Books That Changed My Life - Aaron "Tex" Finnin & Inward

Give me a little insight into when this book came into your life.

It came out during COVID I had a relationship that I had needed to change and get out of my life. My current wife and I had fallen in love and I was at this kind of crossroads because I hadn't told my wife at the time about this relationship and I hadn't told my relationship about my new love. And it was kind of like the house of cards just all fell down on me. This is where this book comes in. If you're not working to be that better person, sometimes you don't have the skills to navigate and be truthful with yourself and with others. You can put a wall up and just kind of just keep going for a long time. But once that lie hits the light, everything's coming down.

Welcome to the Syndicate X Library, where we love books. Today we're talking to somebody who had a book change. Their. Our guest today is Aaron Tex Finn. He is an artist and owner, operator of some pretty fun tattoo shops here in la. And he is a photographer, artist, musician, Christian husband, father. And the book that changed his life is N Word by Young Pueblo.

What did you, what did you order?

I don't know. I think I said. Did I say iced tea or iced tea? Arnold Palmer's.

How's. How is it?

It's good. It's good iced tea.

Your nickname is Tex because of that? Because you're from Texas?

Yeah. The first band I worked for had an Aaron in the band. So when I jumped in the van with them and I was Aaron, they were like, we just picked you up in Texas, your name's Tex. So that was stuck. It just stuck. And then I, I named my. My son's middle name is Tex now, so I wanted him to have somewhat of a legacy.

How old's your son?

Two and two years and three months.

How did, how did that change you?

Every way. Changed my entire world. He's the best. You're not living for yourself anymore, so to speak. You know, I think it slowed me down a lot too, because now it's really hard for me to take trips. I think I only leave for like three to four days max. I just can't take it. I gotta take him everywhere if I can.

A two and a half year old.

And another one on the way, a girl on the way. So I'm back to square one.

How far is the girl in the oven?

January 8th is the due date. So we're like right through the first trimester.

So have you thought of names?

Yeah, we're gonna name her Luna, you know already? Yeah, we just decided Sunny originally if we were gonna have a girl, we were gonna name her Luna and give her my middle name because it's a family name, which is Ladd and then Luna Ladd, Luna Lad. And then we had Sonny and we gave Sonny my nickname, Tex. So basically I think my wife chose the first names. I got the middle name section and that's how we did it. But it's pretty exciting. I mean I never, I literally thought we would have a boy because I just. We've only like boys in my side of the family and I don't know, I just thought I was going to be a boy. That's the God tricks now that you.

Know it's not gonna be a boy, what emotions come, you know.

Fortunately, I think I was a pretty straight lined good guy. Cause I have friends who are like, oh man, all the bad things I ever did are gonna come to haunt me. I don't feel that. But I feel this like crazy protective side is gonna come out on me, you know, I know I'm gonna be just mush in her hands. Like, we'll see.

It's better to accept that.

Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready. Like, I think having kids late because I think when Sonny was born I was 42, so deciding. I always said I was never gonna have kids and I think that was kind of a mantra. Like I was living at such a fast pace and doing so many things and traveling so much. I just, I felt like I was never going to settle down and have kids. And then when I got to this point, I think Covid, you know, slowed a lot of people down and I just reevaluate, re evaluated where my career was and fell in love with this, with my now wife. And it was just like, you know what? I think I'll have kids and having them later, having done, I think a lot of the things that maybe the angst things and traveling and being on tour with bands and seeing the world. I don't have that drive to just travel hard anymore. I really just want to spend time with my son. And I think it's a big blessing to myself because it really did slow me down, did make me kind of put real roots down. And the crazy part is I think being in LA and doing that, but you know, there's no place like, like this place. There's something always going on. There's so much. And as an artist, like you said, you collect art books, like there's no other place in the world where you can be energized in an artistic way 247 and have a multitude of other artists with that same energy constantly going. And I think that's part of the reason why LA is this hub of creation and launching of things to the rest of the world.

Yeah. It is a special place in the sense that you could go out every night of the week and have the most incredible meal made by somebody super talented that wants you to experience something.

Yeah.

There's better art here graffitied on walls than there is in a lot of galleries.

Amen.

In places.

Crazy storytellers and, you know, visual artists that make movies and TV shows and photography and all that. The one thing that's making me fall out of love though, and I'm saying, like, I grew up in Washington and I couldn't get out of Seattle quick enough to come here.

Yeah.

And for me, I've always said, like, it's LA or New York, maybe London, but like, I love la. I love the diversity, I love everything about it.

But there was something that changed in me during COVID.

And the government here is really making it hard to do business.

Amen to that. I think for me, la, the same thing. I couldn't wait to get out of Texas, couldn't wait to get out of the. The suburb slowdown lifestyle that I grew up in. And for me, this is the only place, I think that you can make a lot of money fast, keep it going at a great expense. I'm in la, but I think when it comes to slowing down to retirement, I think I have another good 10 years of hustle in me and then we're going somewhere else. For sure. For sure.

I would go somewhere else if I had kids.

I think Colorado is really, I mean, mountains. I'm a mountain guy. My wife's a beach guy. She's from the Valley. I think she thinks she'll die in the Valley. But I think that what you just said, the principalities here, the government here is making it increasingly hard to afford any kind of.

Laid back lifestyle.

I don't feel like it's diverse here anymore. Like, I'll tell you a couple things that happened during COVID is I lived downtown during that and there were people looting and rioting with reckless abandon. It was anarchy. And the cops weren't doing anything. And, you know, the streets were quiet and I would walk around and people started like screaming, kill Whitey at me.

