What AI Can't Replace: The Ancient Skills That Will Save Us | Soren Gordhamer

With AI artificial intelligence emerging in our culture right now, there needs to be a similar renaissance of spirituality or of awakening, because the artificial intelligence is going to get so powerful, it can either be used for good or for bad.

The question is not if AI will advance. It will. The real question is whether we as humans will advance with it.

A world where AI takes over and we lose contact with humanity, we lose contact with our own feelings, that is a more dangerous world.

Welcome back. Or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I AM your host, Dr. Michael Gervais. By trade and training, a high performance psychologist. Now, the idea behind these conversations is really simple. To sit with the extraordinaries and learn to really learn about how they work from the inside out. And in this week, we're joined by someone who is an expert at doing just that. I've known and respected him for a long time, my friend, Soren Bordhammer. Soren is the founder of Wisdom 2.0, a global event series at the intersection of wisdom and technology.

I meet with a lot of the tech founders and some of them are working their ass off to, like, build this company, to sell it, to take it public. I see them when they sell it and they'd always hoped, oh, this is the moment that I've been waiting for. Finally, this desire in me gets satiated and they get everything they want. And they're absolutely miserable because no shift in the external world can satiate what is unresolved in the internal world.

His new book, the Discovering what Really Matters in an Age of Distraction, invites us to stop performing and start beating.

Some people see the inherent beauty that they are, but they're not willing to see any of the dark. And some people, all they do is they see the dark and they judge themselves. And so can we hold both of those as truths?

With that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with wisdom teacher and my friend, Soreness.

Sorn.

Yeah, I am so happy that we're getting this time to be able to do this. We've been friends for a long time. This is, this is a great celebration. And before we dive into all the different places that we're going to go, because I know how our conversations go, can you give, like, a flyover about why this book, why now? And, like, really what were you trying to do by introducing this, your writing, to us?

Cool. Well, first, it's wonderful to be here again with you, Mike. The book's called the Discovering what really matters in an age of distraction. And it is what it says it is. How do we discover and harness that which is most essential in our lives? And I think in this day of social media and pings and all the things that we get that distract us, how do we actually come back to what is true and real? And we live from that place.

One of the challenges, I think, for us in this conversation is that we've been friends for a long time and. And I want to have a conversation that helps me better understand you, but at the same time, have our community really get the wealth of information and wisdom that you come from. So if we started with this hinge idea that when I first met you, you were an observer of teachers, and I'm talking like the heavies of wisdom, you know, call it Thich Nhat Hanh, Jon Kabat Zinn. And, and, and. Okay. And now in this book, I see you as a teacher.

Yeah.

So from the observer and the student to a teacher, I do want to understand that. Arc first, I want to start with your book that you just wrote. It's really intimate. It's really clear. It has a deep tone of honesty. And at the same time, I think your teachers, the teachers would say, oh, my gosh, it's an unbelievable reveal of wisdom. So you hit the depth on both parts, the depth of wisdom and the depth of intimacy. So well done.

Thank you.

I'm so happy for you.

Thank you. That means a lot. Yeah, that means a lot. You know, I think when we go out to write a book, we don't know exactly what it wants to be. We start out with an idea and then it tells us how it wants to unfold. And as I started writing, I didn't have a lot of those personal experiences in it, but something felt kind of stale. Felt like I was repeating other people's words and I just didn't feel like authentically connected to it. And then I started going back in and going, hold it. Where did this insight come from? What was the source of this insight? Oh, the source of that insight was when I was depressed as a 16 year old. Oh, yeah. What was that experience like? Let me tell that story, because that story says more than me just talking about depression from, like an analyst perspective. It like brings people into the actual experience. And so for me, it was like a review of my life and different points of my life and then trying to really get back to, can I share the experience of that? So the person who's listening to it actually feels it, because I Actually think words. Words can be kind of dry and pointless in some ways, you know, but it's the energy and it's the passion. It's the authenticity behind the words. That's what really matters. And so I feel like I had to go really deep into myself and be like, all right, where was this insight from? And how can I share that as, like, vulnerably and openly as I can for the service of others?

Did you struggle with doing that, or did it feel like it was something different? Like it was your. It was a responsibility to be honest. Like, I know that when I wrote the first Rule of Mastery, the first time I submitted it for review, the feedback was like, you're not in it. And I didn't want a book about me.

Yeah.

And then, you know, and then when I was writing, I was like. Like, how much of this do I share?

Yeah.

And then as I was going, I was like, oh, this actually feels really healing in some respects and honest and others. So was this hard for you, or was this, like, super eloquently easy?

Because both. So, you know, for 17 years, I've been a host. I host a conference, Wisdom 2.0. You've spoken several times. All the big teachers have spoken, big tech leaders. My job as a host is to prop up the person that I'm talking to. Right. It's not about me. It's about what is your wisdom that you have to share. And my job is to create as clear an avenue for that person to share what it is he or she has to share. So I try not to bring myself in too much. Well, my opinion about this is, well, I have this lesson, too. It's really about that person. So I had 17 years of training about how not to bring myself into a story, because I think that was my skill set, is my skillset as a host. So it's almost like a different muscle. Like, I'd been working this muscle. I was like, oh, there's this other muscle over here that needs attention. And was kind of screaming at me because it was really comfortable being a host and highlighting other people's wisdom. It's like, it became so easy that my psyche was like, soren, that's too easy for you. Like, you're not learning in that same way. Like, what do you have to share? Like. Like, what is it that you really feel like, if you were on your deathbed and you had something to pass on, like, what would those insights be? So that muscle was getting over the sense that I had something to share and I was worthy to have something to share. And once I felt that I really could connect to that sense of worthiness, then the flow of it was really smooth. And like, even now when you talk about vulnerable, I'm like, oh, shit, what did I actually say? Because to me, it's just, that's what the book wanted to be. And it's like, tell this story. And so I was like, I was trying to be honest to what the story wanted to be. And my hope is that suffering unites us, right? Pain unites us. We think success unites us. I think it's suffering and pain that unites us. And if we can talk intimately and powerfully about our own suffering and pain in a way that shows a path to be free of that pain, I don't know if there's a greater service we can do in the world than provide that for people.

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Yeah.

And sometimes they see you, but you see all of them.

Yeah.

And that includes the suffering, that includes the hurt. That includes the beautiful dreams and the compelling futures that they, they want to co create. When it comes to. I'm going to go back to this. When it comes to sharing your hurt that you wrote about in the book, it sounds like you're really okay with it. Can you talk about the work that you did to get to that place to share hurt eloquently and publicly in this case?

Yeah. And the publicly experience is still unfolding because it just came out. So how it will be to see a bunch of people who've read the book. That experience hasn't quite happened to me yet because only a handful of people have read the previews of the book.

Okay. Do you think anyone's gonna say to you boys, or maybe you should put this one back. Maybe you should claw this one, buy all the copies. Cause this is not gonna.

I don't think so.

I don't think so either. But like do you think even if it was a marginal, just marginal.

Right. I don't think it's my business what people think of the book. In the deepest level, my business is to write the book that I wanna write. If 99% of the people come up and tell me this is not the right book, I'll consider it. But I know in my heart why I wrote the book. And I know in my heart what the book wanted to Be. And I was very, very true to that. And so that is my kind of, like, ground.

Okay, go back to the question I'm asking.

Yeah.

What was the work to get to before we get to the hurt? What was the work to get to the clarity? I know my role in writing this book.

