I've worked with many people who have an abundance of cash, possession of four or five homes, got a private jet, all the things. But I wouldn't call that abundance. True abundance is when I am completely aligned with and in communion with the essence of who I am.
From Peter Krohn. The mind architect and also the word wizard. He's a writer, a speaker, and a thought leader in human awakening and human potential. We talk about how we can visualize certain things.
Sometimes people will do affirmations in a mirror, like you're a winner and I love you. but it's a reaction to the fact that they don't actually believe it. Visualization can oftentimes be, again, a reaction to a current holding. So how do the top performers visualize the results that they want?
So in order to visualize... Peter. Boom. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
My pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Pleasure.
How would you describe the work that you do for people that aren't aware of you? Short version, late terms. Help people get out of their own way or in depth cut at it.
Help people transcend the constraints with which they arrive to this dimension of spiritual beings that are entangled in some form of limitation. Oh, I like the second version a lot better. I think people have to replay that just to understand what you just said. Exactly, I just said. Yes.
Well, I get, for me, when I take a look at your work, there are some people that take years to change the course of action and make a decision. Yeah. And I find that.
just based on the work that I've seen you do, you're able to get those people into minutes, 10 seconds, they have a realization and they're like, okay, this is the decision, whether it's certain fear they had that you're removing certain mental freedom that you're giving them. Yeah. So what is it about certain people that are able to make these life changing decisions that change the course of action in minutes versus people that take years, if not a lifetime because of fear or whatever it might be. Yeah.
What is the difference between those people from what you've worked with? It's a great question, and I would equate it, so people are going to have a visual and understanding everyday terminology, to a physiological wound. So if someone just had a little paper cut, which we've all had, even though it can be painful, it kind of heals relatively quickly. Conversely, if someone was sadly in a horrific car accident where they've broken bones, it's going to take a lot longer for the body to actually heal and often needs a lot more support.
So I would equate the degree to which somebody has some sort of traumas or emotional constraints in the same way, right? If someone went through something that was really traumatic, then that might take a little bit of repetition and certainly support and love and non-judgment in an environment that is safe for them to be able to consistently step into a new iteration of themselves versus somebody who went through something that was relatively benign, that it can be resolved quickly. That's one component.
The other component, which is probably more significant, is age. Age. Age, right? Because the degree to which somebody's had these constraints in place for decades, if I'm working with a 60-year-old or a 50-year-old versus working with a 28-year-old, the evidence for their ego to hold on to the limitations that they're bound by is much more substantial, right? So somebody's got like a backlog of reasons and excuses, and also they've been living in that particular mold of themselves.
for a lot longer. So for them, it becomes more of a truth versus somebody else, their perspective is a little bit more fragile, so it's easier to dislodge. And then the third component, which is a little more esoteric, but because you like the second way that I answered the first question, like more in depth is that it depends on the age of the soul too.
So an older soul is going to have done much more work in terms of being quicker to mitigate constraint, whereas a younger soul is still going to have to work through a lot more debris. So I would say there are three predominant components combined with then who's listening and who's doing the work, right? So if somebody who's got whatever trauma they've got, and they're in the presence of a friend, a parent, a counselor, a spiritual teacher, a priest, whoever they're working with, it's also a reflection of the degree of that person to hold a space that is both safe, loving, and is also appealing to the deeper essence, which is where there's nothing wrong. So I just say I've got all of those in spades, those three where I'm coming from a place of real love. zero judgment and i'm appealing to the soul they are versus the limited human narrative that they think they are so talk to me about the soul part because that's obviously some people think my that might be woo woo yeah no the difference between soul like they just think in chronological ages yeah what is the difference between an older soul a younger soul how do you determine something like that I mean, you can look at it in the space of a lifetime.
You could say, what's the difference between, you know, a wise old man and a grandfather versus like a young punk teenager, you know, and so just in the space of one life cycle, you could recognize predominantly it's experience, it's wisdom, it's having had enough hard knocks in life that you've either become proficient at overcoming things or you have learned how to avoid them happening again. It's just really the only illusion is time, right? So in one lifetime, you could look at a grandfather figure versus like a young teenager who's super affected by things or super dramatic in the breakup.
And in the same as a soul, you know, if a soul has been around many lifetimes, it's not going to be so easily triggered or reactionary compared to somebody as a soul that is, you know, more mature. And it's like being around the block a few times. It's like, okay, this whole human charade is nothing to get your panties in a twist about.
Yeah, it's... It's, you know, someone when they have an old soul or young soul, you can feel it. It's just hard to put it in words in the limitations of an English language.
It is. Yeah. Words ultimately become, you know, the ultimate limitation. Yeah.
So I say words are both the lock and the key is one of the expressions I use. The words are the confining, like I'm not good enough. I'm not loved. I'm not safe. That feeling that can give rise to sickness and relationships that don't work or money that's not made.
it's all based in language but then i'm using words as the key to also help people see that the words they're stuck in aren't fundamentally truth so yeah so it becomes hard to explain something like the soul which is prior to language so i often use the example of it's like me trying to explain silence by talking about it just be silent right the same with the soul you know the soul is exists prior to linguistic so it's yeah tough to describe yeah it's more something you know and or actually it's something that you are or who you be. At the same time, this is the way we communicate. It's the way our world is shaped is through the language that we've been taught as kids. English, Korean, whatever it might be for you.
