The Future Sounds Within | Tyler Winick (Tahüm)

The future is how. Have you asked yourself today, what's next for me? You're not alone. We've all felt that way at some point. My name is Frederik Pferdt, and for years I've helped the brightest minds at Google and Stanford and people around the world shape their futures. Now I want to help you to do the same. Because the future isn't just something that happens. It's something you can create. Starting right now. From within. Instead of waiting to see what happens next, let's explore how you can make it happen. Each episode dives into one key area. Like sleep, nutrition, relationships, creativity, storytelling, mindfulness, beauty, movement, or purpose, and brings you real stories and practical tools you can use to shape a better future for yourself. So what's one step you can take today to create what's next? Let's dive in and explore how to build a better tomorrow, starting right now. Welcome back, friends, to The Future Is How, the podcast where we move beyond predicting the future and instead practice how we create it. Today, we're not just talking about the future, we're going to listen to it and we will feel it. My guest, Tyler Winnick, is an explorer of self, a facilitator of deep inner work, and the creative force behind TAHUM, where his music guides people into presence and discovery. He's also the co-creator of the Garden of True Self. You have to definitely share what that is about, Tyler, in a minute. A framework for reconnecting to our truth and protecting our energy. As an artist and musician, he has just recently hit his first million streams. Congratulations, Tyler. It's so great to have you on the show. Welcome, and I'm so glad you're here.

Thank you, Fredrik. Pleasure to be here, and I can't wait to talk about the future with you.

Amazing. Amazing. Yeah, we had many occasions, many moments where we talked about the future. So I'm deeply inspired about what you share and how you are as a human being. So thanks, my friend, for joining us here. And as you know, I'd love to start with a future lens. Tyler, so imagine it's 2035 and you're introducing yourself to someone new. How would you describe yourself and what you've created from that future?

You know what? Interesting is I got an email today from myself 10 years in the future. Apparently AI has figured out a way to send emails to the past in the future. So I printed it out. I got a letter from myself. And if you don't mind, I'd like to read it.

Incredible. Yeah.

To let you know what I'm up to in 10 years. Okay, here we go. Dear Tyler, I'm writing to you from 10 years in the future. And I want you to know you did it. You trusted the path. You laid the foundation. And because of that, I now get to live in the reality you only dreamed of back in 2025. Your music project Tahum has grown into something beyond what you could have imagined. We have over a million monthly listeners now, and the streaming royalties alone cover everything we need. Just last month, I headlined a sold-out show in Red Rocks. A night I'll never forget. And right now I'm preparing for an exhibit at the San Francisco MoMA where your music and art come together to tell the hero's journey of self-discovery. Garden of True Self has become a home for thousands around the world. People are no longer chasing outside themselves. They're turning inward, taking responsibility, healing their trauma, and reintegrating their souls. The community is alive, growing rapidly, and spreading across the globe. People are remembering truth for themselves, and it's a beautiful thing to witness. Your book, Being Is Enough, became a bestseller and a catalyst for everything. It opened doors to stages around the world, even the TED Conference. And more importantly, it has been a steady stream of people finding their way to the garden of true self, ready to walk the path within. Because of the work you put in during 2025, I now have the freedom to choose only the engagements that truly excite me. Mom and Dad are stress-free, living out the rest of their lives in peace without financial worry. Your relationship with your partner Casey is strong and rooted in love. You've built an amazing team that carries so much of the load, allowing you to focus on what really lights you up and supports them. And the best part? You figured out how to succeed financially without compromising your integrity. You spread the message of inner work by by not positioning yourself as an idol, but by reminding people that they are already enough. You led by example, spoke with skill and humility, and grew with grace. Thank you for trusting the work and laying the bricks in 2025 that allowed me to stand here today. You gave me this life of freedom, fulfillment, and truth, and I promise I don't take a second of it for granted. With gratitude, your future self, Tyler.

Amazing. Thanks for painting that picture of your future, Tyler. And when you were reading it, I saw you smiled a couple of times, and I think you really felt it, right?

Oh, for sure.

But I have to ask you honestly, is that like a 10-year vision, or is that like the next year?

That was a 5-year vision. I originally was thinking 5 years into the future, and that could happen as fast as a year or 2 years or even 3. But yeah, when I was writing that this morning, obviously, A, I didn't write that. That was a little ruse or joke or fun thing from me. But as I was writing it this morning and when I first read it back to myself, I almost cried. You know, I was like, oh man, this is amazing to just be imagining this truth, this purposeful future where my heart is open and fulfilled and I'm sharing that with others so that they may feel the same. And that feels very gratifying and exciting to feel that, what that feels like in the future and now, because a lot of it's already happening.

