SSS 180: Why Men Need Men: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Transformation (With Adam Klasner)

All right, what's going on, guys? I'm here with the man, Adam Klassner. It's an absolute pleasure to be sitting down in his studio, getting to record a podcast, and it's our first opportunity diving deep together. So we're about to have a really powerful conversation. Adam has been doing work in the space for, what, many, many years? Like, decades now? Yeah, not decades, but he's a veteran in this work, and he's someone who's had a huge influence on some of my really close friends, specifically one of my best friends. And I'm really excited to explore what Adam's up to in this space and share some of his wisdom with, you know, blending the old traditions, the new traditions, the new age, and stuff that's been around for centuries. And the impact he's been having on men, specifically in the community, is huge. So we're about to dive deep together. Adam, it's great to have you here with me, mate. How are you feeling today?

Right now? I feel a little nervous.

Yeah.

Because this is our first encounter. Never actually met you. I've seen you online. I know you've. I know we had one hug together outside the house, but, yeah, feeling ready to share whatever comes to me, whatever's meant to be shared and ready for the experience.

Yeah. And for those that don't know, you know, the significance of our indirect relationship is the first ever men's retreat I hosted was at your space, your family cottage. And then we just recently hosted another one two weeks ago back at your family cottage. And it was our mutual friend Mikey Spivak, who connected us. And that retreat space holds so much magic and now has a really special place in my heart because it was my first time facilitating there three years ago at a retreat. And now that we've done a couple there, there's just this really powerful energy that I feel every time that I go back there. And I remember saying to Mikey, I was like, man, there's something really pure and special about this place. Not just the environment itself, but just everything around it. And then I think I was speaking with Gad, and he was explaining to me, Mikey's older brother, explaining to me about some of the rituals and processes you guys go through when you host the retreats there and the level of depth you go with maintaining the purity of the experience through the tradition that you guys uphold. I'd love to maybe hear a little bit more about that from you from, you know, from your perspective, why that's so significant. When you host retreats, you guys Use very specific cutlery and, and cooking wear and things like that. I, I would, I, I find that so amazing and fascinating because of what it upholds. And yeah, I'd love to hear more about that from you and why you guys do that.

Okay, so I think what you're referring to is like the Jewish customs and traditions, correct?

Yes.

And you know, just having different cutleries is about, and I think it's what comes down to what we're facing right now in the world is there are certain principles that I believe and I've actually encountered in my own life to be absolute truth. And what absolute truth means is, is that no matter what circumstance is happening around me, no matter how the world is changing, there are certain principles that stay the same. You can call them core values, you can call them absolute truths, you can call them ancient wisdom. And I think we're seeing a lot of that today. Like for example, you have meditation. Like, it's not like meditation is this new thing, but all of a sudden everybody's into it. Or you have breathwork, which has been around for thousands of years and people are coming into it today. So ancient wisdom is returning. And for us as Jewish men, we hold to the scriptures that really never changed. It's called the Bible, it's called the Torah. And it's an instruction book. It's an instruction book for life. And you could see in there that there's infinite layers of wisdom, but the principles go back to the core. The same always about this is what we're doing, this is the direction, the mission doesn't change no matter what. And I think in a, in a world especially that's so today focused on grabbing your attention, it's so easy to lose sight of what's important. So we have to have something in life that grounds us back to who we really are. So for, for Jewish Orthodox men, those are the, the customs and traditions that we've, you know, these are age old tradition, ancient wisdom that have we've held on to since we believe the beginning of time.

And it's interesting to understand the energetics of what that unlocks. And I'm curious to get your perspective on this too, because you guys are, you know, not just facilitating a retreat, you're facilitating transformation, but in and around the transformation. You guys are following through on prayers, certain rituals, reading the, the toran. What does that do energetically to a man who attends one of these events? And you're upholding this certain standard in the container.

Yeah, good question. So it brings, it brings structure it definitely brings structure to the experience because I think, you know, there's. They say vision without action is hallucination. So a lot of times people can have a nice trip or a nice experience that feels like I'm on a high. And the question is always, how do you integrate that? How do you bring it back home? How do you make it real? How do you make it a part of your daily committed life? And a lot of our religious practice is about what we're committed to as Jews, as men, as showing up to purpose in the world. So just because I'm doing work on myself doesn't mean I don't need to do those things that I'm instructed to do, because that's the structures of it. And so a lot of the religious practice is about integration. And. Okay, so I'll just side tangent for a second here is there's two elements to it. There's spirituality and there's religion. And I've talked about this before on a pod, but the, the idea is spirituality is me feeling that connection. I'm feeling the connection to something above me. Spirituality is above time and space. So it means it's everywhere. So all I have to do is tune into it. It's like a radio station and I just got to turn on that frequency. The radio is always playing. When I turn onto that frequency, I tune in to that channel. And so spirituality is available everywhere. I can feel good everywhere. And then religion is my commitment to bringing a spiritual practice down into the physical world. Does that make sense?

Makes a lot of sense.

And then, and then you say even that spirituality is related to a more feminine energy because women are more spiritual beings and masculinity is more the religious practices, like how do I actually show up? Because men need to go and show up. They need to face the world, they need to go and work, they need to bring back money, they need to go in to war if necessary, and so on and so forth.

Why do you think so much of the masculine element of spirituality in the form of these religious structures are, have been lost a little bit, at least in the Christian tradition where I grew up. You know, I grew up Catholic and never really adhered to a lot of the structure and the disciplines of being a Catholic. But now as I've gotten older, I see so much value in having guiding principles that religion provides. Why do you think so many men lose sight of that? And then why is it important now, like you're saying, to ground some of this stuff into practicality as a discipline or as A commitment?

Yes, I think, I think it's been lost because I think the way it's been given over wasn't necessarily the nicest. And for example, if you grew up in a, in a family that your parents didn't really believe in the religion, but they were just trying to give it over to you, and they themselves didn't embody the principles, then fat chance that you're going to take it on and value it in your life. So kids don't do what you tell them to do. They do what you show them to do. It's like being that role model is very much important because they're, they're absorbing information from the outside world and taking it in and then that's how they show up. At a certain point as you get older, you realize that if I want to survive in a world that's a dog eat dog world, there's 8 billion people and there's circumstances happening all day, every day that you're going to get triggered and you're going to have pain. And living in this world is, is a very dark, painful place to live without something of like a higher purpose or a higher power coming into play and seeing that there's mission here. Because otherwise. Yeah. What's the point of doing this whole thing? It doesn't feel good. So at some point I have to develop a relationship to something higher than myself. As you get older, life gets realer. You realize that if, if you want to be able to really work on anxiety, you have to know that there's something higher than myself that's dealing with this. You call it your higher self, you call it a soul, you could call it a connection to creator and I have to have a connection to that. Now the reason that you, a person doesn't take what they have from their childhood and continue it all the way through is because they're developing their own relationship to it. I think it's important when it comes to religion and my own spiritual practices, develop an individual relationship with it. Otherwise, what relationship do you have? It's just somebody else's that you never chose for yourself.

