I Found the Secret to a Great Life (It's Not What You Think)

Welcome to Inner Circle. I'm joined here with Kevin Dahlstrom. I'm Mike Brown, and this show is dedicated to answering one big question, which is what makes a great life? This is something Kevin and I have spent at least the last decade trying to get to a real answer. And for me, the fundamental basis is truth-seeking, is being a truth seeker. I've always considered myself a truth seeker. And That is what I think, Kevin, drew us together initially. Some of those early conversations as we were diving in together is I recognize that quality in you. And so, I want to unpack that today, especially in the context of how that translates to a great life. So, what does a truth seeker mean to you? How does that manifest in your life? And we'll go from there.

Yeah, I love this topic. Uh, and you're 100% right. It is, I think, the thing that initially connected us. Like we started talking and we had, you know, things went deep very, very fast. And when things go deep, I think it usually is because you're in search of some fundamental truth. You like to think big thoughts, talk about big ideas. And, um, I think it's important to point out right off the bat that two people who are seeking truth don't need to agree on everything. You and I don't agree on everything. Uh, and in fact, um, quick story, uh, we were driving back from, uh, a little weekend away just an hour ago. And, um, my wife asked me, I told her I was gonna record some podcasts today with, with Mike. She said, well, what's the topics? And I said, oh, one of them's on truth seeking. She said, oh, that's gonna be interesting. Uh, cuz I know you guys don't agree on everything. I was like, you know what's great though is like we don't agree on everything, but we do agree on seeking truth. And that doesn't mean we find the truth all the time or find the same truth. So anyway, um, just to kind of set context, and I'm really eager to hear what you have to say on this. I think of truth-seeking sort of as intellectual honesty, right? And, and one of maybe my single biggest pet peeve in life is when people are intellectually dishonest, meaning that they're either lying to themselves, like they're saying things they know aren't true. Or they're prioritizing being right over seeking the truth. And, you know, we'd be remiss if we didn't tie this into like the current climate out there, right? Is like hyperpol— uh, polarized politics where on both sides people are being intellectually dishonest. And that honestly, like, just turns me off, dude, so bad. And, and I think it's honestly, um, I, I had the thought the other day that like, if you're super polarized one way or the other. Not only is it sort of like, I think, um, you know, annoying sometimes, but it's actually potentially a sign of low intelligence because you're being intellectually dishonest. So I'll pause there. That's sort of my take is it's, it all comes down to this idea of intellectual honesty. How do you think about truth-seeking?

Well, I think what you're pointing out there is, um, is actually one layer deeper than just intellectually honest. Um, it's You know, can I actually be honest with myself because that's uncomfortable? So it's actually, there's a, there's a certain comfort with this discomfort that is required to be intellectually honest. And so when I think about truth-seeking, especially as it relates to a great life, for me, that's the process of eliminating dissonance. So either where am I lying to myself or not being honest with myself? Uh, and where am I not being honest with the world? And for me, the process of building a great life is closing those gaps, right? So the minute I find a place where I'm out of alignment, what am I going to do about it? Right? And the problem is that most people have a tolerance for dissonance that I just don't have. And I've never had it in my whole life. This is, you know, we could talk about nature or nurture, but like, I think I came out of the womb with just this rigor Uh, and inability to tolerate dissonance.

I just wrote down the word rigor while you were talking, because when I think about you, you are so rigorous, and that's what I love about you. You're so rigorous about seeking truth. And to me, that's extremely attractive.

It takes me to a lot of uncomfortable places, especially facing uncomfortable truths about myself, right? Yeah. But I've, but I would, I would rather know because I know when I know The thing that I don't want to know, now I can go do something about it. Right. And that's how those gaps close. And that's why, for me, this is such an important step in building a great life. You can't build a great life if you're not being honest with yourself and with the world.