Incredible. Yeah, such a good reminder that setting these intentions, even writing a letter to your future self is something that can bring out these emotions, right, of excitement, of, hey, I can't wait to live in that future, optimism, hope, all of those. It's incredible because then we are back in control of our emotions and feelings, right? If we want to feel that way every morning, right, like just write a letter every morning to your future self and how you want to see yourself in a year, 5 years, or even 10 years. So thanks for sharing that. You say something interesting, and I think you say it a lot, so that's why I want to ask you. You say the only way out is in. So what does that really mean in practice?

Well, yeah, it's a, you know, it's a big, it seems like a big topic and it can seem very esoteric sometimes when you, when you learn this, but essentially, as you know, if I think of my path and where I'm at today, that's kind of how I learned that and understood that is because my whole life I was kind of thinking that things didn't seem quite right. Everything was positioned that I needed to do something in order to get something. I needed to act a certain way or learn from a certain person or read a certain book to understand something for myself. And so it was just a lot of focus on externalities. Like I need to, you know, learn from this person that's above me or knows more than me to understand something. And, you know, after I had my awakening moment in 2012 at Burning Man, which we could talk about if you'd like, Once I had that moment, I kind of realized that I don't need to look outward for anything, and I don't need to project out into the world that I am not enough or that I need to do this to deserve something else, that I am already enough. I have everything within me. A lot of times we seek religion or we seek all kinds of different things to try to make ourselves feel better, and we try to escape what we're actually feeling. And, you know, throughout our lives, we experience a lot of traumatic moments and all kinds of things where we create behaviors and parts of our mind fragments, parts of our soul fragments and gets kind of stuck in those places. And then, you know, we think that we need something outside to soothe it, but the only way to soothe it is to look inward, to have the courage to take responsibility for the things that are coming up for us in moments of struggle, challenge, relationships, all these different things, and being willing to look at it ourselves. And it can be dark. People call it shadow work, or they call it the dark night of the soul, all these different words for this inward journey, because a lot of times we try to resist and it turns into escapisms. And rather than allowing ourselves to feel something, we escape to try to fix it. Instead of just being present with it, because that can seem really scary. And so that's kind of what my whole journey has been, is learning how to understand what's going on internally so that I can change my inner landscape and then start to point my direction how I choose. I have an inner compass now. I'm like, I actually know what's true for me. And so now I can understand what my purpose is. I can understand what I love and which direction I want to design for my future because I've looked into my past and I've looked inside to understand what's, what's really going on.

So let's stay a little bit longer, 13 years back, 2012. You mentioned that this was your awakening moment. So Tyler, do we all have to go to the desert, to Black Rock City, Burning Man, to have our awakening moment? And can you share a little bit more about how that moment felt for you and what has shifted, because we are on the way into the desert in about a week. We, I mean, myself, my wife, and 2 of my 3 kids, we're going to go to Burning Man. And so, you know, I want to prepare myself for maybe an awakening moment too. So please share.