Yeah. And that individual relationship gets to become the number one priority above all other relationships. I. What I've noticed for a lot of men who don't have that core relationship with God or a higher power and the structure in their life that nurture and protect that relationship, then they become influenced or attached to earthly relationships that may not serve their highest good or the good of their family. Specifically men who make their romantic relationship that number One priority. Or maybe they make their relationship with their body the number one priority. All of a sudden they don't have this connection with something that beyond the physical and the material and almost like they're not being led by the right source. And I, to me, when I, when I assess my values, like, I realized recently I used to have, like, health as my. As my number one value and my relationship with my body. But then I realized that if God or my connection with Source or the Creator is my number one value, that actually improves my health, that that supports every other relationship.

So.

So I wonder for you, when you're working with men, how are you supporting them directly or indirectly, in being able to develop the right relationship with their creator or God or these principles? And what do you normally see happen to men when you start to. They come to a retreat or they come to a workshop and they have this insight and breakthrough experience. What is this specific integration pathway look like? Is it different for everyone or is it.

Yeah, I think it's individual. But here's the principles. I actually, one of the beginning speeches when someone comes on a workshop is they say, we're not here to influence your relationship to God or spirituality. In fact, that's none of my business. It's your relationship. But what happens is, is that if you're open to exploring and looking into the relationship that you currently have and maybe upgrading the paradigm around the relationship that you have, you might end up getting closer to God out of this. That's just a natural result. But because by definition, if you're working on yourself, then you're working on your relationships. A person can't come into a workshop and say, hey, I want to work on my relationship with my wife. And. And I'm going to start telling them how to solve all their problems with their wife. I'm going to say, hey, your wife's not here and it's nice that you want to work on it. Let's talk about what your issue with your wife is. Not what your wife's doing to you that you think is the issue. But and this is what we say on a workshop is. Your issue with the issue is not the issue. Sorry, my issue with the issue is not the issue. Let me start again. We say in a workshop, the issue is not the issue. My issue with the issue is the issue. That's why it's so confusing. The issue is not the issue. Your wife yelling at you or the way religion was given over to you is not actually the issue. It's my issue with that so what we help people understand is what is the toxicity that you hold inside of you all around the thing that you're relating to, how to work through that? Because if we could work through that, well, then you can unlock a new type of relationship. But it's hard, especially when people have been traumatized, especially by religion, is to, to start even talking to them about it. Like you start talking to them about like, no, I'm an atheist or no, I don't believe in that. And you know that when they're saying that they're, they're trying to reject this conversation, not even willing to go in there, which probably means there's a lot of pain over there.

Do you find that a lot of people going to come to your workshops, come in with these pre existing beliefs and paradigms based off their religion that makes it harder for them to break through?

There is a lot of religious trauma, but at the same time, if they're coming to me and I'm religious Jew, they actually want to work on the relationship. Because when you come into an experience, especially the facilitator holding the experience is you're not actually coming to work on yourself, only work on yourself, but you're also coming to be in the presence of the person that you feel is going to help you be able to work on yourself. So there's lots of workshops out there. There's lots of people out there, but a guy that's like, I remember. There's one guy, I'll give you a story. There's one guy comes to the workshop and he's, he grew up religious, you know, beard, everything, Kippa, the whole thing. And he says to me, the first thing he says to me when he sits down in the circle and most of the people that come on identify as religious. So he comes and he says, I don't want you to talk to me about religion. I said, sure. It's like he doesn't, he's like telling me this, but do you realize what you're surrounded by? Like, do you realize what you're coming into? Anyways, fine, I don't talk to him about it at all. And what he wanted to work on. What he ended up working on was his brother committed suicide. And he was really struggling with accepting this was a lot of pain there. And he had a lot of anger towards his father and so on and so forth for it. And fine, he leaves the workshop, he feels transformed and he decides he wants to start coaching with me. So we start doing some work together. And he says, to me, by the way, I know you're religious, I know what your beliefs are and I don't want to talk about it. I said, sure buddy, whatever you want to work on, I'm not pushing you in any sort of direction whatsoever. Six months go by, still the same thing. He's working on himself. And then another six months go by and he finally invites me down to Miami to do a one day experience with him. And before he starts, he says, I want to put on, we wrap these things called tefillin or phylacteries, it's an ancient tradition. And he says, I want to put them on before we start our day. I said, sure, whatever you want, buddy. And next thing you know, he's open and ready to start working on his relationship with God. And today, one and a half years after, or two years after that, he is right back on the path of religion the way he was brought up with. He just had to work through something to get back on track. And I didn't influence it at all. So. But people are going to come in with even doing the part and looking like the part, but not feeling connected to it. I mean, that's really the main issue, if you want to talk about, is the connection I have to the things that are around me in my life. So whether it be God, whether it be my relationship with a woman or my wife, my relationship with my kids, my relationship with my body, it's. And I always say this is, where are you generating your experience of life from how you, when you say I'm an atheist, let's say, and I'm happy to talk about, if you want to, why are you an atheist? Where'd that come from? It had to come from somewhere. Just you didn't sit there and go on the Internet and disprove God because we can do the same thing with proving God. So why'd you go down that path? If you're willing to explore that, you can transform the way you relate to things. So belief, it's true?

Yeah, it's almost like our belief in higher power and the source and origin of that powers. It's, it's almost like a hypothesis that we're creating based on our own experiences that are formulating these beliefs that we have in something greater. And it's really. Because it's, what you said is really interesting. It's like, why do you believe that if you believe in God? Why, like, where's the reference points in your life that have caused you to have this strong belief and conviction and something Greater. And that's really fascinating that everyone, everyone has that. But then there's collective beliefs that we all are bought into based on where we're born, who birthed us into the world, our local communities. And do you find that there's some collective beliefs that hold men back from stepping into the great. A greater expression of themselves as leaders?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, as men, we have to face the world. We're the ones, we have to go out. You know, a woman is. This is not a chauvinistic comment. It's just what a woman is there for. A woman is an emotional being. So what she's meant to do is she's meant to hold space for others, connect. That's her love language. You see that because a woman is holding a baby in the womb, she literally makes a space for another being in her body. So she knows what it means to hold space for someone. So now she's supposed to recreate that in the home environment for her children, for her husband when he comes home. A woman is not meant to go out there and do masculine things. The man is supposed to go out there and he's supposed to conquer the world. I got to face the world. So what happened when I started facing the world as a man? And did I feel. Because here's the progression. Zero to seven is mother. You got to be with mother because mother teaches you how to love yourself. So it's that self love process. You know, if you're, if you're thinking, do I love myself? Generally it's going to be something. Zero to seven, it's like a clue. And self worth, self esteem is do I have the abilities to go and face the world? That's a masculine energy, a father energy. So what happened when I faced the world after seven? Like my first grade, grade one, I go into school and was I able to handle that? Was I able to face that? Was I did I feel that I had enough guidance? Was I able to come home and talk to my father about the bully that I had in school? The way I have grown up and face things is going to teach me how I'm doing it today. Because that's the programs that I didn't reprogram at any point in time. I just made a choice based on my experience, how I need to show up to this so everything could work out, work out. So let's say, for example, I was bullied in school at age 7. Well, I could learn that I need to start going to the gym. I could learn that I need to start buffing up, because I need to protect myself because no one's going to protect me. And all of a sudden, now a guy is a bodybuilder, he doesn't even know why he did it. At some point in time, I have to look back into the creation of the narrative, the script, and say, where'd this all come from? That's the introspective part of life. That's the spiritual part of life, where I can change the strip, change the program, go beyond something that I think that I am, that the world told me that I am, and start to play with that a little bit. And that's where the transformation happens. Because transformation happens in changing my beliefs. Do you believe that?