You know, over the years I've learned to tap into what is the authentic expression of true me and what are my old patterns and neuroses and traumas that I'm like, playing out in life. And in order to really understand that, I think I have to go back and look at what is the pain and the suffering that I've been through. How did that shape my personality? And how is that personality still longing for something to happen to make him feel whole? So for me, and I talk about this in the book. I grew up in this small town of Lubbock, Texas. We were one of the few non Christians kids would tell us we're going to hell because we weren't going to church. And it was really, really painful. And then my mother left and we lived with my father. And so there was even more shame and more isolation. And as part of that, I thought, I want to get rid of this shame and isolation. How am I going to do it? I'm going to be a fucking success. I'm going to be so worthy and so important and know all these famous people that I will cover up that shame that has been so deep inside me. And no one will ever see that again because there'll be all these stars around me and all this success around me. Nobody will be able to even glimpse that there's this other part that still has this, like, deep shame and pain. So that became my strategy. And at some point, was that a.

Conscious strategy or did you.

A survival strategy? I think.

When did you realize that that was the strategy you adopted?

I would like to say last year. Yeah, I would like to say, you know, it was this weird thing. It was like, what if you imagine your entire life was partly inspired by love and beautiful, but it was also partly inspired by an avoidance of a feeling.

Well, you have a quote. Our identity often comes from the output of our hurt.

Yeah.

So when. When, when I. I wrote that down to. We're talking about it now. I don't think it's a what if. I think it. It. It's an yes. Yeah, we have to your point. Suffering and hurt. I like that. I like that you use hurt as opposed to what traditional teachers would call suffering. I'm not.

I'm not sure.

I'm not kind of pushing against suffering, but the word hurt feels more available.

Yeah.

Than like this deep, kind of tormented suffering.

Yeah.

But like, so I've got moments where my feelings, my identity have been hurt. And I clearly know because of the work I've done and the. The people in my life that have held mirrors up for me.

Right.

To say, hey, do you realize.

Yeah.

No, no, no, no.

So those stories, though, this is really great. So my experience, people can have other experiences. My experience is there's some level of hurt and then there's a narrative that we begin to play out. Right. That's mainly unconscious. I'm success. I'm strong, I'm smart, I'm whatever.

I'm responsible.

I'm responsible. Right. And those become like a survival strategy. They're not our authentic expression. And then we go in the world and we actually find ways sometimes to succeed based on that strategy, based on those narratives. But life, being the brilliant thing that life is, inevitably has us question those narratives. We get to a point, and I see this with founders. I meet with a lot of the tech founders, and some of them are working their ass off to, like, build this company, to sell it, to take it public. I see them when they sell it, I see them when they take it public. And they'd always hoped, oh, this is the moment that I've been waiting for. This is the moment where finally this desire in me gets satiated and they get everything they want. And they're absolutely miserable because no shift in the external world can satiate what is unresolved in the internal world. But the story running their life was, someday I'm going to be a success. And they get everything. And they don't feel internally like they feel like a success. And they're like, I know, I just need to make a bigger company. So then they keep on the hamster wheel thinking that there's still something out there, that once they get it, it's going to satiate this feeling inside. And the reason that that doesn't satiate is usually, I like to use the phrase younger part. This is Dick Schwartz, work with Internal Family Systems. Some people know about it. I really appreciate it. He's like, there's simply a younger part inside you that needs your attention and needs your care and needs your welco. And you don't have to cover that part up. You actually kind of need to befriend that part. And that's what I had to do. I had gone through divorce, and this is how I don't I don't think I. Actually, I wrote a little bit about. In this book, but the. The more longer version is I'd been through a divorce. I have a son been through a divorce the first time with his mom. And it was pretty tough because she not to go too much in detail. She was. Fell in love with somebody else. And then I'm kind of trying to survive. My son is young and it's like I kind of just moved on past that experience, to be honest with you. I was living in New Mexico and I felt it a little bit, but I was just like, shit, we gotta keep going, right? Life moves on. Then I got into a second marriage, a second divorce. So these are two divorces. And I was like, must be them for sure them for sure them. And so I was like, what is going on here? There's something that I'm not seeing.

Did you. Yeah. Did you open up like. So she fell in love with somebody else's. Like the, the easy narrative, but it was. You had a part in that.

Thank you. Of course.

Yeah. So what was your part in that?

I think my part in that let me. Maybe my part in all of it was that there was a part of me when. When I. When my mom had something of a nervous breakdown when I was 12, she realized she was not married to the man that she loved. She had five kids and she just couldn't handle being in this role in this relationship. So something in her was just like, you gotta get the hell out of here. So she left. And then I was raised by my father. And so that instilled a deep pain in me that I'm basically unworthy. Why would your own mother leave you? There must be something wrong with me. That was the narrative that happened. Cause I couldn't come up with any other narrative at the time. I couldn't think like, oh, my mom's going through enormous pain and suffering. And you know, that was beyond my.

How old were you at that?

I was about 12.

And that's what a 12 year old is supposed to do. Like the world still revolves around.

Yeah, you need your parents. You can't think negatively. At least I couldn't think negatively of them and still orient in the world. I had to come up with a different narrative. So I think in a lot of my life, particularly my intimate relationships, that narrative was at play. I have to like, do be a really, really good person and kind of like not be true to not express myself, not set boundaries, not like be.

Honest if you're a mess, if you're noisy or even just imperfect.

Ye. Like, I have to be perfect or somebody's gonna leave me. And that pain and hurt was so strong that my system was trying to avoid it. And by trying to avoid it, I played it out in different ways. Not to say there weren't beautiful aspects that also happened in those engagements.

So your first wife, maybe second wife, never really got to know you. And so how can they fall in love with you if they don't really know you? They get a version of you that is trying to protect yourself from people leaving.

Yeah. And I think that's probably true in almost every relationship, that there's parts that we're not quite willing to show. And there was a pretty big part for me. So I'm not saying, like, I'm through with all of that, but there was a pretty big part for me that I hadn't really understood. And so my friend, dear friend of mine, we were talking, and he said, I have a therapist I want you to work with. I was like, great. And so he connected me to this therapist. So during the COVID years, I had, like, a lot of work that I did with this one really helpful therapist who worked with me.

Isn't it amazing work? Like, I know I'm biased. It's my training. But to sit with a person who, if you get it right, that they really care about trying to help you unlock to see yourself in an honest way, it is great. It's hard because if they do it right, they hold up a mirror and they don't let you move away from it.

Yeah. I write. There's a sentence that I have in the book, which I really appreciate it. And it says, in order for us to kind of be who we came here to be and who we truly are, we have to go everywhere. We don't want to go and see everything we don't want to see and at the same time, know the inherent beauty that we are. And I think when we lose either of those, we get a little bit off. So some people. Some people see the inherent beauty that they are, but they're not willing to see any of the dark. And some people, all they do is they see the dark, and they judge themselves and criticize themselves. And I did this, and, oh, I was being wrong there. Whatever. And so can we hold both of those as truth? We are this inherent beauty of life where, like, the. The big bang was 13.8 billion years ago, and we're just expressions of these big bangs. We're just like these, like, wonderful Amazing creatures, each one of us. And there's things for us to learn and the amount of compassion that we need for ourselves as we go through this process is one of the biggest things that I see in the journey. Because people then feel the awareness actually turns into judgment. And that's when I think it's very, very hard for us to allow our hearts to open and deeper.

Say that one more time. Awareness turns into judgment.