Yeah. And also I think as with, you know, rigor in some ways, it's so funny that I wrote down that one word while you were talking, rigor in some ways. Almost like we, it connotates inflexibility, but that's not what you're talking about because you are the one who planted the idea in my head, which I think is key to seeking truth, of holding two opposing ideas at the same time. The truth is rarely black or white, right? And two things can be true at once that seemingly are in conflict. And that one sort of mental switch has been hugely liberating for me because I used to have these mental battles about like, I have to figure out the right answer. There's one right answer. It's the truth. But the truth is there are multiple truths. Now I'm not one of those people who believes like everybody chooses their truth. There is absolute truths. There are things that are right and wrong, but it's also true that things aren't so black and white and you can recognize and hold two truths simultaneously.

And I'll give you, um, a, a real and raw sort of vulnerable example of this.

Right now.

You know, I speak about my story often in my writing, on stage, you know, I'm writing about it in my book. And that means I talk about my family of origin. And that has proven to be uncomfortable for my parents, my siblings, you know, they would much rather I not talk about that. And this is where these two truths come, like, I am, I am dedicated to sharing my story vulnerably so that others can see themselves in that story and learn things about them, right? Like, I'm not doing this in a gratuitous way and in an attention-seeking way. I'd rather not talk about it too. It'd be much more comfortable. But man, I feel a moral obligation almost to put this out because, you know, it's shaped who I am, it's shaped my beliefs. And again, my goal here is to help other people. And, you know, my family's not totally on board with that, right? I can't quit my work. It's just, that's a non-negotiable for me. I am deeply dedicated to the craft and I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing. And I don't want to hurt my family. I don't want to, you know, have them feeling like I'm dishonoring our family story or anything like that. That's not a solvable thing, right? There's no black or white. They, they have merit to what they're saying. Hey, we wish you wouldn't talk about this. There's, there's merit to what I'm doing with my work. And those are, that's a paradox that I have to hold and I have to figure out how to walk that line. Right. But when I talk about dissonance, I could go into the, and go and be self-righteous and be like, what I'm doing is more important than your feelings. What I'm doing is not more important than their feelings. Both of those have to coexist. And I have to find a way to, to manage both of those things with integrity.

Man, that hits home for me, dude, because what comes to mind, and I think a lot of people who are listening to this will, will, um, will connect with this, is, you know, one of the central struggles of my life has been my relationship with my father. And, um, for years and years and years, I just chose to ignore it because I couldn't reconcile the fact that on one hand, my father was this amazing, um, incredibly intelligent person who gave me these incredible gifts, some of which I inherited, some of which I observed. But at the same time, in many ways, he was an absolutely awful father. He made some terrible decisions. He spent a big chunk of his life in prison, uh, which is something I've talked and written about before. And, um, this idea for me of holding two truths at once is a game changer for that because I think we can honor both of them, right? Like I can, it is just true that in many ways, uh, my dad was a terrible father. He made a lot of terrible decisions that had, and, uh, that, you know, had consequences for our family that continue to this day. And at the same time, in a certain way, he was an amazing one of a kind individual.

And both are true.

And both are true.

Yeah.

It really helps me to recognize, I think this, this idea that, you know, truth is nuanced and, you know, people are complicated, situations are complicated. And, um, you know, you can hold two truths at the same time.

Yeah. Well, and, and this, this, you know, uh, on my side, um, I actually had an, you know, an objectively great childhood. I always knew I was safe. I always knew I was loved. My parents were amazing. Hardworking people, right? And you don't, you don't get out of childhood. You don't get out of raising kids alive, right? Like there's things that are going to imprint on your kids. And a lot of that shaped my relationship to money. And, you know, I think what's hard is like, that doesn't take away from the fact that I had a really great childhood. Like I've sat in a lot of therapy circles, a lot of coaching groups in my time. And like, I got dealt a great hand. And there was still pain throughout my childhood because we all have pain. Pain is a universal human experience. And for me, normalizing that fact, saying I had an amazing family, and there was still pain around money in my family at one point, like, that's totally okay. But again, it all comes back to like, I have almost a compulsion to speak that truth and show people that it's okay to honor and hold your parents with great respect. And talk about the things that weren't easy.

Yeah. Let me— maybe we can close, and I'm going to talk for a bit so you have a little bit of time to formulate your answer to this.

I'm just getting warmed up. I don't know if we're ready.