Yeah. And that kind of that fixed.

And I was like, hold on a sec. Like, hold on on like, I'm here because I want all of us to fight for the each other. That's why I live in la, is to embrace diversity.

Yeah.

And now you all of a sudden are the thing that we're supposed to be fighting like that you turn into the tyrant.

Yeah.

Like now it's kill me.

Yeah.

And I gotta, I'm locked down. I can't do business.

I didn't feel like it was diverse anymore. It felt very much like the beginning of communism to me, where now I was gonna be persecuted for the color of my skin and not for who I am as a person.

Yeah.

Because what I love about LA is that you can celebrate people for who they are as artists or individuals and you're not, you know, nobody's thinking about, you know, your color of skin or whatever it is. And that really hurt my feelings.

Yeah, we, we shut our business down and because of COVID in la. Cause they kept tattoo shops closed for a year and a half. I mean, no shops stayed closed. But since we were in Texas, like most shops either they put, you know, butcher paper on their windows and continued to work.

We tried to do that and the health department showed up twice and left us very, very big fines.

And how much is the fine?

Like $1,000 at a time. So we just.

That was a lot.

When I bring in anything and our landlord wasn't giving us grace, they're like, you're going to have to pay it all. And we were just like, we're working on slim margins because you've already raised the rent. We got a bank, investment banker firm that came in and bought our property, the property that our, that we're renting from. And our profit margins, like sucked up quick. So the thought of like having to pay back something when we're already operating on such slim margins, we just, we drove out here with a giant RV and car hauler and packed up the whole shop and just. That was that. And I thought I'd never come back to LA again. Love does strange things. So here I am.

Yeah. But I am less in love with LA than I do consider leaving, I think.

Yeah. And I think a lot of people share that sentiment. I share that. I mean, it just came recently that I was like, okay, this is where I'm called to be right now. And I'm okay with that. But it's not sustainable to live here with any kind of peace of mind long term anymore. I mean, my wife's parents are in retirement and they have a good retirement, but those kind of, those Kind of situations are fading fast. I mean, they were in the film industry, so the union was good to them. But that union, that union money is changing fast every day now because people aren't paying their dues. The union strike really hit hard. So I think as fast as this city can be, things change just as fast here in a few months time.

Yeah, I just don't think we have a lot of leadership.

Like we have zero. By design, right? By design, yeah, by design. You just have a bunch of faces.

It doesn't make sense that the people that get elected get elected because they don't represent the people.

No, and that's the thing. I'm a people person. I mean, and in the art world that you're people, the revolutions are started by artists. You know, I think that if we have any hope, we as a people just in America in general have to come together. We still are looking to quote, unquote, leaders for saviors. This, this, this, this savior figure, this Jesus figure to come and just scoop us out of this. And there's not a hero there's ready to scoop us out. The machine has been put in place and it's going to. But the crazy thing is I think I was driving in Utah of all places one day thinking, man, if all of these cars that are going by, if all of these people, if we could just tap into the same mindset. There's so many people and so much power in that. We're divided by everything. Like there's not one single strand of, of linking everybody together. In America right now, especially in la.

Yeah, there's no patriotism.

And everybody is thinking as an individual, like, I'm struggling. They're not, we're not group thinking this out. Like, hey, we're collectively all struggling. We should get together, we should start amassing. And I think that Covid kind of did a number on that because the government literally came in and told everyone, you can't five or more people can't gather together. And those kind of controls started to take place in that psyche and that mentality. I mean, people aren't going to concerts anymore. I mean, in, in huge numbers. Maybe like, you know, on the fly, Taylor Swift comes down. But I went to the Stones concert the other night and it was like, where is everybody?

Oh, really?

Like this is the Rolling Stones. And it wasn't. Where'd they play Sofi so far? I mean, and they terrible place to see a class. Oh man, you're telling me it was a gift, but it was on my list. I Always wanted to see the Stones. I think the funny thing is, you think when you're in the music industry for so long, you're gonna see everything, but you really see, like, the inside of that bus and then the show you're playing that night, you know, and that grind.

Do you know Zach Brian?

I love Zach Brian.

I just.

I wish I knew. I mean, I wish I could hang out with him because I think. I think he would have a lot of good stories. But he's. I think he's another musical voice for our generation. I really do. And he came in quick, and he's risen fast, so I hope he can get that.

Yeah, he's a voice I think that. That I would relate to in the sense that there's more common sense. Sense and more humanity in it, like.

And he's a veteran.

Yeah.

And he's a country boy.

Patriotic.

It's very patriotic. Very.

But he's an artist.

Very much an artist.

Great show.

I think he's my favorite new artist, period.

What do you think of the new album?

I think it's great. It's very, very telling to culture. He's. He's laid it all out there. I mean, it's not.

How many times have you listened to it?

A lot. Because we listen, like, one. When it first came out, we only.

Wait, so when did it come out?

In the last, like, eight months, probably, right?

No, no, it came out Tuesday.

Oh, this new record. I haven't listened to the new. I didn't know he had a new. New release. Okay.

Yeah. So it's called the Great American Bar Scene.

Okay. So I'll have to.

Let's talk about the last one. So the last Brian the Black cover, which is.

Right. Mm.

So what. What is your favorite. Do you have a favorite song on there?

