The University of Life & Dylan Werner

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Dylan dude, welcome to the University of Life.
Thank you.
I I need to like ask straightaway, what's the story with all
the tattoos?

SPEAKER_00 (00:08):
You know, I've uh It's a it's it's a good good
good way to start.
I always get so tongue-tied atthe start of these things, you
know, because like I I I alwayswant to say something good, you
know, something that has value.
And I feel like there's so muchstuff out there that you just
listen to and very little of ithas value.
Like so many podcasts you justlisten to and it's just content

(00:30):
for the sake of content.
Um so first question, let's go.
Tattoos.
When I was little, I I I lovetattoos, I thought they were the
coolest thing in the world.
I remember one of my really clgood friends, probably my
closest friend at the timethere.
I was like 18 years old.
He we had we both just watchedSnatch, and I don't know if

(00:52):
you've seen that movie, but BradPitt is just like covered in
these cool tattoos, kind of likeall over.
And back then, this is '99,1999.
I I turned 18 18 in '98.
Jeez, old.
Uh, but yeah, he got a tattoo,like this big Virgin Berry on
his ribs, and I thought that wascool.
And I was like, I want to gettattoos, and I just started

(01:14):
getting a couple, and uh andthen uh ended up getting a
sleeve, and then just gettingmore and more, and then the
tattoos I got.
Tattoos, like I know you don'thave any tattoos, do you?

SPEAKER_02 (01:24):
No, no, I'm a blank canvas.
You the the reason actually Iasked that is because it's very
true to the first time I sawyou, we were we were in a sauna
together.
I remember you were sitting inLotus and I looked over, but you
had a sleeve.
And I I actually hadn't seenmany people what with tattoos,
and it was really curious.
But as I've kind of followed youand we've been connected, you go

(01:46):
for these deep dives whereyou'll go for like seven days or
eight days back to back of beingtattooed, and it's it there's
huge pain in it as well, and andso it's just quite an
interesting journey that you putyourself through that.
Obviously, I have no connectionwith, I've never done it myself
before.
So it's just curious, like theremust be such huge meaning in it
because you put yourself througha hell of a lot of pain.

(02:07):
One would think, right?
This is just funny shits andgiggles.

SPEAKER_00 (02:12):
Yeah, uh no, like I started getting tattoos.
You get when I was young, I gottattoos of things that I liked,
that I thought were cool, or Iwanted things to have meaning.
And I grew up religious, eventhough I'm which I would I'd
love to talk about your newchurch experiences and stuff,
but I grew up religious andlater became um non-religious, I

(02:33):
guess.
Not like I have nothing againstreligion, but I you know that
actually was kind of a big partof my life.
And I but I started gettingtattoos kind of in that area
where I was shifting out of it,but it was still something, and
and I still wanted things tohave meaning.
And so I I got I was really intoanime.
And if you notice, I don't haveany anime on me any anymore, but

(02:56):
I I started I got an animesleeve that was just really
dumb.
It had like two angels on it,and I don't know.
I I I wanted things to havemeaning with tattoos, and what I
realized about tattoos as I gotolder is I just wanted them to
be pretty.
And and like as as you movethrough life, the things that

(03:17):
are important to you change.
Even your aesthetics of what youfind is beautiful change.
But I don't know, now 40, 44.
I've kind of I've now covered upevery tattoo that I've had
except for one.
I only have one tattoo now thatis from the original that has
meaning.
And that's there's one on theback of my calf from a trip that

(03:38):
I did with a bunch of myfriends.
So we went up to Canada and anduh there's this Haeda Indian art
up there, native, uh NativeAmerican, Native Canadian art.
And it means brotherhood.
It's just like uh it's like asun made up of hands and faces,
and all my friends have it, andmy stepdad has it.
We all have in like differentplaces, and so that's the only
one that I kept.

(03:59):
And all the rest of them, I justI wanted something that was more
pretty and what I liked.
And it's been more of likecovering up my old identity.
I think the biggest one that Ihad was like there was this big
atomic bomb that I got from uhafter maybe 10 years after I got
back, or no, less than 10 years,let's see.

(04:20):
When I went, I said, like, let'sbefore this, it's like Jamie's
like, Does there anything youdon't want to talk about?
I'm like, let's not talk aboutit in my past, let's not talk
about like my time in theMarines or war or yoga or any of
that.
Let's just have fun.
But I I had this big atomic bombon my back and the fallen
soldier memorial thing, which islike an M16 with a helmet on top
for like my friends that I lostwhen I was in Iraq, and and I

(04:43):
carried that on my back for uh14 years.
I got it when I was 30, and Ijust covered it up um a month
ago or so, two months ago.
Um how long has it been?
Yeah, yeah, three months.
Yeah, something like that.
But it is something that lostall meaning.

(05:07):
And so I just wanted to kind ofget rid of it because like who
we associate ourselves with orwhatever, uh, who we think we we
are is generally or oftentimeswho we were, yeah, which is
rarely ever who we are.
And kind of getting rid of allmy old tattoos that had some
sort of meaning to me that hadlost the meaning really allowed

(05:29):
me to kind of step into this newchapter of my life, which is one
where I just want to feelbeautiful in my body and like
look at it and feel good ratherthan having to explain to
somebody why I have a big atomicbomb on my back or why I have uh
uh an angel on my arm or amermaid on my fore or whatever,
you know, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_02 (05:47):
Yeah, it's holding on to the scars and the weight
of the past.
It's look, I I I wanted to askthat that question because I
kind of think how how we do onething, it's how we do
everything.

SPEAKER_00 (05:56):
Is that true though?
I've heard that so many times.
But how many but like I I lovethese sayings.
I love these sayings.
Let's you know it leaves finishthat, but I want to get back
into it.

SPEAKER_02 (06:05):
Yeah, no, it it leaves clues.
Like you were you were somebodythat I I met, I think you had
like 800,000 followers orsomething.
But what struck me was you neverposted on social media.
You seldom posted on socialmedia, but when you did, you
posted with meaning.
You know, you were an influencerthat didn't do any brand deals
or or seldom did them, um, andyou didn't overshare.

(06:29):
It was this really interestingthing to observe.
Oh, he posts about once a monthwhen he does.
Whoa, there's a lot of impact.
That's interesting.
You know, he actually has care.
And like your practice, yourpractice for anybody watching
on, like if you go to Dylan'sInstagram page and you look at
just some of the stuff that hecan do with his body, well, for
me as I've been trying toemulate, it's like five years

(06:49):
and I'm not even scratching.
There's huge, uh there's hugepractice, there's huge depth,
there's huge meaning.
And uh and so when I when Iasked that about the that
tattoos, yeah, what I didn'trealize is oh yeah, Dylan's
Dylan's in the studio for six,seven days.
Two or three of those days areactually covering up, two or
three of those days are clearingup the past and almost creating

(07:11):
a bit of a blank canvas for himgoing forward.
He's not like he's not allowinghis past to define him, he's
updating himself.
And it's quite an interestingthing to say, you know, clearing
off those anchors and actuallyjust saying, No, do you know
what I want to be pretty in mybody?
And this artwork, you know,what's the depth?
What's the meaning?
Oh, it's no, it's pretty.
I just feel it's complimentingmy look.
Um, so yeah, that that that'swhat comes up for for me, and

(07:34):
then that's yeah, that's why Ikind of find it interesting.

SPEAKER_00 (07:38):
Okay, then now let's get into something.
How you do one thing is how youdo everything.
Yeah, do you think it's true?
No, not even a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 (07:45):
Okay.
So this is the real reason whyI've asked to uh to chat with
with Dylan, because on otherpodcasts you know that the
conversation will flow.
I actually once sat down fordinner with Dylan, a guy called
Mike Chang and Ian.
And for the first 45 minutes,maybe an hour of the
conversation, we were fightingover definitions.

(08:06):
Somebody asked a question.
I was like, Well, what do youmean by that question?
What do you mean by thatadjective?
Let's just make sure we're allgoing off the same uh the the
the same grounding here andunderstanding.
And uh and my relationship withyou is one of really interesting
challenge.
You you were probably one of thefirst people to introduce me to
like the fun that can be had inbeing like, yeah, it's a good

(08:27):
saying, it sounds great andeverything like that, but it's
bullshit.
So why don't you rip it apartfirst and foremost and I will go
from there.

SPEAKER_00 (08:34):
No, I'd rather I'd rather you defend it first.
It's more it's more fun that waybecause because then we could
look at where the holes are.
Yeah, it's also harder as well.

SPEAKER_02 (08:42):
Harder to defend something than it's a territory?
Really, really are well, it'sharder to be the first one to
speak.
But for me, when I say how we doone thing is how we do
everything.
Of course, it's not how we doabsolutely everything, but what
happens is there is clues.
There is kind of littlesimilarities.
So if, for example, say we havechallenges when it comes to
speaking our truth, beinghonest, well, that's going to

(09:06):
show up not just with regards toperhaps a friendship, but it'll
show up in relationship, it'llshow up in family, it'll show up
in probably communicating, inbranding, it'll show up in
several other areas.
So how we do one thing in thatone area reflects itself in all
other areas and leaves clues toperhaps a deeper meaning.

(09:26):
That's where I'm kind ofgrasping at.

SPEAKER_00 (09:28):
I mean, I get it.
There is there is some truth toit.
Like if you are a motivatedperson and you and you pursue
things like wholeheartedly, likeone thing, you generally do that
towards most things becausethat's your personality.
But how you do one thing one dayis not how you do something
every day, right?
In the same thing.
So just like in that sameregard, like, you know, maybe

(09:49):
you brush your teeth the sameway, but how you approach work
or how you approach arelationship or how you approach
a friendship or somethingchanges day to day.
Life is dynamic, it's constantlymoving through through ebbs and
flows, ups and downs, dependingon how you feel, how you how you
show up for that day.
We don't show up our best everyday, we don't show up our worst
every day.
That changes always.

(10:10):
There's so many factors thatinfluence how we do something
that you know, sometimes youmight be really motivated and
you go out something really hardfor a while and you put
everything into it, and thenother times, you know, something
might change.
Like we both just lost uh one ofour really close friends, and
that changes things.

(10:31):
And so you might do thingsreally different for a while
because you're honoring whateverthat is or however that feels.
And so how you you know it it'swe show up differently for
ourselves every day differently,we show up differently for
people every day differently,you know.
Uh, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 (10:51):
Yeah, I it so when I when we go back to the start
about the tattoos, yeah, okay,back to the it's no, but it's
like again, analogy for life.
It's you actually went through alot of pain to relieve yourself
of that past imprint, thatanchor to the past.

SPEAKER_00 (11:08):
And give yourself so so like there's there's a
difference between so yeah,tattoos hurt, they're painful,
it's a process, the healingsucks and all that, but it's
temporary.
It's not like there's there'spain, and then there's like
things hurt, right?
Going getting all these tattoos,they hurt, they weren't painful.
You know what I mean?