Yeah, I mean, to answer the first question, You know, no, you don't need to go to the desert to have this experience. I feel that a lot of us have these experiences time and time again in our lives, and maybe we're not aware of it. You know, there's moments where you feel this joy, or you feel this connection, this peace, this inner sense of truth, and you might not know that that's what you're experiencing. You might think like, oh, maybe I'm— I have low blood sugar. You know, you try to make sense of it, or rather than like having someone to say, actually, no, that's an experience of oneness. That's an experience of truth. That's an experience of your mind stopping, of you actually being present and being here. And so I think a lot of us have those experiences. And so yeah, to answer that question, no, you don't need to go to Burning Man. You don't need to do anything other than have sort of a direction. And so that's what I'm here to like help folks with is to give them a sense of direction, to point out when they've experienced something and to say, hey, that is the direction you need to follow, that inward, and you're the one that's going to do the work, but I'm going to just maybe help you find the next step. And so that's sort of what my whole thing is. And so going back to 2012 though, you know, at the beginning of this journey for me, it was at Burning Man. I was really intimidated by it the first time I went because I hadn't been to anything like that really before. You know, I came from like, you I grew up in Fresno, California. It's not a very artsy place. My family wasn't into arts and all these things. And I went to school for music and worked on the John Lennon educational tour bus. And so I've experienced a number of things, but it was like cool things, but nothing like this where it was like, it seemed spiritual and it seemed outside of me and like something that I was sort of scared of because it was unknown. And I was also, you know, I have asthma. So going to the desert and being in the dust, that was a scary thing as well. And so there was a lot of anticipation to go out there and like, I didn't know what I was supposed to dress like or how am I going to fit in? You know, and like, just, it was very interesting that all of those feelings were coming up. When you go to a place that all of that gets thrown out the window, you could literally wear whatever you want, do whatever you want. You're there to show up as your full self. And that was kind of the liberating moment. It was the first time I'd ever taken a psychedelic, so I took LSD there for the first time, and that was sort of what cracked me open. For me specifically, it was a very huge moment. My heart opened up for the first time since I was 6 years old. That was when I had like a traumatic moment. My parents divorced, and so, you know, I kind of blamed myself for whatever happened, you know, internally at 6 years old. And my heart was closed ever since then. And so it opened in the desert and it felt like so extreme and so intense, like, oh my God, my heart's been closed for 22 years, you know. And I felt like Cyclops, you know, in X-Men, like when he's first getting his powers or whatever and his eyes are just like shooting lasers. It felt like that, like uncontrollable love. And I felt my brain just like so big on top of my body. It felt like it was out of proportion, like so much weight from how much I had been thinking and trying to protect myself with thought and all of this stuff. So it was just this really amazing sense of oneness. And, you know, after that experience, once the psychedelics wore off and I went back home, you know, I had to kind of pick up the pieces. There was a major recovery after that, you know, because this, this whole expansive moment and then like a really contractive one. And that was the first time I realized like, wow, I think I need to look at what's going on here. Like, why was that so intense? Why was I so scared to go there? Why were all these things coming up for me? And that was the first time I ever looked, you know, I started to write everything that ever like, quote, happened to me through my life after that experience. You know, I broke up with my partner at the time. And that's what kind of broke me, you know, like her and I breaking up was when I started to look, really look like, oh, these. And I started to notice patterns and themes. And then I'm like, I need to seek some help actually. And so that was the first step in the path was like seeing, like understanding truth for a moment, you know, even though it was just a night of psychedelics at Burning Man, it showed me that it was like a fast track to this place of connectedness to all that is., and that was scary, you know, and I'm like, I don't, uh, I don't know what to do with this. And so that was sort of the beginning of the journey for me.

Thanks for sharing that. I've been to Burning Man also many times, and the first one I think is 10 years back, and we took our oldest son then. He was I think 4 and a half. And what is inspiring is that whenever I go, I feel like every emotion, every feeling you as a human being can feel has a place where you can take it. So if you want to feel joy or kind of like creativity, you look at the art. If you fear FOMO, fear of missing out, you go to a camp where they talk about fear of missing out. When you have that notion of self and ego and all of those things, there's a camp called the ego camp where you have lots of mirrors you can look at and they help you actually to bury your ego as well. And places where you can take your anger in the Thunderdome, places where you can grief and let go in these huge chapels, and also where you can take your sexual desires. There's places for that. And I think it's very interesting that you can really experience your emotions and feelings differently. And music is such a big part of Burning Man too. And music has been called a universal language. So how do you see music as a tool for maybe transformation?

I mean, that in itself is like, if you connected all of those things where you were saying you can go to all of these different places in Burning Man to experience a different feeling, music is that as well. Like, you can listen to a piece of music to experience a different feeling. And that's what connects us all, is the fact that we all feel the same core feelings. Maybe they're at different intensities at different times, but that is what connects us all. And what we've sort of learned how to do is resist feelings. We've gotten really good at resisting feelings and like literally going to war over resisting feeling something, you know? And so music to me, that's what's so transformative about it is because you can get really vulnerable beyond words sometimes. You know, a lot of my music doesn't have words. Some of it does, you know, but the fact is, is that these sounds, these frequencies, these combinations of sounds and frequencies, they come into our inner being and they can vibrate our cells. They literally penetrate us to the deepest level to vibrate us at whatever frequency was put into this music. And so the intention that the artist puts into the music is felt by the listener. And so that in itself is extremely transformative. So for example, I was making this music, my debut album, Being Is Enough, like you mentioned, I had just hit a million plays on one of the tracks there. I released that a few years back and I didn't really know how it was going to do, where it was going to go or anything, but I put a ton of intention into these tracks and I didn't, you know, I sort of talked about it on the internet, but a lot of people hadn't seen what those songs were about. And I was getting messages from people that were verbatim, like exactly what the intention was for these songs. And there's words. And so, that in itself, it's this amazing tool for reflection that connects us all. Every culture has music. I was like, the first thing we did as humans was learn how to make music and drum and use our limbs and our bodies to express ourselves creatively. And so, it's that creative expression as a reminder of what we're here to do. We're here to create, all of us. We're all creators. And so, Whatever that is for you, it's music helps with that and it helps you to remember that that's what you're here for.