What are some of the ways that we can actually use language to have a more abundant mindset, to see the world in a different way, to kind of break that frame for people using linguistics? Yeah, great question. So... Prior to using language, so we could use language that is more creative to create a bigger portal or a bigger world to live in. We want to first be responsible and acknowledge what are the words that are already in place.
So what are the words that somebody is already confined by, such that we can see the inaccuracy of them, the absence of truth about them, so that then we can actually create space for new words to create a new... world for us to function in so i give you a very simple i like to use analogies it helps people understand so if i came to your house and without knowing what's in your house let's just say i'm the world's greatest interior designer so as much as you might like your space you know you're like oh wow peter crone's gonna work with me as an designer and i'm really excited about the possibility of what he could do in my space whether it be feng shui or just aesthetics and beauty and but you in order for me to quote unquote use words in this case furniture and design in your house i first have to empty what's in there right so you could have space that's already filled with your couches and your tables and your art and if i bring all of the finest art and beautiful furniture you know some restoration hardware or something fancy that people like there's no point bringing that into the house if you've already there's no space in your living room or your bedroom right so so similarly with people's you identities there's already words that create the personality that they are that we want to dissolve and dismantle so we actually come down to these fundamental building blocks of what it is to be a soul that is pure limitation uh sorry pure limitlessness timeless boundless possibility and then we can use words to create a structure for all of that potential to start to be actually manifest so it makes sense it does it makes sense i mean the interior design you you're taking your concept you don't want to mesh it together it's yeah you got to clean out the the the well it may not even be the negative but whatever whatever's existing yes exactly whatever's whatever's currently there because even some some people's personality you could argue they were raised by beautiful loving parents and so it might not seem like they went through an abusive poverty stricken childhood but relative to what's possible it's still a limitation yeah so as the older adage of you know in order to create a great life you have to be giving willing to give up a good life right So somebody's narrative might be serving them. They have a decent life, but in order to access greater forms of potential, they will need nonetheless to move the furniture out of the house in order to more probably metaphorically accurate, get out of that house even because the house is a limitation too. So maybe they're in a 3,000 square foot home, pretty decent. But what if we moved into a 20,000 square foot mansion?
What about a different country? South America maybe. Yeah, maybe I should go there.
Yeah, so that's... That's sort of the way, so the how to go to your other question is... Hey, it's just live life, right?
It's to see where do you get upset? Where do you get triggered? Who are the people in your life that you find confronting or in some, some way, you know, they create frustrations or some negative emotion.
So they're the teachers. So whatever the circumstance or the people are, I mean, one of my quotes is a life will present you with people and circumstance to reveal where you're not free. So that's the how is live life, see where you get pissed off. And then learn what at a deeper level is the constraint within you because we tend to superimpose as though it's out there my dad upset me my mom did this my boss my spouse and it looks that way and there are certain circumstances that we have what we really want to have a lot of compassion where people truly are um being impacted by circumstance you know there's a lot of people out there right now who are really um in very very challenging circumstances you And I don't want to dismiss how difficult that is.
I still would want to empower people to realize their experience is always still going to be based on how they react to those circumstances. It's not the circumstance itself, but rather the way that we respond or more accurately react to it. What if it's the limitation?
What if it's not a trigger that we're getting from external circumstances, but it's limitations that we're putting in ourselves? So maybe it's imposter syndrome or limiting beliefs. Yeah.
There are maybe histories of people that are bringing us down, but in everyday life, it's the language that we're using in our own heads that are limiting. Maybe it's just as you said, like maybe you're in the wrong house. Yeah.
It's not even the interior design. You should be in a different country. Like that frame breaking. Yeah.
How do we deal with those? Because I think a lot of people face limiting beliefs. For sure.
I would argue that's all of it. I was just making a little bit of space on the human level for people who do actually have very difficult challenges, because for them to hear what I'm saying can be a bit confronting. I'm like, oh, it's all just perspective. It's all within you.
They're like, well, you live with my abusive partner or, you know, like, so I just want to have compassion for the fact that some people's literal life circumstances are incredibly challenging. It's more just to make space for that. But ultimately, ultimately, even in those very trying, challenging situations. What we're up against is our own limiting internal beliefs and what I call these contexts that we were, as far as I'm concerned, born with that we're here to transcend.
Yeah. So it all comes back to that. That's what my work is revealing is the limitation, the ultimate relationship we have with ourself that's based in some form of inadequacy, insecurity or scarcity. It just manifests in life.
And then we think it's out there when in fact, no, out there is an extension of the world that I'm living in internally. Yes, yes. Yeah, good.
But that takes a big human being who's willing to take on that level of responsibility. Because it's scary. It is scary. But it's also like for a lot of people, it's much easier to point fingers at somebody, right?
And say, well, no, it's because of my dad. It's because of my boss. It's because of my spouse.
And I understand that I have compassion, but it leaves people then disempowered because then what you're saying is I'm at the effect of life versus, okay, let's face it, life can be tough. My parents died before I was 17. You know, that wasn't the ideal circumstance to grow up in. But I'm not a victim of those circumstances. To begin with, I was. I didn't know better.
But then I realized in ways that I don't fully comprehend as part of the arc of my soul's journey and equally theirs, that's what had to happen. Why? Because that's what happened.
I don't necessarily have to understand it. Right. But at least then I'm in harmony with life versus in resistance to life. And that's your story at the end of the day, right? Yeah.
As Nietzsche said, conviction is a greater enemy of truth than lies. Yeah. And it's the story that you're able to tell. And that's the reality of the world that you live in now. Yeah.
