men to just know where they are in that stage. I can get into archetypes too, because I help men with that as well. But that's something that's really helpful for me. It's been helpful for me to better understand my son, other men, and then also with communication as well. So I can riff on that too, if you'd like to. Yeah.
You know, it's so going. Just going back to that, the, the Ayahuasca story for a second. You know, the thing that is. Became really, really important to me in, in that experience because it was difficult. And on the one hand, I'd done, you know, many journeys before. I know, I know how loving and kind of it all is meaning, you know, even in the worst of it, you know, if you're throwing up or you're, you're crapping, you know, or whatever, you're, you're screaming, you're crying. I mean, there's a lot that's going on in a very, very safe environment, at least in the place that I've experienced this. You know, it's the, the, the, the knowledge I bring to it is that, that I'm going to be. I'm being loved the whole way through. I mean, it's nothing but love that's carrying me through it. But at a certain point, the. What's became real and it's actually the through line of the book that, that I've got that's sitting up on the screen. But, you know, this new book, Change Proof, is. Is a book about change and everything, oddly enough, everything's changing. So it's like the one constant we have in our lives, that everything's constantly changing, ironically, but acceptance. So there's this truth, let's say, and again, truth is. No, it's, it's a relative.
It's.
It's not an absolute. I don't call it, you know, truth with a capital T, but, but to just look at, look at things without, without the lens or the ego or anything else, that sort of just clouds seeing things for, for what, you know, what's there to be seen. And in that instant or part of that night, I was going, yeah, man, you've been. God, you just, like, been short with people. You know, you haven't been compassionate. You haven't been, you know, listening. Well, so you're like, that's where they can get to the conclusion of that. But acceptance without judgment is ultimately what it means or. Or what. What helped me to move beyond or move through that darkness and into the light. There's a. To. To not be in judgment is a fundamentally profound thing. Like, you talk about the missing. What's, you know, what. What you can do without. What could be missing from your life. What could be missing is judgment. So when you eradicate judgment or that you're able to accept things without judgment, it's. It's love. It feels like love. It presents as love. And that's complete lightness, you know, Complete light. So I want to come back to this question of young men and just curious if you have an opinion about whether. Whether young men are feeling more judged than they were in the past. See, I didn't grow up feeling, you know, as a young man judged by society. I wasn't feeling like I didn't. I wasn't thinking of myself as potentially something that's not, you know, that. That should feel shame or guilt or is wrong necessarily for being. Just for being kind of thing. And so I know this is a very controversial kind of topic. And, you know, I'm just curious what your. What your thoughts are on it. You know, I've lived in a house of women for a lot of years. I have three daughters and wife I adore and a son. So I do have a son, and I do. And he's in a committed relationship, which is wonderful. I just wonder for, you know, guys that are out there starting and making their way in the world right now. You know, is it. Is it, you know, what kind of advice do you give them? I won't even put an opinion on it because I don't work. I don't work with those. Those young men the way you do.
So, yeah, it's a blessing and also a challenge and a struggle to be a man right now. The struggle, of course, is the word that I hear often isn't necessarily judged, but it's underappreciated. Men feel expendable. They feel like the cause of all in the world. It's our fault. You know, if you look, there's very loud voices right now, and in many cases, understandably so, of why we've things up but there's also a political element in a lot of that that I push back on because a lot of it is. Is over the top and unfair and very destructive and actually counter. Counterproductive to what we're, I think, all wanting to create in the world, which is more safety, more love, more kindness, more strength, acceptance. Exactly. But so for the. For the men who are. Who are seeking to find their way right now, to me, the blessing is that, you know, you, in a way, you sort of have a blank canvas because you've already. You've already been, you know, condemned. You've already created all this by the societal view. So it's like, what are you going to create now? There is no high standard that you have to step into. You know, I've heard some comedic perspectives on this where it's like, oh, the bar is so low, it's easy. You know, all you, all you have to do is. Who was it? I forget the comedian's name. But he's like, you went out on a date and the gal said, you know, don't you want to have me? He's like, not if. If you don't want to. Like, I'm not going to force you to have. She's like, wow, you're a really great man. And he's like, really? Is that the standard? You know, that's, that's the bar that I have to pass. But I think in that regard, men have an obligation to create the container of love to the container and defend it. A lot of men are so impotent in their energy and in their intention.
