May 1, 2025 • 36 mins
Recorded from the heart of the Awakened Forest, Andrew Reed returns with a grounded, practical episode packed with the advice he wishes someone had given him earlier in life. From finding calm amid chaos to refining your focus, attitude, and communication, this episode explores simple, yet profound, principles that can lead to a more aligned, meaningful life — no self-help clichés, just honest reflection and hard-earned insight.
Whether you’re rebuilding after loss, seeking clarity, or simply trying to live with more presence, this episode serves up thought-provoking reminders on how to approach change, conflict, creativity, and loss. It’s equal parts philosophy, nature-wisdom, and blueprint for building something better — inside and out.
Chapter Markers
(00:00) – Intro
(01:38) – Relax & Trust the Process
Life is movement, and trying to stop change only creates anxiety.
(04:06) – Attitude is Everything
You can’t control every thought — but you can control your response.
(07:17) – Good Decisions = Good Life
Balancing external forces with internal will to shape your direction.
(10:28) – What Happiness Really Is
Why true happiness often lives on the other side of discipline and effort.
(14:49) – Discovering Interests & Deep Dives
Embrace changing passions — and master the things that matter to you.
(17:21) – The Power of Focus
In a world of distraction, clarity becomes a superpower.
(21:48) – Lists, Systems & Visual Focus
Organization isn’t rigid — it’s essential for survival and efficiency.
(23:36) – Communication & Leadership
From tone to timing, your ability to express yourself shapes your life.
(34:13) – The Reconciled Mind
Embracing the dark side of life is the path to real wholeness.
Song: Twisted World - andrew reed & the liberation
Album: As a Bird of the Air… (Trilogy I Album 1)
Social Media Links
Official Website: www.AndrewReedMusic.com
Facebook: @andrewreedandtheliberation
Twitter: @AndrewReedMusic
Instagram: @AndrewReedMusic
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2Lx7DnbB5qyt7uwV8yeHwE
Youtube Channel: @andrewreedtheliberation
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
What are you willing to throw your life away on? With
Andrew Reed and The Liberation.It's a serious question, one
worth pondering. Am I living thelife I want, an intelligent
life, or something else? How canI have a better experience of
life?
These are some of the questionsexplored in this series of
(00:34):
messages without the brag in theadvertisement. Getting beyond
even human institutions andsociety into the wilderness,
nature, the reality of how lifeactually operates on this
planet. These messages rangefrom intimate recordings from
the awakened forest to concerts,national conferences, and
(00:56):
broadcasts on a wide array ofphilosophical topics.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Here we are at the game house in the Awakened
Forest. It's another brilliantday. And, again, as I think
about it, this is the type ofmessage that helped me in my
journey. And I figured if ithelped me, it may help you as
well. I'd like to basically givewhat I call my best advice for
(01:28):
people, and there's a number ofpoints that can be helpful in
your respective journey.
The first is relax as life is aprocess. Everything is nature.
Here I am sitting, again, in thewilderness surrounded by 13,000
(01:50):
acres. And I've been doing thisfor twenty some years. And you
go back to episode one, andyou'll hear a little bit about
that story or my story.
But all is natural in my world,even anything that we would make
as as humans. We come from thisearth. Right? I mean, we weren't
(02:15):
just dropped here. And so lifeis a process.
We notice that everything ischanging all the time, and
there's nothing we can do aboutit. All is in flux. All is in
movement. And so one of thethings we can do is rather than
have anxiety about that orcontinual anxiety, it's not
(02:38):
wrong to have anxiety from timeto time. That's normal.
Even a bird or a deer isstartled from time to time. But
recognize that this movement,this change is happening, accept
it, and relax. You're gonna haveups and downs in life. There's
gonna be this oscillation of upand down. That is life.
(03:00):
That is pulsation. So justrelax. And I think of my two
children that passed away intragic sudden accidents. My son
drowned late at night in astorm, rainstorm. My daughter
passed away being rear endedlate at night in a rainstorm.
(03:23):
And both, I suspect, were instates of mind that were filled
with anxiety and worry. Theywere not in great states of
mind. So I think one of thefirst things is just relax. Slow
(03:44):
down life. There's no point injust rushing through life and
not tasting your food or notfeeling what it is like to have
the sunshine hit your skin whenyou're taking a walk or taking
in that fresh air of the morningjust like I am today.
(04:06):
Relax. Slow life down. There'sno point in rushing through
life, as my uncle Earl used tosay, that great Alaskan. Next,
cultivate a positive attitude.Attitude is one of those almost
(04:29):
miracle type things that I Ithink doesn't get enough
attention because attitude willchange your life.
You know, some silly people talkabout thought control and and
taking over your thoughts andall that. That's all an
illusion. Illusion. I mean,nobody can just shut down their
(04:50):
their minds from thinking. Why?
We are thinking beings. It iswhat a human being does. We
think. We wanna work things out.We have this brain that's a
problem solving machine.
It that's what it does. It ittries to work out the most
efficient ways of of doingthings. And there's no getting
(05:13):
around that. Or, you know, ittries to go to benefit again,
away from pain towards somebenefit. And so if we can't
control our thoughts, what canwe control?
Our attitude. Our attitudetowards things. So when we start
to cultivate with our will,which is at least half of the
(05:36):
equation in life, and we say,you know, I'm going to have a
better attitude about my job.I'm gonna have a better attitude
about this relationship. I'mgonna have a better attitude
about whatever, my illness,especially negative things.
Suddenly this starts to triggerwhat? Better thoughts. What
(05:58):
happens to those thoughts thatwe start to dwell on? They
become, I'll say, a thoughthabit or a belief, and we tend
to act upon our beliefs. And soif we have better beliefs, they
turn into better actions.
And what do better actions do?They cause, obviously, better
results, and we get what? Betterlife. But it starts with the
(06:23):
cultivation of a more positiveattitude. So I think one aspect
of being successful or attainingthings or whatever, have a great
attitude.
Nobody wants to work aroundsomebody with a crappy attitude,
especially in society or in thehuman domain. Heck, I suspect
that the trees and rocks that Ipass by here in the forest
(06:49):
appreciate a good attitude aswell because I feel they're
alive as well. It's just adifferent type of consciousness.