Maybe someone has a different story about yourself, but it doesn't really matter as long as you have your own story. No. And that's why as much as I've been called a, you know, my moniker is the mind architect, you know, which I sort of created because it created curiosity. People want to know about it versus being a spiritual teacher, which is sort of got this contaminated connotations that might, you know, lead to whatever people might think. So, but ultimately I'm really a physicist.
I'm dealing with what is right. Like, so if you sit down with a coder and you want them to. redesign your website it's not a story they have to have the specific code to get the color you want and the font that you want and the layout that you want right the computer is going to respond to the code that that program is using right you don't press the t key on your keyboard and wonder why w comes up it's not coded that way right so for me human psyche based on the linguistics of our subconscious which drives our thoughts feelings actions and then results the outcomes we have in our life they're commensurate with programming.
So it might seem woo-woo and spiritual, but when you really break it down, if you understand the mechanics of how we create our identity, the genesis of our personality, it is based in language. and then experiences confirm that and then we get this sort of vicious cycle where the brain gets to be right all the time about well look see nobody wants me or i'm never going to get married or i'm never going to be successful which is really a reflection of our history that then we constantly try to avoid which only perpetuates it so but that's all programming it's physics it's not like wow this is just a weird surprise or happenstance you know which is sometimes how it occurs like oh this is unfair right which is a very human response again i have compassion for it but it's not unfair it's physics yeah based on something to do with your conditioning it might be deep conditioning could call it karma you know it might not just be your belief systems it might not be your physiology or your genetic expression you know there are many layers to conditioning that we will go through as humans but yeah when you really get it it's still programming one thing that and i think a lot of people go through this particularly like type type a people that are ambitious is I come from an environment where I was motivated by suffering. You mostly or this is generally?
Me personally. Okay. But I'm part of like a founder and CEO group and we talk a lot about where the motivation comes from. Yeah. And a lot of it is having very ambitious tiger parents where an A is not good enough.
You have to get an A+. Yeah. Very Korean.
Very Korean. Yeah. Japanese as well.
And it's driven me through a lot of hard times and you become resilient to it. And then at a certain point, you realize that's the only thing that's keeping you going. And it's a little scary because you feel this is the history of how you've gotten to where you are today.
And if you let go of that fear or running away or proving something to someone, you feel like you're going to lose your edge. Yeah, of course. So.
How do we go from that mindset of motivating ourselves through instead of fear, but through abundance or something greater? And is it the same type of motivation? Great question. I get that from a lot of executives and athletes that I work with. So the irony is that that fear, which I totally get and I have all the compassion in the world for, is only associated within the world of what we think of success.
So you call losing your edge. That only exists in the domain of something to do with the material world or status. You see that, right?
So you're driven. You've got this cultural background of, you know, Korean parents, A plus, all got to be, everything's got to be the best. So it's part of the conditioning, which is exhausting, creates a lot of fear, creates a lot of hostility, resignation, cynicism, all the things that humans can experience and burnout, right?
That happens a lot. I think in Japan, they actually have a term for death from hard work right now from what I heard. Anyway, what that does lead to is the disease that then manifests in relationships, health, actually, usually the perpetuation of inadequacy, because you're trying to avoid something, right?
So that energy is, we're being informed by what we don't want. So I don't want to be a failure. I don't want to disappoint my parents.
I don't want to not be successful, which is a reaction. So all of that is basically a destructive energy. And I get the concern that, well, if that's what's motivated me to become successful, then if I stop living from that place where I'm trying to disprove my parents, or I'm trying to make them proud, or whatever the motivating factor is, the only thing you're losing is the motivation within a world that itself is illusory anyway.
Because it's just keeping up with the Joneses. It's all about how we occur to other people, which is a means of self-preservation for the ego. So you're not actually losing your edge as far as I'm concerned with the most powerful form of success, which is true freedom, love and your inner peace. That's the most successful person, regardless of what your bank account holds.
Yeah. So there's no loss of the edge. It's only a fear within that domain, which itself is built, the house built on sand, because you can never be successful enough in that world because it's like chasing the horizon. So the actual conversation. around success is made up by humans.
Like, what does it mean? It's just, it's an, it's, it's reality by agreement. Meaning if you get enough people to believe in something, it starts to become like, it's a truth, but it's not.
So for me, actually letting go of that edge, which is based in reaction, which is coming from a deeper form of inadequacy, where I'm not loved and accepted for who I am. That's really what's at play. If you lost that, then you've actually gained everything. So that to me is true success because what you actually discover in the absence of the quintessential rat race is this internal freedom and true peace so i equate true success with peace okay so let's say someone talks let's say someone looks at the ideal version of that yep which let's take for example a buddhist monk yeah who probably has inner peace all the things that you described yeah and that's kind of a epitome of what i would find someone that has that inner peace you don't want their their life at the end of the day you want some level of relatability of the things that you find success things that you enjoy a lifestyle yeah family whatever humans do yeah how do you rewire someone to believe that success is actually the thing that you're talking about and not the materialistic things that normal people just normally would relate to and appreciate.
By just doing what I did, which is share a new perspective and ask them more than anything to look at the cost of the way that they're currently pursuing success. Because we're wired primarily as mammals to avoid pain and to pursue pleasure. And most people with that old form of success are in a place of pain or at least suffering, right?