Incredible. Yeah, I think you're describing music or sound as kind of a medicine that helps us. So when you're composing, are you channeling something larger or crafting maybe deliberately from your own experience?

I think it's a combination of both, honestly. It's very interesting. I sort of, you know, I like that you call it channeling because, you know, that is what it is essentially. Because when I get into the creative space, you know, people call it flow state, channel states. There's all these different words for this kind of unexplainable thing. You know, words don't really do it justice because you get into this place beyond mind, beyond time, beyond space, beyond anything, because you're enjoying something so much that you're just fully in it. And we've all experienced this at some place in our life. And so when I'm creating music, I'm in that space that, and it's just like, I'll kind of black out sometimes. Like it will be like 5, 6 hours just in a session. I'll forget to drink water. I'll forget to eat. It's this crazy. And then I kind of just come out of it and there's a song there. And oftentimes I don't know what it's about until later. I'll sort of have it and I'll be like, oh, this is cool. And I'll sit with it for a little while and then it'll make itself apparent. And oftentimes it'll be connected to a lesson that I embodied or am learning, either one, something that I learned or something that I want to learn, you know? So it's sort of an interesting process of channel and sort of decipher, like understand, you know, because That's what it seems like for me. And that's like a really fun thing. At first I didn't know that's what it was, but now that I do, it's like made it way more fun to like create. And it's like super exploratory, like, oh, what's this going to be? I don't know. Let's see what happens and what comes out of it. And people resonate with that, I feel, because you're not creating from this space of I need to make this so that people in this genre listen to it and push play this amount of time so that I can— there's no calculations happening. It's just very pure. From this place of love. What I feel differentiates me as an artist is, number one, I'm substance-free nowadays. I've been sober from everything for a decade. I put that into the music. The second thing is I do consistent daily practices and have been for 10 years as well. And so that's in the music. And then I'm not interested in being praised for the music. I don't care if people, I don't want, "Oh, to whom? I love you. I love your music." That's not why I do it. I do it is because I love making music and I want people to hear it. It's like that simple. I want to share it as a gift. And when you share things from that way, like, it's pretty incredible what it feels like to have that reciprocated. It's just this like, yeah, you love it too? Cool, man. Let's go on this journey together versus like, come worship me at a show. You know what I mean? I'm not interested in that.

I have to say, I've seen people who worship you and share with you that they love what you're doing, right? And love you as a human being. So I think that's a a good thing to have. When you prepare yourself to go on stage and play in front of people, right, you shared with me that there's a little bit of anxiety coming up, right? It's that fear of the future that really comes up before those, you know, sometimes big moments are happening. Is there any practice, as you said, like you're doing daily practices, or any ritual that you do that could help people to reduce that fear of the future?

Yeah, totally. Before I perform or before I have something that's coming up in the future that I'm excited about, that's typically when some sort of energy comes up. You know, fears, lots of emotions can come up whenever there's like an anticipation for what's to come. And so I was taught by my mentor a tool called Fears, Hopes, Behaviors that I like to use before anything like this, or whenever I have big feelings coming up, specifically fears. The way that it works is you simply just write out your fears. So when I go on stage, it might be, I am afraid this show won't be good, or I'm afraid I'll have a technical issue, or I'm afraid I'll mess up while I'm playing drums, or whatever it is. And so what's good about that is you're able to sort of dump out these fears onto paper and witness them and see them. And so once they're out, then I take each one of them and I flip it into a hope. So instead of, I'm afraid that I will mess up during my performance, instead I write, I hope that I have a great smooth performance. And so once you've like sort of flipped your fears into hopes, then you flip those into a behavior. So What behavior would I need to take to make sure I don't mess up during my performance? Because that's what I hope for. I hope that I have a smooth performance. The behavior I would take would be to practice, to prepare, to show up fully, to make sure I've got a good night's sleep or have eaten well. And sometimes those things aren't possible, but still with this tool, you're able to sort of control a little bit more your emotions and witness these things coming up because a lot of times, We resist emotions and then they manifest themselves because we're afraid of them. So like a lot of times we're afraid of admitting that we're afraid of something. Like I'm afraid to say that I'm afraid to mess up because I think that by saying it, then I will mess up. But it's actually the opposite. Like when you don't say anything and you resist it, that like lives in your body, it's stored there. And then when I'm performing, it might just come in. What about if I mess up? And then I mess up inevitably. And so it's an interesting way of just sort of doing that and going through that before and then training our minds, training our psyche to start thinking in hopes rather than fears. Because, you know, we are a primal species. You know, fear is a tool that was used to help us from not dying, basically. And some of those are our biggest fears. And so I love to use this method consistently for that.