Then I would say, real afterrelax, cultivate a positive
attitude is make good decisions.If you make good decisions, it
(07:14):
equates to you have a betterlife.
Good decisions equals good life.And this is a little bit of the
cause and effect paradigm thatwe do this and we get, you know,
x result be because of that. Notthat that explains all of life.
(07:41):
If everything was just cause andeffect, basically, a new Tony
and paradigm, it would just allbe dominoes or billiard balls as
some people say. And, basically,there would be no accountability
because we could just blameeverything we are today on the
past and say, well, you know,I'm an alcoholic because, you
know, my parents beat me or, youknow, they locked me in my room
(08:05):
one time or whatever.
Or, you know, of course, I'mthis way because this and this
and this happens. And and soit'd always be this world of
blame and excused. And and weknow that that leads to
victimhood, which is reallyagain, it's a it's something
(08:26):
that holds people back. As longas people are crying in their
beer and feeling sorry forthemselves, they're not making
much advancement. And I'm notdemonizing it.
There's a place. There's a timeto cry on your beer. I mean,
when I've had huge losses in mylife, catastrophic losses, yeah,
there's a time to grieve.There's a time to, you know,
(08:48):
completely get undone. But thenthere's a point where, you know,
this isn't really serving muchpurpose.
I'm not feeling that good aboutwhere my life is now or where
the trajectory is going. I'mgoing to do something about it.
And so this introduces the otherhalf of the equation, if you
(09:13):
want to simplify it, is thehuman will or drive. So you have
the cause and effect aspect,which is true, And then you have
another truth of there's anaspect of human will where if I
say, hey, I want to grab thiscup of tea and drink it and
magically my arm moves and I getit and I get to taste it. That's
(09:36):
an act of the will.
And so I'll see say in thebalancing of the equation, it's
almost yin and yang that there'salmost a dualism or a multi ism
that I suspect is more thetruth, but we can get our heads
around two variables that wehave a bothness or two things
happening at the same time,cause and effect, which we call,
(10:00):
again, the external world or oror whatever, and then the
product of the human willbalancing that out. And there's
also some scientific backupbehind that, but we won't get
into that today. Another thingthat we can do to have a better
life again is to studyhappiness. This is a topic I I
(10:25):
think there's a lot of confusionabout. What is happiness?
Well, happiness is obviously aninner state, a state of
consciousness, a self assessedstate. And I think a lot of the
confusion comes from thinkingthat happiness is fun. And what
(10:46):
I'm talking about really is adeep satisfaction. For example,
you go to the carnival or fairor whatever, and you take the
ride, and it's exciting and allthis. And and, yeah, you're
happy in that moment.
But then when the ride's over,it's like, oh, you know, I'm I'm
I'm back to whatever. You know,my boyfriend just broke up with
(11:06):
me or whatever. Girlfriend,whatever. Whereas if you, quote,
you know, sacrifice or puteffort, time into, let's say,
getting a degree or an advanceddegree or learning how to play
an instrument or attain someskill, There's this pain element
(11:31):
or discipline where you'rehaving to forego doing other
things to focus on this singularthing. And when that's attained
or that's completed, there'sthis deep level of satisfaction,
this contentment that arisesfrom accomplishment.
(11:54):
And I think that's more of thehappiness that a lot of us are
seeking. So it's a strange thingthat so much of our true
happiness, our true contentmentcomes through the valley of pain
or loss or sacrifice. And evenI'll just say this. Knowing
(12:21):
you're happy, you know, beinghappy and knowing it is a
strange thing, but those are thehappiest people. And I'll just
say this.
And again, I'm sitting in naturehere as this is so much of my
life. It informs me abouteverything, at least how I
(12:41):
suspect life should be lived, isthat perhaps we're all happy all
the time and just don't know it.Oh, Andrew, that's scandalous.
How can that be? You know, welook up at the sky and we see
(13:02):
that it's blue sometimes.
But then sometimes there'sclouds in the way, but then the
clouds move away. The blue isalways there. So I'm suggesting
and I'm not saying that analogyis perfect or anything like
that, is that perhaps we'realways happy. And in that we're
(13:25):
in this journey of life with itsups and downs, its heartaches,
its struggles, its joys, itsvictories, all that. And that is
life and accepting those ups anddowns, accepting when the wind
blows and saying wow you knowthat's great that's part of it
(13:52):
part of being happy is thatagain that that pain part and
being okay with it, that not allthings are gonna go exactly the
way you wanted.
And if they did, let's sayeverything happened exactly
according to your dictates.Everything happened as planned.
(14:14):
You would hate that life after awhile. After a while, you want
some surprise. You wantsomething different.
I mean, do you want to eat yourfavorite meatloaf every day? No.
It's like, no. Let's dospaghetti. Let's do whatever
food variety.
(14:35):
But we don't want the same thingall the time. None of us would.
So study happiness. What is it?Who are the happiest people in
this world?
You know, places like Okinawa.You know, I think Denmark has
another high happiness equation.But who are the happiest people,
(15:02):
and what are they doing? Anotherpoint that merits some
consideration in this bestadvice or possible best advice
is discover what you're reallyinterested in. And here, there's
no straight line to what yourinterests are.
(15:25):
I find that they change all thetime. I have all these
collections. I mean, I justcollect things from I mean, golf
clubs if I'm into golf, guitars,properties. I mean, I I buy
things. And I I really like oldthings, games, toys, all kinds
(15:48):
of, of course, outdoor things,knives, collections of these
things.
And I'm not interested in all ofthem at the same time. I mean,
they're they're phases. Soagain, this change of life is
just it just happens. And soyour interests will change over
(16:09):
time. But, again, whateveryou're interested in, throw
yourself into that, like, 100%learn everything about it.
If if you're doing the golfthing, learn everything about
golf. If it's shooting orwhatever, you learn everything
about how to do that. If it'splaying guitar, you learn
(16:31):
everything about thatinstrument, how it works. And,
again, that's great advice. Andas I've said in different
messages, it's been found thatpeople who will take five years
and learn everything, just throwthemselves morning and night
into studying that topic, theywill find themselves in the in
(16:54):
the top 5% in that field.