Pain we could say is physiological, suffering is more emotional or psychological. So when we really break down, okay, somebody I've worked with, I don't know how many billionaires and the best athletes around the world, we could say they're very successful. But then why are they seeking me?
Because at some level, they're not quote unquote happy. They're definitely not free. They're on their third marriage.
Their kids are addicted. They don't have, they're not accessing their true potential. They've got whatever they thought was going to be the quote unquote be all end all.
And they would suddenly, you know, be in a state of bliss and they're not. So first of all, we all have examples of that. Whether somebody themselves is...
quote unquote wealthy, you know someone who is and chances are that they are on prescription drugs or they have a drinking problem or they're not thriving, right? So first of all, we can see that that's not where it's at. Secondly, as I said, I would ask them how much is the impact of you of like trying to disprove your parents or trying to prove something to your parents, which is usually where it stems from.
And most people would answer if they were being honest, like I'm exhausted. I'm like, I'm just I want to, I just want to quit like I Some people to the point of suicidal ideation, you know, this happens a lot where people are just so tired of just trying to chase the ultimate form of whatever they were told would be success, where they would finally be loved and accepted. When they really presence for themselves, how much that actually cost them, they don't want to do it anymore. You know, so that's another way that people would see it. Then I would add that when you really get beyond that and you stop playing this game.
that is really ultimately a form of dis-ease, the absence of ease, which we again, it's like peace. When you step into that space of true freedom, of true love, of true peace, the things that you're able to actually create are far, to me, superior than whatever you were doing from a place of reactive fear and inadequacy. So you think you lose your edge, I'd say, no, you'd actually find true potential. And why is that?
Because the mechanism you're using is based in limitation. The edge that you're concerned about losing is built on fear. And fear has to be a reaction to some form of scarcity mindset. So your energy is not allowing abundance to even show up. It's a reaction.
And if it's a reaction, it has to be old. If it's old, there's really very little possibility for something new to show up. right it's like saying that you're driving a speedboat and the way that you're making your choices is being dictated by the wake or another metaphor it's like driving your car and the way that you choose where you're going is you're looking in the rearview mirror to make your decision right but maybe it's never where you really wanted to go and you get there and you're like it can't be i mean this is why people quote unquote crash a lot right because they're not looking where they're going they're not committed to a future that's inspiring them they're being driven by a few of history that hurt and they're trying to get away from. It's two different ways to move forward. You're either trying to get away from something or you're working towards something.
Even the energy of I'm looking forward to, you know, looking forward to doing this podcast with you. Like it's a future based proposition. If I'd had a terrible podcast last week, I might come in here and go, oh shit, I hope the same thing doesn't happen.
Right. Two very different energies. One being informed by my history with my athletes. If they struck out as a baseball player, the last few games, they step up to the plate.
The mind based or at least the brain based on this survival instinct of predicting and protecting is now especially if they're facing a pitcher who they don't have a good record against. They're already in a state of fear. Now for an athlete, that's kryptonite. Fear creates tension.
Tension is a slow muscle because in order to move, you have to release first and then move. So you're too late. Versus if a guy is on a run and he's been having a lot of hits, he faces a pitcher who he crushed last time. He's super chill. He's almost got this.
not quite arrogance, but certainly a confidence, which is the precursor to a better outcome. It's like you're in flow instead of thinking about what could happen, what didn't happen last week. Absolutely. And the only place you have any power is here.
So this is when I work with teams and like, oh, what is a winning streak? What is a losing streak? Especially in baseball, which is, you know, it's just W's and L. That's all that shows up in the newspaper the next day. I want people to talk about, oh, we lost, we won.
So when you're in a losing, sort of consistent losing streak, and what happens is you've got this accumulated hurt. You're not free. And so if you lose one game, fine, that happens. You lose two, okay, not great, but whatever.
It's a long season. You lose three, now you start to question. People are like looking at...
mechanics of pictures uh doing more batting practice like you're now in reaction to something right which means you're actually dragging your history so you've got less freedom to deal with whatever's going on in front of you conversely a team wins and they win twice and they win three times they're not dragging any history with them the quintessential baggage that people have so the degree to which we can reconcile let go of our history is the degree which we're free and if we're free we have way more potential to access because we're not in reaction to something that's old and that's a process it's no different physiologically imagine if you didn't take a shower for like two weeks the accumulation of muck and dead cells and you know body odor and whatever you've you know dirt even if you're outside toxicity from the air there's an accumulation that has you feel grimy and like i don't feel fresh you have like a beautiful spa treatment you work out you sweat you do a sauna you have a sore you know you have a shower there's a cleansing process which we all understand is that hopefully for most people it's a daily event hopefully um but then think about that emotionally you know like the emotional build-up that is usually decades old you know a few days without a shower most people are feeling pretty gross right but most people have got decades of unresolved emotions so that's why it's very different to be able to let go of a history which is often through a lot of acceptance and forgiveness and compassion especially if we've had very trying childhoods and you know a lot of people point fingers at their parents and There's a lot of blame and make wrong that can also create this constraint where you're a victim of circumstance. Yeah. Versus allowing that to be what it is. I mean, it's one of my most popular quotes to say what happened happened. Couldn't have happened any other way because it didn't.
Can a person really live in a world of abundance unless if they don't heal and fully heal the past that's been keeping them down? I mean, the one word answer is no. Yeah. That's really what it comes down to.
Categorically, no. No. It might look like it on the surface. You know, again, I've worked with many people who have an abundance of cash, and they might have a lot of possessions. They might have four or five homes.