I mean. Yeah, I think the Lumineers collab was a really good song, I think. I think that was the thing. He broke out and started writing with other artists and playing with other artists, and I think as an artist, that keeps you fresh and that keeps you relevant to what's going on in the current times.

On the new one, he's got a lot of collaborations, so I can't wait. John Mayer, Bruce Springsteen. Quite a few.

That's amazing.

John Mayer.

What do you think about the new record?

It's great. I'm still looping it. My favorite song is the John Mayer one called Better Days.

Okay.

But on the. On the previous one, my favorite song is Overtime.

Okay.

And mostly because of the horns.

Okay.

Those Spanish horns.

Okay.

I just love that.

You ever listen to Lucero? Okay. That's your new favorite band. Okay. You'll have to show me, because I think Ben Nichols is like, his brother. Just released a movie called Bike Riders. Got a lot of press. Jeff Nichols has a. He's as a director, but I think Ben Nichols is the voice of a generation as well. He pretty much created kind of this punk country genre, or Lucero did definitely take time to listen to them. And I think Zach Bryan has kind of those same tendencies, but he didn't have to come up kind of through years and years of van touring.

He leapfrogged.

Yeah, he leapfrogged. And I think that Lucero would be a band that might have paved that way. I think there's a listener. There's a cult listener.

Element.

Element to it that paved the way for Zach Bryan to take this huge stage. I mean, all things considered, I think America now needs that. That grassroots energy means a patriotism.

We're more similar than we are different.

Yes.

We got to protect the team first.

Yes. 100%.

We're not.

We're just letting, like, we're letting them take everything.

Crime is crazy.

It's insane. Especially in all the cops here.

They don't come.

No.

You almost have to have your own police department.

It's funny, one of my friends in the. That was just the stunt coordinator on Bike Riders was telling me, like, 10 years ago, hey, private security is going to be the biggest thing in American homes. Like, and I mean, when I say private security, I mean like an actual security guard. That's going to be the new norm is what he was talking about. And this was.

That's what you have to do here.

Yeah.

You have to have your own security and all of it. You know, one of the funnest things for me in doing this series, books that changed my life has been discovering books that I wouldn't have heard of. And yours is one of those. Like, I. When. When I started looking into it, it's. It's pretty incredible. But I never heard of it.

Yeah.

New York Times bestseller. Never heard of it.

Insane.

So it's Inward by Jung Pueblo.

Yeah, I said I would. I think everybody says young.

Okay. Young Pueblo. Young Pueblo isn't his name, right?

That's not his name. That's his name for this.

He's a writer, but a poet. It's written in an interesting style where there's a lot of room and space. It's not. He's not getting paid by word count here.

It's It's a book for people that don't read.

Is that what he says?

No, that's what I said.

And then there's. There's basically.

Five sections, right? You have distance, union, interlude, self love and understanding. Give me a little insight into when this book came into your life. What was happening before that this.

Helped you with. Where were you at?

It came out during COVID So I had already been sitting in my house in Waxahachie painting, doing random projects with my partner at the time, or business partner who I was managing. I needed something different. Like I had been going, going, going, going for so long. And then Covid, like forced us to kind of just stop and think. Now in Texas, that was like a two and a half week period because then everybody kind of reopened everything, but the rest of the world just kind of stopped and especially.

But if you're used to going fast, that two week period can feel like a lifetime.

It felt like a lifetime to me.

Because you got to sit still.

Gotta sit still. And at that time I had a relationship and that I had needed to change and get out of my life. And my current wife and I had fallen in love and I was at this kind of crossroads because I hadn't told you, my wife at the time, about this relationship and I hadn't told my relationship about my new love. And it was kind of like the house of cards just all fell down on me. Both of them went out of my life. I was sitting there with my dogs and all this.

Did they find out about each other?

They did.

How?

Oh man.

Social media.

Yeah, pretty much social media. Not, not like my current wife was doing digging because the cards just weren't matching up for her. Like.

Oh, so you were married?

No, no, I was at your current wife now. Yeah.

Yeah, me too. The ex girlfriend was just a girlfriend.

Yeah. And so it just. Everything kind of fell apart and it was really fast. It was like I didn't think, I didn't know how to tell my current wife, cause she was in la, that I had had this relationship because I was like, oh, she's not gonna.

Does the girl in Texas live with you?

She did at that time. And I didn't know how to get out of that. I'd never. I think this is where this book comes in because I think you just, you, you let certain things. If you're not practicing self love, if you're not working to be that better person, sometimes you don't have the skills to. To navigate and be truthful with yourself and with others. And I think it starts with self.

And so being honest starts with being honest with yourself. And then whatever that relationship is is.

What outside people experience and not feeling worthy enough to. I felt that my wife was up here and that I wasn't even worthy of being in her space. So that self love for myself, I wasn't. I didn't believe I deserved it. So I'd already killed the relationship in my head by saying I don't deserve that. So. And if she finds out this, then there's no way that's going to stand. And so it all just kind of came to a head and I ended up living out that. That fear. That fear. It became a reality. And in that process, it was like, okay, I'm. Everything's destroyed. To, to myself. Like career wise, it didn't have the same momentum. We'd closed down the shop. I put all my energy in that part of my career. My partner at that time had just been canceled. EE wasn't gonna go back on tv. And I was in my head an artist manager, like an entertainment manager. And so I was just like searching for everything. And I had nothing except this house and my dogs and this art collection that I loved. And it was through walking and I just. This book, like, this book landed in my life.

So how does it come into your life?

So my wife, current wife, said, you need to read this.