(11:28):
Again, this goes back to how dowe define define words or like
English, we're both nativeEnglish speakers, even though I
think most people can'tunderstand you when you talk.
Um for and I don't think I havean accent.
Yeah, not not at all.
For for an Irishman, you'reyou're you're you're pretty
benign.
Uh but yeah, so like we weEnglish is a really dynamic

(11:52):
language, and so you know, likepain and love have so many
different contexts of usage.
And so when you start talkingabout something like, you know,
going through pain, um, and likewhy I just cut you off in the
conversation short, there isbecause you were using one
definition of pain to then talkabout a different definition of

(12:16):
pain, which really should be twodifferent words, right?
So you're using physical paingoing through that, and you're
talking about an emotionalprocess.
And getting tattooed is aphysical if some people it might
be emotional.
For me, it's it's not emotional.
I go in there, I'm really goodat dealing with physical pain.
Uh, I, you know, years of breathwork and meditation and

(12:39):
everything.
Being able to disassociate mybody from my being is one way to
do it.
Uh, also to understand presence,you know, like experience
something in the moment that istemporary and understanding how
it's not lasting and and the uhthe finiteness of it and how
it's going to be over is reallyeasy to cope with something like

(13:00):
getting tattooed.
Like, yeah, this hurts now, butit's not gonna hurt forever, you
know, and it allows you to movethrough that process of being
one that's purely physicalversus what happened at the
exact same time, you know,literally the exact same time
that I was getting tattooed iswe lost our friend Aaron, right?
That is another kind of painthat I'm still dealing with that
you're still, you know, we'restill dealing, like just talking

(13:21):
about brings tears to my eyesbecause you know, miss them so
much.
Um so to use use this word in umto use this word in two
different completely contextsthat is like it's the same, uh
doesn't do justice to what painis.

(13:42):
And so like um I would say thetattoos hurt at the time, but
they weren't painful.

SPEAKER_02 (13:51):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (13:52):
You know, like again, it's just because
language is limited and toactually communicate, like how
you know, the talk you have, youhave to understand the words
that we're using to communicatewith, and we all define things
differently, so differently,that oftentimes we have a
conversation and we don'tunderstand what the other
person's saying because thefoundation of the words that

(14:13):
we're using to communicate arenot the same.

SPEAKER_02 (14:16):
And if we only probably took a little bit of
time to do exactly as you'redoing and really inquire into
the different definitions, thedifferent what layers at which
we're communicating at, it maybe a bit uncomfortable, but over
time we would find a connection,a greater level of
understanding, and probably awhole lot less disease as a

(14:36):
result.

SPEAKER_00 (14:36):
Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 (14:38):
And if we didn't shy away from perhaps the physical
pain sometimes, or emotional orwhatever, and just allowed
ourselves to relieve ourselvesof our past imprint, we'd
probably feel a lot more freefreedom in the present.

SPEAKER_00 (14:52):
Well, if you think that most people have a
conversation to be heard, yeah,rather than having a
conversation to hear, yeah, hebeing heard, you know, you you
you speak and you hope peopleunderstand what you're saying,
but to hear, you need tounderstand what they're saying.
And if uh unless you have a deeprelationship or um a real

(15:15):
understanding of where they'recoming from and how they define
things and all that, it's reallyhard to hear somebody.
You know, and so generally liketo have a real conversation and
really to hear hear what they'resaying is you need to understand
the the the meaning behind thewords that they're using.
And and they're and like everyword can be broken down to more

(15:36):
simple words that are that areless precise.
Yeah, or or or um there are lessdefinitions or or fewer ways,
less, fewer, fewer and less.
There are fewer ways to hearwhat those things mean, you

(15:57):
know, and then there's thesebigger words that have such an
emotional tie to them and andrequire history, your own
personal history to define themversus like table, you know.
Like if I say, Oh, this, youknow, if I use just some nouns
or whatever, it's it's reallyeasy to to to talk about that
and know that we're talkingabout the same thing.

(16:18):
But as soon as I start talkingabout emotion or anything in the
journey, right, it it requiresit requires questions to hear.

SPEAKER_02 (16:30):
For me, what comes up when I when I share that
line, how we do one thing is howwe do everything.
Is there's actually let's say alaziness in that.
And your whole philosophy forlife, there's there's not a
laziness, there's a proactivity.
And the proactivity I thinkallows for the freedom, it
allows for the difference.

(16:51):
It actually cuts us off from ourpatterns and it has us living
more present.
And that's that's really likewhat I'm sitting in front of you
here.
It's like quite a strong exampleof presence.
And you know, there's no rush inthis.
You're like, no, no, let's getthis right, let's get this
right, let's get this right.
And I think there's different,yeah, there's different um,
there's definite differentdefinitions for different

(17:11):
people, and there's differentkinds of um labels for different
types.
I think if you take a lazyapproach to life, you'll pretty
f you'll find pretty quicklythat how what when one person
does one thing is symbolic of awhole load of other things in
their life.
But if you're pretty damnproactive with yourself, if you
don't shy away from doing yourwork, you'll find that you get
quite a lot of freedom in yourlife, and those patterns play

(17:33):
out less and less.
And in actual fact, somebodybecomes all the more challenging
and hard to read.

SPEAKER_00 (17:38):
Yeah.
Pattern patterns is an easything to fall into, right?
It's it's we we people kind oflike thrive on routine and
patterns because it takes theeffort out, actually.
Even if you that's another liketo understand effort or or doing

(17:59):
one thing or laziness, you know,these like words that you
brought up.
Again, there's there's so muchdepth to that.
I could go to the gym every dayor work out or or try learning
or whatever, and put so mucheffort into those activities,
but because it's in a routine, apattern that I do, there's
actually very little effort intoit, which is like if you're if

(18:22):
you're talking about um wantinggrowth in life.
The easiest way to have growthin whatever that area is to set
up patterns, routines, um, sothat you can kind of be lazy
with it.
Like uh momentum, momentum is areally hard thing to get going,

(18:43):
but once it's once it's going,it's really easy to continue.
And so, like if you're trying tobetter yourself in something,
the hardest part is setting upthe momentum to putting in those
patterns.
It's not the it's not the effortthat it takes once you're in
that.

SPEAKER_02 (18:59):
Interesting for me, the patterns will only get you
so far, and after a certainpoint they'll start to hold you
back.
But I kind of hear it's likewhen I'm chatting with you and
I'm hearing your philosophy, itfeels like almost an advanced
philosophy.
Can I can I ask you something alittle bit more deeper?

SPEAKER_00 (19:13):
I don't do you think there's such a thing as advanced
philosophy?

SPEAKER_02 (19:16):
Oh, definitely think that we all we we look at the
world through different lenses.
Yeah.
And we have our own realities.
Now, advanced suggestssuperiority, let's take that
away.
But integrating a differencethat yeah, I think different
people look at the worlddifferently.

(19:37):
Different people live indifferent bubbles.
And so much of what you weresharing is like, hey, if you're
having a conversation with oneperson, you might be coming at
it from different bubbles, inwhich case you're oftentimes
talking probably about the samething, but you're just
miscommunicating amisunderstanding.
And if instead of doing thatwhere we're talking at each
other, we try to find the baselevels and we try to find a
level of understanding, we'regonna have a far better

(19:58):
conversation eventually.
Might be a little bit slower inthe initial sense, but over time
it'll progress a hell of a lotmore efficiently.

SPEAKER_00 (20:06):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (20:07):
I'm I'm curious the um the timing.

SPEAKER_00 (20:10):
You said three months ago that you got that
tattoo, the atomic bomb and theNo uh when I was when I was 29,
right before I turned 30, I gotthe atomic bomb tattoo.
Oh, but got it removed aboutthree months ago.
I got it covered up, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (20:25):
At the exact same time that we lost our friend
Aaron.

SPEAKER_00 (20:27):
Yeah.
What's the correlation?

SPEAKER_02 (20:29):
With that?
Or is there a correlation?

SPEAKER_00 (20:31):
Yeah, the correlation was Aaron owns a
tattoo studio, and I've got andand I'm partly covered up be
because of him, because youknow, he's the friend hookup,
right?
Uh so Aaron I don't, you know,Aaron, he was the what
listeners.
We're talking about a it'sactually interesting because

(20:53):
Jamie and I met Aaron uh thesame day and we became friends
with him.
I became a really close friendwith him, and he used to stay at
my house every week just becausein Bali, there's different
towns.
There's like Chung, Changgu,Uluwatu, Uboud, and they're like
an hour, two hours away fromeach other.
And I live in Changgu, which iskind of a bit where where we are

(21:15):
right now, it's a bit morecentral.
And Aaron was kind of alwaysback and forth between Ubud and
Uluwatu, but most of hisbusiness and work was in Chongu.
So he would come and stay at myhouse at least once a week.
And that actually all stoppedwhen he he met his girlfriend
less than a year ago, or I thinkthey're coming right up on like
what would have been a year.
But because that relationshipwas really good for him, he

(21:37):
stopped staying over so much.
And so I there was like a bit oftime that I didn't get to hang
out with him as much as I wasused to hanging out with him
every single week.
You know, he's really one of myclosest friends here.
Uh, and then when I startedgetting the tattoos, I was up in
Uboot every single day gettingtattooed and hanging out with
him or staying at his house orwhatever.
Um and the day before he died, Iwas getting tattooed at his

(22:04):
studio, and he came in and, youknow, said that he was going to
Thailand or whatever, which iswhere he passed away.
Um yeah, he's, you know, likethat was like my last, my last
goodbye.
So there's not really anycorrelation between me getting
covered up.
I was already doing it.
Is the the whole reason why ithappened when it happened is
because I was waiting for thisartist, this uh resilient artist

(22:27):
that I've wanted to do mytattoos, and I've been waiting
for him for like two years tocome.
Aaron brought him to his studio,and then uh he was tattooing me
there.
And that was that was reallythat was like a two-month
process.
What do you learn about grief?

SPEAKER_02 (22:41):
Like three months on going through a process like
that where you lose a bestfriend.

SPEAKER_00 (22:45):
I I have probably a uh a better understanding with
death and loss than most people,I think.
Part of it from my time in theMarine Corps, I lost, you know,
18 years old.
I lost, well, if I go back, likea lot of my family members had
passed when I was in highschool.
My uncle died of a of a drugoverdose when I was 16 years

(23:08):
old.
Um my grandmother shortly afterthat.
Uh my grandfather, my my dad'sdad, he died when I was like 10.
And so, like loss of familymembers and stuff.
My my dad's other uncle diedwhen I was 24.
But then in the Marine Corps,when I was in Iraq, I had lost a
couple friends, um, some throughsuicide from results of after

(23:32):
the war, and then you know, somefrom the war.
And then I became a firefighterparamedic.
Uh I was well, I was a paramedicfirst for eight years, and so
that was like daily living withlike people literally dying in
your hands.
You know, I think there'sthere's uh a run of like six
months where I think on my shiftI had somebody die.