Well, that's the weakness. Right? Isn't that. So that's where I wanted to come to, because you described the stage or the phase that we're in as a pretty. You know, that. That's a difficult one. Like, we're going. We're in a stage where men are weak, you said, and. And I want. Right. So.
Yep.
You know, we're not. Maybe we're not doing sociology work here. Maybe it's more philosophy than anything else. Or just, you know, what your gut tells you.
Well, I think also, like, weak. Oftentimes we think of weak, physically weak in impotence, in their energy, et cetera. But weakness is also bullying. Weakness is also, you know, puffing your chest and being a bulldozer, pretending.
Yeah.
And so there's a lot of quote unquote weak men that are very, very physically, emotionally strong. But they're. But they're bullies, essentially. They're tyrants. And that's Also a shadow of true masculinity, which to me is a weakness. So we're dealing with a lot of that weakness right now, where you have a lot of corruption, as I'm sure you know, there's a lot of pedophilia right now in very high elements of government and corporate big America, et cetera, and in the world. It's really. It's really tragic. And men need to hear that calling. Good men with good hearts need to hear that calling to step up and create a container of love and defend that within it. Women, children, other men, other people who are unable to defend themselves. And we need to raise that standard and create that. That element of masculine safety and that masculine strength again. And, and women play a huge part in this because, as I'm sure you know, a lot of men are very driven by the love and affection of women. And, And. And right now there's a lot of women who I believe have fallen into this societal lie that, you know, that there is no difference between men and women, that and. Or that men are the root of all problems. And it's seeped into our lexicon, it's seeped into our culture. You see it in music, you see it in movies, you see it in language. And I work with women too. And a lot of times, beautiful, attractive, very capable, successful women, you'll hear in.
Their words.
A disdain for men. Now, not outrightly, not necessarily even consciously, but oftentimes I'll just stop and I'll ask them, like, what is it that a man brings to. Because a lot of them have relationship issues. So I'll say to them, the complaint is often I intimidate men too much. And I often. Where are the good men? And so on some levels, if you're an attractive, successful, ambitious woman. Yeah, the nature of that is there's going to be fewer people in the. In that pool, fewer men in that pool to select from. However, a lot of times they don't understand that they're actually repelling the good men that they are seeking in an unconscious way because of that. And so the question I asked them is, what is it about a man that. What can a man bring to the table that you love that no woman could do? So. And a lot of times they have a very hard time answering that question because. And this is. This, to me, is that societal sort of pot that we're in right now is. It's. Everybody's very clear on how men have screwed things up. We're all very clear on in which ways men have, have messed up relationships or race or economics or whatever. But. All right, okay, cool. Well then what's the vision? What do we look? What are we working towards? How should men behave? What can a man bring to the table that a woman can't? And that's something that I encourage people to really think about and really reflect on. But in my opinion, there's a, there's a element of truth and strength and protection that men bring to the table that on average, most women can't bring as much to the table. Now that's not a knock at all on women. And we need to have the humility and the emotional maturity to hear that, to receive that and say cool. Because the very same question is true too. What do women bring to the table that men cannot?
Absolutely.
Most men I know can write books on that men love. Women might be frustrated by them and they might be pissed off or whatever, but men love women. We love feminine energy, we love affection and the nurturing and energy that they bring to our lives often. So obviously I'm painting a very broad strokes here. There's plenty of men that don't or much worse ways than. I'm sure you feel like you've been in the bullying, the abusive types.