All right. Well, what I was going to say is I want to pivot this into things that our listeners can do to, to become truth seekers themselves. And I think it's really interesting is you and I had very different journeys But, and yet we arrived at like probably 95% of the same conclusions. And I'll be specific. I'd say I have never done therapy. I've never read the books, but what I have done is spent 20,000 hours in nature processing. I'm a big processor and I feel like I got there the hard way, which is the way I have to do everything for some reason. And, and I'd say you, on the other hand, you are more like proactive and like you reached out, you got help, you've talked to others, you've, you've had coaches, you've had shamans, you've had all this stuff, you've read the books and yet you came to some of the same conclusions. So because you've actually done the research, I want you to go first and like, what are some practical things people can do back to your original point about the whole point of this podcast is to help you live a great life. Truth-seeking is foundational to that. What does Mike Brown recommend in terms of how to be a truth seeker?

Yeah. Okay. So, so I think there are two places where we experience dissonance. Number one is dissonance within the self, right? Internal dissonance. And then number two is external dissonance, dissonance between what I believe about myself and how I show up in the world. Right? So the first one I'll tackle is internal dissonance, meaning I know something to be true. And I'm not going to act on it, or I'm not going to do anything about it. So, a great example is this relationship or this job is no longer serving me, and I'm in an untenable situation. And yet, most of us have a really hard time actually then doing something about it. So, we will either put our head down and pretend like that's not the case. I did that for 16 years in a marriage that wasn't working. I just said, "Yeah, this isn't really working for me, but I'm okay. Like, I'm good." Well, that was a huge gap of dissonance and really maybe the foundational place where I truly stepped into this process and said, okay, this is not okay with me. We've got to do something different here. Right? So number one is admitting to yourself and then taking a step to close that gap.

And by the way, you and I have talked about that before. That step could have been terminating the relationship. It could have been taking steps to what's not taking steps to heal it. What's not okay is leaving the gap. Right?

Correct. And that's it. So, it's this process of closing gaps. I actually came to the table with my ex-wife with both solutions. I said, "Hey, let's either burn this down and start over and build something meaningful and go to therapy and do the work, or let's high-five and be great co-parents. Like, you know, whichever one of those you are up for, but we can't do this anymore." Right. Right? And then, who I believe myself to be on the inside and then how I'm showing up in the world. right? And so many of us have a view or have an opinion or even have truth internally that we don't necessarily communicate to others, or we don't show up in congruence, right? And so, the process for me becoming a truth seeker is, first of all, where am I lying to myself? And then number 2, where am I lying to the world? Wow.

You know, what I love about your answer is it starts, as all things do, with the man in the mirror. And, um, because it's funny, it's because like, uh, you know, you see people like, you know, you and I spend a lot of time on X and people always have a hot take on the political topic du jour, and yet their own lives have incredible dissonance. You know, they're criticizing the government or the Democrats or the Republicans or whatever, and their own— there's so much dissonance in their life. And I find like in everything, Step 1 is always to go into the bathroom, look yourself in the mirror and say, am I being honest with myself? That's the place to start.

Totally. Like, where, where am I out of alignment? And, um, you know, I also think, uh, and this might sound like I'm speaking out both sides of my mouth, but I think one reason people are afraid to be honest with themselves is that they're afraid that then they're are going to have to take the action the next day. Right. And the example I often give is like, if I don't like where I live, if I admit that to myself, now I got to go to put a for sale sign in my front yard. That's not what it means at all. First, let me get honest and just name what the thing is. Right. Now I can get into decision-making. Right.

I'm writing down a note. So what I'm hearing from you is disconnect the truth from the decision-making. And the reason that's powerful is because The fear of the decision keeps us from recognizing the truth. Wow. That's, that's the banger from this show. Um, that's really powerful because the reason I kind of glommed onto that is because I do that all the time. Uh, the fear, I fear the consequence of recognizing the truth. Yeah.

Well, and once you start to separate it, go, okay, first let me just be radically honest about not about what's not working here. You know, as entrepreneurs, we're often so biased toward action and problem solving quickly. Like, if I don't like where I live, I don't have to necessarily solve that today. But I can be honest about, okay, I don't like this situation. Cool. I'm going to change it someday. And now I can go through the cost benefit of when and how that takes shape.

