my family beyond with things way. Remember, just because you're doing a lot more doesn't mean you're getting a lot more done. Don't confuse movement with Progress. Way living, a paradoxical time where we have more comfort but less peace, more connectivity, less connection, more information, less wisdom. The purpose of this podcast is to explore these natural tensions with independent voices. Who will push our thinking tha This is the paradox. Podcast was getting just good enough. You know, I'm not good at it. You can learn quite a lot from experience. That's one thing.

Something after that have the will and determination to do anything about it. Everyone welcome to another episode of the Paradox podcast, I'm your Coast, Kyle Tibbits. Joined by my fellow Coast Alex Con for episode number six, we chatted with Kamal Ravi Khanna about fear, forgiveness and how your internal mentality can shape your external reality. Kamal is an entrepreneur, investor and best selling author of three books, Love Yourself of Your Truth and Rebirth. Kamal was born in India but immigrated United States, where he and his brother were raised by a single mom in a rough neighborhood in Jamaica, Queens, spent countless hours of the library redeveloped in early love for books, which became his refuge and inspired him to become a writer. This week,

Kamal is relaunching an expanded version of his book Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It. He sent Alex nine. Advance copy. I think message of the book couldn't be more relevant for the world we live in After hitting rock bottom when it started in the dot com boom completely fell apart. He made a commitment to change his life by reprogramming his mind and making a battle of himself. That's the focus of his book way. Hope you enjoyed this episode with Kamal Robin come all thanks for joining us on the paradox podcast. Thanks for making time, I guess, to start things off for our listeners who may not be asked familiar with you would love to hear a little bit about your backstory being born in India, coming to the United States and just abbreviated version of your journey. I know we're gonna get into more of your journey, but just to set the table for who you are and what you're about,

OK, very briefly. Yes. Born in India became here when I was a little kid. Ah, and my mom single mom raised my brother and I know money literally no money. And she was working all the time, you know, just to put food on the table and pay rent. My brother and I basically grew up in libraries and this in school. And as soon as I got out of high school, um, been to college for year two full scholarship and instead, after year were left to join the U. S Army. So I was an infantry soldier in the 10th Mountain Division, the U S.

Army. And then after that, I went to college, you know, got my degree in economics and biology and then spent a few years of doing trauma research and level one ers watching a lot of people die in front of me and working with them. And then men end up moving out to California for the dot com boom and start building. Startups just jumped in, started building companies. And next thing I knew that was my thing. And at the same time, while I was doing that I was writing, I've always want to be a writer. You know books have really impacted me in a way. They impacted me as a child, ever my refuge as a child, and they matter a lot to me.

We have the wisdom of humanity available to us. You know, people. When they write a book, they don't meander. They have a core thing they're sharing. And we have the lessons of life, you know, given to us. And I wanted to be a great writer. And so, while his building companies in the evenings and at night on weekends, that's what I'd be doing taking apart the greats and writing and rewriting, collecting rejection letters and becoming a better about a writer. Then, in 2012 a self published,

my first book based on experience with this company that I built fell apart and I lost everything with it, and I fell apart with it and what I did to get out if it really changed my life around, which came from making a battle of myself, and then how I went about to do it in a very simple, practical, effective way. You know, I'm a doer. I come from a world you know, Start up, world military. Well, whatever you do stuff, right? And that book became a self publishing success on its own. And,

um, just put me on the map as a writer. So now I run a I built a venture capital for him. I saw a movie. See, It's my own firm. I selectively, you know, invest in startups and sometimes advise companies. And I love helping these companies and entrepreneurs, you know, go big and succeed in what they're doing. And and I write books. I've written a novel since Dan Evert, another nonfiction book, and now,

um, seven years after the original love yourself came out, I've actually expanded it based on all the cushions of them from readers. Made me realize I need to go deeper share way more than the original one if I truly want this to be impactful and that's coming out, um, soon. And so I think that's kind of like a good run down. That's a great running down. So the book is love yourself like your life depends on it. I had the chance to read it this week. I really appreciate you sending over an advanced copy and really depleted. I mean, a couple of things are. It's a very easy quick read, and the concepts are concrete enough that I feel like they're things that you can implement very easily into your your day to day life. And that's something that I I really look for and appreciate in your own words.

What is loving yourself all about? And how did it change your life? Okay, you know, for me look, it's funny I becoming a writer in the South of genre, and it's a genre. I'm not necessarily a fan off, you know, because I find it's a genre full of a lot of platitudes. Literally. It'll be like, you know, love yourself. Take care of that would be good to yourself, give you sell bubble baths and all this.