They've got a private jet, all the things. But I wouldn't call that abundance. I would call that just your own a lot of possessions.
Yeah, yeah. But what I'm speaking from is the perspective of our true inherent nature. Call it soul, spirit, being, consciousness, the absolute, whatever word you want.
But that to me is true abundance is when I am completely aligned with and in communion with the essence of who I am, which by then extension, I am with others, I can extend that divinity and see that in others, which is how to go back to your original question, I'm able to collapse things in minutes often, you know, versus some people might have lifetimes or decades of therapy and not really get anywhere. Yeah, because I'm not trying to help them as the person with their problems. I'm actually getting rid of the person who is the precursor to their problem.
and revealing the solvers before their own identity. Yeah, because it's human nature not to want to think about these negative, painful things that kept us crippled for all this time. It makes me think about, I recently went through a breakup three months ago, and I was watching a bunch of YouTube videos on what's the proper way to really process a breakup. Yeah. And this guy, I forgot his name, I would definitely credit him, but he talked about this analogy of a water buffalo.
Okay. water buffaloes are interesting compared to other animals because when there's a storm that comes through, most humans, animals, they'll try to outrun the storm that's coming towards them. And what's unique about a water buffalo is they'll run towards the storm.
It's the complete opposite. And he made this analogy about how men and women process breakups very differently. Women physically, emotionally feel way worse and feel pain.
physical, emotional, spiritual, way more than guys do. But within six months or 12 months, they can fully move on. There's actually no baggage. Obviously not every woman, every situation is different, but the majority of men, what happens is they never process the feelings that happened through a breakup.
So they'll distract themselves. They'll go drinking, they'll go out, gamble, whatever it might be, video games. Rebounding.
Yeah. Rebounding. And through distractions, they never really go through the process. And what happens is 12 months down the road, two years down the road, they never get over it.
Yeah. And they're still in love with this girl or they can't really move on fully. Yeah.
Because they never really go through the breakup. Yeah. So it just kind of reminds me of the process of like doing the difficult work, even though it's not natural. Yeah.
And I don't know if I did it properly, but that analogy really helped me go through a lot of, you know, difficult times and processing it instead of trying to distract myself. Beautiful. And I acknowledge you for doing that, you know, and I would say for sure there's that might be the standard deviation, but there's going to be outliers, right?
Like I consider myself someone who loves to lean in. I equally went through something at the beginning of the year that was very difficult, but I see that as the opportunity for growth and to discover more freedom versus something to avoid. So most humans, again, as mammals, we want to avoid pain and we want to seek pleasure.
So when you're hurt, there's a myriad of forms of escape these days, you know, you're like from narcotics to prescription drugs, to alcohol, to sex, to food, to whatever it is. And so it's very easy for people to try and, you know, avoid that hurt. And I would assert, you know, based on that like with men particularly like obviously suicide counts are way higher in man yeah and and so we can you know make that correlation that women and women also i think beyond the way that they process they tend to have way better support from one another because women know how to listen right women hold space like they don't try and fix men just try and fix whereas a woman if she's hurt she's whether it's a breakup or whatever it might be grieving somebody who passed in their family they could have got lost a job their girlfriends aren't necessarily going to try and come up with solutions they would just love them and say oh honey i really understand and i'm so sorry you're going through this and it's allowing them to have the feelings yeah so there's definitely a lot of truth to that the men don't necessarily have communities groups friends who know how to listen and let a man feel and again it's stigma right the stereotype boys don't cry and so we're also being culturally conditioned to not have the feelings yeah so never sharing it in the first place no so then that you becomes the accumulation of these unprocessed emotions over time which again equates to why so many men do struggle have drinking issues or suicidal ideation or you know sadly a lot of suicides literally yeah how do you process and you mentioned you you went through something in the beginning of the year i just drink very heavily i have a sponsorship with uh breakers yeah exactly you Yeah, I'm a closet alcoholic.
No, like I said, I lean in. I mean, I've done this work for so long now that I did it probably, you know, I don't know how many times it's only 20 something years ago, which was through a breakup. And my fear was of loss. That was one of my main fears because my parents died when I was young. So that was obviously such a trauma response to having something of any perceived worth in this case, a woman I was in love with, leave me.
So during the course of the relationship, I was being driven by fear. you know, to go back to a question about that edge, my edge was be the perfect boyfriend, but it didn't work because I'm being driven by fear. So she eventually left.
Anyway, so I from that perspective, and because of what I do, I realized that the opportunity for my evolution is to continue to lean in wherever there is pain. So I'm, I guess I'm the human version of a water buff. What does that mean to lean in for you?
Lean in means to not run away from it, to really look at like, why am I being really triggered? And either it could just be human, like we're sentient beings. It could be just, I'm really hurt. I'm sad.
I cry. That's okay. Or there could be a deeper analysis of, okay, is this really present time emotional? Or is this something that is really old that this current circumstance is bringing to the surface?
And, you know, in recent, the beginning of the year, as I said, I think both were a play. Sometimes it was like really very difficult what I was going through. And sometimes what I was going through was really bringing to the surface something that was so deep that I hadn't even looked at.
So then I want to, through friends and support groups, and obviously I do this work, so I'm pretty good even in self-reflection, of having the courage and the patience with myself and the kindness and the love to be able to look at, okay, what's really at play here? What is the story that I'm telling myself that is perhaps a few decades old? that has got nothing to do with the current circumstances, but really they are simply the means by which I'm able to reconcile somebody that's been there for quite a while. So it brought up new things that- Yeah, that I haven't seen before, yeah. With this pain, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. No, it was fascinating. And because I'm just so committed, I mean, I freaking love what I get to do.