(23:57):
And from like usually from likea heart attack or something like
that, it's pretty common.
You're running 20 calls a day orso.
There's you know, you're gonnasee that a lot.
And so there starts to become adisconnection with it a little
bit.
Um and also more of a connectionwith life because you start to

(24:18):
really understand the fragilityof life.
And then about four years ago,um, I lost my dad to cancer.
And, you know, losing a parentis is something completely
different because it's like youwhen you plan your life and you
think about all the things thatyou're gonna do.
And you know, I j I recently gotmarried, we're coming up on our

(24:39):
one-year anniversary next month,but you know, my dad never got
to meet my wife, you know, he'snever gonna be a grandfather and
stuff.
And so it's like those kinds ofexperiences you miss out.
And so the grief starts to come.
Grief is about you, obviously.
Death, like the loss of afriend, is always a selfish
thing, right?
Because after you die, it's youknow, Aaron's not well, I I

(25:02):
don't believe in an afterlife,which is actually comforting
because uh eternity that's ascary thing, that's more scary
than anything else.
Whether it's you know, goldenroads and angels and harps and
whatever for eternity.
I mean, I'm 44 and I I getbored.
Uh you know, I need like threedifferent devices sometimes to

(25:23):
keep my attention, right?
Could you imagine an eternity ofthat?
That sounds crazy.

SPEAKER_02 (25:27):
It actually used to keep me up at late at night when
I was younger.
The thought of like, oh my god,I'm gonna be here for infinity.
Right.
That haunted me so much.
I I like I couldn't sleep.
I I I found myself just in thesevery weird states, sitting in
that idea of life is endless.

SPEAKER_00 (25:44):
I think one of the reasons why so many rock stars
and and uh like celebrities andstuff commit suicide is because
they get to a point wherethey're no longer growing.
And life is growth is essentialfor happiness.
It's it's one of the mostessential things to to feel

(26:06):
content, to feel like your lifehas purpose or meaning is to be
moving towards something.
And in eternity, like when areyou gonna run out?
Did you ever see that?
What was it, the the um the goodlife or good place or something?
The good place.
I don't know.
There's this show with uh Ithink Kristen Bell or whatever,
like uh they basically is likean afterlife show, and and uh

(26:31):
not quite spoiled, so I willspoil it, fuck it.
But like in the end, like theythey're they're in this
afterlife, and basically whatthey choose after after a
certain amount of time is tobasically walk into the into the
nothingness and and and cease toexist.
And that's like if I can't thinkof a better heaven than that,

(26:52):
and if you look at so manyphilosophy, look at like um like
Hinduism, Buddhism and stuff,it's it's about escaping karma,
it's about escaping rebirth andreincarnation to actually to go
back to to lose ego.
So whether there's an afterlifeor not, like what we want in the
afterlife is no longer to havean identity of who we are, so

(27:13):
that there's no those no longera tie to karma, no longer a need
to grow, right?
We just can simply s cease toexist to get out of the the rat
race.
So for like Aaron, you know,passing on, like he's either

(27:33):
doesn't exist with my father notexisting, like he exists only in
our memory, only in our hearts,right?
And so the it's really about uswhen we lose somebody, it's not
about them, it's always aboutus.
I had a uh teacher, uhphilosophical teacher, she told
me the the difference betweenlove and attachment is love is

(27:58):
wanting happiness for somebody,and attachment is is what the
happiness that that person givesyou.
And when suffering comes fromloss of attachment or like a
separation, right?
So when we have that separation,we know are no longer getting
fulfilled by that person, andthat's where the suffering comes
from.
It's only when you let go ofthat that you're able to love,

(28:21):
like wherever Aaron is or isn'tright now is where we're all
gonna be soon.

SPEAKER_02 (28:29):
I I I had to ask into that space because grief I
I have found extraordinarilychallenging to process.
And the most frustrating thingfor me is that there's no
fantastic authorities in it.
Um it is interesting that whatyou shared that, like, hey, we
we all experience grief, andwe're all we're all gonna die at

(28:53):
some stage, but it's like thisbig space that we don't really
focus too much in on.
And even when it comes to youknow, so many people's funerals
and stuff, there's quite rushed.
You know, there there's it'slike someone dies and there's a
rush to process that and thenmove it on.
And actually for me, some of thesaddest things is just how
quickly things move on.

SPEAKER_00 (29:09):
Well, life is for the living, and I actually agree
it should move on.
It needs to, because life isonly for the living.
If we spend our time withsomething like, you know, like
grieving over what we lost, it'sit's a choice.
For as being human, it's anecessary choice.

(29:30):
It's it we need to processthings.
And the better that you I Iguess the more intellectual
understanding you have assomething, the better you could
process process it emotionallybecause you could intellectually
see the process happening andyou could add reason to it.
That it doesn't mean that it,you know, uh when you lose

(29:52):
somebody, that there is a reasonwhy that person happened.
I I hate the everything happensfor a reason kind of thing, or
trust in the universe orwhatever.
Life is nothing but chaos.
Like the the the fun the laws ofnature is entropy, moving from
organization to disorganization.
That that is that is what'shappening with everything.
Things become more and morechaotic as they progress.

(30:16):
And the more that you try tofind reason in that chaos, the
more lost that you're going tobecome.

SPEAKER_02 (30:24):
Sorry, one second, let me rewind that.
So everything kind of starts offin an organized fashion.
There's plentiful resources andeverything, but every as
everything progresses, well,there's a there's a day of
fatigue, there's a there's a useof resources, there's less
resources.
So every day it becomes a littlebit more challenging to have
that same peace that you had theday before, that same abundance
that you had the day before.

(30:45):
And so as a kind of a trajectorygoing forward there, there's
this impending and almostcompounding disorientation and
impending chaos.

SPEAKER_00 (30:55):
Yeah, yes, yes, and no.
Okay.
Because the the what stopsentropy is energy.
Because entropy is basicallyenergy dis dispersing, right?
As you know, you look at thesun, the sun's not going to last
for forever because it's it'sexpressing its energy out into

(31:16):
the universe, and eventuallythat's going to go away.
Uh, but we're able to take thatenergy and use it to find
organization, to move againstchaos.
So to move against that, ittakes effort.
Things don't happen withouteffort.
And what I hear, especially likein the spiritual world that I I

(31:36):
live in, is that you know,listen to the universe, go with
the flow of the universe.
Well, if you do that, theuniverse is going into chaos,
it's expanding, it's it, youknow, it's not moving towards
organization, it's not moving inthe direction that you want to
live your life.
It's going the exact opposite.
What you have to do is put yourown energy and it into whatever
you're doing to move towardswhat you want.

(31:58):
You give your life reason, yougive your life meaning, you give
your life purpose, you put theenergy into what you want.
And without that, your life goesinto chaos because that is the
will of the universe.
Okay, so bear with me.

SPEAKER_02 (32:08):
Give me the word that it is the idea of this like
uh ever developing andcompounding chaos.

SPEAKER_00 (32:14):
Entropy.

SPEAKER_02 (32:15):
Entropy.
Okay, so I always had this ideathat yes, life is all the time
getting more challenging, morestressful.

SPEAKER_00 (32:20):
That's a physics word, by the way.
It's not it's not aphilosophical word, but I'm
choosing to use a physics-basedterm in a philosophical way.

SPEAKER_02 (32:28):
The choice.
What what what anybody listeningon could recognize is that when
you chat with Dylan, he'll chatwith you from a number of
different layers and intellects.
And so it's it's a really it's ait's actually quite a lovely
journey because it's becausevery few people socially will
challenge.
You know, we we like to getalong, but there's people
pleasing on so many layers, andyou just don't sit in that

(32:49):
space.
You will call somebody up intheir bullshit, and you will
speak into the regular awkward,challenging points, and it's so
refreshing.

SPEAKER_00 (32:57):
Um, but thank you.
I I uh and you actually nailedthe reason why, and it's because
it's people pleasing.
I um I don't know.
Well, I see this as your love.
Yeah, I I well if you if youlove somebody, you want to be
honest with them, you want to betruthful with them, you don't

(33:18):
want to please them.
For you.

SPEAKER_02 (33:20):
So I my struggle was that for people that I loved, I
wanted a champion.
I wanted a compliment, I wanteda lift up.
And that's nice.

SPEAKER_00 (33:29):
Do you do you think do you think it's for them or do
you think it's for you?
It's a bit of both.
I felt I've had But what what'sthe root?
Are you are you trying to pleaseother people to please them, or
are you trying to please otherpeople to please yourself?
Okay.
And I don't really like thatword please so much.

SPEAKER_02 (33:46):
It's so so I really want to put a past tense on this
because this is definitely anarea that I've really kind of
had to zone in on.
And one of the lovely thingsthat I found is that helping
somebody see a brighter path forthemselves or see things from a
more positively serving way forthemselves, uh, I could see the
relief and the joy that itbrings to them.

(34:06):
And that brought me a lot ofjoy.
But what I recognize now is thatthat has its merits, but also
what you're doing has its hugemerits too, of holding up a
mirror and sometimes tellingsomething the very somebody
something that the verysomething, sorry, that they
don't want to hear.
That can actually be oftentimesthe greatest gift that you can
give somebody because for everylike heartwarming positive

(34:29):
compliment that you get, it'sprobably a 10 to 1 ratio or
maybe even a hundred to oneratio in terms of somebody will
say a challenging reflection ora bit of feedback from a place
of love.
You get lots of challenge fromcriticism and shit energy, but
there's a very, very select fewthat will meet you with
challenge love.
And that's a very I would sayunique characteristic in you.

(34:52):
And like I I kind of find likewhen I I don't think there's
anything unique about me.
Of course you don't.
Well, I find like I findcertainly for me, when I analyze
the friendships in my life andthe people in my life, I
recognize that all of them havequite an inspiring effect.
That's yours.
You show up, and generallyspeaking, every conversation

(35:13):
there's something, I go, Oh,that's great.
And it's permission for me to doit going forward too.

unknown (35:18):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (35:19):
So thank you.
I think I think we we are verylucky in our lives with the I'm
I'm getting ready to leave Bali.
Like I feel I need to, uh, for alot of different reasons.
Not anytime really soon, uh, orpermanent, but one of the things
that really keeps me here is isthe community of friends that we
have.
Uh I think that's what keepsanybody anywhere.

(35:41):
I think about all the placesthat I lived before that were
just awful places to to be, thatlike no one would choose that to
live there.
But you live there for thecommunity.

SPEAKER_02 (35:52):
Yeah.
But like I I I go back, likeyou, you were you your notes on
grief are like are like here,look, life is for the living and
like life needs to move on andeverything like that.
But when the the real anchoringthing to life is the community
and the people you surroundyourself with most, it's so
disorientating when when a keyfigure and a high like a high

(36:13):
impacting, inspiring person inyour life goes.
Yeah.
And to come to terms with that,like I yeah, I'm curious.
I like I'd actually love to ask,like, what what what would be
your your philosophy or yourtool to like, hey, look, this
helps in grief.

SPEAKER_00 (36:29):
Um it's it's a really good question and a
really hard one to answerbecause grief is a personal
thing, and it and uh grievinghas to do with your with with
experience you get better,right?