Turns into judgment. So imagine if somebody was like walked around every day with you and just told you everything you did wrong. You could have used that word instead of this word. You walked a little fast, you drank a little quick, whatever, all the judgments and you start to believe those judgments. And so it's like there's this shining this light of awareness that it may actually all be true, but it's not very helpful at all because our system is not really capable of bringing that forth.

I love that you bring this up because this is the world that elite athletes live in.

Yeah.

So practice is more intense than game day for some in one respect. Because in practice you're, you have to get to the edge, the messy edge where you make mistakes, but you unlock something to grow. And you have to do it in front of people that are determining if you get playtime or not.

Wow.

You do it in front of your peers that are trying to take your spot in the roster. And everything that you do and don't do is publicly statted and force ranked against every other person in your entire universe of elite athletes as well as your teammates. And it's really easy to get screwed up.

Yeah.

If you have a coach that says a 3 to 1 ratio up to a 7 to 1 ratio. Soren, that what you just did is amazing. Like do that again. Oh, I don't know if you can do that again. That was so good. Soren, like the way you held your hands like, oh, hey everyone. You see what Soren did to the one which is like, Soren, move your feet. How many times I gotta tell you? Like, it's that, you know, like that aggressive.

Yeah.

Three to one. Seven one. And if you get those magical folks in your world, it's awesome. But if you get the ones that are the other direction.

Yeah.

It's problematic to thrive.

Well, even if you don't have those coaches, effort is directly equatable to self judgment. The harder you try, the more likely that you're going to judge yourself as, as, as inadequate.

Okay, interesting.

So if I don't really try very hard, I'm probably not going to judge myself. But if I want to be the.

That's a self esteem saving mechanism.

Yes, yes, yes. But if I want to be the absolute best at something, the judgment has to turn on. Now the question is, do I can take that judgment not personally or do I make it about me? And I think that the greatest people I see, they understand that, but they don't have the self image and the self reflection. They don't take that personally. And so therefore they're able to take on lessons and move through them faster.

What kind of coach are you to yourself?

Interesting question. I love challenges and I love to be a little bit on the edge. And this is why AI is super interesting to me. And I love. There's an example that they gave of growth mindset that I've always loved. I think it was Carol de Wick in her book, which I know you're very familiar with. And there was this kid, and there was two kids, one had growth mindset and one didn't. And there was this really hard challenge that they were presenting the kid with. And I guess he looked up at the teacher and he couldn't figure it out. And he looked up at the teacher and said, boy, do I love a good challenge. And that's the energy that I try to cultivate. And I look at what's going on with our country now and people are like, oh, what's AI going to do? What's climate change going to do? What's this new president going to do? Isn't it amazing to have a good challenge?

We got one right now.

Isn't it awesome that it's going to bring out either the best or the worst in us? And we have an opportunity for to bring out the best in us. And let's rise up to that challenge. I've always liked the Zen story, you may know it, where a teacher draws a line on the chalkboard. And I always like to say she, even though traditionally it's a guy, she asks her students, how do you make this line shorter? And so some students say, you erase them at the top. And she says, no, erase them at the bottom. She says, no, erase them middle. She says, no. They're like, how do you make that line shorter? And she gets a second, a piece of chalk, and she draws a second line next to the first. So now there's, you know, this line.

Short line, first line short, second line's long.

Yeah. And she says, now that first line is shorter by doing nothing to that first line. Yeah, but you expand your heart and you Expand your own ability. Inevitably, that will then change because all of a sudden, you're not changing the thing. You're changing your relationship to the thing.

So both, I think this holds both for mastery, high performance, and wisdom is that reference points really matter.

Yeah.

In the re, in the cult, in the understanding and revealing wisdom, reference points really matter. In mastery in environments of high performance, as many reference points as you have gives you context to be able to make a informed guess on how something could go right. In environments of speed and consequence, like, there's not enough time to really process, you know, and so reference points become.

Like race car driving or something.

Yeah. Right. So as many reference points as we can experience, it provides some sort of anchor for insights and understandings later. So I love that story.

Yeah.

Thank you for bringing that forward. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Skims. We just finished the NBA Finals, and if you were following along, you've likely seen some Skims signage on court. When I heard Skims was launching a line for men, I was really curious. My wife loves their products and quote unquote from her they've done a really good job. They kind of nailed it. So I tried the boxer briefs, and then right away I could feel the difference. It fits how it's supposed to fit. I mean, I don't know what to tell you, but they did. They nailed it. And it's really rare to find gear that just kind of disappears into the background because of how well it does its job, but that's exactly what Skims has done. I think they're great. Shop skims mens@skims.com Finding mastery and then after the checkout, select podcast in the survey and then choose Finding Mastery from the dropdown menu. Again, that skims.com finding mastery and select podcast and Finding Mastery so that they know that we sent you.

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What are the key insights from the book? If you, if you were to be really crisp with them, what would be the key insights for you in the writing of this book?

Yeah, the. The number one piece we touched on a little bit, which is narratives that run our lives. We have a voice in the head. We all do. And if we don't understand that voice in the head, it drives us even though we're not access to the driving wheel. And so we think we're going to Dallas and we end up in San Francisco because there's these unconscious patterns that are behind the scenes taking us where we think we don't want to go. But then there's this other unconscious patterns and that there's a path to actually becoming aware of these unconscious patterns and having more choice. And when we don't look and inquire inside our own capacity to be aware and own mental world and physical world, we can still compete and play, but we don't have near the superpower that we have when we become curious about that dimension. And we keep thinking that the external world, if I just get the right things in the external world, this internal world will be solved. And I've seen the people that have succeeded beyond wildest dreams in the external world, like $100 billion plus, like their value, not their company's value, or, you know, the most famous person you can imagine, and you have two. It's like it doesn't mean their internal world shifts at all. So I feel like the biggest teaching is if we take care of the inner world and do the hard work of really seeing what's there to be seen and embracing and befriending all these parts of ourselves, particularly the parts that we don't really like and we want to get rid of, there is a freedom that releases in that expression and that life then mirrors that energy, it mirrors that frequency. So life kind of naturally gets better. Not because we're trying to make it better, but we're trying to kind of make ourselves better. And to me, that's kind of the biggest insight. If we begin to live from that place, doors open and things shift and life unfolds in a different way than we're in. We're resistance, we're holding, we're kind of in more of this narrative of this is me and this is what I need to have happen. And to me that's the biggest shift that we need now. And I think with AI artificial intelligence emerging in our culture right now, I feel very strongly that there needs to be a similar renaissance of spirituality or of awakening or of whatever you want to name this, because the artificial intelligence is going to get so powerful and it can either be used for good or for bad. But unlike nuclear weapons, which is just limited to certain countries or certain people, we're all getting the nuclear weapon. You know, we're all getting access to AI. And so it becomes almost imperative that we do the work on ourselves so we know how to use that effectively.

Insight one, we have this inner world, we've built narratives. Much of those narratives are squarely resting on hurt. And so we need to examine to really understand that.

Yeah.

Insight number two is that once we become more aware of those non conscious patterns. Right. Then we become internally powerful. And the third is we're going to need a resurgence of a deeper dimension of our human experience to combat the purely surgical, cognitive right angles of AI.

Yeah. And I'd say the last one I would add to that would be, is more we're in that space, that creative space, or less trapped in our own, like, narratives about how life should be and how we should be and all the things. There's a creative force that's unleashed that we can apply to whatever we do and to whatever situation that we're in. And I think the work, like me writing a book, the more I freed myself, the more the book just came and the more I didn't free myself.

Did you write this in a flow state.