I mean, I find it fascinating. So I put myself at the bow of the boat. I'm the pioneer in this work so that I can hopefully help people not necessarily go through as much pain and mitigate as much of their limitations and suffering so that I can- clear their future, hopefully, of other dramas and disease and dysfunction.
Yeah. I mean, in some ways, the pain that you went through is a gift because you discovered this unknown trauma or issue that you had that you didn't even know. And the next situation that you go through, whether it's a breakup or hardship, you know, now you can analyze this thing and realize that it's not going to be something that's... unknown meaning exactly and i just in my my talk here today you know i gave the distinction where i love writing quotes and i say if it's not life-threatening it's just ego-threatening so assuming my life is not in danger then i know it's just something to do with the way i look at things and that's not something i'm particularly attached to especially if it's creating suffering yeah so i i find that reframe is very both empowering but also for me the soul and disempowering for the ego you know sort of i'm not gonna allow that to win and fight for its limitations by you know neglecting it defending it disproving it running away from it i'm like okay what's what's the perceived threat here what is what is creating the suffering yeah yeah yeah there's a great quote that uh you were talking about in a podcast and you mentioned people they should re-listen to this i'm going to repeat it back for people sure you said we're using our history to predict something and then we're trying to protect ourselves from it not realizing what we should be doing is perpetuating the history that was yet to actually reconcile. It's hard to kind of wrap your head around that.
So can you break that down of what you were saying? Yeah, I mean, in lay terms, it's like the ego's predominant imperative is to be right. Now, it has to be right, because the ego's foundation is built on pretense, meaning it's a lie.
Like, so let's take a very simple example. I'm not good enough. Everyone can relate to that. I'm not enough somehow. I'm not young enough, wealthy enough, smart enough, thin enough, whatever version of not enough somebody has, right?
So the ego, if that's the way that it is constructed, and the ego is always based in limitations, usually a negation, like I'm not something, not loved, I'm not valued, I'm not enough. So then we hold on to the history that is where we find the evidence to sustain the narrative that is the limitation that can only exist if we have some sort of, you know, experience or rationale to keep it, because it's fundamentally a lie. This is what I do, like in the way that I'm able to help people as quickly as you said at the beginning, is because I'm asking them to investigate the validity of the constraints that they're bound by, because it's only linguistic. I mean, literally, the group I was just talking to, I said, if you really get it, it's preposterous that we are stopped in terms of accessing our potential and realizing our dreams by sound.
It's sound. I'm not enough. And that can be when you say it out loud, right? Everything that you wanted in life is limited by sound. When you really get that, it's super powerful.
I mean, it is comical, but it's also super inspiring to realize, wow, because people have dreams and aspirations. This is why I'm so passionate about what I do. I want to help people to really access the God-given right that they have to be a divine being who has, as far as I'm concerned, at least limitless potential. But if you're living within the sound of, I'm not safe, I'm not loved, I'm worthless, then you can't access.
I mean, it's just... It's as asinine as thinking that if I lived in a one bedroom apartment, that I could throw a 300 person wedding reception there. It's not going to happen.
Yeah, that's why having these comparisons is really helpful for people because if they live in that world now, accessing these subconscious constraints is another thing. But at least you can see where these consistent patterns showing up, you know, if it's in relationships romantically, is it to do with your career? Is it to do with your you know, your health, you know, whatever people are quote unquote manifesting based on these constraints.
Yeah. You know, I pick up a red pen, I start writing, I'm not going to get upset if it doesn't produce blue. I understand the physics.
Likewise, if I'm looking through a perception of myself that is based in some sort of limitation or scarcity, then why would I get upset when the results of my life reflect that? Yeah. Yeah.
It's confusing, right? Because if it's your own voice telling you those things, most people tend to believe it. yes until you decide to separate the fact that you are not your thoughts yeah which took me a while that took me a while to realize that i shouldn't listen to every single thing that comes out of my mouth yeah yeah because i realize it's not the same thing yeah um talk to me about that talk to me about the differences in separating those two there's a great quote and i'm now forgetting who it was but i think it was like a roman scholar and he said you know it's a great mind that can entertain a thought without believing it hmm Right.
So it's really that is being able to recognize and it is a subtlety, right? Like, because it's the closest thing to us in terms of our own awareness, right? I can see you're over there. I'm over here.
If you're in a big group, you can see people out there, you're driving around town, you can see people on the sidewalks, like, it's clear that there's some space. But when you're lying in bed at night, and you can't sleep, and you've got these thoughts, or you've been in the office, and you're driving home on your commute, maybe it was a trying day, and you had some challenging situations, and you're sitting in your car, and you're just ruminating. then it's very convincing that that's me. That voice in our head is who I am.
It's just so intimate to us. But it takes, oftentimes what it actually takes is somebody willing to just slow down enough. But we're so driven by this idealized future that we think we're all working towards where we're finally going to be happy and everything's going to be fine, that everyone's in a state of urgency, that they don't slow down enough to really investigate the validity of the thoughts that they have, which is creating the urgency in the first place. So really, even though I downloaded that at high speed, the invitation is to slow down and see if you can pay attention to the thoughts and start to really almost cherry pick the ones that you're inspired by, and then investigate the validity of the ones that create your woe, right?