Oh.

And she.

So even though she was breaking up with you, she sent you an olive branch?

Yeah, there was an olive branch there. Cause she still loved me, she still cared about me, but she was like, you have so much work to do. And that's when I grappled with. And there was like a three, like a three month period or a two month period where everything kind of blew up in my face. And I didn't have any relationship and I knew I needed to start from zero on myself. And this book was in my lap and this was my like roadmap to like feeling whole again.

Does she give it to you or did she tell you to order it?

She told me to order it.

So you order it. Amazon or bookstore?

Amazon.

And so it comes. How long between when it comes and.

You start reading it that day? That day it gets there. So you were hungry? I was hungry. I needed something. I had nothing.

And so what's the first thing in here that you were like, okay, I get why she recommended it?

Or I mean, every single page is like, gets you kind of a bomb. Everything is bomb. And I like, I said, I tell people, hey, man, if you don't like to read this is the book for you because you can chew on an entire page for an entire day. And especially in a time when I think attention spans are so small, there's just so much meat in there.

So what does distance mean? In here is one of the categories. So there's distance, union, interlude, self love.

Understanding, I think distance from yourself, distance from true love, distance from.

The reality of.

Connecting the things that make you whole.

Okay, page nine. You tell me what the. What this means to you. Okay. I kept running away from my darkness until I understood that in it I would find my freedom.

And that was me in a nutshell. I was running away from the truth that this relationship was done and that I had fallen in love over here, but that I deserve that love. And that. That darkness, that. That lie that I had been telling others and myself, that. That was. I. I wasn't going to ever deal with it until this moment. Like, until it was made aware that that was what was really this giant wall in my life to what was the darkness, that lie, that lie, that disappointment of. I mean, you. You tell a lie and then it just compounds. So, like, you tell it to one, you're telling it to another, and you just. You're stacking. You're just stacking things that don't make you feel good. And that whole. That inside of knowing you can put a wall up and just kind of just keep going for a long time. But once that lie hits the light, like, everything's coming down, you're gonna have to put something back brick by brick.

What makes you feel not worthy that then inspires the lie?

I think that not knowing. For me, it was not knowing how to get out of said relationship.

Because I had put that wall. Once you put one wall up, that wall just seemed that distance between reality and the truth of the matter gets further and further, further and dealing with it. It's like they say, saying you're sorry if you don't say it, like, right out of the gate, if you don't know how to say it right away, it just gets harder and harder to get it from here or here to here. And I feel like that's the same kind of narrative for speaking truth. Like, once you have that lie and you bury it, you almost just kind of like, I kind of had, like, this easy. Like, everything was just kind of like, I wasn't going to live long. I'm just going to run as fast as I can.

Rock star.

Yeah. That whole mentality was just. It just. It just Stuck with me.

What about a substance?

Substance? So that, that, that, that's another place I was burying myself. And during COVID I was probably drinking three, four glasses of bourbon a day. Starting midday through the evening, going to sleep, waking up. That was a constant. And because I liked bourbon. And when you have nothing to do and you're hiding a lot of stuff, it's real easy to just keep drinking that bourbon, numb that, that, that, that void, that pain. I was smoking weed non stop. Like, I think during, during. And that was a lie. Like, there was like friends that knew I was smoking. There was people that didn't know I was smoking. And I, There was just these, these walls. Like I said, like, you have one lie, it compounds to others. You can start protecting things that you know are your, your. Your deepest, darkest lies or secrets. And you kind of start compartmentalizing things. You kind of start putting different, different areas for different people to see. I think there to me, I think it goes back to. Because I've been, I've done a lot of work, like since this book got. It came into my life, since that exploded and where my life is now. I really think it goes back to when my brother died. My brother overdosed on oxycontin. And that was a whole. I watched that unfold and there was a lot of intense emotions in that whole family dynamic.

Because I felt like I'd been crying to my family about his addiction and what it was doing for a long time. And it was just, you know, well, he's being prescribed this or no, he's fine. And the depth of that and those secrets and trying to bring that to light when things fall on deaf ears and you're really trying to push people to rise above and it doesn't happen.

And then you get learned helplessness, kind of.

Yes. And I think that I never dealt with my brother's death after that. I was still touring, doing, just running, just going. And those emotions of losing.

So when you stopped, you got hit by a truck.

I got hit by a 18 wheeler with a train behind it. Like. And those emotions and those kind of. Those things really, I had to face them. I had to face them to become. To get back to feeling that life was like, worth living. That there was this beauty aspect that, that, oh, I'm a whole person and I have a lot to give the world as opposed to just kind of riding through the world. Even all the things that I had done that I think a lot of people might see. Great. I wouldn't tell anybody. I still have A hard time telling people what I do on a daily basis or that might be incredible to people or might bring healing, or might bring hope, or might bring them out of a place. It's still incredibly hard for me because of this self love aspect. Oh, I'm just, it just everybody's like that or you know, like, it's not that big of a deal. That was like my narrative. It's not that big of a deal. Everything in my life was, it's not that big of a deal. And then once I got to start dealing with the trauma of my brother's death, I started realizing that my tour life and living at a rate had actually created a bunch of walls and you might say ptsd, you know, going on tour. I think a lot of people who tour, when they get off tour, they sit in dark rooms and they don't know what to do with themselves and they don't know how to interact with the world or they don't know how to be a part of regular society. And that part I never dealt with either because I started touring at a pretty young age. And you just keep doing these things, you know, you know that then you're like almost resting for the next push. You know, when you go on a, on a world tour with a band that's like you could be going around the world three times in a, in a two year period and you're, you're not.