Most of it felt like a flow state to me. There was, like, a conscious editing that happened afterwards. But I've been inspired by Rick Rubin, and Rick Rubin work has touched me. And I really like what he said, that you write a book or you do a creative art, it's none of your business. Whatever people think about it, you do it for you. And so I was very honest to myself, what does this want to happen? What does this want to be? And I have a chapter in there where we talk about what do I want to do? Is such an interesting question, because I think that's an important question. But maybe the deeper question is, what wants to come through me? And you're harnessing a deeper intelligence, and you're realizing your life is not an accident. You actually came here to participate in some kind of karmic unfolding. And when you tap into that, that's where there's, like, a power, a superpower that we can all harness. And I feel like that's the invitation of our time, is to tap into that.

Are you pointing to, like, the concept that there's a soul? Are you pointing to a collective consciousness that gets bundled in this thing called Sorn or bundled in this thing called Mike?

I think, for me, it's more like there is an intelligence of the universe that we can all tap into at certain times. And when you meet someone, for example, and they say something to you, they have some project they want to do, or there's some shift, and you meet that person and you can tell this is not driven by them. This is driven by something much bigger than them. I can feel that resonance. I feel like something is coming through them. And watch out.

Is there, in your philosophy, is there a God?

I just think it is, like, universal intelligence, and it's not a human or person or like one entity that has a beard and sits in the clouds and stuff. But I do. My experience and my sense is there is this kind of innate intelligence that we all are. So it's not like we aren't that we are. We're. We are that expression.

And we all have access to that. Did that innate intelligence cause the Big Bang or an accident from it?

That's a great question. And I don't know, but I know that it's. It is that expression.

If you had to know right now.

Which one, I would say it caused it, if I caused it.

So you go like an unmoved mover.

Yeah.

Clock makers or watchmakers. Watchmaker. Okay. And okay. Boom. It Happens.

Here we are in this form and.

This dance, and what are we trying to do?

Well, so this is a great question. Is all humanity trying to do something else, or is each human have their own karmic assignment that's wanting to play out? And I've always liked Eckhart Tolle's way of looking at this. He says, we have two purposes. We have a primary purpose and a secondary purpose. The primary purpose is to be right here, right now, because this is the only moment we have. It's hard to argue with that, right?

It's hard to argue.

The past is a dream, the future is a dream. Like, this is all we know is, I'm here with you and consciousness is emerging, and here we are. That's all we know. And then the second.

Wait, before we get to the second, there's a primary purpose. What is your responsibility?

To be as present as possible.

What are you doing in this moment? To be as present as possible.

When I notice my mind going, what's going to happen in the future? What happened in the past? How do I get to. What do I say to impress him? What do I say to impress your listeners?

Is that the narrative? That's the narrative pulling you from. From what? And from.

From. From being present with this moment. So, for example, if I'm thinking, are people enjoying this? I need to say something really brilliant and wise and, like, touching. I need to be more vulnerable, whatever the thing is, right? Versus, like, oh, can I be in the discomfort?

So is this moment. Is this moment uncomfortable?

No, but I mean, being in the. Not knowing for. So, for example, if I. I see this a lot. So if I'm uncomfortable with silence, I have to constantly create words because I can't be on the silence.

So as part of your responsibility to be a good custodian of your primary purpose is to be here and to.

Notice what takes me out of here.

And there's themes. There's tripwires and themes and streams, and there's patterns based on the narrative that's oftentimes built from hurt. Okay?

And one of the ways that we do that is we come in with our record player playing. So let's say you interview me and I just tell the same stories I've told 50 times. And you see these with people who give a talk. It's the same talk, and it's just on record. And I think the opportunity in life is to get out of that record and actually be here. And what is wanting to emerge between us right now in this moment, unedited and unscripted, and it's just like life is unfolding, and we're just a part of that unfolding. And to me, that. That's super rich and exciting.

And do you approach the unfolding, unpredictable, unknown moment? Do you approach it, for the most part, let's say, as something to explore or something to perform in my ideal.

Moments, to something to explore.

To explore. And is it is because it's unknown and unpredictable and unfolding, Is it scary or is it.

So the energy is unknown and the energy is unknown. Right. Because it's emergent. But the form that it takes usually has an expression. So that's the second purpose, which is just like, what's my one purpose never changes. It's to be in the timeless dimension right here, right now, to the best of our possibility, and then to listen to what is the form that wants to take shape in me. Is it a project? Is it a podcast? Is it a book? Is it a new job? Is it a nonprofit? Is it some change of career? There's usually something that's emergent that wants to take shape. Now, if you ever get too focused on the thing and you forget about this moment, you lose the flow, because now the thing becomes the thing, and you lose track with the expression of what is emergent in the moment. Hope. That makes sense.

Yeah. So concretely, you had a book that you were. It's a thing that wanted to emerge. A secondary purpose, if you will, that the primary purpose was to be true to the words that were in the ideas that were coming forward, even if they were dangerous. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

And to. And to be in each one of those moments to the best of my ability and to notice, oh, when I get this book done, I'm going to become. So there's no filling of a hole inside me. Like the Buddha said, I offer the teaching that's glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle, and glorious in the end. And I think the most creative acts, most beautiful acts, there's a love of the art, and there's love in the beginning, there's love in the middle, and there's love at the end. And it's hard, but you're loving the hard. And then when you release it, there's no hope for agenda that says, if this happens, I will be more complete. Because it's coming from completion. It's not coming from lack. It's coming from fullness. I think that's one of the beautiful dances of life, is, are we coming from lack or are we coming from fullness? And if we're coming from lack, what is that lack that we're still feeling? And in my experience, the most successful people can come from incredible lack. They're still trying to get something to happen so that they feel whole. And the journey is, as you know, Mike, is like, can we tap into that internally so that our expressions come from a different place? Hard to do.

Easier to do when you can really study yourself and know yourself. I think psychology is the study of self and the study of others, but it's really the study of self. How does thought one work with thought two? How does thought one and two work with emotion A and feeling B? And like that broth. When you really study it, you can become playful with it.

Yeah.

And that. I don't. I wish there was a pill to take. I wish there was a pill.

There might be someday. The only thing I would add to that because is what if the universe. So all that is true. And then what if you have a relationship with this universal intelligence? You have a relationship. There's something it's trying to do through you.

I don't get that.

You don't get that. Okay.

Yeah. And I know that I think I'm unpopular by saying okay, especially in our world.

You're. Yeah. In la. It depends on which world you're in. In Texas, you're not. No. No. Maybe.

No. Well, like, okay, the. The gospel belt would say. What do you mean? That we call that God.

Yeah.

And so.

And I grew up in West Texas, by the way, so I grew up in. In the.

You take.

I know. I know that world too, and I appreciate that world. And people have different languaging for that world. And maybe this is just my own coping mechanism. And it's not so much a belief, but it's more of an orientation. And I'm not like people have to have this orientation, but my particular orientation is I tend to get more energized when I look at what wants to come through me, being I'm in relationship with this whole world of things. And if I am clear about that relationship, I can see what's needed and I can kind of address what's needed. And that's what I try to do.

That I understand the part about being in a relationship with. And now I get to fill in the blank with experience with what is with Mother Nature, which, by the way, you and I are quote, unquote, Mother Nature. It's not the beautiful pond.

It's.

It's us.

Yeah.

So I totally get the synergy that comes from being in harmony, even when it's like, it seems prickly. But like to find that that's where the word fluid and flow state comes from, to find that slipstream. I totally understand that.

Yeah.