SPEAKER_02 (36:47):
And isn't that such a harsh answer though?

SPEAKER_00 (36:50):
It it it is a harsh answer, and why I'm good with
grieving is because I have I'vehad so much experience with it,
and it's not being better atgrieving, the the process to be
better at it is not one that youwant to go through.
Yeah, so sometimes like if youhaven't been through a lot of
grief, uh it's it's okay togrieve for a while, but then

(37:12):
there's the other part of it,like I was lucky enough to deal
with it from a very young earlyage where it didn't trap me.
You know, or at least I have thepersonality that um I think w
when I was really little, uh I Istruggled a lot with depression

(37:33):
and um had suicidal thoughts allthe time and I was really
unhappy.
I remember my my mother told meone time that you know, like
you're always gonna haveproblems, but the problems you
have today are not gonna be theproblems you have tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 (37:48):
So the the this my like my idea of life or my
recognition of life is that myproblems actually get more
challenging, my stresses getmore.
Um the hurt down the line umgets more and more heavier and
heavier.
And yeah, the challenges thatare going to show up in the
world.

SPEAKER_00 (38:09):
Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_02 (38:10):
I I actually the very philosophy that we talked
about that life is challengingyou.
Life like the more grounded youare, the more confident you are,
the greater you can lean out ofyour comfort zone of the.

SPEAKER_00 (38:20):
Can I can I ask you another question though before
you finish that?
Yeah.
Is challenge good or bad?

SPEAKER_02 (38:26):
So I mean it's obviously both, but it's so
there's there's two sides to it.
And kind of what I feel is thatwe have a responsibility.
Like you talked about harnessingenergy.
And for me, there's harnessingenergy through work and through
discipline.

SPEAKER_00 (38:40):
Creating energy.

SPEAKER_02 (38:42):
Well, actually harnessing and creating energy.
Well, where do you harness itfrom?
Well, you were giving theexample of the sun and nature
and flow.

SPEAKER_00 (38:50):
Well, that's just because that's from a physics
side.
All the energy that we have, thesun comes down, feeds the
plants, animals eat the plants,we eat the animals, and now we
have energy.
So that's that's how we harnessit.
But when we want to put theenergy forward, I mean it comes
from our food, but emotionally,maybe it comes from our friends
and our support groups andstuff.
Um so we nurture.

(39:12):
But but that that I don't know,energy is such a a big subject,
distorted, misunderstood,overused, manipulated garbage of
a word now in today's society.
I I think like how we how wecompletely don't understand this
word energy, and we use it foreverything and we explain stuff

(39:35):
with energy and we don't knowwhat it means.
Okay, quickly give me yourdefinition.
Energy is the ability to dowork.

SPEAKER_02 (39:42):
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (39:47):
Boom, physics, thank you.
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (39:50):
So my belief is that in a world that is ever evolving
in terms of stress and challengeand dis-ease, we can choose to
do one of two things.
Try and hold the line, butunfortunately, at a certain
point life is going to engulf usand over overrun.
Or uh build ourselves up all themore and perhaps outperform that
growth curve, in which case lifegets easier.

SPEAKER_00 (40:14):
Outperform the growth curve.
Break that down for me.

SPEAKER_02 (40:19):
So there is a growth trajectory of challenge, stress,
disease in our life.
Okay.
Okay.
And if we stay put, that growsand grows and grows to the point
that it overwhelms and engulfs.
Or if we outperform that interms of building up our

(40:39):
strength, our capacity, ourenergy, then we can deal with
this more easily.
In which case, we outperform thegrowth curve, and life doesn't
get harder anymore, it getseasier.
Can you grow without stress?

SPEAKER_00 (40:53):
Uh I would say stress is a necessary component
of growth.
Of course.
You don't go on vacation, youlay on the lay by the beach and
drink my ties all day, and thenafterwards you go, fuck, I grew
so much as a person.

unknown (41:06):
No.

SPEAKER_00 (41:06):
And now it's after you go through breakup.
You might make physically, butlike emotional growth.
Um Yeah, there's we grow throughstress.
There's two types of stress,youth stress, and distress.
Yeah.
Right?
E-stress is is the stress thatwe're able to handle and better
ourselves from.
Distress is it's too much for usto handle and it breaks us down.

(41:28):
And so to grow as a person andremember, growth is the is
necessary for life, forhappiness, for fulfillment.
And so for that to happen, therehas to be a certain amount of
stress.
Majority of that stress that themajority of that stress that you
put into your life, you want toput it into yourself because
that's where you have the mostcontrol of the amount of stress

(41:49):
needed for growth, whetherthat's you know, physical to
working out or emotional throughlearning and listening and and
dealing.
It's the the stress that youdon't have control over that
breaks you down, the loss offriends and family or
relationships or jobs, or youknow, that's the kind of stuff.
But they all regardless ofwhether you create it or if it's

(42:12):
created for you, you have thechoice to a certain capacity to
grow from it or to break itdown.
Uh, and and a lot of that islike your history and how you
show up for yourself in in thosemoments, how you choose.
I I think, you know, for for youyou look at, you know, like

(42:35):
Nelson Mandela or Gandhi or thethese other people that have
just been through some of thethe most inspirational
philosophical people, you know,Mother Teresa, that have done
the most, have lived some of thehardest lives ever, and also
have spread the most joy andhappiness and impact on the
world.
And so it's not a matter of howhard the stress is, it's it's a

(42:57):
matter of how you show up forthat stress and how you use that
stress to grow.

SPEAKER_02 (43:02):
I had a I had this uh journey with this body worker
who was poking and prodding mybody in all sorts of different
ways and inflicting some seriousamounts of pain on me.
And he kind of giggled as I wasscreaming and he was like,
Jamie, no pain, no gain.
And he said, please sit withthis and learn to work through
this, because the more stressthat you can manage in your

(43:23):
life, the more success you caninvite in.

SPEAKER_00 (43:25):
I liked it.
Yeah, I you could you coulddefinitely again that word pain.
Right.
You could have a lot of gainwithout pain.
And when it comes to growththrough the body, pain is the
distress that you don't want tofeel.

(43:47):
There's discomfort like it'sthis is where like having an
understanding, uh like your owndefinitions of words of like
pain and discomfort.
Um the the way that likephysical growth I like to look
at being being a yoga teacherand stuff is like if you put
yourself into discomfort, howyou know it's good for you is

(44:10):
when you when you move out ofthat discomfort, that discomfort
stops.
Right?
If if it's still there and itpersists, then it's probably too
much.
And again, going throughdistress and and you stress.

SPEAKER_02 (44:25):
So sorry, I I like my curiosity is now getting the
better of me because you're oneof the first people I saw to do
like go up into a handstandwithout any obvious push or
anything.
It's like you floated up into ahandstand, and you floated down
into a press-up, but your feetdidn't touch the ground, and
then you went right back up intoa handstand, and then you went
down into a press-up where yourfeet did touch the ground.

(44:48):
And like to me, that is the mostincredible uh like way of
working a body.
It should demonstrates enormousstrength.

SPEAKER_00 (44:58):
I'm five foot seven, you're six foot five.
It's a lot easier for me to doit than for you to do it.

SPEAKER_02 (45:02):
But but uh like that like that that gives a serious
amount of prominence for me tobe like, wait, what is actually
the secret to the train to thetraining that you're doing?
And what I'm hearing there isthat like Jamie, know what
you're know your stress, knowyour stress capacity, work with

(45:22):
it, do not inflict over uhunnecessary pain on your body.
Don't take on unnecessary stressin your life.
Recognize that most of thestress you have in your life is
self-induced.
You only have a certain capacityof it.
If you overdo it, you will setyourself up on a on a
disadvantage.
Manage yourself accordingly.
And so I'm kind of figuringlike, do you work through that?

(45:46):
Like to get to that initially,was that years of work of work?
Or is there kind of a secret?

SPEAKER_00 (45:51):
And the kind of secret that I'm pulling from
that is it's don't go beyond ifif you do too much of anything,
it sets you back instead ofpushing you forward.
And so like if you're looking togrow like physically, you you
don't want to work through painso much, right?

SPEAKER_02 (46:09):
Like if which is so counterintuitive a
counter-narrative to like themasculine training of like work
through the pain, bash throughthe pain.

SPEAKER_00 (46:16):
So you have um you have uh what's I'm trying to
think of the the word.
So like you're you're basicallyyour remodeling model.
So how the body repairs itselfand builds itself.
You could also say this worksemotionally as well, but for for

(46:38):
strength is different thanflexibility.

SPEAKER_02 (46:40):
You know, when you said you could also say this
emotionally, I was just about tosay, well, how we do one thing
is how we do everything.

SPEAKER_00 (46:47):
No, no, well, how I approach strength training is
not how I approach flexibility.
Because they're differentmodels.
And how I approach things moemotionally is also not how I'd
approach it physically.
But there are places that youcould say there's a different
model for that.
There's a remodeling model,right?
Let me bring you back.
Yes.
Okay, so if you work out, youmove into degradation, where you

(47:12):
degrade the body, you break itdown, and then the body needs to
recover.
So you have a net or you have anet degradation and net
synthesis, or sorry, you have anet synthesis.
The moment that you apply stressto the body, it breaks down, and
then it's gonna start healingitself.
At the same moment that you thatyou're like do a workout or
whatever, the body startshealing.
Well, in the first part of that,degradation is more than

(47:35):
synthesis, and so you're at anegative loss.
But after for for creating umhypertrophy for building muscle,
it's gonna be two to three days,you know, roughly about 48 to 72
hours.
Then you're gonna move into yournet synthesis, meaning that you
got the most growth that you'regonna get from the stress that
you put on your body.

(47:56):
At that point, you want to do itagain.
And so you're building smallincrements.
But if I go and I uh and Ithere's a little fly just um if
if I let's say if I do Jesus, uhif I do chest day, right, and I

(48:19):
do a really hard chest day, andthen the next day I do chest
day, that's gonna keep me in thein in degradation, and I'm just
gonna continue to break myselfdown until I break myself and I
can't and I need to rest becauseI don't have a choice.

SPEAKER_02 (48:32):
I I learned this from our friend Ian.
So myself and we're really luckyto kind of go through this
period of a gym where there'sjust this really tight community
of these incredible athletes allkind of training, and you you
you'd go in, you'd do yourtraining, you'd learn from
somebody else's, and and God,the conversations that flowed
from there were amazing.
But I remember I hit a realplateau in training, and Ian was

(48:56):
like, You're you're overtraining.
Uh and he he he kind of waslike, Why don't we train
together for a couple of months?
And what we're gonna do isJamie, instead of training every
day, we're gonna train everyother day.
And it was incredible because II plateaued, but after two or
three weeks of training everyother day, taking breaks in
between, my results went throughthrough the roof, my form went

(49:20):
through the roof.
But in actual fact, the otherinteresting thing was my
business went through the roof,and socializing became much more
calm because with the extra timeand the extra energy that I had,
I had had that to put into myrelationships and put into my
work.
I thought it was so interesting.
It was like, Jamie, traintogether with me, it'll cost X
amount, but it'll pay itselfback several fold.