But it looked ultimately, I believe it's all mindset. It's our thoughts and feelings that, you know, is where everything rises, from where we go, who we are and what we create in the world. I try to figure out a moment of desperation when I really was at bottom and it was more of a way to save myself, and I don't know where it came from to love myself, devour was to love myself. And I really do believe fundamentally in the power of making commitments to yourself in keeping them. And because I've written a vow to myself in my journal, Ah, vows that the ultimate commitment to oneself. So I had to keep it so that the figure out what to do So for me, honestly,

I didn't know what that meant, but I had to figure it out. And I know it didn't mean the usual self care stuff. You here because I was just in a miserable place in my mind. So what? I decided I'm just gonna work in my mind. And so I think ultimately loving herself comes from being in a place around mind. And our thoughts were those. It becomes part of our natural makeup where we make decisions from that place where we have thoughts from that place where we live life from that place. And so what is internal actually ends up becoming the external and how they react to and, well, how be act in the world.

If you had to compare and contrast, maybe your mentality that you advocate for in the book and that you've been putting into practice kind of in your daily life, with maybe the mentality you had going back to being in college or joining the military or running a start up in Silicon Valley. Can you compare and contrast those two mentalities and maybe how you are a different person now than you were back then?

I think, um huh Look, it's things happen easier for me because I come at things from a different place. I don't come out as much from fear I'm or purpose driven, more mission driven for my own thing. I'm willing to take stand for Hawaiian and what I believe in, which is ultimately, you know, originally what this book was about. It was taking a stand and and sharing with the world the standard taken and how it changed everything for me and turns out of works for everybody else. Actually, would you mind repeating that that cushion the game? Because I thought I think I drifted there

for a second? No, I think you started diving right into it. I can compare my own life seasons of my life where maybe I was living out of selfishness or fear or some operating system that wasn't very productive for me, just a kind of relate to a little bit. I in college actually temporarily dropped out of school to start a company. It wasn't initially a startup that was more, ah, consulting firm, doing Internet marketing for companies and then really tried actually build a software company when pitch mentor capitalists did the whole thing. But I was operating from this place of putting the whole weight of the world on my shoulders. I certainly taken care of myself. Suddenly I was 21 so I had no notion of like taking care of my mental health wasn't even in my vocabulary. Meditation wasn't even on the table for me as something that I was even considering doing. In fact, even though I lived in Berkeley, ironically,

I thought meditation was something. The only hippie is dead, so I can look at my mentality back then and how unproductive it was and sort of compare to my mentality now, which again, I'm looking forward to continuing to dig more into your book and putting some of that stuff into practice, because as I've shifted towards taking care of myself, you know, physically, spiritually, psychologically, life does tend to happen a lot a lot easier. And it was a lot a lot harder before.

Yeah, I mean, look, um, I think I've achieved Maur. Whatever, Chief, since then since I've done this has been easier. And I think that's because of that shift in mindset. It's an internal shift that happens, right? And what I what? I figured I was just how to do it in a very practical way in a very simple way. And I've learned that, like we get better inside of life gets better on the outside. It's a lot of things that I was pushing for, like earlier on to do,

like pushing for, to be an author, to be published, right, versus just going out and writing something simple and true, using that craft that I'd learn and to share in the world. And that actually made me a well known, rather things that started work because he also tend to be more honest with yourself and the world about who you are. That actually is one of the bigger ships as well, cause otherwise, when you coming from fear, you're less honest about who you are to the world you know you're afraid of showing that. And the irony is that the more you sure you're real self is the more that the world response and and wants to know you,

that makes sense. Yeah, and there's also like you said, There's this notion that if you do a lot of the internal work first, you're then able to go out and do the things you need to dio. If you go out first without any of the internal work, you're kind of operating from a from a shaky place. They're kind of operating with foundation on the sand verses on the Rock,

but they could do them both at the same time. For example, we go to the gym to take care of our body. That's where we think you were doing right. It's a practice we'd healthy because we want to look a certain way. We want to feel a certain way. It's a practice, right, Same thing with the mind, like you want to make it better. You want to be better on the inside. That's a practice. All of this comes from making them a consistent practice. If you go to the gym once a year, you know, versus if you go to the gym once a day for 3 65 days a year, you know you will tell the difference people hotel difference.