Thanks for sharing that. Yes, such a helpful practice that I think everybody can use and try out, as we are all excited from time to time about the future, right? And when these emotions come up, I think that's a wonderful tool that you share here. Thank you for that. I'm curious about your artist's name, Tahoma. What does the name really mean to you? I think you put a lot of, you know, energy and thought into choosing that name. Yeah. But how did you arrive at this being your artist identity, right? And if Tahoma itself was a person, what would their personality be?

Interesting. Yeah, so the name To Whom, it was kind of like a multi-layered gift, I guess. And so when I was first beginning to create this project 5 or 6 years ago, I was doing a lot of the deep inner work, and I was going to therapy consistently, working with my mentor every week, and I was speaking with him. I'm like, I'm looking to sort of name this project, and I'm not, you know, I'm having trouble figuring out something that like sticks, something that's meaningful, and that's not taken, because nowadays it's pretty hard to name something that's not already taken. And so he explained to me that in old, back in ancient times or tribal societies, oftentimes the name for something would be the biggest challenge in life. And so for me, my biggest challenge has been knowing that I am enough. And so I've been producing music since I was 15 years old. I'm 41 now, so a very long time. But the majority of that time it was producing for other people. I was making art for them and hiding behind them. I was in lots of other projects with different artists and other people. And because I didn't think I was good enough to do my own thing, I sort of would get behind somebody that had a clear vision, produce for them, but then try to skew their vision to what I wanted it to be because I was afraid of doing my own thing. And it was until I read the book The Artist's Way. By Julia Cameron. I don't know if you've heard of that book, but in that book they speak to the concept of a shadow artist. And so that's when I realized like, oh my God, I'm totally a shadow artist. I've been hiding behind other people because I don't think I'm good enough to share my music. And that was my core trauma anyways. And so Tahum is essentially— it means the opposite. It means thank you, I am enough. So that is built into the fabric of the project. Every time I make a song and I'm going to release a song, If that energy of, I don't feel like I'm good enough comes up, I remember that I am enough inherently. And no matter what, I'm putting this music out. That's what proves that I am enough, is that I'm actually taking the energy, the intent, the power, the courage to continue to share, even if those feelings do come up, to become stronger than them, to become bigger than these fragmented pieces that are trying to hold me back. And so it's actually a combination of two words. So while I was in yoga teacher training, I was studying Sanskrit language, and ta means thank you. And I was also doing a lot of qigong at that time, and then there's like a so hum thing. So I was saying hum a lot, which means like wholeness, enough, oneness. And so I wanted to bake that into the fabric and the DNA of the project with like gratitude for being here and knowing that I am enough so that others may feel the same.

So Garden of True Self. I have to say, I came across that just recently and, uh, was totally intrigued. So tell us about Garden of True Self and why do you believe that this energetic awareness, so noticing how we absorb and seal energy, is such an essential skill for the future?

Yeah, so the garden of true self is essentially a metaphor. Like, if you think of your inner being as a garden, throughout our lives, a lot of people come into our garden without our consent. They come into our garden and they plant beliefs inside of our garden. They might say, "You're too much, you're hyper, you're whatever, you know, you're too tall, you're too short, you're too thin, you're too fat, you're whatever." And those things start to grow unconsciously, and we may think that they're real, you know, and we start to create our personality around those beliefs and those ideas that were planted throughout our life. And so the Garden of True Self, it's a practical system which gives you tools to basically put a fence around your garden to say, hey, it's not okay that you come into my garden and plant these beliefs, first thing. So now I'm protected internally. My inner world is protected. Now I can start looking and weeding the garden pulling out these old beliefs, understanding the root of them, where they started, and reintegrating those traumas to make sense of them and creating a fertile soil to then start planting actual beliefs that are true to me, things that I'm excited about growing and sharing. And then that becomes like a large tree, you know, and then you're providing shade for the community, you're providing fruits. And now you can open your garden and close your garden when you want. Say, hey, come on in. Let's work on something together. And so it's a metaphor for that. And it's basically the practices that I've been doing for the past 10 years every day that my mentor Val Resnick taught me. And so it's he and I working together because he's been seeking, you know, he was a seeker for 30 years. He traveled the entire world, like trying all these different practices and all these different tools and methods. And because he had an awakening experience when he was younger, he had a strong sense of direction as to where he was headed. And so, he would know that this practice actually helps me to come more into alignment with truth versus being reliant on the practice itself. And so, he's sort of curated this group of practices and we're excited to start sharing those with people. And so, that's what Garden of True Self is. It's this ecosystem of practices and tools and workflows and frameworks to help people to you know, erect their boundaries, remove their basically parts, their fragmented parts, and reintegrate pieces of their soul that have been lost along the journey of life and remember they are enough.