Okay. Here's a fear I have as I'm even questioning these things about a spiritual domain that if the end of the world happens right now, this is my training early in the Christian faith. Like if, if you, like, if you don't kind of say that there's a Jesus and a God, like you're not invited to the club after you better. The fear based approach is like, I want to revolt against it. This is my kind of counterculture. Like, don't tell me.

This is what I grew up with. And I counter too. Yeah.

And then. But I'm afraid to question it because if I, if I stay too long in the open question and the end of the world happens for me, then I'm not invited to the party. The pearly gate party.

Yeah.

So that scares me a little bit to even question it. But yeah, I'm staying true to the, the actual questioning because, I mean, you.

Can always say it just for, Just.

Say it for us.

Jesus died for your sins or whatever. Put an asterisk next to it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Or we could look at it like, so what's this party that we're. What is this party that we think is going to happen?

So I love this idea. Heaven on earth. Hell, yes. I love that idea that you can be tortured here or find the, the most beautiful expression of the harmony of things. Okay. I'm totally down with that. And I love this idea. So my wife and you know, Lisa has. We've been together.

I love Christianity. I love aspects of Christianity. I think it's some of the most deepest teachings there are, I find.

I love it too. I think the Trinity is like my jam.

Yeah.

And I have a hard time understanding the language and the universality of what God is.

Yeah.

Okay. Pause the blasphemy for just a moment. I'm gonna go back, go back to this idea that will you recognize me in the next form? Call it the pearly gates of heaven or whatever. Or reincarnation.

Yeah.

Will you recognize me?

Well, who recognize you?

Exactly. Okay, so like, for example, Lisa and.

I. Oh, oh, got it.

Do I. Of course I recognize Lisa in a crowded mall in somewhere like. Okay, okay. But would I recognize the formless human, the formless essence.

Yeah.

In a different form, Whether that is the afterlife or that is the next go around we get. I love that Idea that forces me, like, well, I know you've sorn in the next form, if there is one. And for me to do that, I've got to get past the way you look.

Yeah.

I got to get past the words that you use. And I've got to understand the essence of like, who you're working on being. And you're saying, look, I'm just trying to get this, this fluid nature. Like whatever source is behind me, I got to be open the aperture and let it flow through.

Yeah.

Okay. So anyways, yeah.

What I love, What I love about the Christian faith is the dedication to spirit and the dedication to the animation.

Of the quote, unquote Holy Spirit, the animation of spirit.

That there's. There's something bigger. Well, I. In my view, there's something bigger than us and also us that wants expression. And that part of that is to be service to the whole right. And to not just look out for ourselves, but to serve the poor and to be tending to this humanity that we can't reject, any of these parts of humanity that are also us. And I think that. Call it whatever you want to call it, but I think there is a movement of energy, of life that I like to try to follow. And like right now, I'm focused on AI. Whenever I focus on the AI world, my inner world says, yes, you need to be doing that. Now, is that just me or is that something that's like guiding me, that's telling me, yes, go this way, or is that just my own? I don't know.

Well, if you do the P and L, it probably makes some sense to focus on wisdom and AI, which your.

Intersection, but it's more of an energy thing. So in my rational mind, this is great, I think, to talk about. There's all these things like, oh, this makes logical sense, but it might not make intuitive or energetic sense at all. And what I've learned is you have to go with the energy because that's all you have. Otherwise you're just somebody logically doing whatever you think you're supposed to do. But there's no life force in that.

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Yeah.

Which is all of the outwardly celebrations, big car, big watch, big money, big bank account.

Nothing wrong with all of it, but yeah, you're good.

And then there's inner power.

Yeah.

How do you articulate inner power?

I tell the story in there. Being with Thich Nhat Hanh at this Mark Benioff's house of CEO sales.

Hold on. The humble brag here is so good. You know, like Thich Nhat Hanh and Benioff. Yeah. So, by the way, it's just, just. This is more for the listener, is that Thich Nhat Hanh is a mentor of mine. I've never met. I've never met him.

I've never met. Oh, he's amazing.

Yeah.

So the fact away. It's people we all know, but yeah.

Yeah. So the fact that you got to spend time with him.

He's. He's. He's a walking Buddha. Christ on Earth. It was so wonderful to have time with him in this, like, life. I did a. I've done a few things with him. And I'll send you a picture of us. I'm walking, doing walking meditation with him.

Stop.

And there's like 20 of us. We're in Santa Barbara.

I'm supposed to be happy right now for you?

No, but I'm like two feet above everybody else. This is like one white guy, like sticking his head out and it's like a Thai and all of a Vietnamese walking. It's like a funny. It's a funny picture. But he really impacted me too.

I can't get enough of him.

He knows suffering. He talks about pain, he talks about hurt, he talks about suffering and he talks about love and he talks about compassion. And he's seen everything happen in Vietnam and he lost so many people and the culture, and he found a way to keep his heart open and to talk about the values that we all care about. And he's. There's this phrase, I actually got this from Stephen Levine, but he said, there's no way to know the truth. You can only be the truth. So a lot of people who know the truth and they can repeat and tell you all these things. But to be the truth, to live the truth, like Thich Nhat Hanh walks in a room and you feel it because he lives it, not because he knows it. And that's. All of us all have that same capacity to really be the truth. And what is it to be in that space? And so that's particular, that's rad.

I wish I would have had a chance to meet Thich Nhat Hanh, but I know I didn't try hard enough.

But he's. He's still here in his own way. I. So we, his students will call him Ty. He want teacher, which the thing. And Ty would say. Sometimes he would say, well, one, when he did his retreats, the kids would come up first. So there'd be like thousand or hundreds of people in the room. And all the kids would come up to the front and he'd tell them a story. And we would all just sit there for like 30 minutes while he told the children a story. But the stories had profound teachings, right? But he loved the kids and he wanted to make sure the kids actually were the ones who like got the best teachings. And then the adults would get the teachings. But he used to say, when you woke up this morning, can you enjoy your non toothache? Did you enjoy your non toothache? Like, what do you mean you don't have a toothache? Like, yeah. Did you enjoy your non toothache? Or do you wake up thinking of all the things that you have that are your problems, are you following your problems? Or can you enjoy your non toothache? And just that teaching alone, when I wake up in the morning, can I enjoy my non toothache? If I just did that, that like, sense of gratitude and that sense of like awareness of the appreciation of what we have, like, can we wake up in the morning and appreciate that our eyes can see, can wake up in the morning appreciating that we can breathe. And he was tapped into that in such a profound way. And so there was this event at Mark's house that had all the big tech CEOs there and they all wanted to go. There was a lot of them, 30 or so of the big leaders in tech. And they were there and they were sitting and Ty would go on. He went on for maybe like hour and a half, two hours.

Did you coordinate this?

No, but my friend coordinated it. So I got snuck in through my friend. I wasn't one of the tech CEOs. My friend's like, hey, I got an extra spot. You want to sneak in? I was like, sure, happy to. And Benioff is actually a beautiful person in terms of really wanting to support, like wisdom and compassion. And so I think it was out of his goodness of his heart that he's like, wow, I've found this amazing teacher. I want to share this teacher with other people who might benefit. So it was coming from, I think, a really good hearted place. And so two things happened. One is I looked around and I'm like, who has the power in this room? All these people are sitting on the floor while they listen to him on the stage. They have traditional power, but he's got something else. And they've all come to find what that is and what is that power that he has that they're coming to find. So that became a really interesting question for me. I was like, oh, there's different kinds of power. Because clearly he has this power and they know it. And we all have the capacity to have that power. And at one point he looked into the audience of all these tech leaders and he said, if you're not helping people better connect with themselves and help people better connect with nature, you're in the wrong business. And he invited them to explore their life and what they're actually creating. And he was somebody who had that courage and had that power. And I think that's why we loved him was he found a way to be the truth. Truth. And I think that's the gift. He's not being the truth when he shows up to give a talk, he's being the truth when he goes to the bathroom, he's being the truth when he's, you know, late for something, when he's, whatever he's doing, he's in the zone. So it's not like a. It's not like, oh, I'm playing the game now. I'm going to be in the zone.