You work in your mind consistently in a very specific, focused way. Every day versus once a year, you know you'll be able to see the difference in yourself and in your life. That's basically what it comes down to it. It's funny, like the thing that we should part ties the most, which is the inside is usually the one day be prioritized the last you know. And that's the one that actually, when it falls apart, everything else falls apart with it. Sources at that stage solid everything, no matter what happens, you stay solid and you can bounce back up. You know, I'll give an example like I were talking earlier before the podcast,

like two months ago. You know, I was in the operating table having emergency surgery, literally in the moment to save my life as I was leaving the planet, you know, and I was talking about brother about this, like a month later, you know? So I was an immense about a pain afterwards. You know, Mirchi surgery is not done very gently, you know? And, uh, I was like, Look,

man, my mindset has been basically more of gratitude and feeling blessed and just feeling good. Most of the time, there's been times where it's been hard because, you know, when you're in pain, sometimes you struggle. Um, but most of time it's been really good, and I was like, Man, that's that's all time I wasn't always like this. That's a testament to the work I've done in my mind to show that the like that stuff sticks and it stays. And your mind just thinks that way. I wasn't that person, you know.

It's not like I was someone running around, always being that way. I came from her, you know, pretty rough background, and these are all things that I've actually taught myself is an adult. And once you once you do the work, it's like if you're in shape and you get out of shape, it's easy to get back in shape. Your body remembers, right? Same thing when you work in the mind. You created those neural pathways the mind remembers, and the mine actually says to kick those in the moment. You start to go back there. How long?

If you remember. What would you say after you had kind of figured out a game plan? I mean, you talk about coming to this realization in the book, you talk about implementing it pretty much immediately, you know, putting pen to paper and then starting to follow the steps. The meditation kind of self talk fruit for lack of a better word. Do you remember how long you were doing that? Before you noticed riel Kind of tangible changes in your life. Sure. Um, it's not like I sat down. I came up with a plan. I didn't know how to do this. I just What I did was I just tried things.

I tried everything, man. I just anything I could think of. I just tried it. And I What I What I did was if it made me feel better when for the down. If you do make me feel better, I throw it away. It was only like, after, like, two weeks or so, I realized that I was doing certain things consistently that we're making me feel better. And it's all very simple. It took very little bit amount of my time, and they all involve the internal self and literally only took a few weeks for, like,

my mind just to talk to really shift, you know? But I was doing it consistently. That was the key that Maur you consistently. You you put certain thought patterns in your mind, the faster they'll actually just start to run on their own.

Have you found that especially in investing in advising entrepreneurs, that there's a lot more openness on the part of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and abroad? Thio start taking this test and try approach to their own mental health. I've seen some of that. I talked to folks here in the valley that Seymour open to that. But have you noticed just kind of in one on one conversations with entrepreneurs that you're working with, that there's just much more of an openness to trying some of these things that maybe 5 10 years ago, not only would they have not have been interested in, but they would have been very uncomfortable even talking about publicly, maybe for some of those fear reasons or because they want to project a certain level of strength. Have you found that in your 1 to 1 discussions?

Yeah. Yeah, often. Like, you know, I'm just advising people to not jump off cliffs, but it's sometimes good to chip up close, but a lot of it's mindset, you know, helping them make the right decisions with the right mindset. Um, but yeah, before I think it used to be more just helping morning in a business way. Now it's both You're right there is more for openness, but don't think it's him in Silicon Valley. I think it just overall the culture Now, you know,

it's much more accepted, much more okay to actually, you know, I just realized I look, let me work on myself and that that will actually make me better and whatever I d'oh and, uh, it's something everyone knows. But I think people were just afraid to talk about it, you know, for longest time, it was like every article was people were killing it. And no, not every company could be killing it cause and most companies fail, you know. But yet on the outside, you need to see how are they doing?

And it was just like a rara. Um, you know, mostly they just ducks paddling, you know, frantically underneath. You know, you. But you don't see the you don't see the legs underneath going crazy, trying not to drown. So I think that just so we're on society, which I think is great cause we're just being more riel, That's all it is, is being more riel. Um, when you're being more real with yourself,

you know you're way better. I think the worst thing you could do is bullshit yourself. You know that I won the biggest goods we can give ourselves as catch ourselves in our own bullshit. Call ourselves on our own on bullshit. We do that. We automatically start to get better because we get so expected. These patterns are blaming this of blaming bad, but we really look at it. It's like, Okay, who's the Who's? The Corps was a fulcrum point here. It's always us, right? So you start doing that and you starting more personal responsibility and shifting and you become better

switching gears a little bit. I know the topic of forgiveness is in the first portion of your book, and to me it seems like forgiveness is like a concept that's fallen out of fashion in today's society. I almost can't even remember the last time I even said I forgive you to someone or someone really apologize in a genuine way. People kind of do it in more surface level ways. But a deep forgiveness, either one. The one are actually just the art of forgiving someone, even if they're not even present physically. How do you think that individuals and society can benefit by maybe re embracing or reintroducing a concept that, at least from my vantage point, seems like it's kind of disappeared a little bit?