So that's a very short period oftime. And usually there's great
economics that follow that.Another point is the value of
focus. Focus is key to success.Now it can be languaged as self
(17:17):
regulation, self control,discipline.
It could be even languished aslove. But to be good at anything
involves really developing justintense focus where, basically,
you take your consciousness andand, like, a laser beam, direct
(17:40):
it towards some topic or anobject to the exclusion of all
the other stimulus that arehappening in your environment.
That pretty much assuressuccess. And you think about it.
We live in a world that is theantithesis of focus.
We have cell phones that there'spop up messages. There's texts.
(18:05):
There's phone calls. There'semails. All these things that
disrupt us from having this thisintense focus that guarantees
success.
And so it's one of the thebenefits of of the wilderness
experience, you know, where youisolate. And this has, of
(18:29):
course, been a trademark ofmyself for years. I had to
retreat back to the wildernessat different times just to
different of the losses andthings that have caused
different breakdowns, which is,again, is a strange combination
(18:49):
of emotions with the loss of,you know, my loved ones and work
over occupation, you know,whatever. But the retreat into
the wilderness setting is is islike medicine. It, again, it
forms us it informs us of thetruth of how life operates on
(19:11):
this planet.
It calms us and gets us awayfrom society so that, you know,
we're just face to face with thetruth and we look at things and
we have those gaps where we justsee the brilliance of life.
(19:35):
Right now, I'm looking at thistiny little salamander just
coming across a branch. And thefact that I even notice it and
go, man, that is brilliant. Thisguy is, like, perfectly colored
for it and and all this. But thewilderness just lets us know
(19:57):
there's this all these differentworlds and creatures and all
this stuff.
And so our our focus goes to a aa different place where maybe we
can realign. And you think aboutthe wilderness. I know we're
(20:17):
talking about focus here. Andthis may be again, some some
people may say, well, you'retalking about focus and then
you're going out in thewilderness and going in a
completely different direction.Yeah.
To gain focus. On what? Yourcentral desire or the things
that you want to accomplish inyour life to get clear. And a
(20:42):
lot of times, those flashes ofbrilliance or whatever are gonna
happen in very odd times, timesthat you don't suspect that
you're gonna have anillumination about your life.
And once you get that focus,that vision, boy, you can have a
lot of things that are notworking very well in your life.
(21:03):
You can be addicted to drugs.You can be in bad relationship,
in a bad job, whatever, and thatvision will carry you out. But
all that is wrapped up in focus.And the other thing about, I'll
say isolation, you think aboutall kinds of shamans and holy
(21:26):
men and what have you, holypeople maybe I should say, that
go off into the wilderness forthis very thing. Another point
that I'd to mention is this isto create a written list to help
you keep focused.
(21:48):
The power of in Six Sigma, wewould call it visual control. In
the multi view world, we wouldcall it the IRM, an image recall
mechanism. But I find this byhaving a written list that helps
to keep you organized, you lookat it, you reprioritize almost
every day because that list canchange. But having something
(22:13):
that can keep you on trackbecause you're gonna have all
kinds of distractingpersonalities and events and
communications and whatever thatare happening. And all those
things will what?
Will dissipate your focus. Sothat written list is key. And
you'll find that as one of thethings that some of the most
(22:36):
successful people have used. AndI will say this, I wouldn't keep
it on my phone because here'syour antithesis of focus, again,
because of the the text, thenotifications, the emails, the
(22:57):
phone calls, or whatever. And soyou wanna stay away from that.
And that written hardcore liston a clipboard is what I use.
Works really well or a yellowpad. The next point, develop
your communication skills. Youcan only advance as far as you
(23:23):
can effectively communicate,especially in any group
enterprise. For example, you'llfind that CEOs and your top
leaders are usually the bestcommunicators.
And to me, this communication ismore than even verbal. You know?
It's how you dress, how youpresent body language, all these
(23:47):
types of things, your tone,mannerisms, your polish, your
sophistication, all thosethings. Obviously, all also
written. And I find that whenyou start to develop your
writing skills, usually yourlanguage follows that.
(24:07):
So developing thesecommunication skills. And let me
just focus this a little bitmore. These communication
skills, of course, are areneeded in society, that is among
other human beings, and has todo with teaching, selling,
empowerment, as we say atMultiView. Because almost
(24:30):
everything in life you know, theworld is transactional. You take
a look at the natural world.
It's a completely transactionalworld, a meritocracy. And so in
society, you know, we've got toconvince other people of our
ideas, of the direction thatwe're going. Like to look at the
(24:51):
idea of selling as teaching orempowerment because really
that's what you're doing. You'recommunicating the value of
whatever and human beings arewhat gonna go in the direction
of benefit. They're gonna goaway from pain and discomfort or
frustration.
And so the more effectively thatwe can communicate that value,
(25:15):
the better. The more we're gonnahave people rally behind, you
know, what we're doing or whatwe're selling or whatever our
place really in society is.Another point I'd like to
mention is to develop yourorganizational and
prioritization skills. We'vealready mentioned having a
written list, this tangiblething that you can see and
(25:39):
reference preferably on aclipboard. But your ability to
organize things.
If people are disorganized, itis not an efficient way of doing
things. Helene, HurricaneHelene, of course, wiped out
this mountain. I mean, for thelast five months, I've been
(26:01):
strapping on my backpack andboots, and and we've been having
to go across the river on footbecause there's no other way off
the mountain. And so we've beenliving fairly primitively. And
one of the things I found outright after everything was
devastated here is I had this,of course, great stockpile of
(26:25):
things I prepped, you know,medical supplies, everything
that people would need.
And I, of course, you know,knowing me, I always had an
abundance of this. And so Iwould go around and check on my
neighbors to make sure that theywere okay. And, you know,
people, of course, were beinginjured in accidents, chainsaw
(26:48):
things or rashes or whateverfrom poisonous plants or
whatever as we're trying tokinda dig our way out. And when
I'd go down into my store area,my prep room, I couldn't find
something I knew I had. And soI'd be ripping the whole place
apart looking for whatevermedicine or bandages or whatever
(27:12):
I had.