100%. It's almost the transformation for me happens when I start to contradict who I think that I am. Because.

Tell me more about that.

What I realized was as I'm evolving or progressing, I'm realizing there's like these mass or identities that are formed early on in life that happen on an unconscious level. But then when you're. When I'm looking to transform a particular area in my life, it's almost as if I get to look at, okay, now how is this mask or identity no longer serving who I want to be? And how do I get to take all the positive aspects of that mask and identity and then transcend all the negative aspects? For example, one mask for me would be like this nice guy mask where I want people to like me. It's allowed me to get a lot of friends at school. Stepping into business. Now, sometimes there's things that need to be said in business where people might not like you. It's uncomfortable, it's confrontation. And I'm feeling all this resistance as there's times in business where I felt like I don't wanna. I don't want that person to think that I'm a dick. But this is what needs to be said. So I have to. I get to contradict this. This mask of I'm the nice guy, everyone has to like me and tap into the dark aspect of that and know that that's supporting who it is that I'm stepping into. And that's just as beautiful as the light, which is people liking me all the time. And everyone. There's all these mini nuances to that and micro versions to that. And everyone's psyche or their mask or the avatars, they get born. And what I hear you saying was the more you're aware of these unconscious beliefs that are running in the Background that are creating a mask that's creating a self or an identity that's creating a reality. The more you can see them, the more you can start to choose. All right, what is the new reality or new mask or new belief or new identity that I want to step into 100%.

I think he said it perfect. Choose. The idea of responsibility for a man is knowing there's a choice. When we think we don't have a choice is when we face our biggest struggles. It's like we really believe, like the circumstances set in stone. I can't change this. There's nothing I can do because you don't see your part in it. And I would. I'd even say to you, I was like, if I was working with someone, I'd say, well, why do you have to be liked by everyone? Where'd that come from? And, you know, it gets person's thinking, like, why am I doing this? There's something that it's serving.

There's a payoff.

Yeah, there's definitely a payoff. But why did I need to do that in my life to begin with? And if we don't know why we're doing it, usually it means it's something in the subconscious, which means I have to do some work on accessing it, which there's many ways, as you know.

Yeah, tell me more about those ways. Firstly, for the people who are watching or listening, to give them some context on your level of credibility here, talking about these topics, like, how many retreats have you facilitated at this point now.

Workshops, Good question about facilitation. But 83 is the amount that I've been involved in staffing and facilitating.

And total amount, like rough estimate. How many people do you think have come through?

So we do an intimate space because I believe in impact.

And.

Intimate, you know, intimate is like, I get to know everyone there. I know your name, I know your process. I know. So from like 20 to like 45 people is almost the max. And we've been making it more in that 20 range because it's just. The impact is much higher. So about 2,000. About 2,000 men.

Yeah. It's amazing. It's amazing. And I know indirectly about. Through the work that you do. And Mikey is almost like the protege coming through. And seeing Mikey and his element in some of these retreats has been. It's been quite, quite amazing to witness. Also amazing to witness the dynamic of these workshops that the process itself. It's amazing to see what goes down because it's almost like you're getting to rewire or rewrite the subconscious life in front of a group of men. And there's. I haven't experienced anything as powerful as that, to be honest. I've done ayahuasca, I've done all the plant medicines. This is still the most powerful thing.

Yeah. Question is why? What do you think it is? I'm curious what you think.

Yeah, because I think everyone in the circle at the retreat is getting a reflection in each facilitation that's relevant to their life. So you're getting transformation directly and indirectly. Even as a facilitator. There was guys in the last year, it was like, wow, I got a lot, I got a lot from that. I got a lot from that facilitation because I see me in him. And what I've. And I would love to hear your take on this too is like what seems to happen is that when someone's in an emotional process, live like that, there's this trance like aspect that happens where the body starts to take over, the subconscious mind takes over and then the individual almost gets to relive the past experience and process the, the emotion that's stored in the body and then almost like rewrite the story again to be able to come out the other side of it with a completely new lens on how they're seeing themselves and the world. It's hard to do that sometimes on a, on a 60 minute, 90 minute coaching session on zoom, you know, online. Yeah. Is that, is that what you see as well, being that the power of in person experiences and retreats such as that the immersion.

So I would never ever compare zoom to the live event. It's like you don't even have to go far for this example. It's like, would you say, okay, you're watching a basketball game on tv. Okay. And you can have surround sound. That could be amazing. Then you're at the basketball game sitting on the seats and then you're on the court.

Yeah.

And there's all. Those are different experiences. So, you know, in the work zoom, they say even that when you're looking on zoom in someone's eyes, that can release oxytocin because they're being seen. So there are powerful effects of being on a zoom meeting as well. So, you know, Covid wasn't all that bad and it actually expanded my offering myself. So I appreciate the zoom, but I always tell someone, you know, if you want to go deep into the work and you want to work with me, start on a workshop because you have to know what the real deal is, there is nothing more powerful than that space. And the reason there's nothing more powerful. Well, you said one of them is like, someone being vulnerable gives me permission to be vulnerable. Someone else sharing something reflects something powerful back to me. It's true. It's like a live mirror. You go into it and you're just seeing your life. You're like, oh, my gosh. I can't even. Like, how did that. How did he just bring up that story? I feel like that's my life and it's happened so many times for me is like I was on a. I was facilitating also. It was like a week after you and was interesting story is my. My son went away for two months for the first time, sleepaway camp. And he told me, I don't want you to come visit me the first visiting day because it's just too hard. Like, just let me go through it. And I was like, fine, if you want me to come, I'm in. I was running a workshop. Visitors day is Sunday. He told me, don't come. So there's. There's no service there, as you know, there's no cell phone service. So my wife calls me on WhatsApp. She says, My son called from camp and he changed his mind. He wants you to come. This is Friday afternoon. And I'm like, okay, so I gotta run a workshop now. We just did day one. Day two is Saturday, and day three, I'm leaving the workshop to go to visit my son.

Fine.