It's funny because the example of like where you live is a good one because I lived that one for so long. It's like, I lived in Dallas and I hated it, but I, in a way, um, wasn't willing to talk about it because I was afraid that then I would have to call my own bluff. And so you end up painting yourself in a corner and like you say things like, no, it's actually great here. Like so family oriented and great dining scene and bullshit. Like, no, admit the truth, which is like, it's not a fit for you and move to Boulder, which is eventually what I did. Unfortunately, I was 47 years old when I did it. But better late than never.

Yeah, totally. And the other thing is when you start becoming a truth seeker, when you start recognizing dissonance and eliminating that dissonance in your life, the quality of your relationships gets so much better, right? Again, we suffer in our relationships because we're not willing to name the thing that needs to be named. And so, what do we do? We grow resentment, right? We put distance between people. We slowly fade away, you know, which is one of the— one of the— a terrible way to end a relationship, right? Let's name the thing that's creating a dissonance between us, and then we can work on solving it. By the way, it may not be solvable, like, like some of the situations we talked about before, but we're not living in the dark. Let's bring it into the light.

I'm going to highlight that one too, because that one also rings, you know, true and close to home for me. A big turning point in my marriage when we were struggling a few years ago was this idea that like, I couldn't be my true self in my marriage. I, at least I felt that way. And that's a recipe for disaster. And I think, you know, in a relationship, you know, um, putting those truths on the table about who you are, what you need, that's the only chance you have to sustain because otherwise resentment just builds and builds and builds. And so I love this idea of like, get the truths on the table, get the truth about yourself and for your own issues, get the truth about your relationship on the table. And then the decisions come after that, right? Is like, um, there's lots of things that can be done, but I think, you know, don't let your fear, for example, of, well, what if this blows up my marriage? Don't let that keep you from getting your truth about your, the relationship on the table.

Yeah. And, and, and this is it is that You know, building a great life is the process of putting things in alignment, right? I want to align my internal experience with my external experience. But upstream from alignment is this radical truth-seeking, this radical self-honesty that we're talking about. And it is so liberating to start going through this process. And for me, once I started this, like, I couldn't unsee it. Then I just saw all of these areas that were out of alignment in my life. And I went through and systematically eliminated the dissonance. It took almost a decade.

Yeah, it is liberating. And I, the, the, the metaphor that comes to mind is pulling a thread on a sweater. And, you know, once you start speaking truth, the more you pull that thread, the more truth comes out and then you can't stop. Um, and I think that's maybe that's like a good place to stop here is this idea that. It just starts with like looking yourself in the mirror and being truthful about all things, especially yourself, and, and, and identifying that dissonance and doing that as a step before feeling compelled to even take action on it. That comes, that'll come. But yeah, start with just, you know, telling the truth, like searching your soul, telling the truth about yourself, your relationships, your work, your, the place you live. You know, everything and go from there. Yeah.

And the quote that comes to mind, uh, is, is from Greg LeMond. One of my favorite quotes was, it never gets easier. You just get faster. And that's the reality, right? The, the truth-seeking path is not an easy one, but, but for me at this point in my life, it's almost become reflexive, almost like it's just like an automatic thing. Well, it didn't start off that way. Right. I had, I had to go through a 16-year. Marriage that wasn't serving me, right? But, but all of a sudden I just got better at closing those gaps.

Yeah. And that, that struggle that Greg LeMond was talking about, you could also just call that life. I mean, that is life. Like this idea that, that there's some point at which you figured everything out and you've arrived. You know, it sounds silly to even say it, but we all implicitly kind of believe that that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow exists and it just doesn't. The struggle never ends. Therefore, how do you embrace the struggle? Starting with truth is a heck of a way to embrace the struggle.

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, this is a great one. We could, we could jam endlessly on this one, but I think it's a good place, uh, to leave it, which is, you know, recognize it's just like a workout, right? Your first day in the gym is going to be a lot harder than, you know, 6 months from now, but you got to start somewhere and, and then you can start collapsing those gaps in a much quicker way.

I love it, brother. I've learned a lot on this topic from you, so I appreciate you.

Yeah, same, same, my friend. All right, until next time.