And it's like, boy, this needsto be organized. So you go down
there now, the burn kit isn't aspecific spot. The the trauma
kit, everything's organized forreally maximum efficiency
because in the time that itwould take for me to find one of
(27:33):
these things, someone could die,right? So efficiency or
organization is a big thing. Andwhenever you look at an
organization, which has the wordright in it, that's what it is.
How is this thing put together?How is it organized? And the
world is, of course, perfectlyorganized. But the more that you
(27:57):
know where things are, thebetter you are. Now with that,
the skill of prioritization Ithrow in here too, because that
really has to do with theability to distinguish higher
value items from lower valueitems.
Okay? So, you know, to keep yourbig things kind of on top or
(28:21):
somewhere around the top of yourlist and then your lower value
things towards the bottom. Nowwith that said, sometimes
there's things that are not highvalue, but you can accomplish
them quick. Okay. They might beat the top and that kind of
builds an emotional feeling ofprogress.
(28:42):
And so or what I might call aquick kill, you know, check that
off and it always feels good totake that red marker and mark
through it. But you always wannahave your what are the things
that are going to benefityourself, your organization the
most? What is the the highestthing that you could achieve on
this day? And have that towardsthe top of your list. Now I'd
(29:08):
like to throw out a idea that'sprobably a little bit scandalous
or controversial, and that's tosee that the nature of the
universe or the underliningenergy of the universe is that
of entertainment or excitement.
(29:31):
As I've said before, we live inthis world of infinite color and
variety. Again, no twosnowflakes alike. No two
particles of dust alike. And whyis this? Well, nature must like
variety.
And this variety, what, producesentertainment. I suspect that
(29:53):
one of the major problems in theworld is that of boredom, that,
you know, things can be goingalong. We can be in paradise or
what we perceive as paradise.And then we're looking around
and seeing what pickle we canget ourselves in. Oh, that looks
great.
So we take the relationship riskor the business risk or whatever
or, you know, we want more. Andthat causes some great
(30:19):
excitement. So this idea thatthe foundational energy of the
universe is that of excitementand entertainment, to me
explains a lot. It explains whythe stars twinkle. It explains
(30:40):
why there's a thrill rightbefore the tiger eats you.
It explains why we watch thenews and go, oh my god. That's,
you know, that's bad orwhatever. And why we would tune
off the happy news networkbecause it's so boring. It's
just like positive every day andwhatever. After a while it's
(31:04):
like, no.
I wanna see the dark side of themountain too. And and you think
about this, this this dualism,this light and dark. And this
creates what? Movement.Excitement.
We're moving what? From paintowards gain. Well, that's
(31:25):
exciting. That's a journey. Sowe're in the wilderness, you
know, going through nature, thedesert, you know, whatever
wilderness we're in, you know,and and we're looking for the
oasis.
You know? And so after all thestruggle, we finally get to the
oasis, and we're having our MaiTais and Bloody Marys and
(31:49):
whatever. And after a while ofsitting next to the pond under
the under the palm tree, we go,this is kinda boring. I think
there's another oasis over here,and we need to go through the
desert, the wilderness to getthere, and that's exciting. I
(32:14):
think we all want movement.
And at some level, even thoughsome people say, I don't want
change or they're resistant tochange, they all want change.
They all would like to have abetter life. They'd all like to
have more, more life. And Ithink this is a great
(32:34):
motivational thing. Anotherpoint, and we're getting down
the last couple here, is tolearn how to sell or market.
This is great advice for peoplebecause, again, we live in a
transactional world, atransactional universe, in fact,
(32:57):
where there's always a give andtake because everybody's always
going somewhere. So we look atthis and go, In society,
learning how to sell things isgreat. And what do we know?
Marketing people or people thathave the ability to sell make
(33:17):
the most. I mean, your marketersmake more than CEOs because
that's what that's about.
So that ability to communicate,to learn how to teach or how to
show people value as a greatbenefit, a great asset for a
person to have in their life.And then the last point in this
(33:41):
message of really helpful adviceis to evolve what I'll call a
reconciled mind, a mind thatvalues both the positive and the
negative. And this is really acentral theme through all of my
thinking. And to me, the moreand more I sit in nature, I see
(34:07):
this as more and more the truthor become more convinced of it.
I mean, here I am.
I'm sitting. I have twohemispheres of my brain. I have
a right brain, which is goofy,you know, spatial in nature. I
have a left side, which isconcrete numbers. And they
(34:27):
operate very differently.
I know that the mountain that wehave, the studios and the
executive conference center hasa light side. It also has a
shadow side or a dark side. Iknow that we have a male female.
I know we have Republicans andwe have Democrats. We have blue
(34:50):
hats, we have red hats.
We have day. We have night. Thisdualism seems to be everywhere
and almost in all things. And tome, it seems like the frustrated
people of this world, and ofcourse, I've been bad and still
(35:10):
am sometimes, are the peoplethat just want the half life or
have a halfness mentality wherethey only want the sweet. They
only want the light side.
They only want the happy. Andthey fail to recognize the value
in the manure, in the dark side,in the pain. Just like when we
(35:35):
talked about happiness, the roadto true satisfaction and
contentment often comes fromsome type of sacrifice, some
type of pain to create a morelasting fulfillment. That's a
reconciled mind or approach. Sothat's something that I
(36:00):
contemplate a great deal.
Right now, I'm building a churchon the property. And we're
calling it the church of thereconciliation, where you're
bringing together both sides oflife, not favoring either one,
(36:21):
and saying, This is the way itis, and accepting that. And
again, I find that when weaccept the dark side of life,
the illness in our life, theinjury in our life, the loss, We
know that it's a phase, and itdoesn't last forever. And there
is something that's going to beproduced by it. And, normally,
(36:46):
with a good attitude, that willend up being a good thing.
But a lot of times, you have toalmost hit rock bottom before
you kinda get the memo that,hey. Maybe I better think about
this different or maybe I betterchange my approach. So the
reconciled mind and those thatare biblical, I mean, you can
(37:07):
take a look at Isaiah 45 verseseven or point seven as I'll say
sometimes, that I am the LordGod. I created both the light
and the dark, the good and theevil. Oh my god.