So yeah, it's, man, there's, there's so many places we can go with that. I appreciate you going there. I mean, the follow up questions for me would be just, you know, I'm going to, I'll say something, but I don't know that we're going to, we're going to have the, the moment now to do this. I was reading in the paper about a week ago about protests that are happening. A group of men in South Korea that are, are, have taken up arms, not physically, but, but verbally and socially through social media and through protests and things. They've taken up arms against the feminists or what they call feminism in their country in South Korea, because they feel like they're being marginalized and they're being punished for the sins of their fathers and their grandfathers. And you know, you've had all these generations of men that treated women like shit. And culturally speaking, almost, not almost that it ingrained in culture was a degradation, a marginalization and an outright oppression of women. And so that's, you know, the pendulum has swung in many ways quite a bit. I don't know that it's gone to another extreme, but I think just, you know, young men who are not responsible for that, who don't bear, bear the, the scarlet letter for Their, for their fathers or their grandfathers are, are standing, you're standing up and saying, this is not right. This is like, you know, this is hypocrisy, right? This is double standards and stuff like that. I, I, that's a whole long conversation, I think, all by itself. But as long as I brought it up, any, any thoughts to share about that? Peter?
Yeah, there, there's definitely, if you understand politics, if you understand history, there's, there's a very clear political agenda right now to demonize men. And so I think some healthy pushback on that is, is healthy. But if you're finding that you're doing it to the people in your lives, the women in your lives, et cetera, in an, in a unprepared, productive way, I think that's counterproductive. So to understand that there's a political piece to this, I think is key. On the other hand, part of the reason why that's taken such root is because there has been abuses. There has been a lot of women don't feel safe and they don't feel, and they've been hurt, they've been raped, they've been absolutely violated. And so as men, we should, we should hear and feel that collective calling to step the up and start to create safety, create the and so part of that is going to be we're going to have to take it in the nuts a little bit, but we're going to, in that you have to love yourself in the process. You have to create those own boundaries. This was something I had to do in my relationships and say, okay, I hear you. I feel that I'll receive some of that so I can. But at some point that becomes imbalanced as well. And so we have to push back, lovingly, clearly communicate that where those boundaries are to help women and other people fit into that loving, protective container. And it's not going to happen overnight. You know, this is probably a generational thing, but it is the duty and obligation that we have before us right now.
It is one of the most important conversations I think that we can be having, actually. So I'm glad we even touched on it as, you know, superficially as we did. But I think it's really important. I just one more thing that I want to ask you about here, and that is the we started with truth. This podcast is called Change Proof. I'd love for you to give me a sense of just how you build a bridge between truth and in being Change Proof.
A bridge between. Those are a little bit subjective, so can you can you detail that out up a little bit more? What you mean?
So the concept of change proof, you and I, maybe we spoke about this before, before we hit the record button. The, the way that we deal with the kind of changes we're talking about. Like, so, for example, here's this change, change in, in. In how women are, are being heard, how they are using their voice, how men feel or are being treated in, in response to that, to that shift, to that change. So that, you know, there's this constant change, but there's some really profound changes that are happening right now. You're a truth seeker, as you said at the beginning. I wrote a book called Change Proof. So I, I want to see how it is that if there's a bridge we build between, or a connection even, you know, the bridge is just a way to connect two points, let's say, but connecting truth and, and this concept of being able to, well, accept change without judgment, because that's how I define being change proof. Love and acceptance of something without it being subject to judgment.