(49:40):
And it did.
And I I find that probably likean unfortunate thing is we get
so much endorphins from workingout that some of us get a bit
addicted to it, and we don'trecognize that we think we're
relieving stress when in actualfact we're doubly loading our
bodies up or we're unnecessarilyloading our bodies up, and it's
it's funny, it takes disciplineto train, but it also takes a
lot of discipline to know whennot to train.

SPEAKER_00 (50:03):
If if you remember, like you grow in rest.
That's your your body needs timeto recover.
I mean, that that's witheverything, and and that's I
guess we go back to the grievingprocess.
Like uh to get through it, it'slike you need to like rest.

(50:24):
Take time, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (50:27):
That's actually an interesting one because on one
side there's the idea that lifeis for the living and so things
move fast.
Life is for the living, it's notfor the dead, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 (50:34):
No, it but like I I would love to make you to make
that argument that life is notfor the living in any capacity.

SPEAKER_02 (50:42):
No, no, no, but I don't even want to go there.
I see the one the mostchallenging thing, generally
speaking, when you'reinterviewing somebody, you have
like six or seven subjects allthat you're done, you know,
you're playing at, and it's sucha funny tactic.
So Dylan obviously gets off onin disrupting conversations and
my disruptor highlighting hisintellect.
So yes, it's so disorientating.

SPEAKER_00 (51:03):
I just I just always want to break it down to the
truth.
I think if something is to istrue, that it's obvious, that
there's not an argument againstit.
Like when you get down to likebare bones truth, you have to go
like, yeah, that's I mean,that's what it is.
And if it's not that, then youjust continue working through
the conversation.

(51:24):
And every time when you're goingthrough that conversation with
somebody, you get to the pointwhere there's an argument, like
you need to stop there becausewe're trying to get to truth.
We're not trying to explorewhat's not true.
We're trying to get to barebones where you and I are both
like, yes, yeah, exactly.
It's uncomfortable though, so weresist it.
Are you on I'm notuncomfortable?
No, and and partly becauseyou're just such a cuddly guy.

SPEAKER_02 (51:45):
But that's your no norm.
I I do find initially speaking,it took me a little while to
understand you, your uniqueness,also your love.
And I'm abrasive.
But do you know if if we go backto that idea of grieving, like
it's so much of the grievingprocess is get on with it, but
actually, I think what youshared there is really true

(52:08):
that, like, you know, if you dowant to recover, you do need to
rest.
And so, as much as the world maybe moving on, you do need to
take your time to yourself.
And oftentimes, probably whatprolongs the grieving process
for a lot of people is that lifemoves on and it sweeps them up
and doesn't allow time andnecessary space to really sit
with what's coming up.

SPEAKER_00 (52:28):
I I think what helps me a lot is focusing whenever
you lose somebody, um focusingon the love that was there and
all all the good things andstuff rather than focusing on
what's not there anymore.

SPEAKER_01 (52:44):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (52:46):
Uh I wish all you guys couldhave known our friend Aaron.
He was just a one-of-a-kindhuman and really good at
connecting.
He just yeah, he connectedpeople.
Uh I mean, our group pretty muchis the group that it is because
of him.

(53:06):
Um I mean, except for you and I,because you and I were friends
before that.
Like uh, but so many of theother people, I don't know if I
would have these strongconnections with them be without
him.
And so I I'm eternally grateful.
And I by nature am a morereclusive person.
Like I love being around people.
I I love hanging out and stuff,but I'm the kind of person that

(53:29):
you need to invite me or come tome or something.
Like I'll just stay at home bymyself or with with my wife, you
know, and and just be content.
Um but you know, Aaron was thekind of person that was always
making things happen and andbringing the community together
and planning events and planningoutings, and which is an

(53:52):
important thing when you as youas you get older and you know,
farther away from likeuniversity and stuff and your
friends groups get smaller, isto maintain uh a community
outside of gym or church orwhatever whatever your community
is, you know.

SPEAKER_01 (54:09):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (54:10):
It is fascinating the way different different
people so show up socially.
There are some that have, let'ssay, the comfort in isolation,
and then there's the others thathave the c comfort in community,
and to have like a blend, a mixof everything is so important in
a social circle, and to get thebenefit of having somebody who

(54:32):
is like a hyper social communityand playful uh type is is
something that, yeah, you kindof pinch yourself and you say
you're you're very lucky.

SPEAKER_01 (54:41):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (54:41):
But that that's actually what happened for me
when I heard that he passed.
Immediately speaking, I waslike, I'm so lucky I got to have
time with him.
Yeah, I'm so lucky I got toexperience him.
I immediately speaking, actuallywent to your wedding where he
told he had a sense of humorthat was so beautifully um edgy
and uncomfortable.

(55:02):
And so, you know, those typesthat they they almost they say a
speech, and you're like, andkind of you're listening on,
you're like, is he actuallysaying that?
And like, no, he can't be sayingthat.
Is he serious?
He's not serious, and he bringsyou just to the point that
you've gone, oh my god, he'sactually serious.
And he goes, just fucking withyou guys, and it's so good.

SPEAKER_00 (55:21):
So Aaron's the kind of guy that will come up behind
you and stick his finger in yourbutt just to watch you squirm,
you know?
Like uh, yeah.
Um what I what I do love, likeyou know, we've had a few
hangouts since since he's passedand stuff, uh, but you know,
like bringing up his memory.
You know, that's that I thinkdealing with grief is a lot of

(55:44):
it is not to shy away.
Again, it's like to focus in onthat that love part.
And the more that you can dothat, the more it's it helps to
process.
Yeah.
You know, rather than trying toignore it or pretend like it's
not there, but to like celebrateall the the qualities.

SPEAKER_02 (55:59):
Uh it's a funny, funny thing.
Like, look, my my my experienceof grief really isn't as in much
as much in death.
It's more so in breakups.

SPEAKER_00 (56:07):
But like I think it's it's that's worse almost.
Because like it and breakups arestill like a possibility.
Like, wait, why did this happen?
You know, like there you couldargue it.
You could you could try to belike, well, you know, maybe, or
whatever.
Like the Yeah.
It depends on what side of thebreakup you are on, too.

SPEAKER_02 (56:28):
But like that that idea of like people just let's
say, let's just delete the past.
Let's just delete the memories.
And you know, you you see itlike you well, actually, I my
kind of idea of it is in moviesand stuff where you know
somebody's like, don't mentionyour father that's passed away,
or don't mention the friendthat's passed away.

SPEAKER_00 (56:45):
And it's like, well, also like don't like yeah, but
it's more true, like don'tmention the ex.

unknown (56:52):
Right?

SPEAKER_02 (56:52):
Oh no, no, but yeah, it plays up all the more in that
regard.
But it's like, is that reallyallowing for the co-processing
of something?

SPEAKER_00 (56:59):
And and who cares?
Everybody has a like as far aslike ex and stuff.
Magda today or yesterday, shebrought up her ex, or actually
maybe today and yesterday, shementioned her ex's name.
Uh which is fine, you know, iflike everybody has an ex,
everybody has a past.

SPEAKER_02 (57:16):
I think I don't know.
I one thing that I notice isgenerally speaking, the less
access somebody has to theirpast, and the less open people
are to go into their past, themore challenged, the more
dis-ease I kind of feel.
Whereas the ease at whichsomeone will go to the past, the
ease at which somebody willremember somebody, and

(57:36):
immediately speaking, let's saygo to the fond points, the more
I kind of feel at peace, themore I kind of feel healed, the
more I feel kind of positive andniceness in that energy.

SPEAKER_00 (57:45):
When I think back to majority of my exes, I have like
really almost nothing butpositive memories with all of
them.
Like there's obviously reasonswhy they're exes, but there's
more reasons why we weretogether in in that period of
time.

SPEAKER_02 (58:03):
And so Yeah, the funny thing that's coming up for
me as you share that is thatlike there's an accumulation of
all the reasons why perhaps youshould break up at that point of
breakup.
And that's kind of like the lastmemory or moment.
But exactly as you shared, well,there's all the other reasons
why you guys got together andwhy you guys had your time
together.
And I feel it's a very, veryimportant thing for, let's say,

(58:26):
a grieving process to come tothe point where you can't
actually even remember thosethose negative points.
Or perhaps you can, but they'reovershadowed by all the all the
good because like what they say,there's no greater uh teacher
than relationship, and whetherthat's with somebody in your
life that's passed or withsomebody in in your life that
you've moved on from.

(58:46):
The fact of the matter is ifthat if they spent any time in
your life, and whether it waspositive or there was negatives,
they're going to have taught youa hell of a lot, and it will
stand to you forevermore goingforward from there.
So it's it's a sad thing if youcan't see that, appreciate that,
and find gratitude.
I would feel this is the pointwhere I sit and I'm like, okay,

(59:08):
where's the question coming inand where's the side point?
But that seems like that was thefirst point that you're like,
Yeah, actually, I agree withthat.
I do agree with that.
That feels really nice.

SPEAKER_00 (59:16):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (59:17):
Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 (59:17):
Again, see, we get to bedrock, you get to truth.
And uh the the hard part withlike a podcast like this is once
you get to the truth, thenyou're like, Okay, well, now
what?
Now we got to talk aboutsomething else because we got
there.

SPEAKER_02 (59:31):
Well, I actually think that whole process in
itself is actually really,really cool.
That like there's a lot ofbullshit that I entertained in
my life for so long.
And I recognize that a lot ofthat bullshit came from, let's
say, that people pleasing.
It came from misunderstanding,actually, a lot of the time.
And and and not even not evenaddressing those
misunderstandings.
And what I kind of feel thatthere's a peace, like you talked

(59:53):
about, like, oh yeah, Jamie, Ijust sit at home with my wife.
I'm happy, play video games,watch TV.
Play with my dog.
You actually have a lot of peacein your life.
And I I feel a lot of the peaceis because you don't you don't
harbour uh any issues, or youdon't harbor it bite your
tongue.

(01:00:14):
If you s if you feel something,you say it, you express it.
If somebody's like sayingsomething that you don't agree
in in the moment, you say it.
My gut instinct tells me thatwhen you go at home but go at
home and lie on the couch, youlie on the couch, you do not
think about all the things thatyou should have said or should
have done.
You have that peace.
Yeah, that's 100% correct.
And that's unique.

(01:00:35):
I I I think there's very, veryfew people that can say, hey,
yeah, when I go home at the endof the day, I've said all I
needed to say, I've expressedmyself so now I can sit in
peace.
I like for years would journalin the evenings, journal in the
mornings, and like analyze mydays and be like, didn't I wish
I did that a little bit better,wish I did this a little bit
better.
I am now starting to experiencesome of the peace at which

(01:00:58):
you're talking about, but Inever would have thought, Jamie,
you know that peace that you'relooking for?
It's under on the other side ofthe conflicts that you're
avoiding.
It's on the other side of thoseawkward conversations that
you're not having.
But it actually makes so muchsense when it's illustrated, and
it's interesting to see apractical example play out over
the course of the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:18):
Thanks.
Yeah.
Uh it's interesting.
Like my my wife and I are socompletely different in how we
go about things.
Like I I feel like I am more ofan abrasive person, not just in
because I want I I want to sandit down until it's polished,
right?
Like that that's what I like.