Well, let me be clear about one thing. So the book is focused about you being better, right? It's all about like you being your best self, you know, by loving yourself. So when I talk about forgiveness, I talk about self forgiveness, which is ultimately the only control we got. Yeah, you know, like you can try to forgive another. But until you're someone who forgives yourself, are you gonna be someone if he gives another? All right, I believe it all starts with the self,

So that's what forgiveness is freeing yourself. So I haven't exercise that I've done some times in my life that unself forgive Mr really works that I've shared good readers. Um, you know, on a block post I did, and that really works with them. It just kind of freeze you on. And it's an intentional exercise that maybe takes half an hour. But it's not something you do every day. You do it once in a blue moon. I I think I've done it this year once or twice, right? You do it when you really feel like you need it and you do it. And then you move on to making a commitment to yourself, to love yourself of making your vow. And and then things just start to shit because you start to move forward. So if you want to move forward, you gotta leave whatever you can from the past behind. And self forgiveness is the best way to do it.

Just a push on the concept a little bit and maybe even play devil's advocate a little bit. I definitely agree that if you're not able to forgive yourself, your ability to forgive other people's not really gonna be there,

you're gonna struggle. If you can. If you can do yourself, you can't love yourself truly. How can you truly love another? You can't. I mean, you can but wait till try loving yourself and then then try loving another

it differently. And it applies to anything, right? Like if you're not taking care of yourself, it's hard to take care of others as well. So I think that that is a principle that holds true across different dimensions, whether it's forgiveness or whether it's health or whether it's whatever. I guess, the one thing that I would say, and I'm not the best person that this. But I do feel like when you forgive other people, even if they're not present. That also is something that liberates yourself. Because if you're holding on to something that you don't really have control over, there might be a way to forgive other people, even maybe not face to face that also freeze yourself. And so I think forgiving yourself first makes sense.

But I'm just thinking out loud and wondering if once you've done that and you feel like you're kind of in a good place, I wonder if yet forgiving other people, even people that you can't meet with face to face. Also has a pretty liberating, uh, first phenomenon

florist. This stuff you're caring from the past, right? It changed in the past when the boss liberating things ever did, and I share This didn't actually, my knowledge rebirth, which is based on an experience I had in my life, was forgiving my father after he passed away, you know, And And so talk about not being able to see someone. Um, and I had to do it and really free, but also at the same time, I have to figure myself of being the son that wasn't there for him at certain times, you know? So it's always a two way street. You know,

if you're forgiving other, forgive yourself for whatever you're holding, gets yourself forgive yourself. There. That's very, very important is in the end. You gotta be free. You gotta be free before you could settle this free. You consent of this free. But you got to set yourself free first. Ah, otherwise you'll keep coming back.

Yeah, put your oxygen mask on before helping others. Yeah,

it's a cliche, but I have a chapter about it, but it just kind of it's, I think it's just a natural phenomena. Yeah, I think you've definitely touched on this question, but I just want to ask it in a little more of, ah, direct way. One of the things I struggle with and reading your book kind of made me revisit this all over again. It's kind of striking that balance between wanting to be a high achiever, be very successful in my career, be very successful in my marriage and my relationships with my friends and family. All those things that we all want getting to the gym, waking up early on and on and on. How do you balance all of that with the idea of loving yourself and forgiving yourself? And what I mean is,

I think where I hit sticking points is I can be too hard on myself, and I'm not doing everything perfect, and I beat myself up over it. Obviously, that's not healthy, But then I can also get to a place where I say, Well, I just need to chill out. I need to let life, you know, come as it may don't worry about things, and then maybe I think I'm not necessarily holding myself to the standards that I should sew their way. You kind of look it, you know, loving yourself, forgiving yourself,

but also saying, Well, I still want to be driven and I still want to be successful, and I still wanna be kind of a go getter. I think those are not mutually exclusive at all. You love yourself. You push yourselves and things that matter. You love yourself. You won't push yourselves in the thing that don't matter. You love yourself. You will eat healthier. You love yourself. You will go to the gym. You know, like you will do these things that matter. You love yourself.