There's a great book by the name of Good to Great by Jim Collins, and it's a fascinating book where he tracks all these companies and he compares how two companies in any given era, how they both had access to the same market, essentially the same amount of resources, good management teams, et cetera. But for one reason, one company just took off and went to the stratosphere and then sustained that greatness. While that, while the comparative company may have achieved some level of greatness, but then fell off the tracks for some reason. And in, in that whole process, what he and his team did was they, through a process of, you know, they've removed everything to see what was left. And they found that the companies that achieved greatness and sustained greatness came down to two elements, that they had a sense of their core values, but they were also always willing to stimulate progress. And to me, being change proof and truth is, there's a. There's an anchoring of truth in the core values of who you are as an individual, who you are as a family, who you are as a country, as a world, as a human, there are, There are senses of core values that, that are timeless and will never change. But in our modern society with technology and population and geopolitical connections, et cetera, there's, as you said, constant change. So how do we stimulate that progress? To me, it's this element of taking all that's new, new technologies, new perspectives, new, all of that, and then feeding it through a Funnel of. Well, does it meet our core values? Simon Sinek does a lot of really great work in this space too, helping individuals and companies have a sense of why, what is their purpose. And that to me is a grounding foundation of stability, of certainty that you can feed your whole life through to make sure that there is that constant while also not being so timid, so stiff, so fixed that you break because things are changing so fast. It's. I think of it as like a. And I always do this. I hope this makes sense. But I think of it as, you know, like a, like a sapling tree, very anchored, strong in its anchoring, but very flexible at the same time. As a kid when you. We used to play out in the woods, it's very easy to break a dead branch because it's stiff and brittle, right? It's fixed. But you try to break a live branch and sometimes you can sit there and twist on that thing forever because it doesn't freaking break that flexibility. And to me this is the masculine and feminine right. That ability to flex and to be and to change to me is a very feminine flow energy. You're with the current where it goes, but at the same time you have that lighthouse energy, the masculine bedrock of truth, that which we're always seeking. And so, you know, I love that I'm full of metaphors.
I can talk nobody. I love, I love how you're, you're. You're also giving a lot of resources to people, you know, to think about people and, and works like Jim. Jim Collins. Good to great or other. Other works at, at the. You know, just because I've asked the question on, on the topic of change proof, the, the bridge that I would build just looking at this concept of truth. And, and my work with organizations is always focused on, on the topic of how those organizations are operationalizing the, the resilience of individuals so that strong individuals or resilient individuals create resilient organizations. And those organizations described, I mean like a sapling or the willow tree that. That bends in the wind and doesn't break, has that flexibility but has strength as well. You know, that is, that is, that's what resilience ultimately looks like. That we're not. Not just. Not just survive storms but, but be stronger in the process. We're always in a constant stage of growth. I mean, that's what the future, the future is always going to teach us something. There's wisdom from the future and it always teaches the same thing that we are, we are good in the present. We are growing in the present. That's what it will teach us every single time we listen to it. We just, you know, so get so caught up in, you know, fears mostly of what might happen. So, yeah, for, you know, for companies in particular to look at. Look at the changes that are happening and then be able to pause, ask and choose what a path. And that's the model is to pause, to ask and to choose a path that is. That is more resilient for the individuals and the organization itself, I think, is really key. And truth, this. This idea of truth, I think fits in that ask category. You know, to pause and then to ask. You ask questions not with the intention of being told lies. You ask questions with the intention of being told the truth. And, you know, to ask tough questions may lead to some tough answers. You know, that's. You know, that's the truth. Will at times. But those. Those answers themselves are. Are. They are. It's like nutrients in the soil. To keep to your. To your metaphor, I was like, that's. That's the water. That's the rain. It's the sun. It's. It's the nutrients in the soil that help things grow and be both flexible and strong. Peter, I have just so loved the conversation. Well, we'll. We'll stop here. But I'm so looking forward to our conversation on your. Your podcast. Would you say the name of your podcast so folks can tune in and check that out, too?
Sure. Thank you. It's Wired for Impact wireframe pack. You can find it on Apple, Spotify, just about anywhere you can find a podcast, and I'm very much looking forward to that, too. In fact, I had to bite my tongue a few times because I'm. I. The podcaster in me is like, oh, I got to ask all these questions, but I don't want to. I'm like, I'll save it for mine and let him ask the questions here. So, yeah, and you can.
You can find out more, too, about Peter and his show and his podcast, Impact now dot com. Is that right?
Correct.