You'Re not waiting in lines, you're not going to the grocery store for your own food, you're not, you're, you're basically living in dark places and maybe going to a museum to feel some life to walk around. But that's a pretty lonely place because you're just, I mean it's a great place, but it's still a place where you don't have to interact with other people. And that was my life for so long. And then I think owning the tattoo shop kinda it was easy. It was plug and play for me to like interact with people, talk to people, get people in. But you don't have to like reveal self at all in those situations. It's very kind of professional, but it's a fun environment. It's an underworld environment.

It's a community.

It's a community. And you can play the hat that you're playing. And if you're the boss.

You don't have to show anybody your real cards. Yeah.

Because the connection is the tattoos and everybody wants them.

That's in that place. Just like a band, same kind of thing. You don't have to show. If you're working for a big band or you're in a big band, all you have to do is talk about that band. When you're around other people, you never really have to talk about the real inner struggle that's going on with yourself or the, the real things, because people are one. Elevating you because you are a part of what they want or what they see is amazing. And I think all of those kind of dynamics just compounded put me to this place where I just needed. I didn't know. It's not that I wanted to stop drinking. It's not that I wanted to stop smoking. I just didn't. I needed something to shake me and show me that I could feel again and that I could do life on my own. And that situation hitting rock bottom with those lies and being that coming to light like I needed. I think that was my only time where I was going to be like, okay, I'm going to stop drinking. I'm going to stop, stop smoking. Stop like living in just cold turkey.

And do you. You haven't done it since?

No, I've had smoked like since. I don't smoke now. I don't do anything now except like walk, enjoy the beautiful things. I drink caffeine in tea, not in coffee. I stopped drinking coffee last November because my, my therapist at the time was like, you should really watch your caffeine intake. It's really doing a number on you. And I was like, whatever, like, you're going to take away coffee from me. Like, what else do I have? But mentally, when I did that, of course I had withdrawals for a few weeks. But after that I started realizing, like, it's really easy for me to wake up and go. And I think that tea, there's a lot of elements to tea that I felt were healing. And so I started drinking tea.

Whenever I go on a coffee fast, I do green tea instead.

That's smart and it works.

And green tea has like another effect. You feel more hydrated. Yeah, coffee definitely makes you feel dehydrated.

I think coffee, it's not a refreshing.

Thing after a workout.

No, not at all. No.

Okay, explain. Explain self love in the context of this book to me. Well, first of all, what is love? What is love?

Wow.

I think love is. Man, you got me there. I think love is unexplainable.

But so, whoa. If love is unexplainable, then how could we explain self love?

Well, the best version of yourself, the best version of life experienced at the greatest level that you can, the greatest feeling. Love is that feeling of amazingness and shared with somebody else.

Is love external or internal? Is it created from the inside or from the outside?

It's created from the inside.

From the inside?

I believe so.

You control it then?

I believe so. I mean self love.

Well, we're talking about love, right?

Love in general.

We have to understand what love is to understand what self love is, right?

Correct. Correct. I think so.

Love is internal. Love is internal, which means you control it.

I mean, when you fall in love, I don't know if you control it.

Then it's not an external.

External, that's an external act. So there's various acts. I think somebody can give you love without you having able to experience. Like having to control it. Right.

Well, because the conversation is going to end up on self love, let's just keep it from your experience, okay? Not somebody else loving you. I don't.

Okay.

You loving some.

You loving something. Okay. Or wanting. Wanting to have that something in your life. When you love something you want, you want it, whatever it is, whether it's you want it, you want it, you need it, you, you think about it, you.

You want that feeling. It's a feeling. So I think love is something that is given that you internalize and I guess give back once you internalize it.

Is it unconditional?

I mean, true love? I would say there might be love.

Anything. Unconditionally.

Yeah, of course.

What?

My son.

But I guess there are conditions to love. You're right.

So if your son grows up to be 17 and he stabs you with a knife, are you still gonna love him?

Of course.

Okay. That's unconditional.

Yeah. I think that's a father's love, I think by design. Oh, man, this is great. This is, this is a lot of, a lot of questions in my head.

Love is a feeling.

Yeah, for sure. But. Okay, I guess the, the secret is, is it.

An external thing that you don't control?

Okay.

Or is it an internal thing that.

You do control, an external thing that you don't control?

Because I don't think, I don't think we, for whatever reason, we don't love ourselves.

Well, she's stick on love. Let's not get to that yet because we haven't defined what love is.

You define love for me. It's going to be a lot easier. Love is, is the greatest of greatest things, I think.

Okay, so you're, you're saying love is an external thing.

Okay.

Would you, would you be open to the idea that there are expectations involved in love.

Yes.

You probably couldn't fall in love with somebody of a certain gender and that looked a certain way.

Correct.

That was unattractive. Whatever.

Correct.

So there is an expectation.

Okay.

Right.

Yes.

Okay. Do you control your expectations?

I think so.

Okay, well, now we're back to love being an internal thing then. Okay, so is it internal or is it external?

I guess it's. It's internal.

Like you're not going to fall in love with a person that doesn't meet a certain criteria.

Correct.

That criteria is created by you because somebody else.

Correct.

What's that? That Morgan Wallen song, Somebody's problem or whatever. Like the song is based on, like, you meet a girl and she's the greatest thing ever, and there's some dude over there that hates her, that she broke his heart. Right. And so. And pretty soon you'll be that dude.