Saturday comes, and there's a guy who was standing by the dock, and he was mentioning that he was. Had feelings of not wanting to live and so on and so forth. And he went through a tough time. And he said his father wasn't there for him when he needed most. He just didn't know how to show up to the challenge that he was going through. And he checked out. So it came down after the work that we were doing that the main thing was I just wanted to. Because all the work, really, when it comes down to it, is about identifying what do you really want? What do you really want? Don't tell me about the pain that you experience and whatever. Like, let's pierce through all those days. What did you really want? I wanted a father to be there for me, just to be next to me and to listen to me. Fine. So guy goes through a massive facilitation, realize why he's holding on to those thoughts of wanting to not live, and has a humongous breakthrough. But he gets really close to me. And he's like. And I told him Saturday night. I was like, guys, I'm going to show you. Because a lot of the theme of this workshop was needing a father. You can't explain this. But my son called me Friday, which he already said he doesn't want me to visit. I'm hearing all this stuff, and I'm seeing I need to be a father right now on the workshop. So I'm leaving tomorrow morning, and I'm driving six and a half hours, and I'm going to see my son. Wow. Okay. That guy comes up to me. He's like, you can't leave. You can't leave. You can't leave. I was like, listen to me. I am going to leave, and it's going to teach you a lot more, and it's going to be okay. There's good support, it's good staff. You're going to be fine. I'm not going anywhere. Just a phone call away. Let's do this. Sunday morning comes, there's a blackout, so there's no power. That means there's no. There's no electricity. If you want to take a dump, you have to go into the forest because the water's not working. So you get, like. It's a mess. I see a guy with a latex glove on in a bag, and he's going in the forest. So it's like, you can just leave it there. Just don't worry. And I go to my son, and I go like, I'm halfway, and I charge my Tesla. And I realized when I went, because I had this perfect schedule. Like, I. I left that, by the way, the workshop, and it's my space. And I left that knowing that there's a problem. And I'm going to visit my son. Yeah. Try to direct him a little bit. But then I get to the charger, I go up to buy some stuff for him, come back down, didn't charge at all. I'm like, come on, what's going on over here? Anyways? And I say to myself, listen to me, you're going to be late. It's okay. This is part of some sort of plan. Just. Just know that I don't know what it is right now. That's the spiritual element, that I need this in my life right now. Anyways, I go to another charger, plug it in, fine. And I'm an hour late. He thought I wasn't coming, and he called me, like, when I was like, 20 minutes out. I'm like, I'm on My way. Fine. I get to him, give him a big hug, shows me around. I'm about to leave Visitors Day. Sitting in the car, he's next to me and he turns to me and he never talks like this. You can't make this up. He says to me, abba. But abba means dad. It's so nice that you're just here sitting next to me and that I have someone to talk to that can listen to me about how my summer's been going. I was like, wow, cannot believe that. Like, I just. Tears started coming. I was wearing my sunglasses, so it was good enough to see me so vulnerable. But it was a special experience. And I said it was my workshop. It wasn't these guys words. I needed this in my life to remember. You're a father. This is the impact of what a father has on a child. I finished Visitors Day. The workshop had ended already because it was already like 7 o'. Clock. I videoed the guy from the workshop and I said, I want to tell you something. Your process was my process. We're connected. I helped my son. Because of you, I was able to be a more present father. So we're in a circle. We're not just helping people work on themselves. We're literally bringing new information into our lives that we need to know. That all happens by this master divine plan. And when people get together on a workshop, what happens is you realize that we're all going through different things. We are. And it looks different and people look different and different upbrings. But it's all the same because we're all connected. Fabric of creation is that we are literally all connected. The whole world is in your heart. And you got to be able to see that. Sometimes we get it come, it comes clear. The clarity is there if you tune in. And that's what a workshop helps you do. Really. I would say if the one thing that all men need to help them with is presence. And when did I stop being present? And presence means that I can be in any moment and just be okay with it. I'm here. So when you go in a workshop, you learn about presence and what's not allowing you to be present. And you get a strong mirror if you take it. In fact, some processes we take a mirror and we put in someone's face so they see. And it just. There's something beyond. It's like you're sitting in a circle and I'm talking a lot, so you can stop me. That's great. He's sitting in a Circle. What's a circle? There's no head, there's no tail, there's no leaders. All the same space. We're equidistant to the center. We're opening up as a space for something new to come in. All transformation happens from opening up the space. Now you can say to me, okay, can't you do that one on one? And you tell me what's more powerful, the space, the circle, or the one on one? I mean, you know. Yeah.

The more. It's almost like the more I'm witnessed by other people, the more powerful the energy. Because, like, you've got many. If attention is consciousness, there's more attention in the space, the more powerful the energy in the space.

So why is witnessing important?

Because you can't intervene. You can't intervene in a world that you can't see. So it's like, if you can't even see what's happening, how are you going to change it? It's like, it's like the awareness is the seeing. So, like, the more people you have seeing it, the more, the more you get to transcend it more. It's like you have to shift out of it.

Sure. You know, I say to people, you can't see the picture from within the frame. And we are so good at protecting ourselves. It's a fake form of love. Like, you ask someone how they're doing, they say, good. You ask someone how their childhood is. Good. I've accepted it. Right. And we're so good at not being able to see our blind spots. We are so good at not being able to see our blind spots. So we protect ourselves. You come into a space, one guy gets vulnerable because he is struggling. There's always going to be one guy that's going to crack it open, that's going to open up the whole space because he's maybe struggling the most, or he's like the most available to do that. And then, wow, you just gave me permission. Something opened up for me and then it just one by one, it's like a domino effect. The energy just starts moving in the room.

Yeah. Yeah. And at that point, it's, it's, it's God's work at that point where you're just allowing the flow to happen.

What.

What's going down in. Inside of you? Because, you know, I know I've been in these spaces now, but as the facilitator, the. Have there ever times where.

I mean.

I'm sure there's many times you're like, I don't Know, I don't know what to do here. I don't know where we're going. Like, you probably, you probably don't know where you're going most of the time. But what's been the most, like that muscle of trusting the flow, allowing the flow or listening to the flow, like, where did you develop that? And is that just something now that you just trust it so much that when you're coaching and facilitating, you're just getting out of the way and going, all right, like, use me, use me. God in service.

So people will tell you whatever they want to work on. And as we say, let what needs to emerge emerge. And you have to hear the message beneath what people are saying. I used to treat, in a way and as, as a rookie in the, in the work, I was like, I have the answers. I can help you, I can do this for you. I've helped transform my life, so I can transform your life and really put a lot of responsibility on myself to help them. And that also put pressure on the work that I was doing because it's based on how I perform and the results. And as coaches and facilitators, it's hard when you're not getting results. That's the most humbling experience. So. But through going deeper in my own work and through training with some heavy duty professionals, I realized that there's a hierarchy to this whole thing. And the hierarchy is that as a facilitator, I'm below you. The person that I'm working with is the one that controls the experience. I have less power to change them. And what, and what you have to do is you literally have to drop into it, say, I'm just a, I'm just a channel, right? I'm just here to channel something, to ask questions, to discover. And then as soon as something pops up and I see an opportunity, because I've done this enough times, I'm going to go with that. If nothing pops up, sometimes I tell people, hey, you're not ready, and it's okay. So as a facilitator, if I'm lower, if I'm higher, what happens if I'm higher? If I say, hey, I got the answers for you, I can help you, I can fix this for you. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to do this, then there's a codependency. They're always going to look to me in the workshop, after the workshop, in their future as the guy that they need to help them make the transformation. So what I teach them is, hey, find your own dignity. I'm a guy that. That had one tier on my first workshop, and then I took this and went all the way with this. And I gave people a lot of credit and felt that they were my saviors. And I've come more into this recently is I am literally responsible for the life that I'm living. And when you put that in somebody else, you remove your own dignity. You say, I don't got it. You're up here, I'm down here. I don't got it. You're up there. I'm just revealing what's already inside of you. So when someone comes to me, I don't have to have the answers. And I let go of that. I really don't. It's like today I was thinking, what am I going to talk about? Start writing notes. I'm like, what are you doing? Just let it come. And I prepared this whole class. I give a Kabbalah class on Thursday nights. I prepared this whole class. Hours of work, sit down with the papers. I'm about to give it over, and some guy asked me a question right before the class, just asked me one question. And then I take the class, put that aside. And that was the class I went into my story, something that I went through, and it was the class. It was exact theme of the class, but now it was through my story. I didn't know that was going to happen.