Way cool. Way cool. Well, folks, I. If you love this. This episode, we'd love to hear from you. And if you have feedback otherwise, we'd love to hear that, too. It's like, feedback is oxygen for us. So share it with a friend, subscribe, tell other people, comment, we'll answer back. I promise. It'll be me, by the way, just in case you're wondering. And if you also would love to find out more about your own. Your own resilience at this moment in time, given all the changes that are happening and the types of truths, not lovely, wonderful, beautiful truths, as well as challenging truths that we're dealing with, some of which Peter and I got to talk about today. You can take a resilience assessment for, you know, with, with no strings attached. It's entirely a gift. You can go to resiliencerank.com resiliencerank.com and you can take that resilience assessment, not only get some answers immediately with respect to your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual resilience, but also get a resource kit. Again, that's just entirely our gift to you all. And I'll also have some follow up thoughts, so stay tuned. After Peter and I say goodbye, I'm going to circle back and just, you know, ruminate on some of the wonderful insights that Peter King shared with us today. Peter, it's been a blessing and a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Adam. It's been an honor. Thank you.
That was a wonderful conversation at least. I was so, so just fascinated with listening to Peter's thoughts and his philosophies on so many topics. Clearly this is a guy who's done a lot of personal development work, work on himself. Red has read and can connect the dots between the things he's read, the experiences he's had, the work he's done with people like Dr. Joe Dispenza and others so that we can better understand his position on things. And through that conversation or through his sharing those insights. I think I just feel like I'm more clear now about this construct and what truth is really its place in so many things right now. We started the conversation by him saying he's a true truth seeker. And, and I thought, well, geez, that is, that's tough road man, to be a truth seeker because the truth is not always, is not always, you know, rosy. And, and not everybody, you know, asks about the truth or inquires that deeply because, you know, sometimes what we, what we are are shown or what we will see, see means that there's more work to do. There's, we've got to go back to the drawing board. We have to be humble in the face of that truth so that we can build from something that is, is substantial. You know, so often in, in old, in old biblical analogies and stories, we hear about the sands of the desert and, and that description of the sands, the blowing of the sands was a way to talk in many ways about our souls, the development of our souls and how if we're not building a life on something stable like a rock, then we're sort of, we can be blown, we can be blown about like the wind or like the sand in the wind. And that creates a lot of pain because we can feel lost. And I think we go through phases and stages in our lives. When we do feel lost, we feel like we are like just little grains of sand being blown around in this wind. That is. No can be feel, can feel cruel even at times. But when we're committed to truth, as Peter King was talking about, I think something is, is really something different happens. And, and I was sharing the story about me on a journey recently in Costa Rica on an ayahuasca journey where my intention in the first journey, the first of four that are scheduled for a week long retreat, I was asking for the truth. I was asking to get it like right between the eyes, you know, and we got to be careful, or maybe don't be careful asking for things. Because everything that we get is just what we need. I feel, I mean I'm net positive on everything and I want to stay that way. That everything that we are experiencing we're meant to experience. And I believe we're meant to experience everything that we are experiencing because it enables us to serve, it enables us to develop, to grow. That's, that's all this is just about our growth in the end, we grow, we grow or we die. So you know, we're growing, that's the mode we're in. And if you want to grow more, you want to grow faster, you want to grow stronger, bigger, deeper. The I think truth is the, is the way in. So I was just so happy that Peter started there as a truth seeker and, and so you know, the, the opportunity to, to see things. When you ask for the truth, to see things and then to ex, to accept those things that you see without judgment, it gives you this opportunity to then move, move forward from that place. Better, better because you now are not blind about whatever it is that you've been asking to see the truth of. And, and so even in my own journey, you know, the first night I was asked for truth about myself and who I'd seen, I'd become. And it was difficult because there were things, there was work to do. There was like back to the drawing board here, back to compassion, back to listening, back to thinking better, more, more right thinking versus wrong thinking, things like that. And, and more humility to come back to a place where ego is not, is not being is not Driving, driving the vehicle, at least not all the time and, and not without, without supervision. So, and I got just to close the loop, I suppose on my time recently in Costa Rica. You know, the next night was this complete light, complete lightness, complete feeling as though my heart was, was healing and that my soul was