Okay.

Right. Because there's gonna be an expectation that wasn't met or she cheats on you or.

Yeah.

Something. Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

You're not gonna love her if she is passing gas all the time and cheats on you or.

Right, Correct. There are expectations and conditions.

Right. So then the love is conditional, internal and internal.

Correct.

Because it's based on an expectation.

All right.

Different than your son, where that's unconditional. There's no expectation that could be betrayed enough to make you not love your son.

Right.

Which I would contend probably there is, but.

There is. Because. I see. But I mean.

But it's coming from a healthy place.

Yeah. Lower bracket of condition, you would absorb.

A lot of pain.

Yeah.

In the process.

Right, of course.

Okay.

Pain doesn't define love. Or does it?

Pain doesn't define love. What do you mean by that?

Well, you just said you could have a lot of pain, but still love.

Most pain is caused by an unmet expectation.

Okay. Right.

So if you think about any. My misery during COVID was I expected the government to be pro business and it wasn't.

Right.

That's a. That's a missed expectation. I set the expectation. I had no reason to believe that they would be pro business because they never are.

Yeah.

I don't know why I thought in a crisis they would change.

Change. Yeah. Yeah.

In day to day, they're not.

Yeah.

So that was my expectation that caused my broken heart with the government here in la. And every time in, you know, the current environment, when they do something that makes it impossible for me to do business, I'm always caught off guard and I always have to go, what did you expect? They don't care. Like they're trying to burn this place to the ground. There's no conflict. Common. Why would they have common sense? Right. But that's an expectation that I control. I'm just not paying attention to.

Right, right.

I keep thinking that they're going to do the right thing because I pay a bunch in taxes or because I'm doing the right thing or. Right. Like that's a common one, is if I'm nice to you, then I expect you to be what to me?

Nice.

And then when you're not, I'm unhappy. But it's an expectation that wasn't met. So happiness is.

Yeah, yeah. And I think. Yeah, you're right.

And love is based on an expectation. Yes, we control our expectation. It's internal. Right, Right. Okay. So love is internal or it's external?

Internal.

Okay. Now when we talk about self love.

Right.

I don't even fucking know what that means.

Why do I need to love myself?

I think because of the reflection that it puts out for the world. If you don't love yourself, you're gonna reflect behaviors that are.

Conducive to not loving yourself. I'm not. Okay.

I would say I don't love myself. And I'm not. I'm not. I control the. I control the energy and what people see.

Okay. I get that. Facades. But so self love, I think, is deeper than just the outward image that people.

I think self love is an unobtainable thing that keeps people in a vicious loop that makes them more miserable.

Okay.

I don't know anybody that's capable of that. If you loved yourself too much, you would be an asshole.

Right.

Why don't you. Why isn't it self like. Yeah, I like myself.

Okay.

But I'm imperfect.

Okay.

And I got a lot of stuff I need to work on.

Yeah.

And so if I loved myself, I would be very disappointed all the time because I would have an expectation that I can't line up with this puppy love thing that I got going on.

Right.

But I. I'm rooting for myself.

Yeah.

I like myself.

I'm trying to prioritize in order to have. I get what you're saying. So in order to try and understand self love, you have to have an outward reflection of something that makes you.

See yourself in a better light.

I don't even know what. I can't. If. If you fundamentally understand what love really is and that you control love, it's not. You're not getting hit by a cupid Arrow.

Yeah.

Right.

You. Yeah.

And, you know, when I came to this realization was I went through a divorce.

Okay.

And Monday, I loved her.

Friday, I hated her.

Yeah.

How is it possible for somebody to love somebody and then just in a very short period of time, hate them? Well, I'll tell you how. I didn't expect to get served with divorce papers. I didn't expect her to have a boyfriend. I didn't expect all of these things to happen really, really quick. And so now I hate her because there was an expectation that wasn't met.

Yeah.

She's the same person. She never changed. She was exactly who she was the entire time. It was my expectation that caused me to love or hate. It was. My love was a ransom note because it wasn't unconditional. Because if you do this, like, you know, in most relationships, if you cheat or you do whatever, now I hate you. I don't love you. So if we're capable of switching that so quick, it clearly is internal in a sense. Right, right. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So that's when I realized that I didn't understand what love was because I thought it was one thing. And then how could I, the same person with the same person, now hate them and they didn't? I mean, the only thing that changed was my. That I had an unfulfilled expectation.

Okay.

What do you think about that?

I think it's powerful. I think it's. It's almost scary to think about.

I guess it comes down to your theos, Right. So then what is love? And is love. Is love a thing? Because if it's all based on expectations, then it's. And it. And you can't love yourself. Does love even exist? So then it comes down to your theos on.

Do you believe in God? Do you, like. Do you put that into a framework in a theology or in a context of your beliefs?

Let's take God over for a second. Let's just say to love.

Okay.

I believe in love.

Okay.

I believe that. The thing that I've learned about love is that it benefits you way more if I love you and I have less expectations and I accept you for who you are than if I try to change you.

That's interesting, because I think that's pretty theologically sound, too.

Yeah. But previously I had. I had really unrealistic expectations.

Right.

I was piling that in with love. But that is what creates a negative outcome in a relationship, in a sense. Right, right. And can create a lot of dishonesty.

Right, too.

To that Point. Right, Right. And so I think that.

We have the ability to give love.

Correct.

But we have to pay very close attention to how many. How many expectations come with it. How much of a ransom note is it that if you do this, I'll do this.