So who doesn't have a thought of why fuck that up today or like you know what's the point of doing this or nobody really gives a crap about my work or me or i'm never going to find someone to fall in love with me or you know these are just human everyday thoughts right but when you can separate yourself and look at it more from the perspective of an adult who's listening to a child because really that voice is predominantly based in the limitations of a child that is dependent on external forms of security and love and affection And look at it that way, you know, sort of where you call it in child work or whatever it is. But that narrative is usually the voice of a child who just fundamentally wants to be loved and accepted. It's very scared, very powerless and has a feeling of some sort of hopelessness.
Then what I find is it breeds a ton of compassion. And that to me is when people talk about self-love, they're like, well, what does that mean? You know, people think take yourself to the spa or get a manicure or run a bath and some candles. And that could be an external form of self-love. But to me, real self-love is to recognize that part of your humanity is going to be based in a very self-berating conversation that exists between your ears.
And can you learn to love that part of you that doesn't love itself? And that changes the game. Yeah, this makes me think about the times in my life where maybe I struggled with discipline.
And this is kind of related in their voice is that. my actions were not matching with the inner goals that I would have. Yeah. And I'm curious if that's something that you work with people on in terms of make sure that the actions that you're taking are matching the goals that you have.
So let's say for drinking, for example, if I said myself not to drink for six months, and then two months later or a week later, I do it. Yeah. And then I start to lose self-respect for myself. Yeah. Right.
And then that relates to pretty much everything else that you'll do. Yeah. Because you realize you're not the type of person that says what you're going to do. Yeah.
And even though you don't feel it externally, if you tell, if you tell someone you're going to be there five o'clock and you're not there. Yeah. There's immediate feedback.
Of course. But I feel there's an accumulation of hidden self-disrespect that you're doing to yourself. Yeah. Talk to me about that a little bit and how we can maybe set micro goals.
What are some of the ways that you've helped people have a healthier inner voice and to gain that respect back for themselves? strategically having smaller goals helps right to build confidence to build self trust that okay i can do what i say so that's a strategy but what i'd investigate people to look at is the bigger issue at hand which is oftentimes the things you declare that you want to do are not coming from a place of creation or inspiration they're coming from a place of reaction or something you don't want so let's take every year beginning of january people who join the gym and they commit to hundred bucks a month to join they might get a trainer or whatever it is and because they want to get in shape but usually they want to get in shape is the reaction to the fact that they are overweight they don't want to be fat they've been told by their doctor that they're trending towards type 2 diabetes or whatever it is so now they're in reaction to something which is never going to be lasting right so you want to recognize the distinction between what you declare as an intention and if you're not adhering to it then it's very clear that either you don't truly want to it Or secondly, more likely, it's coming from a place that is a reaction to something that you're trying to get away from. So in trying to get away from something, you're actually dragging it with you because you're holding onto it as a form of trying to avoid it.
So it is going to be what people call self-sabotage, right? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. So getting clear on why you want something is the first place to look, right?
Am I wanting this? Like how many people, especially in your culture, I've worked with, you know, LPGA people, right? So the whole...
Korean world of golfers. It's pretty intense. Yeah.
So how many people are choosing what they want because it's really a calling, it's a purpose, it's a passion, something that they're truly moved by versus doing something because, well, that's what my folks wanted me to do. Yeah. And it's at such an early age for a lot of these.
Yeah. So sometimes even making the discernment between which is which is really difficult because maybe you're like, you've been told for so long that you, you know, the cliches have become a doctor or an attorney. has been there for so long that you don't even know if it's your thought or somebody else's at this point.
And that takes a lot of reflection to be able to discern between, okay, is this something that, you know, without sounding too poetic, my soul's calling, or is this something that really is my ego's reaction to somebody telling me something that really is my means of trying to garner love and acceptance, which is the survival strategy. So that can take a lot, you know, for somebody who's willing to sit down, as I said, to go back to slowing down enough to really pay attention. And again, I don't want to get, you know, people caught up on what's right and what's wrong, because at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.
Right. That's a good news. It doesn't really matter what you do, whether you're being pursued, you know, by the internal feeling of reaction to disappointing your parents and hoping one day that they'll finally accept you. You're still going to have to face the ultimate.
that karma of whatever it is here you are here to transcend conversely if you've gotten past some of that and you're like no fuck it you know i want to be a an artist even though my dad wanted me to be an engineer or an attorney you know there could still be a component reaction which is a little spite like i'm going to do it to prove him wrong either way you're still going to have to see where you're not free yeah right so when people like well should i do this or should i do that and i'm like you know what doesn't matter because you're going to eventually have to face whatever it is that you're here to face And as long as it feels right to you, that's kind of the place that you want to get to. Is that right? Feelings is such a lousy indicator of truth is what I tell people.
So I'd really look at more. So feelings are a component of it. And I'd really discern very simply, is it something that allows you to feel joy or is it something that creates some form of suffering?
Suffering is a broad way of saying anything from disappointment, cynicism, resignation, anger, you know. frustrations, all the quote unquote, seemingly negative emotions, which belong to the human and we want to have space for and compassion for. But if I'm in a place where I'm really just alive, like I'm loving what I'm doing, then chances are you're probably in alignment with what is your true purpose. Yeah, I came to a realization not too long ago where I have still faced some imposter syndrome in terms of Do I deserve some level of success or money that I'm making, whatever it might be? And I realized that at an early age, I pursued entrepreneurship.