Yeah. I'll keep this nameless. But there was a Zen teacher at Wisdom 2.0, and he did this amazing moment on stage. We were both backstage. He came off, and I was getting ready to go on, and we had an exchange. And I was, like, super excited to have a moment to say thank you for your teachings. And I was like, oh, no, this is not. Wait a minute. What am I seeing and feeling?

Wow.

Like, it was like a.

A different energy.

I mean.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, this. This is. What's that saying? Never meet your heroes or whatever? Like, I was like, oh, this is a bummer. And then I. And then I thought, wait, maybe this is me, too. Like, I get tired, I get crazy, I get like, you know, like. And so it was a. It was a cool moment to remember that sages are people.

Yeah. Yeah.

And in my mind, Ty was not. He floated, you know, so. Yeah.

I never saw, you know, the Eckhart or. A lot of teachers have this great idea where it's like, you think you're going to spiritual teachings. You're going to go to Bali or something and get massages and meditate every day. But then you get to the airport and your flight's canceled, and it's like, you might learn more about yourself with that flight getting canceled that you'll learn from going into your. So we have these ideas. Oh, spiritual growth looks like this, or, oh, when I get here, I'm actually going to grow spiritually or whatever. And what I find that is life delivers us if we pay attention. Life continually delivers us teachings, regardless if we're in the Himalayas or la Traffic or somewhere else. And our job is just to pay attention and listen, and we can get all the teachings that we need. And so that Zen teacher experience was like, a great teaching. Right. That's a good one. It could be like, oh, what a horrible person. Or it could be like, wow, I realize I need to have compassion for everybody. Yeah. Because everybody has their moments. Yeah. They're suffering. And maybe. Maybe I can have compassion for myself.

Yeah. In those moments, can you maybe teach us a meditation, like, pretty concretely that you're using? I. I want to ask. I don't want to be disrespectful to your practices, but I do want to ask, like, one that maybe you learned from Thich Nhat Hanh that has been important to you, that the listener can be like, well, what.

What?

Like, what is it that they do? Meaning Thich Nhat Hanh, you maybe me it like, as a practice.

So one of the things that when the kids would come up in front of him, I remember him asking them once, why do we wash the dishes? And the kids were like, we wash the dishes to clean the dishes. No, we wash dishes because our parents tell us to wash the dishes. No, we wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes. To have the experience of washing the dishes. We wash the dishes to be in the full experience of washing the dishes. Why do we walk? We walk not to get somewhere, we walk to enjoy the experience of walking. And I don't know if you meant like, lead a meditation, but like, to me, that was one of his deepest practices, was like, can we be with our experience, whatever it is? Now, he is super interesting, and I wish he was alive today because it'd be so amazing to talk to him about this work is he was much more about cultivating the goodness inside you. This was my experience of him. Right. So breathing in, I smile. Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile. So he'd have these, like, practices which are on all his books, like, breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile. Different sayings.

Breathing in, I see my eyes. Breathing out, I smile. You know, and that's where I was hoping you would go. Is that a practice that you use?

I did. I don't have. That's not active practice for me now. But when I was working more in with his material, those are practices that I did more often and like telephone meditation. So there's your cell phone rings. Breathing in, I can't remember the exact phrase, but breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile. Breathing in, I know my words can create suffering or peace. I vow to create peace. Mike, how are you doing? Yeah, nice to hear from you. The energy in which you're answering that call is very different, having that little moment. So I think it lives with me in different ways. But I don't have that as a formal practice right now. I can say that one of the things I'm super curious about is resistance to experience. And so there's an experience and how are we relating to that experience? And often when I can feel a tension in my body, I notice that there's some resistance to something happening. And I've noticed this when I interview people, like, sometimes it's just a moment of silence and I get nervous, I get uncomfortable because I think I'm supposed to be creating content. Right? That's the job, is to create content. And I'M like, oh, what sets story that's overlaying that? Like, can I just be quiet for a moment and not know and be in the not knowing? But what are the things that I have a hard time being with? Anger is another one. Like, anger is something. When anger arises, I get really nervous. I get, like, tense around it. And so I've been really working with, like, huh, Can I just invite anger, the energy of anger, and get to know it better? So one of my practices is to see, like, what am I not inviting and can I be able to invite that more?

You probably don't know this, but you interviewed me at Wisdom 2.0 and you created so much space for me. It was awesome. So whatever you did in that moment, it was years ago, but you created. You opened up the aperture for me to feel really free to talk about ideas that were interesting to me. And you didn't talk over or have too long of space, but after something was said, you let it just. Just sit there for a moment. It was awesome. It was a really nice. I felt like an energetic exchange between the two of us of ideas. And like, so you're really good at that. And thank you for that. The second thing I want to thank you for is that there was a moment maybe a couple years after that, that you said something in passing that that really helped me. I don't think I've ever told you this. Yeah. So you said something to the effect of Mike. The way that you're describing the practice of getting to wisdom, the practices and the work is really refreshing. Things like Mike. And you said it because I'll say, like, you can train your craft, your body and your mind, and, you know, becoming more aware of your thoughts, words and actions. You know, like these phrases that make sense to me. And you're like, we need some of that.

Yeah.

And so it gave me. You gave me this permission to say, keep going. You're on to something.

Yeah.

And I just want to thank you for opening up that aperture. I've used that phrase like three or four times. But you, you definitely have done that for me.

Yeah.

And so thank you. And also thank you for introducing me to John Kabazin, who's been another teacher of mine. From a distance and somewhat up close.

I think what I saw in you. So we have like all these wonderful teachers, John or Tech Nhat Hanh, but then we have our own expression of it. And they can't do what you do because they don't know athletes. They don't know Big for High performers. But you know, the language that. That needs to be shared so that it's digestible to that population. And so that's why I was encouraging you. It's like, you don't need to be a monk to have wisdom to share. And I was seeing that you were bringing it into this area of performance, which is so powerful. And only you or somebody with your background has the right medicine to do that. Because you live and breathe that world. You understand that world. And so I was always, like, so excited to see that that expression was taking a different form in this place.

Thank you.

That's what we all need to do. If you're listening out there, you have your own expression like you have your own teachings, you have your own offerings. You don't need to have special degrees or a million followers on YouTube or whatever it is. We each have our own expression, and we can each be that truth. And I think that's the invitation we want to make. I want to make more and more. Is that. That whatever you see in that person, that is you, some part of you is that person.

So let's take that forward. Is that how, in your writing, presenting your ideas formally on paper, how was that to present your ideas with.

With other people's?

In reflection of some of the great teachers?

It's a little nerve wracking because like you with Thich Nhat Hanh and others like I, I've had such influence from these teachers who just like I. Words don't really do it justice. You know, it's like the Buddha said, the. The greatest gift you can give is the gift of Dharma, which just means truth or teachings. Right? Like, I could bestow on you all kinds of material gifts or whatever. And yet the gift of anything that awakens a person, is there a better gift that allows their heart to be more freed, allows their mind to be more free? So the gift of truth is the greatest gift. And so I'm trying to be of service to that gift and saying, okay, Soren, you've had all these unique experiences. So I taught meditation to juvenile hall kids in New York City, which I share stories about that I walked across all these different countries.