So there's our author of the wayit is. So there's no escape that
(37:28):
both of these exist. And I'lljust say this. We we think in
terms of bothness. And I I Ithink that people that seek, for
example, the one-sidedness oflife, they want simpleton,
single explanations toquestions, which we all know or
(37:48):
should probably hold suspect ifwe're intelligent and think
about this, is that singleexplanations or singular
explanations are incomplete atbest as there are millions of
things going on beyond ourconsciousness that we're not
aware of, that every singleaction has all kinds of
(38:10):
different outcomes, and that theanswers to our questions are
often multi or at minimum both.
There's the cause and effectaspect, and the other 50% or
approximately 50% is the will.So it's not just one thing. And
(38:31):
I think that helps us have abetter experience of life. So
there are some things toconsider, and I hope that
they're helpful. From a place oflove and appreciation for all
expressions of life, thank youfor listening.
This is Andrew.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Thank you for listening. If you need anything
further, just go to MBI.life.
What are you willing to throw your life away on? With
Andrew Reed and The Liberation.It's a serious question, one
worth pondering. Am I living thelife I want, an intelligent
life, or something else? How canI have a better experience of
life?
These are some of the questionsexplored in this series of
(00:34):
messages without the brag in theadvertisement. Getting beyond
even human institutions andsociety into the wilderness,
nature, the reality of how lifeactually operates on this
planet. These messages rangefrom intimate recordings from
the awakened forest to concerts,national conferences, and
(00:56):
broadcasts on a wide array ofphilosophical topics.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Here we are at the game house in the Awakened
Forest. It's another brilliantday. And, again, as I think
about it, this is the type ofmessage that helped me in my
journey. And I figured if ithelped me, it may help you as
well. I'd like to basically givewhat I call my best advice for
(01:28):
people, and there's a number ofpoints that can be helpful in
your respective journey.
The first is relax as life is aprocess. Everything is nature.
Here I am sitting, again, in thewilderness surrounded by 13,000
(01:50):
acres. And I've been doing thisfor twenty some years. And you
go back to episode one, andyou'll hear a little bit about
that story or my story.
But all is natural in my world,even anything that we would make
as as humans. We come from thisearth. Right? I mean, we weren't
(02:15):
just dropped here. And so lifeis a process.
We notice that everything ischanging all the time, and
there's nothing we can do aboutit. All is in flux. All is in
movement. And so one of thethings we can do is rather than
have anxiety about that orcontinual anxiety, it's not
(02:38):
wrong to have anxiety from timeto time. That's normal.
Even a bird or a deer isstartled from time to time. But
recognize that this movement,this change is happening, accept
it, and relax. You're gonna haveups and downs in life. There's
gonna be this oscillation of upand down. That is life.
(03:00):
That is pulsation. So justrelax. And I think of my two
children that passed away intragic sudden accidents. My son
drowned late at night in astorm, rainstorm. My daughter
passed away being rear endedlate at night in a rainstorm.
(03:23):
And both, I suspect, were instates of mind that were filled
with anxiety and worry. Theywere not in great states of
mind. So I think one of thefirst things is just relax. Slow
(03:44):
down life. There's no point injust rushing through life and
not tasting your food or notfeeling what it is like to have
the sunshine hit your skin whenyou're taking a walk or taking
in that fresh air of the morningjust like I am today.
(04:06):
Relax. Slow life down. There'sno point in rushing through
life, as my uncle Earl used tosay, that great Alaskan. Next,
cultivate a positive attitude.Attitude is one of those almost
(04:29):
miracle type things that I Ithink doesn't get enough
attention because attitude willchange your life.
You know, some silly people talkabout thought control and and
taking over your thoughts andall that. That's all an
illusion. Illusion. I mean,nobody can just shut down their
(04:50):
their minds from thinking. Why?
We are thinking beings. It iswhat a human being does. We
think. We wanna work things out.We have this brain that's a
problem solving machine.
It that's what it does. It ittries to work out the most
efficient ways of of doingthings. And there's no getting
(05:13):
around that. Or, you know, ittries to go to benefit again,
away from pain towards somebenefit. And so if we can't
control our thoughts, what canwe control?
Our attitude. Our attitudetowards things. So when we start
to cultivate with our will,which is at least half of the
(05:36):
equation in life, and we say,you know, I'm going to have a
better attitude about my job.I'm gonna have a better attitude
about this relationship. I'mgonna have a better attitude
about whatever, my illness,especially negative things.
Suddenly this starts to triggerwhat? Better thoughts. What
(05:58):
happens to those thoughts thatwe start to dwell on? They
become, I'll say, a thoughthabit or a belief, and we tend
to act upon our beliefs. And soif we have better beliefs, they
turn into better actions.
And what do better actions do?They cause, obviously, better
results, and we get what? Betterlife. But it starts with the
(06:23):
cultivation of a more positiveattitude. So I think one aspect
of being successful or attainingthings or whatever, have a great
attitude.
Nobody wants to work aroundsomebody with a crappy attitude,
especially in society or in thehuman domain. Heck, I suspect
that the trees and rocks that Ipass by here in the forest
(06:49):
appreciate a good attitude aswell because I feel they're
alive as well. It's just adifferent type of consciousness.
Then I would say, real afterrelax, cultivate a positive
attitude is make good decisions.If you make good decisions, it
(07:14):
equates to you have a betterlife.
Good decisions equals good life.And this is a little bit of the
cause and effect paradigm thatwe do this and we get, you know,
x result be because of that. Notthat that explains all of life.
(07:41):
If everything was just cause andeffect, basically, a new Tony
and paradigm, it would just allbe dominoes or billiard balls as
some people say. And, basically,there would be no accountability
because we could just blameeverything we are today on the
past and say, well, you know,I'm an alcoholic because, you
know, my parents beat me or, youknow, they locked me in my room
(08:05):
one time or whatever.
Or, you know, of course, I'mthis way because this and this
and this happens. And and soit'd always be this world of
blame and excused. And and weknow that that leads to
victimhood, which is reallyagain, it's a it's something
(08:26):
that holds people back. As longas people are crying in their
beer and feeling sorry forthemselves, they're not making
much advancement. And I'm notdemonizing it.