You will make your relationship with you with your wife better. You know, because that is what you would want for someone you love. You know, so, like, bad becomes a fundamental construct that you view life through. It's actually very mutually inclusive because it becomes part of a foundation of who you are and how you look at the world. It's not something that the sit around. Ask yourself. Well, am I loving myself in this moment or not? You know, like that's not what I d'oh, It's it's what I do is, you know,

the practice outlined. The book is more like layered inside me so that my life and my expression starts to come from that place. You know what happens. You start saying no to things that don't really matter. One thing I've learned is like when you when you don't love yourself you said yes, but a lot of things that don't matter and waste your time and pull you away from your focus and pull you away from much of mission is you want to be great in life. You learn to say no and actually, when you're loving yourself, you get really good at saying no. So I think, honestly, it's not a prerequisite for success. But if you want fulfillment with the success it is. And you know, I think success without fulfillment is not a lot of fun.

It's a pretty empty place to be. One topic I've heard you talk about is this idea of fear and how fear something that drives people. I sort of feel like we're kind of in this age of anxiety and fear just in general right now, people are very sort of fernet I can kind of running around, and I think a lot of what you're offering in your book is potentially an antidote to that mentality that fear based mentality. But you mention something very interesting that could be very much a potential paradox, which is that any time we're sensing fear on something, something we don't want to dio something that maybe we're putting off, we were procrastinating instead of it being a sign that we should run from it, it actually could be a sign that we need to push toward it. Can you unpack that a little bit and just talk about how yes sometimes fear is your body telling you and your instincts telling you I need to get out of this horrible situation and it is a safety component to it. There's a clear benefit tow listening to that voice. But how do you distinguish between the times? Or maybe fear is telling you that you should push into it and not push away. Usually,

I think the distinction is when you're doing something that really is important to your matters to you, you will feel fear. You know Steven Press Feel wrote a book called the war fart. Where he talks about that causes resistance. Every artist faces that he says most Artest struggled with it, which is why they never hit publisher. They never put out their piece of work, and they never do the podcasts and never put out that piece of music because they're afraid right in those places when it's got true expression of yourself. Ah, if you are, are you thing you got to do in the world that company you want to build on that piece of design you want to do and put out our like the career you want to take? Fear's gonna come up and actually, you gotta look as okay. Fear's coming out. That means that this Israel that this is this is something I should do. I should follow cause you no more for the knot. You know,

you end up going places you never would have You step through it and you may fall flat on your face a couple times along the way. But the thing is getting up and going past the fear of that happening again and getting better and better In this modern day lexicon of entrepreneurship, it just seems like everyone's got instant success, you know. And so success is a fallacy. Um, you know, Silicon Valley have seen enough success stories. There are some rare ones. And let's be honest. Those are rare. Okay, Even with the with the successes, you know, instant success is they don't see behind the scenes I've seen behind the scenes like there's a lot involved, Um,

you gotto actually just step up, step up, step up, step up. And you know, these people have had to face their fears. So if you're doing your thing, whatever your thing is and fears coming up, that's a good sign. That's a sign that you're on the path to push forward.

Yeah, there's not really growth without encountering fear. If you live your life avoiding fear and pain, you're essentially avoiding the growth that comes on the other side of it as well. And so, yeah, that makes sense that it goes hand in hand with pushing towards whatever your goals are and growing as a person shifting a little bit towards Silicon Valley or just tech in general, the tech ecosystem in New York and San Francisco and across the country. What's an aspect of Silicon Valley culture, and I don't mean the place. I mean the mentality that you think is potentially overrated. And what do you think is one aspect of that culture that's underrated?

I think one key thing that makes Silicon Valley what it is is that this is paid for in mentality, and that's underrated. People talk about it, but it is highly underrated, cause the paid for mentality is what keeps the whole operation going right. When you get there, it's easier to find. People will help. You are who will work with you will mentor you without actually calling them mentors. You know, people get involve what you're doing as long as they can send something in you that look, you're sharp, you want to do things your door. Um, that's Holly underrated, but I think that is what makes Silicon Valley what it is. You know,

you don't get punished there for failure. As long as you worked hard at it and you learned you get funded again, you'll get back to game. That's another main thing that's underrated. Were a lot of places. You're punished for failure, and I think that's one of the reasons why it's hard to culturally replicate Silicon Valley, especially abroad, because a lot of countries, no matter how much funding that give you, you know, that whole stigma failure. Um, you know, if you're not willing to make decisions that make you fail, you never grow a great company.