Yeah.

So you let. If you pay attention and you believe the world is communicating messages to you, call it God. Like, I believe that God is always communicating to me through you, through people, whatever needs to happen. So let. Let the communication come in and then just work with that. Don't try to think of something new. Because then as a facilitator, you're also in your mind. As a facilitator, you need to be with what is in your body, present and just tuned in. It's like if I had one message of fatherhood, tune in, be tuned in, present. I know you wanted to talk about that, but we're not going to go into that conversation today because that's a big one.

It's a big one.

But, yeah, I don't get attached to the result. That's a big one.

Yeah. Easier said than done sometimes.

Yeah. Because again, you. If someone's paying you a lot of money and they're coming to a workshop and they want results, and now there's this pressure. Well, there's also responsibility. So it's pressure versus responsibility. Like, what am I actually responsible for here. I'm not responsible for his breakthrough. I'm responsible for showing up, allowing things to be seen and working with them.

Yeah, very different. And again, for those who don't know, like, you're a father to 10 kids, like, it's. It's amazing, brother. It's absolutely amazing. It's so inspiring for people like me and other aspiring fathers who may be listening and watching. And that's why there's no one else more credible than you when it comes to speaking about fatherhood.

Like, well, first of all, there are more credible people, but I haven't met.

Anyone that has that's responsible for 10 kids. So it's. It's pretty impressive. Like, to know. It's very admirable because it's what I would imagine. It's a certain level of containment or capacity that you've developed in your own life to trust, like, and not resist.

That's.

This is what. This is my imagination or my projection onto that, which is like, not resisting, blocking, restricting the flow of any capacity so that you can be an even greater and greater channel for your family and serving your family and serving your clients. Because, mate, there's sometimes I'm like, man, I'm at capacity right now, like, seven clients. Imagine if I had, like, kids in the mix too. And I think, man, okay, who am I going to have to step into to allow that to be that. That space?

Yeah. You know what's interesting about that is, like, let's say you have a one child. You and your wife, one child. Your love is, like, pouring out to this child. It's like my everything. And then you have another child. It's like, how do I have the same love that I have for the first child, the second child? It's like, crazy. This is my first and whatever. And yeah, the first feels like it's opened something up. There's always something special about the first. But your heart just expands. And what having children does is because they trigger you so much, because they're showing you what you're giving over to them. So it's a reflection of yourself, is they develop your heart to expand. And you see that there's infinite layers to your heart. What you thought you could do your capacity well, when you expand it by taking on more sometimes, right? If you have a child, you have to. There's no choice. Then your heart expands. And so I would say, like, you're saying about 10 children. I cannot not do this work if I have 10 children. Because if I don't, then they will all be on workshops, they will all. And you know, if they go to a workshop to be even better, like great, because I believe in that. But these kids need a present father and they need someone who's constantly working on that. And that's why I've dedicated my life mission towards this work, because it's really for my family. Even though I go away from my family to do it right. It's like the contradiction there.

It's amazing. Something that was coming up for me around the men who step into the workshop or the men who know that they're ready to step into this next level. It's a big, it's a big decision to put yourself in an environment where maybe if you've, especially if you've never attended a retreat before, never attended a workshop like this before, you never been facilitated in this capacity. Some people are probably listening, like what, what, what is. Like the mind wants to know the mind kind of. And when I'm, you know, enrolling or inviting men to come to retreats, it's, it's, it's tough. Out of the 30 men that I would speak to, sometimes it's like eight guys will come through. I mean, I'm fascinated by that because I'm, I'm always thinking if, if only they could see if like from the lens. And I'm like, dude, you need this, like, come on, let's go. Like come through. If only they could see what's on the other side of showing up in an experience like that and coming to a workshop. It'd be a no brainer. But so many men choose to allow their limitations to, to consume. They keep reinforcing their limitation or they're addicted to their familiar, safe pattern of maybe like just consuming the content online, just watching the YouTube videos, just doing the online coaching or whatever it is they're doing. There's, there's always a, a resistance to going to that next step. And I wonder for you in the men that do come to the workshop and the men's that don't, like, what's the, what's the tipping point? Like is it, is it, is it in the marketing or is it in a word of mouth or an experience that you hear from someone else that propels you to go, or is it your own pain that just gets bad enough that you go like nah, we're motivated by pain.

That's the reality. And when we feel like we can't tolerate it anymore, we're gonna feel like we need to do something that's just how it works, you know, we're so addicted. You said it. Familiarity is safety. What I know becomes my safe space. And so, you know, you watch a YouTube video, you feel like you changed your life. You didn't change your life. You just started watching more YouTube videos and probably disconnected more from your life. Insight never changed a man ever. You will never change in life. By reading a book, you might change your perspective and your mindset, but that's not going to change your life. Because I believe, and it just makes sense to me that the way we change is by going back to what changed us. And what changed most people is what created the mask that you call is when I couldn't fully feel a feeling, when I wasn't able to go into the feeling. So I'm going to give a really extreme example, but. Oh, I'll just, I'll just tell another story. This, this guy was 6 years old and he was in class and his teacher asked him to read something. This is a real example. And the guy read it wrong. And. But it wasn't just reading it wrong, it was specifically reading something wrong that had God's name. And it's almost like saying God's name in vain. And he's a six year old kid who doesn't know what he's doing. And he got slapped in the face like it felt like his whole existence shook up. That's when he was describing it. In that moment, the only thing he could do was change his identity. And the identity was, I have to be perfect. Why? Because the feeling was so painful and he didn't have a place to process that and work through that. That in order to not have to face that feeling again of being slapped up for not knowing he changed his identity. I have to be perfect. So we're doing this work with him on the workshop and then he gets to a point after the completion of and he says, I don't have to be perfect. I can make mistakes. And so then we do this like ritual ceremony after the Sabbath and he's leading it. I can't even, I can't even make this up. He makes a mistake, he makes a mistake. And I said, there you go. There's your first opportunity to reprogram yourself, be okay with it. You're allowed to make mistakes so divine. And so the point is, when you come into an experience where you're almost like forced into a vulnerable place, like everyone gets vulnerable there in some form, in some capacity. And when you do that, you're going to start to feel feelings and then things are going to emerge and the feelings are where you got stuck and where you created all those identities from. So work through the feelings, get back to yourself. How it went in is how it comes out. So if the, if it went in by a feeling for this guy, like he got so slapped up, if I would have just told him as a friend, don't think that way about yourself. Just believe in the positive vibes of life. You know, you don't have to hold on to that. I'm giving a whole speech about it. Nothing's coming in. He's still, he's still hardwired, programmed. The hard wiring changes when we could start to get into the feelings, which is where it really went into the system and got stuck. Because all that happened was, is he froze in time. That's it. He says, I need to be that person, take him back. And you can't get that in a book. And that's what it feels like in one week. And you can transform your life.