(01:01:40):
And where where my wife, she isI'm not an emotional person.
Well, I'm not I am emotional,but I'm not like outwardly
emotional.
I have very thick skin.
I don't take hardly anythingpersonal ever.
Um I rarely ever think somethingis about me.

(01:02:00):
You know, I whenever I'm talkingto somebody, I I immediately
recognize that whatever they'retalking about is about them.
Unless it is about me.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:08):
So that is so unique.
And I know you're in your flowof conversation, but I just want
to say that's one of the onesthat I've struggled with so
much.
I thought so much was about me.
I'd like, you know, somebodywould be out of sorts.
What did I do?
It's like, no, Jamie, they'rejust out of sorts.
Somebody had something to sayabout what something I said.
It's like, no, Jamie, that somuch of this is not personal.

(01:02:28):
It's on their side.
Give yourself that peace.
I think that's discipline andhard work to get to that point
of peace that you've achieved.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:37):
Okay.
Yeah.
Sure.
I don't know what it is.
Uh I uh yesterday, I think Imade Magda, my wife Magda, I
think I made her cry yesterday.
And I was I was trying to dosomething on my phone, and she
she's the kind of person she'sthe most sensitive by the most

(01:02:58):
emotionally connected person andsoft and loving, like all the
reasons why I love her.
Uh we don't we haven't had asingle fight since we've been
married.
Not one.
Until yesterday?
No, it wasn't a fight.
Um no, I I think I was doingsomething on my phone and she

(01:03:21):
just like she just like waslaying on me, right?
And just like in front of me,because she's she's building her
website right now and just likekind of like interrupted.
I'm like, and I was just like, Iwas like, babe, come on, like
give me some space like that.
And that that's it.
Like I'm like, you're like, Ineed some space.
But I was very, I was in in thattone, but it but very much like

(01:03:45):
get off me, I need space, youknow, because that's how I am.
When I feel something, I say it.
I there's no and I'm like, Idon't mean it in anything harsh
or anything like that.
And she knows that, but she'sstill who she is.
And I know who she is, she knowswho she is, and she knows who I
am.
But so she cried.

(01:04:06):
And I and and she just like Ididn't see her crying because
I'm laying on the couch, right?
And and so she gets up like thisand just like kind of turns her
back a little bit on me, andimmediately I know I hurt hurt
her feelings, right?
Because I was too abrupt,because you know, and I've said
I'm sorry, you know, like Ididn't mean uh I didn't mean to
snap at you like that, but I,you know, I was doing something

(01:04:30):
and I need my space.
I love you.
And and and she's like, I know,I know, I know, you know, and
that and that's it.
That's that is as far asanything ever goes between us,
is like I react in a way that isabrasive because that's who I
am, and she reacts in a way thatis emotional, and that's because

(01:04:51):
that's who she is, and Irecognize who we both are.
Not that I did anything wrongbecause I don't feel like I did
anything wrong.
I'm not sorry because I told herto get off me or that I needed
my space.
She was like, she like putherself like in there, just it's
like anything.
I'll be watching TV, and she'lljust like put her head right in

(01:05:12):
front of my face, like withoutwhich is fine.
And I'm like, okay, well, you'rethe most you're more important
to me than the than the TV.
So I'm gonna I'll just hold on asecond, let me pause whatever
and give you my full attention.
Um when we're watching a show, Igenerally have to stop the show
like 10-15 times, pause it, andgive her my full attention

(01:05:33):
because I don't want to dividemy my attention between her and
something else.
I want to give her everythingthat she deserves.
But it's I recognize who we areas people, and I recognize who I
am quickly, and I understandthat her reaction is not because
of me, it's because of who sheis.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:49):
And by I don't I don't know, it's no, I'm trying,
I'm also getting the fact thatyou like you recognize, hey,
look, you're abrasive, and andthat's you, and you aren't going
to dramatically try and changethat part of you because that's
the fact you like you, um andshe's emotional, and and that's

(01:06:10):
fine, and it's fine you twobeing each other, and like I
kind of hear so often that likerelationship is about
compromise, and it's like, well,you can just be who you are and
learn to navigate around that.
And what I kind of get is thatyou're owning you, she's owning
herself.
You're not putting the weight ofresponsibility of e of
yourselves on each other, you'rejust learning how to get on
while still be true toyourselves.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:32):
There's so much truth in that relationship about
compromise and relationships notabout compromise, but it's
always without like a deeperunderstanding.
You should never compromise whoyou are for someone else,
because that's who you are.
We should always be growing tobe a better version of yourself,
but that should always be foryourself, not for somebody else.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:52):
You know what bites really hard when you when you
say that, because I recognizelike if someone was like, Jamie,
what's the what's the lessonthat you've learned recently
that you can see has brought thebiggest impact, negative impacts
in your life?
And it's that I would loveothers ahead of myself, and so I
would prioritize others ahead ofmyself, and I would deprioritize
myself as a result, and thatobviously over time starts to

(01:07:15):
really knock yourself worth.
It also puts your emotional andphysical stability dependent on
others, and I used to be theexact same way, creates an
enormous amount of volatility inyour life, and that core lesson
of like Jamie, reprioritizeyourself has been huge.
And so, like, I always think thebest lessons are like the

(01:07:38):
simplest ones, and they hit atthe core, and the values ripple
out into so many other areas ofmy life, our one's life, and
that has probably been thebiggest one.
Reprioritize yourself, lovepeople, but don't love them
above yourself, don't compromiseyourself for others.
Be true to yourself, ownyourself, honor yourself, love
yourself, let others see thatthe right ones will stay, the

(01:07:59):
wrong ones will go, um, andthat's okay.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:03):
I think uh at least it was definitely true for me
that I wanted people to like mebecause I didn't like myself
very much.
And so if I could get theemotional approval or whatever
uh of other people, then I wouldbe able to have my own approval
for myself.
But what I realized was likeonce you stop pleasing people

(01:08:24):
and you just approve yourselffor who you are, that people
will like you.
People like you less when youtry to make them like you.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:32):
Yeah.
I I recognize like yeah, I wasvery lost in younger years, and
one of the ways I kind of got asense of grinding was I
outsourced my self-worth to mybusiness.
So like people are gonna like mebecause of my business, people
are gonna respect me because ofmy business, and and that worked

(01:08:52):
until I made a mess of mybusiness, and now like oh my
god, the hole in my life that Ifelt.
And I I I I I unfortunatelythink that at certain parts,
then I like outsourced my senseof self-worth to relationship
and I and like reallyprioritized relationship over
and above myself as a result,and then relationship goes and
wow, there's like a doublegrieving period, and so so so

(01:09:16):
much of like that so simple, andyou hear it like really cliche,
but like learning to just lookin the mirror and and one,
actually see yourself clearly,and two actually like like
appreciate it, love it,prioritize it, care, care for
it, and not compromise it forsomebody else.

(01:09:36):
It's she'd be like reallysimple, but really big work and
enormously impacting.
Uh how do you value yourself?
How do I value myself?
Isn't like what's the root?

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:50):
What how you choose how you want to answer that
question, but the question ishow do you value yourself?
Again, that goes back to yourdefinition of what value is.

SPEAKER_02 (01:10:04):
Yeah.
It's funny, my head is racing interms of things, but the big
word that's coming up is exaccept acceptance.

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:10):
You value yourself through acceptance?
Um like like what is another wayis how do you value yourself
like what is your value?

SPEAKER_02 (01:10:22):
So there so I actually feel that there's like
a trick in this question.
There's not.
No, no, but the the the trick isin its actually it's its
simplicity.
It's like you don't questionyour value.
You don't even think about it.
There's inherent value.
You matter.
And and I think that the thisonce you start questioning your

(01:10:46):
value, it takes you on a prettydownward spiral.
So actually it's a knowing.
Like how do you value yourself?
It's not even not even aquestion, it's you like feel
your value, embody your value,know your value.
But as soon as you bring thatup, certain narratives, certain

(01:11:07):
things are going to speak up ofwell, Jamie, you know, are you
doing that well at the gym?
Are you working there?
And and perhaps actually there'san inner guidance that's coming
from that, pointing you in thedirection of like holes in your
own integrity when it comes toyour value.
And so the proactive approach tothat perhaps plugs any holes
that might see you devaluingyourself.

(01:11:30):
And the more true you are tothat inner voice, that inner
guidance, and the more activeyou are in that journey, I feel
that the more evident, the morethat that sense of value just
is.

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:50):
Value is numerical, right?
Like it's it's based off of asomething that has a hundred
percent value is completelywhole.
Uh or a hundred percent is one.
If you have a if you have a pie,a hundred percent of the pie is
one pie.
So that's that's your value.
100% of Jamie is one Jamie.

(01:12:12):
You came into this world as oneJamie.
You can't add anything more toJamie to make Jamie more than
one Jamie, and you can't takeanything away from Jamie to be
less than one Jamie.
So whether whatever you look ator however you look at yourself,
you are 100% one Jamie.
And so your value for yourselfis 100%.

(01:12:34):
There's nothing that you need toadd to yourself, and there's
nothing you could take away fromyourself that will increase or
decrease your value.
Life is a journey of recognizingthat you're whole, or at least
happiness is a journey ofrecognizing your whole.
And most of us don't feel whatour oneness is, and so we're
constantly going through thisprocess of taking away or

(01:12:56):
adding, thinking that by eitherone of these, subtraction or
addition, we're going to somehowbecome more of ourself or more
whole or more valued when at theend of the day, whatever that
is, you're always 100%.
It's whether or not can youaccept that, right?
Which which you talked about isyour your acceptance, which is

(01:13:17):
like kind of in there.
That's why I was like, I wantedyou to get more.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:20):
I actually so I'm a big believer that like your
vocabulary is deeply healing.
And having the right words, thelight line lines to put together
around certain subjects caneither fill you with confidence
or leave you with big gaps inyour confidence.
And having a conversation likethat, like of like, look, you

(01:13:41):
know, you uh how do you see yourvalue?
And he, you know, actuallyputting me to a point of
struggle.
Like I in answering thatquestion, I noticed my toes
curled up.
I started really fidgeting withmy fingers, and it's a whole
other thing, you know, answeringthat face to face.
It's a different thing whenyou're on camera, and you're
actually, you know, you're gonnashare that.