Okay.

Right. Like, I'm sure you've dated a girl before, was like.

My problem is I love too much, I care too much, or whatever, and all that really means is they're gonna control you. Right.

Interesting.

Have you experienced that?

I mean, I'd have to think back, like, well, maybe you've been that. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. It's hard for me to think I've.

Been on both sides of it.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I've been on both sides.

Yeah.

And. But I don't feel like I feel in current terms, like I don't feel like I've.

Fallen in love until I met my current wife. And I think a lot of that goes back to seeing myself for who I am and the good things and her reflecting that to me.

So I would guess, though, in that process, you.

Become less judgmental of others because you have realized that you have some things to fix.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

And so then that empathy gets wider. Right. And then the love has a different flavor.

Yeah. Okay.

It's a little more empathetic than controlling.

Right? Yeah. I don't think.

But self love just sounds so controlling and quite. What the. I don't understand what you're pursuing.

So, to be honest, I think I chewed the. Mostly the first half of this book than to really. I think by the time I got to the end of the book, I felt like it, in some terms, I'd fallen off from.

Oh, it's. It's very well laid out. It is. And it's a setup for the. For those. Right?

Yeah.

I mean, it's very well designed understanding. So it goes self love understanding. That's the perfect. I mean, the steps are. Right. I just personally. Just personally. And I'm not discounting the. The value of this book, I would change self love to like yourself.

Like, okay, self. Like.

Yeah, like, I want to root for myself, but I'm.

But like and love are kind of the same. Then you're getting into, where's your definition of liking and loving?

Well, I don't need to love myself. I don't need that. To need. That would cause a whole nother case of things that I'm just causing problems for myself.

It makes more sense the way you're setting it up too, because, like, you're right. Like when somebody gives you a compliment, for instance, what's your first reaction? Like, hey man, you're the greatest person I've ever met. Where does that land in your head? Well, I know what I'm not first. So there you go. You automatically start saying I'm not, that I'm not, that I'm not. Or it's really hard to say thank you without a but to it, right? Like thank you, but that's not really true. Thank you, but. Well, you gotta see what I was thinking earlier or thank you, but.

You'Re right. I think that the measure. I think that's the thing. I think that's one of the biggest problems with culture right now, right. Is it's gotten so bad that people will end their lives or self destruct for. With a various number of things because you don't love yourself. And if you can't love yourself and it takes you down that road so far, what's this life worth living for? Right.

I personally don't see it that way.

Okay.

Okay. So let me tell you how I see it. And I could be wrong.

Of course.

I'm getting old, so I've figured some stuff out. But the way I see it is you're way better off just liking yourself and accepting the good and the bad and the bad that you need to work on. You can't fix it all at once. So there are going to be elements of yourself that you're working on, but they're not complete.

Okay.

And you got to, you don't always have the time to fix all of it.

Correct. Well, that's a fact.

You could spend a year fixing one thing.

Correct.

And the other thing is when you pull that string, a bunch of stuff comes flying out of the closet also sometimes. So you have to, you have to be aware of. There's no finality.

Right.

You're not, you're never going to arrive. Right. There's no finality to it.

Self love might be better stated as self awareness.

Well, I think when you say I need to love myself, you almost are discounting awareness. It's way easier to have self awareness when you just say like, yeah, it's a more achievable, honest thing.

Do you think we could get Young Pueblo to come on here and.

Oh, sure. I, I watched a bunch of his interviews after I saw that. You picked this. He's great. Like, I'm not, I'm not debating.

No, but I'd like to get to the heart of that, this, this thing. Because everything you're saying makes total sense.

Okay. Now let's go back to how I feel or how people feel fulfilled in this world. Would you agree or not agree that the most alive and fulfilled you felt is when you had your son?

No.

Okay. When was it?

About three months after having my son. Because the connection was built deeper. I feel like. Okay.

From my analogy, they're one in the same.

Yeah. Okay.

Yes.

Yes. Okay.

Now how are you going to judge yourself as a parent? By saying, I love myself as a parent or are you going to watch what he does, Molds, guide, create an environment for him to succeed and then be proud of what he becomes?

Yes.

Is that the architecture?

I think so. Okay.

That's. That's normal. Right. So your happiness is coming out of something in somebody else.

Correct.

Okay.

I mean. Correct. And then that goes for a relationship or son or any kind of relationship.

Parents, self love to me stops all that and it makes it inward.

Okay.

I believe that our true contribution to the world, world or true happiness, is in finding something out there that needs your help. In the sense that you have a skill set that can add value where there's a deficit.

Yep.

Okay. And then in whatever you do, if you have passion and you care about the people that you're doing it for and that thing makes them better, that's when you become fulfilled.

Yes.

You can't fulfill yourself with yourself alone in a room. You can be okay with yourself. You can like yourself, but at some point you have to add value externally to others.

Correct.

Now, if you manufacture an outcome for somebody. So like I, I live in a. In a world where I create books and training and things like that. And it probably a day doesn't go by that somebody says, you changed my life, you know, so I, I made these things that I knew would help other people. They were helped by them, and then they tell me that it helped them. That's the most pure compliment there is because I intentionally did that and it worked and it made them better. And my intention was to make them better. It wasn't the compliment.

Right.

But when I get the compliment, it's a confirmation of. But it doesn't make me any more or less important than anybody else. To me, if I was searching for self love, that compliment would then make me feel like I was more important. I would be looking for some sort of confirmation and it would take my eye off of providing value for them.