You'll never make something big, right? You got to take some serious crazy risks to go big. But if you're afraid of that, if you're afraid of failure, you're never going to go there. Yeah, and also the paid forward mentality. You know where people are like you helping you out. You're the people who've been there are those who are backing. You have been in your shoes multiple minds so they can give you advice. That is practical and really not theoretical. Not some lawyer telling you what you can't do. What an entrepreneur telling you. Yeah, you can't do this,

But this is how I got around it, right? And that's the advice you want, right? I see that a lot of first time entrepreneurs to spend their time listen to lawyers and the Lorries jobs to mitigate risk. But you cannot be listening to that When you know your entrepreneurial jobs take risk, right? You know, that's a function off the word you have to take, Chris, if you're not, you know, not entrepreneur. So to be strong about people who've actually face rest and lived to tell the tale, that's what you want. So that's Holly underrated. And but I think it makes Silicon Valley is really special. What's overrated? Um,

I think maybe I used to be the case

that, you know, access to Capital was in Silicon Valley. But that's overrated now because access to capital is everywhere. Um, take a look at crypto. You know, Blockchain. They raise capital from everywhere, you know, all over the world from individuals. And this is happening more and more of a Angelis and so forth way you can. You know you can raise capital for a company from from investors anywhere, so that's becoming more more overrated. It still helps to be there, but you can raise my New York. You could raise my in Austin. You can raise money in different countries you got. You know, you create a product that's doing well and taking off people and put on one of these platforms like Angela's people will find you to back you. So that's what the game is changing and makes it really interesting.

Yeah, it's almost like maybe the mentality and the culture around like that pay it forward. That's underrated. But the physical location tying that to a space. A six by six mile, very, very expensive city like San Francisco that might be overrated in the central starting now that we're starting to. Yeah, but

the more wired and connected we are, the more it's less

important. Yeah, I think I think I mostly agree with that. I think to tie it back to the conversation around fear. Like you said, there's enough riel fear that building a company, for example, as an entrepreneur, you are going to face a lot of fear. And if you're operating in a culture where there's punishment attached to failure punishment attached to not returning money to investors, that ratchets up the fear even Maur. And so your ability to actually focus on the fear that is worth diving into and really confronting and really challenging because you have all this other fear, that really is Maurine the ecosystem or in the culture that's actually not beneficial. It doesn't produce a good result for anybody. I think that is. What's special about Silicon Valley is the fear. Focus is in the right direction versus, like a non productive or a nun. Constructive direction. Potentially.

That makes sense. Let's do a few of the questions that we ask, I guess on every episode. Sure, what's something? You believe that most people don't One thing I believe, um, started someone earlier about this. I think I have this belief and it's it's a belief that anyone can have no beliefs are just statements that we just start telling yourselves until they become true. That's all it is. You know, one doesn't have to be born with a silver spoon to have that or whatever. And I sure wasn't, um, one belief I have is that every problem is solvable and it is really helped me in my life. Like no matter what, I get thrown at whatever you decide to do,

I'll figure it out because it's solvable. You just have to keep at it and keep trying different things, and you will solve it. As you can see, that definitely helps in building startups like Look I didn't start off being a good writer. I I studied and taught myself, you know, obsessively. And I had the masters teach me because their lessons air in their books. You just have that works to study from and see exactly what it takes. And so you just start studying them and and fair, firstly emulate. And then you end up coming with your own style. Then you have your own stories to tell all these things. Every single problem, I think is solid bullet. That's something I really do believe. And I think that serves me really well in life.

Interesting. Yeah. A lot of folks that come from maybe a rougher background. You mentioned that you come from a tougher childhood raised by a single mom who worked super hard. You and your brother were in the library teaching yourselves, exposing yourself.

Look, man, I used to get jumped. I used to

get all the whole work thing. This was in the Bronx, where this was in Jamaica.

I wasn't to make a run where the rap came from And that part where, you know, wrapped in come from a pretty place

place. So how did this belief that any problem it's solvable, flow out of that cause. A lot of people, I think Theo come from challenges. And Howard, that's what I'm trying to say.

It doesn't have to come from childhood. We don't have to be given this somewhere along the way. As an adult, I decided this and I just started living it.

Yeah, it was almost like it was. Yeah, it's really

as police or choices. You know, we not be not tied to our past beliefs. You know, it's good to understand what they are because our beliefs do actually able to determine our destiny. They determine the choices that have determine our actions. So I think of what boobs want to actually pick beliefs that we think will serve us and the life that we want and actually just literally start making it a statement that we repeat to ourselves until it becomes fact. Look, the mind is unruly thing, but it's ours. That's all we got. And the more we train at, the better it is. I mean, it's meant to be trained. We just have never been taught to be trained, you know,

why shouldn't be trained our mind to to actually serve are what we want rather than us just being beholden to like these these beliefs and patterns that sort of like fallen into because of circumstances of our life. If that's the case, then those circumstances of our life will dictate the rest of our life. Vs I choose to dictate what the rest of my life will be. And this is what I'm gonna believe.