There's a place. There's a timeto cry on your beer. I mean,
when I've had huge losses in mylife, catastrophic losses, yeah,
there's a time to grieve.There's a time to, you know,
(08:48):
completely get undone. But thenthere's a point where, you know,
this isn't really serving muchpurpose.
I'm not feeling that good aboutwhere my life is now or where
the trajectory is going. I'mgoing to do something about it.
And so this introduces the otherhalf of the equation, if you
(09:13):
want to simplify it, is thehuman will or drive. So you have
the cause and effect aspect,which is true, And then you have
another truth of there's anaspect of human will where if I
say, hey, I want to grab thiscup of tea and drink it and
magically my arm moves and I getit and I get to taste it. That's
(09:36):
an act of the will.
And so I'll see say in thebalancing of the equation, it's
almost yin and yang that there'salmost a dualism or a multi ism
that I suspect is more thetruth, but we can get our heads
around two variables that wehave a bothness or two things
happening at the same time,cause and effect, which we call,
(10:00):
again, the external world or oror whatever, and then the
product of the human willbalancing that out. And there's
also some scientific backupbehind that, but we won't get
into that today. Another thingthat we can do to have a better
life again is to studyhappiness. This is a topic I I
(10:25):
think there's a lot of confusionabout. What is happiness?
Well, happiness is obviously aninner state, a state of
consciousness, a self assessedstate. And I think a lot of the
confusion comes from thinkingthat happiness is fun. And what
(10:46):
I'm talking about really is adeep satisfaction. For example,
you go to the carnival or fairor whatever, and you take the
ride, and it's exciting and allthis. And and, yeah, you're
happy in that moment.
But then when the ride's over,it's like, oh, you know, I'm I'm
I'm back to whatever. You know,my boyfriend just broke up with
(11:06):
me or whatever. Girlfriend,whatever. Whereas if you, quote,
you know, sacrifice or puteffort, time into, let's say,
getting a degree or an advanceddegree or learning how to play
an instrument or attain someskill, There's this pain element
(11:31):
or discipline where you'rehaving to forego doing other
things to focus on this singularthing. And when that's attained
or that's completed, there'sthis deep level of satisfaction,
this contentment that arisesfrom accomplishment.
(11:54):
And I think that's more of thehappiness that a lot of us are
seeking. So it's a strange thingthat so much of our true
happiness, our true contentmentcomes through the valley of pain
or loss or sacrifice. And evenI'll just say this. Knowing
(12:21):
you're happy, you know, beinghappy and knowing it is a
strange thing, but those are thehappiest people. And I'll just
say this.
And again, I'm sitting in naturehere as this is so much of my
life. It informs me abouteverything, at least how I
(12:41):
suspect life should be lived, isthat perhaps we're all happy all
the time and just don't know it.Oh, Andrew, that's scandalous.
How can that be? You know, welook up at the sky and we see
(13:02):
that it's blue sometimes.
But then sometimes there'sclouds in the way, but then the
clouds move away. The blue isalways there. So I'm suggesting
and I'm not saying that analogyis perfect or anything like
that, is that perhaps we'realways happy. And in that we're
(13:25):
in this journey of life with itsups and downs, its heartaches,
its struggles, its joys, itsvictories, all that. And that is
life and accepting those ups anddowns, accepting when the wind
blows and saying wow you knowthat's great that's part of it
(13:52):
part of being happy is thatagain that that pain part and
being okay with it, that not allthings are gonna go exactly the
way you wanted.
And if they did, let's sayeverything happened exactly
according to your dictates.Everything happened as planned.
(14:14):
You would hate that life after awhile. After a while, you want
some surprise. You wantsomething different.
I mean, do you want to eat yourfavorite meatloaf every day? No.
It's like, no. Let's dospaghetti. Let's do whatever
food variety.
(14:35):
But we don't want the same thingall the time. None of us would.
So study happiness. What is it?Who are the happiest people in
this world?
You know, places like Okinawa.You know, I think Denmark has
another high happiness equation.But who are the happiest people,
(15:02):
and what are they doing? Anotherpoint that merits some
consideration in this bestadvice or possible best advice
is discover what you're reallyinterested in. And here, there's
no straight line to what yourinterests are.
(15:25):
I find that they change all thetime. I have all these
collections. I mean, I justcollect things from I mean, golf
clubs if I'm into golf, guitars,properties. I mean, I I buy
things. And I I really like oldthings, games, toys, all kinds
(15:48):
of, of course, outdoor things,knives, collections of these
things.
And I'm not interested in all ofthem at the same time. I mean,
they're they're phases. Soagain, this change of life is
just it just happens. And soyour interests will change over
(16:09):
time. But, again, whateveryou're interested in, throw
yourself into that, like, 100%learn everything about it.
If if you're doing the golfthing, learn everything about
golf. If it's shooting orwhatever, you learn everything
about how to do that. If it'splaying guitar, you learn
(16:31):
everything about thatinstrument, how it works. And,
again, that's great advice. Andas I've said in different
messages, it's been found thatpeople who will take five years
and learn everything, just throwthemselves morning and night
into studying that topic, theywill find themselves in the in
(16:54):
the top 5% in that field.
So that's a very short period oftime. And usually there's great
economics that follow that.Another point is the value of
focus. Focus is key to success.Now it can be languaged as self
(17:17):
regulation, self control,discipline.
It could be even languished aslove. But to be good at anything
involves really developing justintense focus where, basically,
you take your consciousness andand, like, a laser beam, direct
(17:40):
it towards some topic or anobject to the exclusion of all
the other stimulus that arehappening in your environment.
That pretty much assuressuccess. And you think about it.
We live in a world that is theantithesis of focus.
We have cell phones that there'spop up messages. There's texts.
(18:05):
There's phone calls. There'semails. All these things that
disrupt us from having this thisintense focus that guarantees
success.