(01:14:01):
It's highly vulnerable, butyeah, you like hearing your like
really been put in a point ofstruggle and disses and stress
to answer that kind of question.
But there's like, oh, okay,here's where you're at, and then
hearing your answer, I canactually find my gaps still in
self-worth, which I think arequite quite quite revealing and

(01:14:24):
quite interesting.
Quite like, oh well, well, nowthat I can see that I can work
on that.
Yeah, um, but hearing youranswer, there's a beautiful, I
love that.
Like, a pie is a pie.
Uh you come into this well holdhold and you go from it.
I think it's a I think there'sprobably one of the biggest
problems at the moment is thatwe are incessantly picking at

(01:14:44):
ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:45):
Like I yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:14:47):
And like that, that's this is just life.
You know, you look, you shouldlook well, you should be this
smart, you should do this work,you should know this, you should
up this.
There's so much that you shouldbe that it's so fucking hard.

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:58):
But it's it's it's about it's about not seeing
those things as a bad thing,right?
Uh was it yesterday at the gym?
When I uh I after getting thetattoo, I had a lot of time of
rest and and stuff, and I got alittle bit fat and like talking
about how you have to hateyourself a little bit.

(01:15:20):
Right.
There, there's I I don't thinkthere's anything wrong with with
um looking at aspects ofyourself that you want to prove
and and and look at those thingsin disgust.
But the way that you look atthose things is that's not who
you are, right?
If you get fat, like you shouldhate the I mean, if if that's a
a value thing to you, again,we're using value in a different

(01:15:42):
way.

SPEAKER_02 (01:15:42):
I am gonna screenshot that one and share
it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:46):
But if if you get fat and you and that is
something like being fit hasvalue to you, that's still not
you.
It it like being more fit is notgonna make you more happy.
Right?
It but it's going to help youwith this idea of growth and
progression and moving towardssomething.

(01:16:09):
Right?
We whatever however we move, asyou're still moving as a hundred
percent whole as you, but youneed to move.
Life is movement, death isstillness.

SPEAKER_02 (01:16:22):
I think this is Isn't it funny how there's all
these ideals promoted out therein life?
And they're almost promoted asuniversal ideals.
Self-love, love your body.
It's like I hate my bodysometimes.
Some people need that.
And then you, I remember thatconversation where you were
like, Oh, I hate this roll offat.
I hate it so much.
And Magda literally turned toyou and was like, Oh no, don't

(01:16:43):
hurt hate yourself.
And it's like, no, no, no, I canchange this part of my body, and
the way I'm gonna motivate thatchange is I'm gonna hate on it.
And I will come back in a coupleof weeks' time and I will say, I
love this.
Look, I think there's somethingquite interesting that like
there is a singular dimensionalkind of approach to a lot of
psychology, a lot of wellness, alot of ideals.

(01:17:04):
Everybody's looking for likewhat's the four-step plan, the
three-step plan, are the bulletpoints that are universal
truths.
And it's like, yeah, they may befor some person, they may be for
the author who shared them, butwe're individual.
We all have our own differentways of working, some of which
may be really controversial toanother.
Okay, it doesn't work for you,but this actually works for me.
This is my philosophy.

(01:17:25):
And what I love is that likethere's certain parts where you
can stand up very, very strongand confident and be like, it
works for me, and I'm doing abloody good job.
So surely I'm doing somethingright.
And there's other aspects of ofour lives where we unfortunately
can't necessarily stand up inthat, and that's great to seek
advice.
But in the physical realm, likeyou're extraordinarily
inspiring.
And so that that I I thatphilosophy, that approach, I

(01:17:48):
thought was pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 (01:17:49):
Yeah.
I don't hate myself for beingshort, you know, like I don't
hate myself for being American.
Like these things, it's things Ican't change about myself.
But it's just the things that Iknow I could change that that
that and it's I don't hatemyself, I just it's just those
like I need I think that comesjust from like my passive like

(01:18:11):
when I was uh when I was a kid,I was a wrestler, and and just
kind of like that that coachingthat I had was was was very like
hardcore.
I don't know, and it worked forme.
It and I think my self-esteem isa hundred percent on on how I

(01:18:32):
am, how I feel.
Like I there's definitely thingsabout me that I I I want to
grow, I want to improve, I wantto look a certain way, I want to
be able to move a certain way,and how and then also with my
followers or whatever, like thatyou would think that I have
something to prove or whateverwith that, but I don't, which is

(01:18:52):
probably why I rarely ever post.
I just when I do post, I justwant it to be inspirational.

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:58):
Oh God.
So just when you brought up yourfollowers, I'm remembering back
to one of your yoga classes, andthere was a line that I've
stolen actually since in some ofmy workshops, but I find it so
inspiring.
Where at the start of mostclasses, people will say, like,
you know, if anybody has aninjury, put your hand up, let me
be aware of that.
And the teachers essentiallytake responsibility then and

(01:19:19):
there for the care of everyindividual student.
In that moment, I remember atthe start of the class, you were
like, So if anybody has anyinjuries, if they're pregnant,
if they're mentally unstable,remember to take care of
yourself.
And please don't put thatresponsibility on my shoulders.
It's so good.
It's like some people imprisonthemselves by thinking that they

(01:19:40):
need to look after others aroundthem, perform in a certain way,
and they put an enormous weighton their shoulders.
And in that moment, I saw youcreate great freedom for
yourself.

SPEAKER_00 (01:19:49):
So many, so many yoga teachers listening to this
are just cringing now.
Can't believe I would saysomething like that.
So good.

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:55):
I've said it in so many workshops.
I'm like, hey, if you can't takeresponsibility for yourself, if
you aren't comfortable in yourown nose, please leave.
Don't put any responsibility onmy shoulders here.
You're coming to learn what Ihave to share.
Take it with a pinch of salt,take the elements you like,
disregard the elements that youdon't, but do not leave this
putting any responsibility orblame on me.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:15):
I don't want people to put responsibility or blame
on me.
Uh like as a teacher, I do mybest to keep students safe and
move them in ways that I knowand I I keep my education up to
so I understand the body wellenough not to teach something
that's harmful.
But with with I I guess youcould say it about movement, you

(01:20:35):
could say it about emotions, youcould say about it uh pretty
much anything.
And we you already kind oftouched on it, it's like what is
good for one person is not goodfor everybody.
There's two types of movement.
There's movement that's good foryou, and there's movement that's
bad for you.
That's not the same foreverybody, and it's not even
always going to be the same foryou.

(01:20:56):
Like what movement might be goodfor you today might be bad for
you tomorrow, and vice versa.
And emotionally, what might begood for you today might be bad
for you tomorrow, and viceversa.
And what is emotionally positivefor you might not always be that
way.
You we need to learn, yeah, takeresponsibility for yourself for
for most things and andunderstand, like know where your

(01:21:22):
edges are.

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:23):
What I what comes up for me is that I recognize
there's a lot of introductoryteachers that I went to, which
are great for kind of giving mean introduction.
But more recently, what I'mreally finding stimulating is
people sharing their practices,people sharing their
philosophies.
I might not wholly agree, like Icould not, I couldn't actually
work my way through your wholeclass, but I respected it

(01:21:46):
deeply.
Then I think you could now.
Yes.
I can't wait for another class.
But I I I took my breaks.
There's certain things I didn'tdo, and that was okay.
And I but to to to see yousharing your practice rather
than you sharing a practice thatwould have suited everybody.
That's I think a challenge thata lot of teachers find

(01:22:08):
themselves in.
They're trying to cater toeverybody.
Are people online?
They're trying to please themasses.
And it's like, but that thatthat that only goes so far.
And in actual fact, what I findI learn the most from is the
people that are just goingdeeply on their journey and
they're sharing what works forthem.
And having the discernment totake everything with a pinch of
salt and figure out what'swhat's for me in that and what's

(01:22:29):
not for me is helping meprogress more as an individual,
which I'm loving.

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:33):
I I don't remember where where I heard this, but um
you've heard it before too.
Like the attract your tribe orwhatever, you know, we're we're
tribal people.
And that was the attract yourtribe wasn't what I'm talking
about.
That's just like the the soundbite.
But we're we're tribal people,and in that we biologically want

(01:22:54):
to get along with everybody wewant to fit into a group, and
that's one of the most importantum uh not characters, uh it's an
inherent value and safety, ofcourse.
Well, it's one of the the mostimportant values to us, or it's
not the right word either,things for better.

(01:23:17):
It's important for us to fit in.
Yeah.
And there's two different waysto fit in.
Or there's let's say there'sthree different ways.
And and I'm I'm saying threedifferent ways for just
simplicity, because you coulddefinitely argue more or less or
whatever, just depending on howyou want to cut the pie.
But you could either find agroup that everyone shares the

(01:23:39):
same ideals as you, which is whyreligiousness is so prominent
and successful, why yoga is andstuff, like oh, we all think the
same way and stuff, so now Icould trust you, and so now we
get along that way.
It it if you like go back toschool with all the different
clicks, like you find a clickthat's kind of similar to you
that you fit into.

(01:24:00):
Well, in that click, you could,if there's if you're in a group,
or let's say you're in more of alimited place where you can't
really find your group, right,that that shares the same ideas
as you, you're generally leftwith the choice of standing
apart from everybody, which isnot comfortable and usually not

(01:24:21):
desirable.
So people change their inherentvalues, what they feel is right
or wrong to satisfy the group,to fit in with that group.
And then you have the other typeof person that this would be the
third one that stays true toexactly who they are, and they
make others change their valuesto fit into you.

(01:24:45):
I definitely started as the oneum who would change myself to
fit into other groups, and Ithink a lot of people do that,
and that's why they're sounhappy with how they are,
because they don't feel theydon't feel uh honest to

(01:25:08):
themselves.
They don't you know they don'tfeel true to who they are, they
they have to compromise in asense and just to fit in so that
they could feel a part of thatgroup.
Where I think what brought me alot of success is at a certain
point in time, I made thatswitch, is where I know who I
am, I know how I want to live mylife, and I know how I want to

(01:25:30):
move forward with my life, andI'm either gonna do that alone
or with people following me.
Um I love that.
And I chose to be uncompromisingto my values, uh who I am, and
and I don't need anybody toagree with me to be a part of my
group or to fit in.
I mean, like our group, we havea lot of different types of

(01:25:52):
personalities, and I feel likewhat is special about the group
of friends that that we reallyhave is almost all of us are
leaders, you know, usually haveone leader and a group of
followers, right?
But we're all leaders that aretrue to our values,
uncompromising to who we are andwhat we believe, but yet have

(01:26:13):
mutual respect for each otherand the differences in ideas.
And that's such a hard thing insociety, especially with like
younger generations, and youlook at all like masculinity and
stuff and what you need to be tobe masculine, or like all these
new ideas, and it seems likethere's such a divide on one
hand or the other, and there'sjust it's so far away from what

(01:26:33):
I believe, right?
But everyone is just you know,knowing that so much of this is
wrong.
Completely wrong, but they'rerather be a part of that group
rather than being ostracizedfrom it.
And this is where the especiallyyoung young men are are falling
uh so hard to to these horribleideas and like why society is

(01:26:59):
taking such a dark turn in somany different ways.
I mean, unless those are yourideas and then you you you feel
like it's going exactly how youwant to, but I know I've
sometimes like scratch my headif it's looking at the news or
just overhearing conversationsand be like, how is this
actually being believed rightnow?