So which one of those practices you're engaging with on a daily basis, which of those practices would you think is most important in your life?

Yeah, for me, the, the one that was most important was the energy sealing practice because I'm a very empathetic person, and that could just be my nature. It also could be the fact that I grew up in very volatile circumstances, you know, very intense personalities that would, you know, snap, or like, you know, so I always had to be kind of aware, hyper-aware of my environment around. And so it became really easy to sort of mold myself to keep the peace, if you will. People-pleasing tendencies, things like this. And so I could like absorb other people's energies. And a lot of people call that an empath, or they call— there's a lot of words for these things, you know. And so energy sealing is a practice that is a combination of visualization, where you're painting a color, visualizing a color entering your body and basically filling your entire being with this color, like gold, blue, green, silver. They all have different use cases for why you would use them. And you fill your body, your aura, you cleanse your aura essentially with this color. And then you seal your energy, your energetic container, so that other people's energies aren't leaking in and your energies aren't leaking out. Because a lot of times we overgive and a lot of times we take on other people's burdens to try to, because that's what we think makes them feel better. And you're learning then energetic integrity. And now with all the new scientific studies and all these things that are catching up to energetic practice and the importance of energy, you know, you could see it on different measurement scales and different systems for visualizing this energy. It's incredibly important to be aware of how your energy is when you go into something.. And so for me, it's like I, every single day I cleanse and seal my energetic container because otherwise it feels like I'm walking around just vulnerable to whatever energies are out there. And so to me, that was the most helpful practice out of all of them. And once you learn how to do it, it only takes about 10 minutes. You know, these, all these practices, they can seem a little daunting when you first learn about them. And it's like, oh, I got to do all this stuff. But once you see the value of them, And the fact that they don't take very long and they're super practical, it's life-changing, honestly.

Wonderful. I hope we have a chance in a minute to experience some of these practices here on the show. Yeah. Before we do that, we talk a lot about the future of tech and the future of businesses and so forth, right? But what about the future of inner work? How do you see practices like breath like presence, sound shaping, and how we move forward as leaders and communities show up in the future, and what will they do to us as human beings?

I mean, that question is one that I think about a lot. I mean, it's essentially the whole reason why I'd hope to share this stuff with others because of the impact it's had on me. If I think about my life before this and my life now, it's drastically different. Like, my relationship with my parents has completely changed. My relationship in my inner self has changed. Everything in my life has changed. My relationship to finance, my relationship to just how I show up every day for the people I love, and all my relationships have gotten better. And when you look at society and the things that we've tried to do and the places we've tried to look over and over and over again, it's typically external, and it yields similar results. We see patterns of the rises and falls of societies and all of these kinds of things. And to me, the one thing that could bypass this same pattern of going to war and blaming others for stuff that we also have a part in, the only way that actually shifts is by looking inward and by doing practices that help you remain present, that show you the path of truth, because anybody that's experienced this oneness for themselves, they're not going to engage in the same ways. You know, you can't. It's completely different. Life is much different. You're able to understand that most people that are in power or in places of leadership oftentimes are looking for something. They're trying to prove to their father that they're good enough or whatever it is. You know, there's a host of different things. And once you understand that, you kind of can empathize with people in a different way. You can think like, oh man, you must have been through a lot. That's tough. And I see where you're at. And so having that kind of empathy for others because you've done it for yourself and you've given that to yourself and you don't need it from someone else, that's a game changer. I think it would completely change how everything's done, business, religion, community building, why we do everything would be drastically shifted because We're taking responsibility for our own part, and we're doing the inner work so that we can show up and be better for everyone.

Well said, Tyler. Thanks so much. So, as I mentioned, let's do a Mindstate moment. Next, let's take a moment to pause and reconnect. This is your Mindstate moment, a chance to reset and come back to yourself. Wherever you are right now. These moments of presence are powerful. They remind us that the future starts from within by shifting how we show up in this very moment. So on this podcast, we always pause for what I call a mind state moment. That's really a chance to step out of the noise and into the presence. And today Tyler is going to lead us through one of his go-to practices. So Tyler, over to you.