being, was being restored to me. And, and by that I mean that a part of me that, that separated or felt separated early on in my life just because, you know, we all experience, we all experience things that we can't make sense of when we're kids. I was bullied as a kid and couldn't make sense of that and I had watched my parents sometimes arguing and I had no control over that. But I thought maybe, you know, I suppose at that age I blame, I just, it meant that there was something wrong with me or what have you. I mean it's difficult to, to sort of know, know exactly what it means to not live in fear when the bulk of our lives we've lived in fear in some way. And I, I've lived in fear a lot of my life, a lot of child childhood fear of things that I don't understand, things that are in the unknown, things that are uncertain. So part of my, my adult journey in the last 10 years has really been to embrace the uncertain, to embrace the unknown, to look for the truth and things and in myself. And even when I find things that are ugly or things that don't make sense, I know that there's the process of exploring without judgment those things that I don't understand or that I can't see or that I, that are uncertain produce, produce this, this light, this ability to grow toward the light. And that's what the book Change Proof is, is really about. And, and that has been my journey, literally and figuratively. And it's an ongoing journey because that's the thing about it. It requires. Every day is a brand new day. Every day is a new opportunity to be vigilant about how it is that we look at the world, the truth that we seek, the changes that are around us, and how it is that we either embrace those changes without judgment or we reject them or we rail against them or we ignore them. And we know that in personal matters and in our business matters that those that bury their heads in the sand, you know, are left at a loss. And I'd say that those that resist change or have fear of change when change is the, the ever present constant of the universe, of our business lives, our personal lives, every aspect of Mother Nature change Is the constant. You know, if we resist change in any way, we're at a loss. We're not, you know, working, working with everything that we have at our disposal at every resource that we've got. But when we're open, completely open to change without judgment that we can embrace it, then even that change that we don't understand, that we are able to leverage the power of what we don't understand, of our obstacles, of our blind spots, of the unknowns and the uncertainties in our world, when we actually look at those things differently, those things change the way they look. And the, the. The truth for me is that it is our greatest freedom to see things as we do. It's a freedom that no one can ever take from us. It's a freedom we have regardless of where we live or what regime of government we live under, or whether we're advantaged financially or otherwise or we're disadvantaged. The greatest freedom, the freedom that we're born with, that nothing can take from us is this capacity to make meaning of what is happening in our lives and what is happening around us. That's, that's fundamentally what I call or been saying recently is, is like, is a Nelson Mandela mindset to honor Nelson Mandela. You know, here's a guy for, for years and years, for 20 more than 20 years, 27, 28 years, was imprisoned in a cell. And despite physical imprisonment, no one could imprison his mind. No one could imprison the thought that or the way that he was able to see the future, which ultimately not only meant emancipation, physical emancipation, but his being able to emancipate an entire country from apartheid. And that doesn't happen without a catalyst. And the catalyst to me was what was happening between the years of that wonderful and that man that transformed our world. So we have that freedom as well. We're not often imprisoned, hopefully. And if we are, again, it's no different. There's this fundamental capacity that we have to think our way through the world. And truth, as Peter King helped us to explore today, truth is one of those areas that when we're able to embrace truth, we're change proof. We're not looking to see truth as good or bad. We're not judging it in any way, shape, or form. And so no, we're change proof then. And I love this conversation with Peter to explore that, to get into it. And of course, you know, how far can we get into it? Just, just a little bit, really. But hopefully it was just enough to whet your. Your appetite for more and hope that you that you are inspired to get your own copy of Change Proof. See, see, explore, read and and and let us know what you think of the insights that we share in the book. Wonderful stories, incredible interviews, a lot of, a lot of collective wisdom and and then some thoughts of my own as well. And so with that, love this conversation with Peter King. If you did, please let us know. Please share it with someone. If you didn't, please let us know. Let us know that as well so we can continue to embrace our own, embrace the truth and then work with it. So thank you and have a wonderful rest of your day, your evening, wherever we find you in the world. Ciao and much love.
Thanks for listening everyone. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become Change proof. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkelle.com podcast for more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building Change proof teams, visit AdamMarkel.com BecomeChangeproof.
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