See, you mentioned that all problems are solvable. So this next question is kind of a good side away from that. What's a problem that you are concerned about, that most people are not concerned about it all,

huh? My concern about I think I I do spend a lot of time focusing on mind set on howto make my internal self better. What's interesting? Cause I set out to be a literary fiction writer. That's the kind of right I wanted to be. But I realized over time, ultimately what am I doing? Is the right. I'm assuring the truths that I've learned and truths not just like a look at my truth. I'm in this mountain look at me and top of modernist like Here's the path I took and here's exactly how you can do it. So I think I focused a lot more on on the internal self that most people do. Um, I could be wrong, but I

think that's no. I think I think that's right. I think there is a shift towards people focusing more internally. But I think in general we've been in a cycle. People are Externalizing a lot of problems, like my problem is because so it's over there did something versus thinking. What am I actually doing to contribute to my life and how it's playing out? So I think the majority of people, including I've done this a lot myself. You tend to externalize problems and it's much more of a concerted effort and a very mindful shift to say, You know what? I'm gonna move inward, and I'm gonna focus on getting my own internal house in order before I start pointing fingers at other people. Other institutions that are causing problems for me,

Yeah, I just do my best not to point fingers at anyone you know that we want to point a finger at is myself because I'm the only one I can really change is myself.

So this is an open ended question. Take it in any direction that you want, but what is the best piece of advice that you've ever received?

We're the best piece of advice I ever received, and I actually which is fundamentally What love yourself and in the book is based on is that life is from the inside out who you're being the person you're being, the man I'm being that expresses itself to the outside. So work on the man inside and then the outside will start to work. You know, make the man inside better, you know, working that more than anything else. And it's something I fundamentally believe. I've learned it enough, and I believe it. And that's literally that piece of advice I took when I was a bottom, and I decided to make this fight alone myself and said how to do it. And it wasn't just my internal self. Got better. My life got significantly better, which really surprised me.

Now we can go into, like, all sorts of nature of reality stuff, which I like playing around with intellectually. But all I know is that my life got better in ways that I didn't plan for, and I think that's just kind of like how life works you're inside, affects your outside. Don't ask me how the whole thing works. I don't know. Ah, people been trying to figure that out. That's the history, humanity, trying to figure out the nature of reality. But it just is maybe just do selfishly make you feel better the inside, because selfish easily your life will be better on the outside as a result,

completely with the nature of reality stuff. And this is not something that I had planned to talk about. But it's it's fun to go there because it's really, really tough, and no one has the answer by definition, and no one can prove anything definitively. But what are some of the concepts? Maybe that you picked up in the books that you've read her that you've thought about individually, that you find interesting? Or maybe you think, have some credibility in terms of the nature of our reality? Well,

three months ago I was in Nepal, um, in Mustang Valley, which is where repair Buddhism flowed from India to Tibet through Mustang, Bali's an actual valley in the Himalayas, studying with these Buddhist monks called the Bon. They're the mystics of Tibetan Buddhism. They were around in Tibet before Buddhism came around and they still practiced in mysticism. And I found those guys interesting. You know, every religion's got the Mystics. Every culture has a mystic, so they're the ones out there who really trying to figure out they don't want a dog. But they don't want a system to just want to figure out the nature of reality and just really, in a practical way, right? And so in My readings are in my experience of meeting people like bad,

and what I'm finding is they all have the same one thing in common. They all say that this whole thing is an illusion that you know, like this whole thing. But it's just the mind hallucinating reality where reality is way more than this. And these were all connected. And there's there's a very interesting concept I was reading about. Call Indira's Net, which is this ancient veda concept where in the beginning of time there's a net like a spider web that goes in all directions, right infinitely in all directions and all dimensions, so It's infinite, right? And every note is a glittering jewel and every piece of consciousness, which would be you, both of you myself. Being a separate piece of consciousness is one of those jewels, right?