Yeah.

I'm not sure if I answered your question, but yeah. Men don't change by knowing more, they change by feeling more.

Yeah. I love the way you explain that. The, the mask part is really interesting because there's almost like some commonalities in the different masks. It's almost like there's this like list of say, certain masks that people will wear. The caretaker, the nice guy, the rebel. And these masks all have a dark and a light side to them. And something that I've heard from a lot of the like, high achieving entrepreneur guys that when they step into this work, they're afraid that when they take off that mask and they realize that they're enough and they're loved and that there's, there's nothing, nowhere to get to, nowhere to be. They're afraid they're going to lose their edge, they're going to lose the drive. But there's the distinction that I like to share with them, which is no, no, you still get to bring all the light aspects of this mask because there's this, there's beauty in the mask. There's still. The guy had to keep it all together or be perfect. He's probably very meticulous and very good at like certain aspects of his life. So you get to keep all those elements without the dark elements, which are the destructive, shadowy, dysfunctional forces. Because now all of a sudden you've, you've given it a space for it to be moved through. You're no longer attached to the mask. And I had an example With a client the other day where he. He. His parents divorced when he was a young age. And he's seen his parents fight and bicker and all the time, and his dad was never there. And he learned to put on this mask of being the rebel at school, like the. The troublemaker, the jokester, as the way to get his dad's love and attention. Now as an adult growing up like that rebel has manifested itself in all these other little ways where he would rebel against what was like, the right thing to do. And that resulted in him going into drugs and smoking weed. It's like this rebellious thing. And I was thinking about that. I was like, man, how many other people? Because I know a few friends that have this rebel mask. They just like to break the rules. It like, let's. Let's send it. Let's take the drug. This party is coming from this little boy that just wanted to be seen by his dad, and now it manifests as an adult. It's just like, just doing these, like, crazy things. The benefit of the rebel is they're extremely courageous. Like, they're wild. They'll do crazy things, often will start the business, or they'll do all these. These crazy stuff. The dark side of the rebel is they can be quite dangerous and when not integrated, can be quite destructive to the body, so the family members to relationships. So I just found that really interesting how when you help someone see that and you help them move through or liberate through the stuck energy and them to realize that they can be the father they never had. The dark and the light become integrated, and then the mask gets. Becomes their greatest gift because it's no longer weighing, you know, the dark is no longer weighing them down in a sense. Does that make sense? And do you see that happen with a lot of the. The guys that you coach and work with is like their gift goes to like, a whole new level. It's like, like all of a sudden they discover this. This. This contribution that they have through their unique experience is. Is amplified in a big way.

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think when I go into an unconscious place, it's almost like it's destiny. Like I can't even stop it from happening. And, you know, the ideal would be someone goes into an emotional experience and they can pop right out of it. It comes in and goes out. But when I can't feel that feeling and I have to be unconscious, I have to go into that identity. It's almost like it is your destiny, because I had to Go into an unconscious place. I had to develop these skills because it was gonna. It's gonna later be some part of my mission in this world. And I need to learn now how to make that mission. Like integrate that as part of who I am. Not divorce myself from it or say that doesn't serve me and want to stop it completely, but integrate it for sure. So, you know, simple examples. A guy goes to the gym and it's all about the body. It's all about the body. Why? Because one time someone told him, you're fat, whatever it is. And so he is literally working out, which is a fantastic thing to do. But he hates his body because someone gave him that comment. Now what if I can work through that and realize that I've become good at working out? This is a skill that I have in my life, but I can do it from a place of value. This is my value to be healthy and I love my body. Then the experience is not going to be filled with the stress and the pressure of, what if I don't work out for a week? What happens to me? Yeah. So I want to feel connected, which is the biggest buy in to doing work on yourself, to the life that I have on the outside. But if I don't feel connected because I didn't work through the feeling, then I'm just doing things unconsciously and I'm hurting people and I'm sabotaging my life. And eventually you realize that your life on the outside. I said eventually you realize, I hope you do. Your life on the outside is a manifestation from the life on your inside. The reason you struggle with your marriage is because you're struggling with a relationship with yourself. The reason you're not a good father is because you had father issues growing up. The reason. And it's like all everything is being generated literally from your unconscious beliefs about life and that you picked up throughout your whole life. And you're just dumping that onto the world. So it's a it. The responsibility is to start making a choice of how you want to show up and stop blaming the circumstance of what happened to you or what the world is doing to you and start showing up as you, regardless of what happens. And that's the biggest benefit of working on yourself. Right. Isn't it?

For sure. Also something that I've seen happen in my own journey. I'm sure you've seen this as well. And probably something you advise a lot of, like, participants that come to the workshop is the moment you see the pattern, take off the mask you decide this new way in which you want to show up. You decide the new path that you want to walk or the new frequency you want to step into. Almost immediately, it seems like things get worse. Worse, people return to their life. Or sometimes you have a breakthrough and life seems to get more challenging. Life seems to get more uncomfortable. And the integration aspect shows up in those moments where, like the example you gave of the gentleman who made a mistake saying the prayer. It's like that might seem like something bad that's happening, but it's actually life giving him another gift or opportunity to step into his new identity or new mask. How important is having that filter, like, the perception of what's happening, as this is always supporting me. Stepping into whatever's happening in my reality right now is a reflection what I've created and therefore is supporting me in me coming back to the greatest expression of myself, whatever that might be, that perception, number one. And then number two, knowing exactly what is it, what is the new response? If it was an old reaction that was keeping you in a certain reality, what is the new response? Like, how important are those two things? Because if you don't have those two filters. Yes, you just like the integrate. You know, you have the breakthrough. You just immediately your environment or a person will knock you back into the old familiar state. And you wonder why, like, oh, like, why am I still in the same income level? Why am I still getting the same.