All right. For this one, I'll do a little breathwork practice. And so I was recently, within the past year or two, took a training from Somatic Breathwork from my friend Steven Jaggers over there who runs Somatic Breathwork. Highly recommend checking out what they do. But essentially, this way of breathing teaches you how to regulate your nervous system. So oftentimes we operate from a state of fight or flight, freeze, fawn. You know, when we're in a state of unregulated or deregulated nervous system, it's a lot harder to show up fully for yourself, for your others, and feel good. You know, oftentimes we get sick when you're afraid of something. It might be stuck in your body. And so this practice helps you to release it from your body. And, you know, a lot of us have heard of breathwork, and what makes this one different is you're actively engaging with your sympathetic nervous system first. You're taking yourself into fight or flight mode by breathing in and out through your mouth and deep into your belly in a 360-degree diaphragmatic breathing pattern. So you're imagining your whole belly is opening in 360 degrees as you breathe in and out through your mouth. And you're doing that in 3 rounds and then switching to the parasympathetic nervous system. So then you're gonna start breathing in and out through your nose to calm down and regulate your fight or flight to come back into a rest and digest space. So what's good about this is you're actively choosing to put yourself into fight or flight and then regulating. So you're becoming aware of like, oh, I'm deregulated. Let me actively push myself back into a regulated space. So I think a lot of us, we feel like we don't have control over that. And so what's great about this practice is it gives you control over your nervous system. And so I'll play some music and this one is just one of 3 different practices you can do. This is just the short one. This is the daily reset is what it's called. And then there's another one that's about 30 minutes. And then you can do a really long practice that's about you know, 90 minutes or so. But this one is just something that's really easy entry level for beginners. And so it'll just start with, we'll breathe in and out through our mouths to the music. I'll put on some music and we'll breathe deep into our bellies. And then after about a minute or so, we'll breathe all the way in and we'll hold for about 30 seconds to a minute and we'll hold our breath. And then we'll breathe it all the way out and then we'll breathe in and out through our nose. And so I'll guide that if we're ready. Okay, we hear a little music. All right, everybody, I'd encourage you, if you're in a place where this is safe, to close your eyes and just come into your body. Just feel the environment that you're in. Do you feel coolness on your skin? The weight of your body on your seat? Whatever's happening, just simply notice and allow it to be. If you notice a thought or a feeling, see if you can just pay attention to it. Maybe the sounds around you. The sound of my voice. Simply witness. And in a moment, we're going to start breathing deep in and out through our mouths, and I want you to feel into something in your body that would feel good to let go of, something that is ready to be released. That could be tension in a muscle, something you've been storing inside your mind. To give yourself permission to breathe in and out of that space. Okay, so let's begin by taking breaths in and out through our mouths. You can breathe with the beat or at your own pace, whatever feels right to you. Imagining your belly filling full deep into your back. Ah, if you need to make sound, that's totally okay. Release. Ah, sometimes tapping the body helps, moving the body helps. Feeling into that space. What would feel good to release, to let go of? Stick with it. Breathe. And you might feel little tingling sensations in your body, might feel some energy building. And that's good. That's part of this process. Just stick with the breathing. And then I'm going to ask you in a few moments here to breathe all the way out as far as you can. Deep in and breathe it all the way out. One more time, all the way in. Breathe it all the way out. Let it go. And then on this last breath, I'm going to ask you to hold it. All the way at the top. Breathe all the way in and hold. And hold that breath. And while you're holding, notice the sensations in your body, the tingling of your skin, the heat that you've built up, anything that may have come up Just sit with it and feel into maybe one word that's coming up for you in this moment. It can be a word that— something you feel you want to release, or something you feel you want to call in. Just holding that word Whenever you're ready, feel free to let go and breathe out a deep breath. And if you're releasing something, let it go. And if you're calling something in, begin to breathe it in and out through your nose, or in through your nose and and out through your mouth. Slow, deep breaths, calling in that energy you want to feel for the rest of your day. Allowing that rest and digest, that state of calm to wash over you. Still breathing deep into your belly and out. Letting it all go. Remembering that this is your natural state of being and that you have the power to remember. And we'll keep breathing in and out. Calm. Steady. And in a moment, we're going to do another hold, but this time we're going to exhale all of our air out and hold at the bottom of our exhale. So when you're ready, take a deep breath in. Let it all go. One more time, deep breath all the way into the belly, in through the nose, and let it out. And then on this last breath, we will hold at the exhale. Deep in through the nose, let it all the way out. And once all that air is out, hold your breath. And while you're holding Feeling into this natural state of being, remembering that you are not your thoughts, you are not your emotions. Those are simply tools for navigating this existence, this human experience. And whenever you're ready, I want you to breathe deep into your lungs, deeper than you've ever breathed in, and Ah, let it out. And as we begin to return to your normal space of breathing, pay attention to how you may feel different than you did before. And if you don't, that's okay too. Just simply allowing what's here. Allowing the breath to rise and fall in its natural rhythm, coming back to this moment. Can feel free to open your eyes, wiggle your fingers, wiggle your toes. And thank you all for taking this moment of time out of your day to connect with yourself.