And when you look at that Jewell, what is doing is it's actually reflecting all the other jewels. So there's a connection, and there's actual literal, literal connection as well as a refraction off everything that exists. I mean, the fact that they came up with his Iron Army 1000 years ago is fascinating. But now you're finding finding theories about the holographic universe and and say, You know that, Then you have very smart people saying like, Hey, this whole thing might just be a simulation, and so far that's looking to that. You think you know what? There's something bigger than me going on. Yeah,

something bigger. And this animal self, whatever that is. You know, I don't think that the software that would run around and hard was designed to actually figure the whole thing out, right? But it's been trying to figure this out forever, and there is something there. So the way I look at is how do I make it practical? How do I make this kind of knowledge practical? The one thing that helps is it? Actually, it brings me back to more, more. Okay, this is the case,

then the software that I'm running the inside effects affects the whole thing. That's the area, have, like, work on the inside. The outside gets better, Something I've noticed practically in my life. So the most interesting part about all this reading of the studying that I've done in the last couple years on this actually no don't. The last couple years just this year I got interested in it is that there's more to this. The whole thing is an illusion, and we're in the illusion, so that's hard to break. Free of the illusions. Sure, uh, but but the fact that we're an illusion is very interesting. That beer, it's all illusion. We're in it and there's some There's more to this than meets the eye. So

does yeah. It's fascinating. It is fascinating. And it's fascinating because, as you mentioned, even all the major world religions have different versions of this. I mean, you could hear Elon Musk talking about how we're living in a simulation And that's actually not even a huge departure. Even take the Judeo Christian worldview, right? The idea that the Earth was created is essentially like saying there's a simulation that there's the physical world that we live in. But there's a spiritual dimension, maybe that we can't even fully experience. So it's fascinating that actually there's a compelling case to be made, that all the major world religions and people outside of religion to might even agree that this is all an illusion and that you mentioned the interconnected nature of the world and the nodes. And and one thing that's interesting about the work that you're doing is you're working on yourself. But you're sharing these stories and these truths with other people,

and that's a way of influencing the hundreds of thousands people that I've read your book for sure. But the people that those people interact with two you're influencing the simulation or the reality that we're living in that way, which is sort of a cool way of thinking about it. Yeah, yeah, it is. Well, we super enjoyed having you on the podcast. You want to be respectful of your time. If folks want to buy the book and follow you. What are the best ways to do that?

Well, the book's called Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on it, and it will be out January 7th 2020. It's a beautiful, life changing book that you can get your finest bookstore finalist. Online book story. Amazon, obviously. Ah, find me on Twitter. Instagram. Just my full name. Um and that's pretty easy. And I'm pretty approachable. Are just, You know, my email address is always in my books. If you read a book of mine, you want to email me with something from there, feel free to go.

Awesome. Well, I'm excited.

Come on. Ah, really interesting discussion. And we thank you for your time. Oh, no, It was a pleasure. Thank you guys for making it.

Thank you so much. Come on, we appreciate it. My pleasure. We appreciate you taking the time to join us for this episode of the Paradox Podcast raining for commute length conversations with original thinkers that will push your perspective and pull you into the marketplace of ideas. If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to check out our previous episodes and episode number four, we chatted with Trey Stevens, partner at Founder's Fund and co founder of and Roll Industries, about this idea that diversification is a modern disease that stems from lack of conviction. Looking back at my childhood, even, you know, we grew up in people are talking about well rounded nous and getting liberal arts degrees and diversifying assets. And really, the older I've gotten, the more it has become obvious to me that diversification in many cases not all cases but in many cases is just lack of conviction.

It's like basically saying I don't have strong feelings about anything. And so I'm going to have very mild feelings about everything as an alternative and of you, if you like, had the ability to invest money in a company that you had incredibly high conviction that it was going to be worth $100 million. Would it make sense to put even $5 of your money in like an index fund? No, they'll be insane. You should put every single dollar you can afford into the company that has the $100 billion outside. And yet that's not what an asset manager today would tell you. An episode number three. We talked with James Bashira, entrepreneur, Angel investor and podcaster about the real struggles of building a company. I mean, there was there was a moment where I was just breaking down in tears in the bathroom and my wife's parents house and just breaking down in tears, couldn't stand up and just was definitely thinking,

What the hell is happening. Thing is, how will I get through this? But the whole time I was never thinking. I wish I wasn't in this. You can choose to. To think about these things is as not that you chose them to happen. But you could always sit there and imagine what if I chose this? What would be the blessing within this toe are would chooses in media was Jews to go to the gym and put your muscles through intense stress voluntarily. You on purpose. So why not put your spirit through through stress so that you could build up some muscle there as well? Quick housekeeping note. We just launched a new Web site for the podcast at Paradox podcast dot Co, which will have all episodes and everything you need to know about the podcast If you enter email address and subscribe, you'll get new episode sent directly to your inbox 1 to 2 days early, and you can always drop us a line on the contact form.

We read every single message and really value constructive feedback. That's a wrap for this episode of the Paradox podcast. If you'd like to connect and follow us on Twitter at Kyle Tibbets and at Mr Alex Con. If you enjoyed the episode, please rate in review us on iTunes to spread the word until next time. Take care of her.