Exactly, yeah. So how important. The first question is, how important is having. Knowing that this is all happening? I guess for me, yeah. Well, I think that's where perspective does come in. Perspective is like a gps. I know where I'm going. I know what the destination is here. I'm supposed to work through this. I'm supposed to see the light on the other side of this. I'm supposed to be able to choose to show up when my wife triggers me, even as the guy that can handle it. But the embodiment of that message is when I actually do get to a place where I can do that, because I've been working on, really, my own emotions that I'm losing that sense of direction. Emotions literally create muddy waters. Like, I cannot see what's going on over here. I feel like you always do this. You need to change. I've met my capacity of, you know, not telling you. Sometimes we feel like we're standing up for ourselves when we tell someone something, and really we're just telling them we can't handle what's happening. Perspective is important. So I'll Say to myself, like, this is for me. This is good. I remember my daughter once said to me, I was already in a heated moment, and she said to me, saying something to her, and she says, chill. Like, when you tell someone this heated to chill, that's like. They do the opposite. They go on fire. And I was like, chill? You're telling me to chill? Who are you to tell me to chill? You're my daughter. You think you can tell me to chill? That's disrespectful. And I'm feeling this intense anger. I'm like, what is going on here? And I was able to catch myself. I went into another room. I was breathing into it, feeling into it. I said, what's my message here? What am I seeing? And I said, hey, dummy, you say chill to people. She just took on what you gave her. Wow. And you don't like that about yourself. And she showed. You went back to her. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that. I was in a bad mood. I was in a bad place. Nothing to do with you. It's not your fault over. If I didn't go back to her, she would have taken that on. As my father's angry at me, I can't say certain things. I can't be a certain way. And emotionally, she got stuck. I. I took out the emotion from her because I made it about myself. I deprogrammed the program that I put in her for a moment. Now, again, I probably put it in her in other ways, but I have to have the right perspective, saying, what. What am I learning about myself right now? Not what is the person doing to me? What am I learning about myself? So I have to have some sort of question that's gonna. That's gonna catch me in any given moment. You're not gonna be able to do it unless emotionally you feel safe to do it, which most people don't, which is why knowing is not enough. The embodiment of what I know is all the work through the triggers and the intensity of the emotions that I had to deal with that this moment is reminding me of. I can hold myself back, but still feel completely livid with my daughter or with my wife or with my business partner or with God or whoever. And then. Then the work starts on embodiment is work through the emotions that are not allowing me to. To. To. To have the knowledge embodied inside of me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

Does that make sense?

Definitely. Yeah.

I don't know if that answered your question.

Yeah, I mean, the regulate the Regulate. You're not the perception. If you're just like, telling yourself, like, this is happening for me, it's happening for me. But you're still not regulating the emotional. Moving through the emotion. The story is just almost like bypassing the. The opportunity to confront the part of you that feels really uncomfortable to receive the message. It's like taking a moment to receive the message and then asking, like, after you've regulated, okay, now, how is this for me? Like, what was this teaching me? What was this moment? It's almost that you only get the answer to that after you've moved through the emotion, which is coming from the past most of the time. Then. Then the other part of the question was, how important is it knowing how does the new self respond in these future moments?

Yeah. So those are. Those are tools. Like, you could have tools in any given moment where you could teach someone something like validation or breathing or, you know, saying the right things, which are important. But it's more, how do you want to respond? And knowing that when I'm responding like this, which is destructive or hurtful or putting someone else down or it doesn't feel settled, like, almost like I gave the person out my pain, what am I believing about myself in that moment? Working on the belief, working on the emotion around that belief and strengthening that part of me that's weak inside of me is gonna help me more emotionally regulate in a given situation. But when I'm making the right choice, what am I believing myself in that moment, even if I do it and I'm still feeling a different way. You see, what I try to teach men is you can make the right choices even if you don't feel aligned to it, because that's where you want to go and it's okay. Right? You could say the right things even though you believe that your wife is telling you off and you don't love that and you want to smack her in the face or whatever. But. But you could still say the right thing. And what you're playing catch up with is just that you should feel that connected to what you're saying. It's about feeling connected. So feeling connected. I need to work on the feelings so you can have the right response, but it's not necessarily going to mean that the work is done. Now when you get triggered. You mentioned a point when you get triggered after you start working on yourself. People come to a workshop and they think they're going to transform their lives. And they think that that means their whole life back home transformed nothing, transformed back Home, you have the same life, the same triggers, and in fact, when you come back home, you're going to feel the triggers more. Why? Because now you're finally stopped numbing and you're going to start dealing with it. In order for you to overcome the beliefs around not being good enough or not lovable, you have to re experience not being good enough and not lovable. And now that's where your work is. You, you, you be there for yourself. You work through that. You heal that wound. But if you think that you leave a workshop and you no longer have that wound, you don't understand what the work is, because again, you can know what the path is. But now I have to feel that the path that I know is real. Feeling makes it real. So I got to get triggered, and then I got to go a men's group, let's say, afterwards, or a coach or someone help me process this trigger. I can't get over this. I'm still mad at my wife. Let go of the energy that is taking over your life and how you're showing up and how you're reacting. So. And the other reason why we need to do it with other men in a circle is because men need to learn how to be men with other men. That's just where it happens. If, if, if you didn't have the greatest model of a father growing up or an older brother or a good mentor, and I'm in the same boat, well, we're going to become the mentors to ourselves and each other and hold each other accountable. And we're going to do this together. Somebody gets me. You know, they say you should make a spiritual mentor for yourself. It's important to make a spiritual mentor for yourself. But it says a friend, you have to be willing to acquire with money. That's how valuable it is. That's what the deep wisdom of the Torah says. Acquire. What does it mean? Acquire? Like I literally have to pay for someone to be my friend. Because the most valuable person that you have in your life is someone who can tell you who you really are and hold you accountable to it. Yeah.

Wow. And I think if any man's listening or watching this right now, it's like asking yourself that, do I have that in my life right now?

Yeah.

An individual or a group of men.

And, and parasocial relationship with a guy on social media, meaning, like just watching his content doesn't mean you're in a relationship with him. Talking about someone you can call when you're in a tight squeeze and you're like, I want to have that cigarette right now, or I want to have that bottle of booze or and so on and so forth, or I want to go to the Internet and look at this stuff, pick up the phone and you call and say, hey, I'm feeling something. You stop before you go to those places. That's the value of doing it with other people. And if you don't do work and you don't get vulnerable, so you probably don't do that with your friends right now. And the level of your relationship to your friends right now can only be a surface level relationship. And if people aren't working on themselves and then you go and you try to be vulnerable with them, don't expect that that person is going to know how to hold that. Which means you almost have to do it with other people doing it.

Yeah. The beautiful part of, like, what I've started to see with the men who are coming to our retreats and stepping into this work is immediately they're popping out the other side going, I want to, I want to bring this to my community. I want to be the one that leads this for my friends or my environment or for my home back in Fort Lauderdale, Texas, or Fort Lauderdale, Florida, or here in Texas, that there's these men coming through, realizing that these spaces don't exist where they're, where they're from, and then they're feeling that inspired to want to step up and create it. So it's almost like one of those things where if you don't have the space, go and find it and receive it, and then go back into your community and create it and be it. And I think that's what we, we've all noticed on our journey is like, least for me, I've noticed when I started to step into this energy of showing up for myself in this way, I started to attract other friends who were doing the same thing, like meeting Mikey and coming out to here, to Toronto. I just started to. Life was reflecting back to me all these people that were on this part too. But where I grew up, I didn't have that. I had great friends, but no one was doing this, this work. No one was showing up in this way. So if you don't have it right now, there's this. It's go and find it and step into the frequency of someone who is embodying this, this work. And it's amazing how the right people tend to just show up in your reality, you know, without. You really need to look for it at that Point.