And so it's one of the thebenefits of of the wilderness
experience, you know, where youisolate. And this has, of
(18:29):
course, been a trademark ofmyself for years. I had to
retreat back to the wildernessat different times just to
different of the losses andthings that have caused
different breakdowns, which is,again, is a strange combination
(18:49):
of emotions with the loss of,you know, my loved ones and work
over occupation, you know,whatever. But the retreat into
the wilderness setting is is islike medicine. It, again, it
forms us it informs us of thetruth of how life operates on
(19:11):
this planet.
It calms us and gets us awayfrom society so that, you know,
we're just face to face with thetruth and we look at things and
we have those gaps where we justsee the brilliance of life.
(19:35):
Right now, I'm looking at thistiny little salamander just
coming across a branch. And thefact that I even notice it and
go, man, that is brilliant. Thisguy is, like, perfectly colored
for it and and all this. But thewilderness just lets us know
(19:57):
there's this all these differentworlds and creatures and all
this stuff.
And so our our focus goes to a aa different place where maybe we
can realign. And you think aboutthe wilderness. I know we're
(20:17):
talking about focus here. Andthis may be again, some some
people may say, well, you'retalking about focus and then
you're going out in thewilderness and going in a
completely different direction.Yeah.
To gain focus. On what? Yourcentral desire or the things
that you want to accomplish inyour life to get clear. And a
(20:42):
lot of times, those flashes ofbrilliance or whatever are gonna
happen in very odd times, timesthat you don't suspect that
you're gonna have anillumination about your life.
And once you get that focus,that vision, boy, you can have a
lot of things that are notworking very well in your life.
(21:03):
You can be addicted to drugs.You can be in bad relationship,
in a bad job, whatever, and thatvision will carry you out. But
all that is wrapped up in focus.And the other thing about, I'll
say isolation, you think aboutall kinds of shamans and holy
(21:26):
men and what have you, holypeople maybe I should say, that
go off into the wilderness forthis very thing. Another point
that I'd to mention is this isto create a written list to help
you keep focused.
(21:48):
The power of in Six Sigma, wewould call it visual control. In
the multi view world, we wouldcall it the IRM, an image recall
mechanism. But I find this byhaving a written list that helps
to keep you organized, you lookat it, you reprioritize almost
every day because that list canchange. But having something
(22:13):
that can keep you on trackbecause you're gonna have all
kinds of distractingpersonalities and events and
communications and whatever thatare happening. And all those
things will what?
Will dissipate your focus. Sothat written list is key. And
you'll find that as one of thethings that some of the most
(22:36):
successful people have used. AndI will say this, I wouldn't keep
it on my phone because here'syour antithesis of focus, again,
because of the the text, thenotifications, the emails, the
(22:57):
phone calls, or whatever. And soyou wanna stay away from that.
And that written hardcore liston a clipboard is what I use.
Works really well or a yellowpad. The next point, develop
your communication skills. Youcan only advance as far as you
(23:23):
can effectively communicate,especially in any group
enterprise. For example, you'llfind that CEOs and your top
leaders are usually the bestcommunicators.
And to me, this communication ismore than even verbal. You know?
It's how you dress, how youpresent body language, all these
(23:47):
types of things, your tone,mannerisms, your polish, your
sophistication, all thosethings. Obviously, all also
written. And I find that whenyou start to develop your
writing skills, usually yourlanguage follows that.
(24:07):
So developing thesecommunication skills. And let me
just focus this a little bitmore. These communication
skills, of course, are areneeded in society, that is among
other human beings, and has todo with teaching, selling,
empowerment, as we say atMultiView. Because almost
(24:30):
everything in life you know, theworld is transactional. You take
a look at the natural world.
It's a completely transactionalworld, a meritocracy. And so in
society, you know, we've got toconvince other people of our
ideas, of the direction thatwe're going. Like to look at the
(24:51):
idea of selling as teaching orempowerment because really
that's what you're doing. You'recommunicating the value of
whatever and human beings arewhat gonna go in the direction
of benefit. They're gonna goaway from pain and discomfort or
frustration.
And so the more effectively thatwe can communicate that value,
(25:15):
the better. The more we're gonnahave people rally behind, you
know, what we're doing or whatwe're selling or whatever our
place really in society is.Another point I'd like to
mention is to develop yourorganizational and
prioritization skills. We'vealready mentioned having a
written list, this tangiblething that you can see and
(25:39):
reference preferably on aclipboard. But your ability to
organize things.
If people are disorganized, itis not an efficient way of doing
things. Helene, HurricaneHelene, of course, wiped out
this mountain. I mean, for thelast five months, I've been
(26:01):
strapping on my backpack andboots, and and we've been having
to go across the river on footbecause there's no other way off
the mountain. And so we've beenliving fairly primitively. And
one of the things I found outright after everything was
devastated here is I had this,of course, great stockpile of
(26:25):
things I prepped, you know,medical supplies, everything
that people would need.
And I, of course, you know,knowing me, I always had an
abundance of this. And so Iwould go around and check on my
neighbors to make sure that theywere okay. And, you know,
people, of course, were beinginjured in accidents, chainsaw
(26:48):
things or rashes or whateverfrom poisonous plants or
whatever as we're trying tokinda dig our way out. And when
I'd go down into my store area,my prep room, I couldn't find
something I knew I had. And soI'd be ripping the whole place
apart looking for whatevermedicine or bandages or whatever
(27:12):
I had.
And it's like, boy, this needsto be organized. So you go down
there now, the burn kit isn't aspecific spot. The the trauma
kit, everything's organized forreally maximum efficiency
because in the time that itwould take for me to find one of
(27:33):
these things, someone could die,right? So efficiency or
organization is a big thing. Andwhenever you look at an
organization, which has the wordright in it, that's what it is.
How is this thing put together?How is it organized? And the
world is, of course, perfectlyorganized. But the more that you
(27:57):
know where things are, thebetter you are. Now with that,
the skill of prioritization Ithrow in here too, because that
really has to do with theability to distinguish higher
value items from lower valueitems.
Okay? So, you know, to keep yourbig things kind of on top or
(28:21):
somewhere around the top of yourlist and then your lower value
things towards the bottom. Nowwith that said, sometimes
there's things that are not highvalue, but you can accomplish
them quick. Okay. They might beat the top and that kind of
builds an emotional feeling ofprogress.