Thank you so much, Tyler. Thank you.

That was beautiful.

Did anything come up for you there, Frederik? Many things, yes. The body sensations, some thoughts, a different energy. Wonderful. So I want to find a bridge into some— it's not rapid fire, but it's a couple of shorter questions, I think. I want to help you think about it. It's 4 questions that I think you might enjoy. So the first one is, if you had to describe yourself as one element— earth, air, fire, or water— which would it be and why?

Hmm, I mean, my mind immediately goes to all of my charts, you know, astrology and all that. There's a lot of fire in my chart. I'm a very fiery person, have a lot of energy, so I'd probably say fire. I have a lot of creative energy, you know, that is a very fiery— it requires a lot of constant intake. I need to eat a lot to stay productive and creative. And I also like to think that I might provide some space for people to, to warm up and to feel comforted by the fire. While fire can be a destructive force, it's also something that's necessary to life. I would envision myself as fire.

You shared a couple of practices with us, and you're a person that I think has many daily practices. What's one practice you never skip, no matter where you are?

One that I never skip is the energy sealing. I don't skip that one. And the other one is Magical Passes, which is a series of movements that helps to harness the power of intent. And so when you think of intent, it's, you know, the life force that makes things grow. If you think about the sun coming up, or plants growing, or you growing, We're not really in control of that personally, but there is a force that is moving in the universe, and that is what the Toltecs and the ancient Mayans referred to as intent. And so this practice, which was developed by Carlos Castaneda, it's just a series of movements that looks kind of like martial arts practice, and like similar to like a qigong or something like that. And it takes about 10 minutes, and I do not skip that one because having the power of intent gives me the direction It's kind of like my engine. It's the wind in my sails, if you would. And so that one has become vital in my daily life.

If you could collaborate musically with anyone alive or historically, a historical figure, who would it be and why?

You mentioned that you've been in the John Lennon tour bus, so I mean that my brain went right there too, just because like while we create completely different types of music, John Lennon and I have had a very similar path in some ways. I think our purposes in life are similar, you know, wanting to share truth with people through art. His whole thing towards the end of his life was Imagine Peace and the work he was doing with Yoko Ono. It's been a great influence on my life and even my professional work. I have a business with my partner, Seamus U. Hart, who you know from the Stanford D. School. He and I started Only People, which is a company that we basically position ourselves as a network of experts that help people change themselves to change the world. And so that could look like content production, it could look like learning experiences, it's a variety of different different things, but the core message is the same as that of John Lennon. So if I could collaborate with John Lennon, that would be absolutely legendary. I feel like it would be super cool, and we would probably make something really unique.

Wonderful. So what's the one sound or instrument that instantly brings you home?

Drums. That's the easiest. That's easy. Like, ever since I was a kid, man, I remember I was on the playground when I was like 6 or— no, no, I don't know, I was really young. It was in grade school and I was just daydreaming on the playground of me playing drums in front of like a large audience. And I had wanted to play drums my entire life, like ever since I could remember. So while I wasn't a drummer as a child, I started playing when I was 21 years old and rapidly progressed, got really, you know, proficient fast because It's something that I love so much. It's like, it is my happy place. When I sit down on the kit, it's like that's where I feel home for sure. Get into that flow state immediately.

So Tyler, thank you for sharing your truth, your sound, and your vision. If you could leave our listeners with one invitation, a seed to plant— we talked about gardens today a lot— a seed to plant in their own gardens or own lives today that helps them to create a better future for themselves, inspired by your journey, what would it be?

The seed, I would say, would be to witness the moments that you might resist a feeling. That could be in relationship. A lot of times when we get into arguments, We just want to fix it rather than just feel what's happening. And the better we can all get at just feeling what's here and not needing to do anything about it, that is my invitation to anyone listening, is to just see how much you can feel and get better at feeling.

Wonderful. So as my friend Tyler reminds us, the future isn't something we wait for. It starts inside with a truth within us. To learn more, check out Garden of True Self and Tahuum, the artist and his music. And if you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to The Future Is How and join my next letter for weekly future-ready practices. And take the Future Ready test to see where you are today. Until next time, remember, the future isn't found. The future is created by you. Thank you so much, Tyler, and see you in the future.

Thank you, Fredrik.

Much love. That's a wrap for today's episode of The Future Is How. Remember, the future isn't something we wait for. It's something we create with every choice, every breath, and every step we take. If this episode sparked something in you, share it with someone who's ready to shape what's next. And don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your next chapter begins now. So what will you create today? I'll see you in your future.