I share stories about that dumpster dives.

Dumpster dives through different countries. Yeah, I've seen a lot of different experiences. And what I loved about writing the book was, like, there would be one story about a kid in juvenile hall and the wisdom that I learned from this kid, Jamal. The next chapter would be this event with Thich Nhat Hanh or the Dalai Lama, where I learned something the next event might be like a tech leader that I learned something from. And what I'd really hope to get across, Mike, is like, it's in through every form. Like, your children are incredible teachers, your grandparents, your parents, your friends, your enemies, all these are kind of these teachings. And so I think the gift that I tried to present was like, what is my. If we're all offering our wisdom to the world, what is it that I want to share? So I have a story from you with my son. Where I was, he really wanted to be the best basketball player in the world, and I was trying to help him be the best basketball player in the world. And I was like, mike, what do I do with this? And I was like, what do you say to athletes before they go out on the. On the court of the field? And you might have changed your mind from this. And you said, soy. And I always say the same thing. I was like, what's that? You said you have everything you need inside you. And that really shifted my relationship with my son because I was like, it's not about winning. It's not about playing great. It's about discovering who you are and living from that. So the beautiful thing I got was I got to take in all these pieces and be able to share what I got from you. There's some things on Tikhna, there's some things from different teachers, but inevitably there were some chapters that were just me. It's just my story, my experience, and if I have one hope, Mike, is that it lands with people in a way that empowers them and they feel like, wow, what is the wisdom I have to share and how do I bring that out? But that that potential is inside each one of us and the opportunity we have this life is to bring it forth. Because it doesn't matter if I say it or you say it or TikTok, who cares? What matters is it starts to speak to them and they start to bring it forth in the way that they want to bring it forth.

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Yeah, we've been doing the conference for 20 years.

20 years you've been practicing. You've had a wisdom practice for 40 years.

Teenager, suffering. I don't. Yeah, I don't know if I would have started without suffering. Yes, suffering helped.

And now we're in this emergence of AI that is happening in lightning speed. What, what are the insights or what do you want to us to think about or what can you point us to, to grok around the intersection of wisdom and AI?

Wow. It's such a really important question. I. I'm just going to tell, I want to answer that. I want to tell briefly how it happened to me. You know, sometimes you're living your life and you're trying to mind your own business and then something enters and you're like shit. Like really, you just know you're called to tend to it. And so I was living my life, doing my conference. I had heard that I wanted to do something on AI. This is three years ago. I was like hearing that it was going to be a thing, but there was nothing really anyone was using. I'd heard through the great writer that Sam Altman was doing Something, but had no idea what he was doing. But I, through a friend pinged him, was like, would you come to this conference on wisdom and consciousness and AI and stuff? And he got back instantly. He's like, absolutely love to. And he was going to be with Jack Kornfield, his, one of his teachers and mentors. Great teacher, yeah, wonderful. And then like a month later they, they launched ChatGPT. He and OpenAI launched ChatGPT and it kind of takes the world by storm. And then I met him at the conference and got a chance to spend some time with him and Jack. And all of a sudden I started to see the power of what was coming, like how he talked about it and how other people talked about it. I was like, oh, I thought this was a sci fi thing that was going to happen, you know, in our kids generation is actually happening now and it's happening really fast. And it has enormous, enormous power for good. And it has enormous power for misinformation and for creating illnesses and all kinds of things. And so that moment was a moment when I realized this is what I need to attend to and try to do my part to harness in a positive way. And I think one of the beautiful things about AI, at least so far, is it has all the knowledge in the world. It evens the playing field of knowledge. Like we're all brilliant all of a sudden. But wisdom is something different. I think it calls on us to develop our wisdom because wisdom is from intimate depth of experience and that's really what we need to balance these two worlds out. Knowledge is wonderful. Love it. And wisdom is really wisdom and compassion is the glue that keeps the society together. And so the invitation of artificial intelligence, I believe, is to harness our own innate inner intelligence and to bring that forth in the world. And the two together can go really, really well together. A world where AI takes over and we lose contact with humanity, we lose contact with our own feelings, we lose contact with our own humanity. That I feel like is a more dangerous world.

And one of the insights in the book is that you're pretty certain that AI is going to advance, it's going to get better. And then you pose a question, are.

We, are we going to advance? Yeah.

And so what you're pointing to is, are we going to be able to counterbalance the speed and of accessing knowledge at our fingertips with wisdom. So point us to a couple practices to help folks that say, you know, I feel a little overstressed, under recovered, I feel a little overwhelmed by the pace and speed of Things I want to be grounded and have an invitation to the unfolding moment in a way that feels welcoming. And I love the challenge as opposed to overwhelmed and like kind of shutting it down and retracting from it. So give us a couple sure pointers that you would say.

I'm going to do that and I'm going to give a little context.

Yeah.

If I can. So part of what's happening now is, you know, it used to be that coders working nine to five, five days a week, we're developing the AI. And so it moved at a certain pace. Now increasingly it's AI that works 24, 7, 7 days a week doing the AI. And so the speed at which it's happening is just going to increase significantly over the next year or two because of the advancements in the artificial intelligence themselves, being able to guide the next artificial intelligence. And that's just kind of the inevitable path that happens. And so this is being used in a lot of fronts. One of the ways is being particularly the use is in social media. So there is like a supercomputer that they have of each one of us, of everything we've ever liked and everything we've ever commented on. And so it's able to present to us the perfect image, the perfect video, the perfect thing that does what they want it to do, which is to keep us on the platform. So it also waves that show up.

On my Instagram are on, like, the bottom turns that like. And the top turns that some of these guys are doing is like.

Yeah. And it's beautiful in one aspect. It optimizes for engagement. Right. All it says is keep Mike on the platform as long as you can. Give him whatever it is. They don't tell it what to put, but they just say, optimize for this. So as that AI gets smarter and smarter and knows you better and better, it can do certain things. But this is partly why, like going out and exercising, going and spending time with friends, going out in nature in some ways is very, very hard because the algorithm knows us so well, and depending on what the platform's intentions are, which is usually to keep us on.

It'S getting better on their screen.

Yeah, it's getting better.

Better because they can sell.

That's how they monetize everything, through ads and.

Or otherwise.