(28:42):
And so or what I might call aquick kill, you know, check that
off and it always feels good totake that red marker and mark
through it. But you always wannahave your what are the things
that are going to benefityourself, your organization the
most? What is the the highestthing that you could achieve on
this day? And have that towardsthe top of your list. Now I'd
(29:08):
like to throw out a idea that'sprobably a little bit scandalous
or controversial, and that's tosee that the nature of the
universe or the underliningenergy of the universe is that
of entertainment or excitement.
(29:31):
As I've said before, we live inthis world of infinite color and
variety. Again, no twosnowflakes alike. No two
particles of dust alike. And whyis this? Well, nature must like
variety.
And this variety, what, producesentertainment. I suspect that
(29:53):
one of the major problems in theworld is that of boredom, that,
you know, things can be goingalong. We can be in paradise or
what we perceive as paradise.And then we're looking around
and seeing what pickle we canget ourselves in. Oh, that looks
great.
So we take the relationship riskor the business risk or whatever
or, you know, we want more. Andthat causes some great
(30:19):
excitement. So this idea thatthe foundational energy of the
universe is that of excitementand entertainment, to me
explains a lot. It explains whythe stars twinkle. It explains
(30:40):
why there's a thrill rightbefore the tiger eats you.
It explains why we watch thenews and go, oh my god. That's,
you know, that's bad orwhatever. And why we would tune
off the happy news networkbecause it's so boring. It's
just like positive every day andwhatever. After a while it's
(31:04):
like, no.
I wanna see the dark side of themountain too. And and you think
about this, this this dualism,this light and dark. And this
creates what? Movement.Excitement.
We're moving what? From paintowards gain. Well, that's
(31:25):
exciting. That's a journey. Sowe're in the wilderness, you
know, going through nature, thedesert, you know, whatever
wilderness we're in, you know,and and we're looking for the
oasis.
You know? And so after all thestruggle, we finally get to the
oasis, and we're having our MaiTais and Bloody Marys and
(31:49):
whatever. And after a while ofsitting next to the pond under
the under the palm tree, we go,this is kinda boring. I think
there's another oasis over here,and we need to go through the
desert, the wilderness to getthere, and that's exciting. I
(32:14):
think we all want movement.
And at some level, even thoughsome people say, I don't want
change or they're resistant tochange, they all want change.
They all would like to have abetter life. They'd all like to
have more, more life. And Ithink this is a great
(32:34):
motivational thing. Anotherpoint, and we're getting down
the last couple here, is tolearn how to sell or market.
This is great advice for peoplebecause, again, we live in a
transactional world, atransactional universe, in fact,
(32:57):
where there's always a give andtake because everybody's always
going somewhere. So we look atthis and go, In society,
learning how to sell things isgreat. And what do we know?
Marketing people or people thathave the ability to sell make
(33:17):
the most. I mean, your marketersmake more than CEOs because
that's what that's about.
So that ability to communicate,to learn how to teach or how to
show people value as a greatbenefit, a great asset for a
person to have in their life.And then the last point in this
(33:41):
message of really helpful adviceis to evolve what I'll call a
reconciled mind, a mind thatvalues both the positive and the
negative. And this is really acentral theme through all of my
thinking. And to me, the moreand more I sit in nature, I see
(34:07):
this as more and more the truthor become more convinced of it.
I mean, here I am.
I'm sitting. I have twohemispheres of my brain. I have
a right brain, which is goofy,you know, spatial in nature. I
have a left side, which isconcrete numbers. And they
(34:27):
operate very differently.
I know that the mountain that wehave, the studios and the
executive conference center hasa light side. It also has a
shadow side or a dark side. Iknow that we have a male female.
I know we have Republicans andwe have Democrats. We have blue
(34:50):
hats, we have red hats.
We have day. We have night. Thisdualism seems to be everywhere
and almost in all things. And tome, it seems like the frustrated
people of this world, and ofcourse, I've been bad and still
(35:10):
am sometimes, are the peoplethat just want the half life or
have a halfness mentality wherethey only want the sweet. They
only want the light side.
They only want the happy. Andthey fail to recognize the value
in the manure, in the dark side,in the pain. Just like when we
(35:35):
talked about happiness, the roadto true satisfaction and
contentment often comes fromsome type of sacrifice, some
type of pain to create a morelasting fulfillment. That's a
reconciled mind or approach. Sothat's something that I
(36:00):
contemplate a great deal.
Right now, I'm building a churchon the property. And we're
calling it the church of thereconciliation, where you're
bringing together both sides oflife, not favoring either one,
(36:21):
and saying, This is the way itis, and accepting that. And
again, I find that when weaccept the dark side of life,
the illness in our life, theinjury in our life, the loss, We
know that it's a phase, and itdoesn't last forever. And there
is something that's going to beproduced by it. And, normally,
(36:46):
with a good attitude, that willend up being a good thing.
But a lot of times, you have toalmost hit rock bottom before
you kinda get the memo that,hey. Maybe I better think about
this different or maybe I betterchange my approach. So the
reconciled mind and those thatare biblical, I mean, you can
(37:07):
take a look at Isaiah 45 verseseven or point seven as I'll say
sometimes, that I am the LordGod. I created both the light
and the dark, the good and theevil. Oh my god.
So there's our author of the wayit is. So there's no escape that
(37:28):
both of these exist. And I'lljust say this. We we think in
terms of bothness. And I I Ithink that people that seek, for
example, the one-sidedness oflife, they want simpleton,
single explanations toquestions, which we all know or
(37:48):
should probably hold suspect ifwe're intelligent and think
about this, is that singleexplanations or singular
explanations are incomplete atbest as there are millions of
things going on beyond ourconsciousness that we're not
aware of, that every singleaction has all kinds of
(38:10):
different outcomes, and that theanswers to our questions are
often multi or at minimum both.
There's the cause and effectaspect, and the other 50% or
approximately 50% is the will.So it's not just one thing. And
(38:31):
I think that helps us have abetter experience of life. So
there are some things toconsider, and I hope that
they're helpful. From a place oflove and appreciation for all
expressions of life, thank youfor listening.
This is Andrew.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Thank you for listening. If you need anything
further, just go to MBI.life.
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