Yeah. It's unbelievable. It's like the people that show up in your life. I was driving the same trip to Montreal that I was talking to you about, where I was visiting my son. There's a guy who, a good friend of mine who lives in Israel and happened to send me a message. I hadn't spoken to him in a month or two, sends me a message, and I was like, where are you by chance? Because Israel is seven hours ahead and usually go to bed early. It doesn't seem like you're in Israel. So he's like, I'm in Montreal. I was like, what are the odds? I'm in Montreal, he's in Montreal. Like, I don't go to Montreal, whatever. And okay, we gotta meet up. I don't know why, but we gotta meet up. That's what he felt. I felt we met up and next thing you know, he says, you know, I really need to work on this one thing. And we started a coaching arrangement. It's like you attracted that. Why? Because you're open and available and happens to be. He was visiting his father, happens to be. The. The whole theme of the workshop was around fathers. I was being a father by going to visit my son. It was just like all that energy was so wide open that just like, it clicked. Yeah, maybe he wouldn't have said. He would have sent me the. The message the next day or the day after. Like, you have to see that you are attracting that in your life. And, you know, people say you are the top five people you hang out with, but okay, that's great. Sometimes you want to hang out with people that you want to be like.

Yeah.

But you also attract the people in your life who you're like, who you need in your life. And if you're going to still be the people pleaser, you're going to still be the guy who attracts those fake relationships. If you're going to be someone who is authentic, you're going to start attracting authentic relationships. Yeah.

Yeah. It's interesting how the blind spots, no matter how much work you've done on yourself, there's always a new blind spot. And I find that fascinating because, you know, I had a call with my coach this morning, and every time I've been having a call with him recently, it's almost like my paradigm shifting each time. And I've been, you know, I do a lot of meditation, I do a lot of these practices. But what I found is, is as each time I go through the next growth phase of my journey, there's a new blind spot that I get to move through or see beyond. And if it was just me, I don't know if I'd be able to see it sometimes because playing the, the game of being on social media and being in the world and like operating in this specific reality which there's so many distortions and illusions and, and things to get swept up in. I guess if you go and move to a mountain and live away from all the noise, it might be a lot easier to see these, these blind spots. But in the world that we're playing here in Toronto and in a city and there's just so much happening and distractions. What I found at times is unconsciously there was parts of me that were getting dependent on certain aspects of myself. Even the conditions of what it meant to be doing the work and personal development around meditating, having the right routines and the right rituals. Because I was so attached to doing all those things, it created a blind spot in me where I was almost like dependent on them. And when life got really chaotic and I didn't have my eight hours of sleep and I didn't have my meditation practice, I felt the tension and then I wanted to go back to my ritual. But the next level for me, transcending that was like learning to be okay without the meditation and without the sleep and without having a home and being in an Airbnbs and going like, can I still be on and show up from my best self in those moments I was like, ah, okay. It's like each time the pendulum swinging left to right and there's a new blind spot each time the pendulum moves from right to left. And I wonder like, does that show up for you and how that's specifically showing up for you in your life? And when you were aware that there's a blind spot, how do you go to someone to get a reflection? Because I'm sure I don't think anyone's immune to this. Anyone. That's like playing a big game in life. There's always going to be some kind of subconscious blind spot that may appear. Is it inviting reflections into your life from a coach say? I mean, that's what you're paying a coach for at the end of the day, is to give you that. But if someone doesn't have a coach, can you invite a friend to give you feedback, to be like, hey, how are you perceiving me right now?

Yeah, listen, just letting you know it's 12, but you keep going.

I'm just letting you know.

Okay, we'll Go for like.

Yeah, we should.

Five, ten minutes.

Cool, Good.

I just want you guys to be.

Aware of the time. Okay, thanks, brother.

So, yeah. Do you believe the question really comes down to, do you believe that the infinite human has infinite possibility? And if infinite possibility means there are no limits, well, it just means there's infinite layers to who I am. And I think the more you work on yourself, the more this is crazy to say godly you become because you're meeting the infinite expression of who you are, which is a soul type experience. And I think if someone wants to be done the work, I think what they're just saying is they want to be out of the pain that, that they're having. Because when you have a real relationship to working on yourself, it's about uncovering more of yourself and being able to express the infinite light of who you are in the world. The world needs to see more of that. So, no, I never stop working on myself.

It's a never ending process.

It's a never ending process. I'm happy about that. Yeah, I've appreciated the relationship to that. And you know, that's when I feel spirituality in my life. Like I could literally handle everything. I could be okay with anything. I could be playing Lego with my kid, I could be talking to my wife about her feelings. I could be praying, I could be working hard, work up. I could be doing so many things and I could be present to all of them, which means I'm not one limited thing. When we limit, when we're stuck in the limitations of who we need to be, we're not meeting ourselves. And that's why it's like, if you don't do meditation, I could look at it as, oh my gosh, this is why I'm having a bad day. And I should have done this and just say, wait a second, why didn't I do meditation today? What led me to not do meditation? To become curious about why you're showing up that way. Because sometimes you're not aware and that question is going to say, I want to look at this thing. And I call up a friend. Now most friends, if they're not doing this work, it's. It's hard for them to give you that honest feedback because they're give, we're giving people advice based on how we are. And if you're doing work on yourself, you could just be a space for them to explore. Then they come to their own conclusions and they're just seeing a mirror. That's what you really want. That's really what you want in the end of the day. That's why I say listening is not about talking. Oh, it's about listening.

Yeah. So simple.

It's so simple, but it's so hard. Yeah. You know, they say common sense is not so common. And I say when you can see it, it's an emotional thing. It's generally like anything that you want to be doing something else and you're not. Like, if I want to be working on it, I can't seem to get to working out, but I want to do it. Well, there's something that's more important that doesn't want you to do it, that's blocking you from doing it. So work through that emotion and you'll be able to work out. Don't just put pressure on yourself that you have to work out. And we build lives where we get into these grooves and routines and our brain literally flows in that way. Like the neural pathways are, I must do this, I must do that. This is where I get my validation, my approval, my love, my success. And then who am I without that? What's my net worth? Yeah, without all the things that I did as a man. You need to accomplish so much. You need to be successful. And if you don't, you feel like a nobody. You think you're a nobody. You think you're a loser. So if I had the ideal childhood, I would have lots of good self worth from my mother, so I would know how good I am. And if I had a father who guided me and directed me, I would know how to face the world. But most people didn't have that, which means you get to create it. And then that's your part in the world. If you wanted the perfect mother and the perfect father, you wouldn't have any part in how you show up because it was all given to you. So what's the point? The breakages, the hardships, the trauma, it's all there for you to make your own path and to embrace whatever you got is exactly the way it needed to be. But when you're still fighting about the mother and the father that you had or the circumstance of the world, you haven't shown up to life yet.

Powerful bro. Mate, such a great way to close this out. Just want to say thank you. It's been, it's been a real pleasure to dive deep with you and looking forward to sharing more of you with the community, you know, online. Where can people find you online? What's your, what are your main channels right now?

Yes, I have a YouTube channel and Instagram. It's @finding anohi. Finding a. N o C H I. Yeah, we just post some content. You can take a peek if it interests you. You guys can always reach out because we're here.

We're here. Yeah. Thanks, brother. And I want to get back to the fatherhood topic, so we'll have to do a round two.

We're definitely gonna have to do around two.

Thanks, Adam. Appreciate you, bro.