Yeah. So if we stop putting our attention on that, it goes kaput. Like, there's no real anything there. Like, we have to. We're the. Our attention is the gasoline that keeps the fuel going. And I'm not Saying that's a bad thing. I'm just trying to say that if you notice yourself increasingly mesmerized by what you're seeing, there's probably a reason. And the reason is that the AI is getting better, better at delivering what it wants to deliver. So then coming back to what we can do, you know, friendships, huge human contact, huge. And I just encourage people to experiment in a day, spend a day looking at the computer, don't actually connect with humans, and then spend the next day and try to find some human contact that day. Invite a friend for lunch, invite a friend for a walk, call someone and talk to them just out of the blue, hey, how are you doing? What's going on with your life? Make some genuine human contact and notice your day when that happens and notice your day when that doesn't happen. So I think that's a huge one. The second one is nature has a way of fueling us that I don't know many other things do. So whether that's just walking down your street and looking at a tree and looking at birds and looking at whatever you can see, that's just a part of the natural world. There's some way in which our nervous system calms and just, like, remembers, oh, it's okay. There's a way that softens and exercise is another way, I think that moves energy. And then I know meditation's really hard for people, it's hard for me sometimes too. But to, whatever, put on a music tape, put on whatever you can do that just allows you to tap into your inner world as best you can and get a sense of like, okay, there's this external climate, but there's also an internal climate. And can I just become curious about that internal climate? And you can do a guided meditation if you want, or you can just listen to music and just kind of like close your eyes and have that inquiry. But as you get to know that inner world, it becomes less scary and it becomes more curious. And you're just like, oh, my goodness, there's things for me to learn there. So to me, that's part of my medicines. And I did that this morning. I had a seven o' clock call. I was like, all right. Usually I was seven o' clock call, got up, meditated for 30 minutes. Because I knew that is so interesting for me. It's like, I'm going to make less mistakes and I'm going to have more quality experience if I tend to the most important thing, which is just my own mind and heart, versus, like, oh, I Got to get this done, this done. I'm actually going to get more done in a more powerful way if I tend to my being first. So even though it's hard sometimes, I got so much shit to do. The most creative people I know, they're like, nah, they do, they tend to their inner world in different ways, but.

They tend to that super practical, very clear. I'm going to go back to Jon Kabat Zinn real quick, who you introduced me to, who you've included me in, in a very special three day retreats that you and he and his son will have put on, which has been. They're game changers for me and my wife Lisa. But in passing, John had said, like, how's your meditation going? How's your practice going? Something like that. And I said, ah. And he goes, yeah, I understand. He goes, you know what I'm doing right now? I'm just doing meditation in bed before I get out of bed. He goes, I'm already really relaxed.

He goes, this is from the guy who would say every day, get your ass on the cushion. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For years. Decades. Right.

So has he shared the same. Like he's like, I don't know how.

Much he shares the world, but yeah, he does, he does. He does meditation lying down. After 50 years, he's 80 now. Yeah.

To me, this is great. I'm already kind of in a glow. I haven't checked my phone, I haven't tuned into like even the, the energy of my home.

Yeah.

And I'm, I'm already in a pretty relaxed, call it a theta brainwave state. Like I'm in a pretty chill zone. And I just go to gratitude as my main practice during that deeply relaxed state. And a person listen might be. Don't you fall back asleep now. Like, I'm actively going through, like, I'm grateful for my eyes, I'm grateful for my non toothache. Like it's just it. And that has been my game for probably the last two years.

Wow.

And I'm not sitting on a pillow for 20 minutes, but you found your own expression. There's a place for that.

Yeah.

And when you and I would do the three days or whatever days, meditations that we're doing together, it's so funny to me because I think I've said it to the group each time. Like, man, am I, am I the only one with hips that are this tight, that can't sit for more than like 45 minutes? Are you kidding me? And so there's all of that kind of noisy critique stuff, which is so great to get through. There's a place for it.

Yeah.

And there's also. I found a real place for just lying down.

Beautiful.

Being connected before I tune into the external world. Just beautiful. Just tune to the internal. So that's been a game changer. He gave me permission to do it. I don't know why I needed permission, but he gave me permission to do it in bed before I get going. I was like, thank. You know, that's great. I don't have to get up and get on a pillow.

That's a great lesson in learning to find your own. Your own jam with.

Yes.

And I think that's the beauty. The form. It's not the form, it's the formless. Are you tapping into the formless?

That's right.

Because the form is like. It doesn't quite matter what the form is. And we can have holy wars over the form. You should pray, you should meditate. You should do this.

What I will say, though, is when there is a form, let's call it my posture for a minute, and I have tight hips. And when I'm in that form and my hips start to get fatigued and tired and achy, or shaky, it does give me a different thing to bounce off of.

Yeah. I find that one of the things I love about these days is people are doing cold plunges or people are realizing, do the hard thing. Which I think is so amazing, because when you meditate or you do the cold plunge, you can kind of realize sometimes that the external can be really painful and the internal can stay calm, even though the external is, like, really intense.

And sometimes the internal can be really painful.

Sometimes the internal. But there is a. There's a potential. And I'm. And again, this. It's a balance because sometimes, like, I had one time, I was sitting in this monastery and way in Thailand when I was younger, and the, like, cement floors and these hard cushions, and I have this pain. I'm like, just sit with it. And we're like, you know, it's like the navy green beret kind of like. Like meditation places where you sit. Do not move. Like, like. And I'm like. I'm sitting with. Sit with it.

Because you get whacked.

You don't get whacked. It's just we were all, like, had this, like, bravado of, like, younger men.

Kind of like, right.

Who can sit the longest kind of thing. Pain came through my leg and I was injured for, like a month. Like, I Could. Yeah, I had nerve pain because I didn't move. And I'm like, wow, I really wished I had moved because my body, like, had me feel it for. And, like, it stuck with me for a while. So I'm definitely of the. Of the nature that, like, there's a benefit to doing all the hard things, and then there's also benefit to realizing, like, what is the right form for me?

And I love it. Last two questions.

Yeah.

If you could sit with a true master, master of craft, master of self, whatever, like a true master, and you've sat with many, who would that person be? Where would you sit with them? And if you only had one question, what is it? Here we go. Reductionist 101.

There's so many different ways to answer that. I can tell you what my curiosity now is. My curiosity now is, can I relate to every person I meet as that master wherever we meet them? And that could be a waiter, waitress at a restaurant. That could be sitting with you. That could be an Uber driver. I had this great experience. I was going to New York City for my son's graduation recently, and we almost hugged afterwards. I had this conversation. This Uber driver came from Syria and talked about his early childhood and kind of the hurt that he'd experienced and the love for his son, who is 10, and how much he cares for his son. And I was talking about my son, and he was such a profound teacher for me. And, like, I just. I went to my son, he's like, wow, how lucky you are to see your son. Isn't that amazing? You've come here, and when I saw my son, I was just in this glow because of this cab driver. And so he. You know, that's where I'm at now, is that I want that to be the question everybody has. And the question I like to ask people is, where are you most alive? What's alive for you right now? And I find that almost everybody has something that's just alive. Now you can say, is that universal consciousness coming through them? Is that just their own personality? I don't know, but that's amazing.

Where is it for you? Where are you most alive?

It's a really good question, so I'm going to ask myself in this moment. So in this moment when I'm most alive for now is. I really appreciated our friendship over the years, and I have a little bit regret that I didn't foster it more, but also a little bit of an excitement of, like, wow, I've gotten to know Mike and how. What a What a pleasure it is to have other humans that we have resonance with. And it's not like we have the exact same form or path, but the heart of it is there. And I just really appreciate you.

Thank you, brother.

Appreciate my opportunity to be with you.

That is awesome. I feel it and I know that from our friendship. Yeah. So I love that the world has you in it. Okay, brother, I appreciate you. Congrats on bringing something to us that is not only I want to say something pithy, but like it's a really good use of somebody's time to read your writings.

Thanks.

And so thank you for that. And thank you for everything that you've done for me. I mean that with like this should just be a period at the end of that. Thank you for everything you've done for me.

Appreciate it. Thank you, Michael.

If you enjoyed that conversation, then please.

Make sure you join us again next.

Time on finding mastery as Dr. Mike sits down with author, poet and meditation expert Young Pueblo, whose work on healing.

Self awareness and connection has touched millions. In this conversation, he and Dr. Gervais explore what it really means to love better, starting with the relationship you have with yourself. Join us on Wednesday, July 16th for this beautiful conversation.

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