SPEAKER_02 (01:27:16):
How is nobody questioning this?
And I, you know, to kind of giveyour ideas, I I fan I found it
best to just choose isolationfor a good while.
I found actually I was soconfused by what I was reading,
what I was hearing, and what wasbeing impressed upon me that I
kind of lost the sense.
I was like, who the hellactually am I in all of this?

(01:27:38):
Because none of this is addingup for me.
I need space and time to figuremyself out.
And now more and more I'mfollowing that kind of approach
that you chair, which is like,John, I'm just gonna do myself
here.
And if people want to come alongfor the ride, great.
If people don't, great.
But I'm keeping my peace firstand foremost, and that kind of

(01:27:58):
priority, that self-love oflike, yeah, let's let's live
life on my terms, and perhapssomebody else might like that,
might love that.
But I don't want to compromisemyself, I don't want to put
somebody else ahead or anythinglike that and and find that I'm
actually that I've imprisonedmyself.

(01:28:19):
And I find that like when youwere sharing those examples, I
was thinking that a lot ofpeople are imprisoned societally
and that they have to havecertain beliefs, they have to
present themselves in certainways.
And if they don't, thatisolation would be crippling.
But in actual fact, generallyspeaking, and certainly for me,
that isolation was the cure.

SPEAKER_00 (01:28:37):
Yeah.
Or if you could just stand likestand up against the this is
where my abrasive personalityand my my overrighteous sense of
self that I have uh have been aa real uh attribute to who I am.
This is uh, you know, I'm notafraid to to go upstream against

(01:28:58):
everybody else because I knowwhat I believe in is what I
believe in.
Also, I know that beliefs canchange.
Uh there's uh the movie, KevinSmith movie came out a long time
ago with uh Ben Affleck and umMatt Damon called Dogma.

(01:29:23):
And uh Chris Rock is in it, andChris Rock plays an angel.
And you know, the whole thewhole thing is about like
Catholic dogma and religion andstuff, and it's it's they these
two fallen angels find a wayback into heaven because of this
like kind of uh loophole orwhatever in the dogma of the

(01:29:45):
religion that they could, youknow, because they got like
kicked out of heaven, how to getback in.
And Chris Rock is he's saying,he's like, you know, that you
have beliefs and ideas, andpeople people will kill each
other.
each other over their beliefsbecause the beliefs I don't I'm
paraphrasing by a lot here, butyou know, beliefs are who you

(01:30:07):
are, right?
Uh ideas ideas can change.
Right?
So it's much better to haveideas than it is to have
beliefs.

SPEAKER_02 (01:30:19):
I actually, you know, when you're sharing that
I'm kind of reminded of yougoing back to like the symbolism
of your tattoos and like givingyourself a clean slate.
And actually not not not uh notbeing not shying away from some
of the physical pain that mightbe involved in that.
You know oftentimes we have wehave our ideas and it can be

(01:30:41):
quite disruptive to reorientatethem to change.
But I think it's so necessarybecause those ideas can be like
anchors.
They can anchor us to the pastand they cut us away from being
whole and total in the present.
And I feel it's a reallyimportant process to be true and
honest with yourself in terms ofoh yeah it's a new day.

(01:31:03):
And in actual fact in this day Imay have said that yesterday but
circumstances are a little bitdifferent.
And when you talked about someof the mixed messaging around
masculinity for me one of thebig things was Jamie be
consistent.
And and that consistency ofcourse it has its merits in some
areas of life but the idea tobelieve one thing one moment and
then to evolve can be seen asunacceptable.

(01:31:26):
And actually for me it was likeprogressive.

SPEAKER_00 (01:31:28):
It's like I'm learning so of course I'm
growing also are the beliefs arethey even your own an
interesting thing uh I can't whoI who said this um this is this
is not me someone else said thisand I can't remember who said it
but um I'm sorry I should givethis person credit because it's

(01:31:48):
really a a smart thought but ifif you have a belief and there's
nothing that I could say or anyfact or evidence or anything to
change that belief then thatbelief is not yours.

(01:32:08):
If I can if I can't say ifthere's nothing that I could say
that could change what youbelieve then that's not your
belief.

SPEAKER_02 (01:32:16):
It's just been imprinted into you.

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:18):
You just adopted it from someone else because you
didn't come there through reasonor ration.

SPEAKER_02 (01:32:24):
And so anchored into your idea of who you are whereas
if you could be convincedotherwise it's in the real it's
in a processed experiencedbelief and so it's open to
change and influence.

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:35):
And I could say 100% that there's not a single thing
I believe in that I am notopposed to changing based on
some better evidence or fact orwhatever.
I'm an atheist but if Jesus camedown tomorrow and I was like oh
there's Jesus I would no longerbe an atheist obvious right but

(01:32:56):
you couldn't you know nothingagainst Christians.
I th I think belief is is anecessary part for a lot of
people to survive this thisworld this ex this uh human
experience and a lot of peopleneed that I don't I did you know
but I would much rather believein God than not God.
Yeah but there's nothing thatmost people that believe in God

(01:33:19):
there's nothing that you coulddo that would ever disprove
their belief.
It's just an interesting thoughtlike obviously I'm on the
pro-atheism uh atheism side butyou know ask yourself is there
anything that would that couldchange your mind about what you
believe?

SPEAKER_02 (01:33:39):
And it's not your belief.
I've actually loved my journeyover the last number of years.
It's been highly disruptive likeI've I've I feel like I have
lived hundreds of differentlives deep diving into all areas
of life and like what I found islike I learned one thing in one
area and it starts to ripple outchanges and all others.
God bless my kind of family andlifelong friends because every

(01:34:01):
time I come back to them theymust at certain points must have
been like who the hell are younow I definitely feel there's a
groundedness that's coming in.

SPEAKER_00 (01:34:08):
Oh I I love watching it I love you like telling me
about your experiences and whatyou're up to and what you're
doing next and stuff and I'mjust I'm so happy that you're
out exploring all you know allthese different avenues and very
different than anything I'veever done or experienced and
stuff and you know that's it'samazing that we have this

(01:34:29):
opportunity to really choose thelife I mean obviously there's a
lot of privilege in that and noteverybody has that opportunity
but you and I are both luckyenough to be able to choose that
experience.

SPEAKER_02 (01:34:42):
Can I just share that even you sharing that with
me there is really powerful so alot of the times I felt like you
know to to to go out into theworld to explore to experiment
it was unacceptable.
And to some it was and to someit was met by fear and some it
was met by rejection.
But there was always a thingthat I was like I want to hold
dear those that can celebratethat that can love that and to

(01:35:03):
hear it literally shared likeyou looked me in the eyes and
that and you said here I lovethat about you.
That's so nice.
That actually inspires me to beall the more me and what I
recognize unfortunately in someof the relationships that I
found myself distanced from morerecently is like do you know
what I don't want to suppressmyself and shouldn't at any
value I don't want to I want tomake sure I'm surrounded by

(01:35:24):
people that actually love me andlove those traits and it's
that's something that I feelreally lucky to have you in my
life in that regard.
So thank you.
I'm lucky to have you in my lifedude I would love you and leave
you.
There's a funny point at the endof the podcast where I'm like
you know if somebody likes thisif somebody wants to connect
with you and I'm like how dothey contact you but you're the
simplest of Google searches awayat Dylan Warner and you will

(01:35:47):
just pop up on social media onwebsites on everything.
So practice with me online doyoga with me Dylan
Warneryoga.com absolutely I'mgonna put a like a test out to
anyone like I'd actually reallyreally invite you to do a class
with Dylan as a barometer ofwhere you're at I do have all
levels one level one level twoby all levels uh all levels of

(01:36:10):
challenge.

SPEAKER_00 (01:36:11):
Yeah and Dylan will say all levels but he he has so
developed in his practice thatwhat he sees is all levels is
still extreme I really try tomake level one accessible still
challenging but accessible foranybody that's never done
anything before and juststarting out I I I really do.
And then I also try to makelevel three um I I think it

(01:36:34):
whenever you're you go out anddo anything if you can do
everything it's not the thingfor you because there needs to
be stuff that you can't do forthere to be room to grow.
And so if you ever show up in afitness class or uh whatever it
is, you know you're going tothat and you could do everything
that's there.
It's it's not for you.

(01:36:55):
You need to find the the placewhere you're challenged where
there's there's actually spaceand opportunity to grow.
So I've that I mean that's fromwhat I stand from and that's how
I like to teach like wheneverwhenever I teach a class I want
I want my students to be able todo like 70 at least 50% of it
but probably more like 70% andthere always be that like 30% of

(01:37:19):
growth of the things that theycan't do or struggle with
because that's why that's why weshow up every day is is to grow.
That's that's the secret oflife.

SPEAKER_02 (01:37:28):
I love the way you just when you said that's why we
show up every day I found when Idid your class once I don't
think I returned for like sixmonths and then I came back
again and I I do genuinely meanit if you do have a practice I
certainly came over here feelinglike I was strong and I was
grounded and it was reallyhumbling but at the same time
really inspiring.
And uh and uh and as I say thisit's time for me to do one of

(01:37:50):
those classes again too.

SPEAKER_00 (01:37:51):
Yeah so dude thank you so much thank you very very
much for sharing your time I'mglad we we got to we've done
this before we've we have someother conversations pass and
every time except for one hasbeen really good we did we did
have we did have oneconversation that was just like
off the walls that uh it was aweird day for I think especially

(01:38:12):
for me but maybe for both of usbut yeah I just remember yeah
because I we did our firstpodcast together which you can
listen back to and then like afew years later we were like
both agreed like wow a lot oflife has changed and evolved
let's check in again and about40 or 50 minutes later we were
like we can never ever sharethis.

SPEAKER_02 (01:38:30):
Yeah let's just delete this immediately and so
it's actually so nice to getthrough this and and share and
uh that's a dude thank youbecause how you do one thing is
how you do everything.
Boom.

SPEAKER_00 (01:38:42):
But one second how does that even make sense coming
together there now it doesn'tyeah but that's okay because not
everything has to make sense.
That was like a South Parkending yeah Neil deGrice yeah
Neil deGrice Tyson he uh um hehas a book called Astrophysics
for like dummies or something orfor I'm messing this up too like

(01:39:02):
where you got your physicsreferences from no no no no uh
astrophysics is different thanphysics but uh he starts he
starts it out he says that theuniverse is under no obligation
to make sense to you and we wehave this idea in life that
everything should make sense andif we doesn't make sense we fill

(01:39:23):
in that holes with whatever tomake it make sense but it's okay
if it doesn't make sense noteverything is supposed to and
it's it's our own hubris our ownintellectual hubris that makes
us think that we can understandeverything that's going on but
it's okay not to know boom Ilove you man love you

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

The Bobby Bones Show

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The University of Life & Dylan Werner

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

The Bobby Bones Show

All Episodes

The University of Life & Dylan Werner

Dateline NBC