Yeah.

And also knowing that there's thousands of people out there that will never compliment me, that I made a difference in their Life. Right.

You would write it for yourself and not care if. If it was just all about self. Right. You would just write it and you wouldn't need to interact with anybody else.

That person that is paying me the compliment, what is it you think they feel in that moment? So let's say I write a book, you read my book, you meet me like him, and you say, hey, man, that book helped me in a time that I really needed. You were saying that to him. How do you feel in that moment when you.

I think you feel great because you're. You're able to stand before the person that changed your life and be like, thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think what's more important, how I feel as the author or how you feel is the person thanking me.

The person thanking.

It's not about me.

No, it's not.

It's not about me.

Yeah.

At no point in any of that process is it about. I don't need. If I need love and I need whatever, I won't be able to do it because it'll be the. Just like the art will be affected by it. The best art is the most selfless, honest art.

Facts.

If you're looking for adoration, it's terrible. Yeah.

It falls flat.

And I think it's the same thing with us as people if we're. If we need to love ourselves in this thing that we can't even explain love. I think you're way healthier if you like yourself, root for yourself, prioritize yourself, but get to work providing value for others. Get to work making a difference in the marketplace.

When.

When somebody gets a tattoo and it's their, you know, a memory of their. It represents something.

Right.

That feeling they leave with. And when they show it to other people and they get recognition for it and validation, that's probably the most beautiful thing that can happen from a tattoo artist to somebody else.

Yeah.

But if you need something back from that.

Yeah.

You're always gonna. It'll never be enough. It'll never be enough.

Yeah.

It's an addiction, just like drinking or anything else.

Yeah.

So that's my. What do you think about that in the idea of self love?

I think you've taken me to school in a lot of ways or just reframed like my thoughts because I think for me.

The idea of selflessness is.

The greatest act of love. Right. Giving oneself to another.

Voiding the consequences or whatever is going to happen to self. You're giving something away. And so you're right. The idea of self love, I Mean, you're right. It's next to near impossible as a human. As a. I mean. And if you get into theology and philosophy.

That loving self just doesn't. It doesn't happen. It's because you're. You're giving your life almost, or you're giving yourself away to give somebody love. Boom. Young Pueblo needs to come on here and talk with us about this.

No, no, no, no, no. Young. Young Pueblo's doing a great job. I love, you know, my. I'll try to give you a second that we just got them. But my new book is very much written in this style of. It's not a word count. It's more like tempo and think about it and take a minute.

That's how I write, too, I think.

Yeah.

Since. Yeah.

I really enjoy the. The formatting of this.

Me too. It was. It was very palpable. It was very easy. It was very digestible because of the short nature of each statement and that rhythm. I found myself, I think the way that it's spaced out and written, like, it's almost like putting stop signs in because it can wear you out. If you tried to read it like a marathon book, like most people read a book, you can't process the depth of that without stop. Like, you have to stop. You have to give pause, whether you agree with it or not, to understand what he's put before you.

What do you think about this one? Sometimes we go back and repeat an old mistake just so we can remember why we moved forward.

I think that's very, very telltale to a lot of very human behavior. Very human. Yeah.

It's great. How many people have you given this book to?

I've probably purchased it for at least a dozen people, and I've told thousands and thousands of people about it. Based on story counts. I would say that my stories got more views and more interactions every time I post a Young Pueblo quote, quote than anything else that I put out there. And I get pretty good interaction from the standpoint of not really caring about my own personal social media because I run, like, everybody else's social media accounts. But personally, I think that his statements.

Are very powerful. To get a response from other people, to affect other people in a way that you want it to because you're. For me, if I put one of his quotes out there, it's because it hit me pretty hard and made me go, oh, people need to read this. At one point, I was. I would just turn it on while I was brushing my teeth and getting ready on the audible Book.

There's an audible.

Yeah, it's on audible.

Is he reading it?

Huh?

How is that spaced out by.

First he'll say the chapter, and then it's been a couple of years since, so I'd have to go back. But he's just reading each. Do you have to pace sometimes?

Because, like, when you're. You got to think about some of these. Yeah. If the next one is coming.

That's why I would just put it on until something that he said and, you know, granted whatever ADHD distraction he might. I might be in my own head for like four or five pages trying to think about what he had just said on a. On a last page. And I. Like I said, like, I would read that before. I would journal and then go on a walk and then come back to what I had just read and journaled. Because for me, walking put me, like, with my sobriety. Walking was the only thing. It changed my eating habits because it would pace my day. It. It put me into a mantra like he was writing, and it all kind of fit together. Like, I'm gonna. I needed to slow down. Like, my life, no doubt. I just needed to slow down. And listening to him first thing in the morning, journaling and then going on a walk really, really put the rest of my day into perspective. I was able to think about. Okay. You know, conversations, sitting down, eating, those kind of things.

Okay, let's end on this one. Tell me what you think. And this is the one on the back cover. And it's a good think. It's a good one. True power is living the realization that you are your own healer, hero, and leader.

It's pretty profound.

It's. I mean, it all starts with you.

I mean, you have the power to change. You. You have the power to choose if you're going to be grumpy or choose if you're going to be smiling and happy, if you're going to be the darkness or the light, you know, And I think that sums up that. That whole book, I think he's trying to give. I think the. What I got of N word was in order to be everything that is good that you could be, it starts with you. Nobody else can make you do that.

And, yeah, it's great.

Well, thank you for this.