And as you know about the Korean background, it's either you're a doctor, a lawyer, or failure. And I remember pretty distinctly conversations I would have with my mom when I first started my business, telling her we just got the website up or we just got our first client. And it was never good enough for her.
And it was always her telling me to go back to school because I dropped out. telling me that I'd be a great lawyer, whatever it might be. And it was her limitations of what she grew up with, which I didn't really understand. And it was from love. But I came to a realization that whatever I did in my world was never good enough for her because she never understood.
But in my head, it was never good enough. And it was so hardwired that it took a while to really understand that we were just speaking different languages. It was just like...
completely different languages yeah and it took a while and she still doesn't know what exactly what i'm doing if i can you know south america especially right yeah but uh yeah that took a while to to realize that it kind of came down to to love which i understand uh that i had to go through but yeah i just realized imposter syndrome was i always thought it was just my own issues but it really came down to you know the relationship with with the parents yeah beautiful and how liberating for you to see that right like but if i could add like a little bit of you know a subtext to that that will help it even be more powerful it wasn't even her doing that because that expression of you know whatever it is that you need to be this or that is really just her legacy continued from what she heard so if you start to go a little bit beyond mom because your grandma and great-grandma and you You know, you start to realize, like I have an expression, I say there's a language we use, and there's a language that uses us. So the language you use in this case, obviously, Kylie, for me is English, because I can't speak a lick of fucking Korean. But the language that you use is Korean as well, I'm sure, right? But the language that uses you in this case, as an example, is the language of not being enough.
Yes. So that uses you versus you using language to communicate. Even the language we use is going to be confined by the language that uses us.
So your mom was being used by the language of, in this case, inadequacy, which really is an appeal to perfectionism, which is ultimately an appeal to love and acceptance, which, as you said, is based in love. The way that it's being construed or relayed or communicated seems as though it's antagonistic or it's confrontational or it's judgmental or it's certainly from a place of inadequacy. But that was not her. That's not the essence of her.
The essence of her, she can't but love you as her son. But the means by which she expressed that love was through the lens of what she adopted, the language that her mom was used by, that then through the legacy that got, you know, through osmosis and what she heard as the programming as she grew up in. Now, that's what she thinks is the means by which she gets to express her love, because it would be under the auspices of she just wants you to do well and be successful.
Yes. Which really is reinforcing the fact that she doesn't believe you are. So in ways that people don't understand, they're perpetuating the very thing that they think they're trying to avoid, which is the insanity of the human ego. So that's where the ego is just constantly wanting to be right. So it's not so much her.
So that can give you some softness around her, right? Because otherwise you would be a victim of her language when you can start to broaden it and go, OK, it's not so much what my mom said. It's what life is showing me in terms of my karmic journey.
so that I don't have to fall prey to the illusion of these limitations, which really is a legacy and language based on generation to generation. And I just don't have to subscribe to it. I can have compassion for it.
And I can certainly entertain my mom's opinion and see and understand why she thinks that, but it's not really who I have to be. And is the way to close that loop to show just compassion and empathy? Yeah.
see where she's coming from and see that in a positive light, which is love. That's one way to do it. Another way, if you want to be even more powerful, is to have an actual conversation, to actually say, Mom, I'm really tired.
That's too hard. I need another hour. Yeah, that's tough.
And it is confronting, right? Because that's, it's sort of, you know, the old expression from I've forgotten his name, like Joseph Campbell. He said, you know, the cave that you fear to enter contains the treasure you seek. Right. So for you, the confrontation, the fear of having that conversation with your mother is actually the access point to the freedom that I would assert your soul is here to discover.
Yes. Now, it doesn't have to go that way. You can discover yourself and realize, oh, wow, I'm really scared to have that conversation because fill in the blanks, you know, that I'm not going to be loved, not going to be accepted, always come back to these primal urges that we have as humans of belonging. which is ultimately we're running around as kids just wanting to be loved and accepted because that's the initial wound that we all have as a child is that we give up our own self-expression and our own true freedom so that we get safety and provisions and food and shelter from our care providers so the unwritten agreement the unspoken agreement is if you keep me safe i'll mold myself into who i think i'm supposed to be for you yes yes That's pretty deep.
It is. It is. And most people have forgotten that initial wound.
And so their whole identity got built on that, which is very human. And we can have compassion. But then people wonder why they get sick or they don't have great relationships or they don't fulfill on their potential. Yeah. Because you gave yourself up at a very young age.
And that's kind of the truest form for what I find to be when I'm most myself, whether it's the person that I'm with or the city that I'm with. Whenever I feel that childlike state. Yeah. It makes me, there's something about it that makes me feel like, okay, this is the right spot or the right place or the right person.
Yeah. Is that I can be completely by myself or with that person. And there's none of these external things that I've dragged on through living life, whether it's trying to be someone or trying to prove something to someone.
And it makes me think about this kind of way to invert personality traits and how we've. mostly been designed to add new things into our lives it's kind of this additive culture that we brought in from ages you know from you when you're a child to where you're now that you have all of these added things in your life yeah and uh there's a great analogy that michelangelo talks about when he paints sculptures he was a um i think it was called subtractive sculpting versus additive sculpting yeah and he has this great quote which is i see an angel in the marble you Yeah. And I keep carving until I set her free.
Yeah. And the idea there is that he has a vision of like what he's trying to create. And all he's doing is removing a bunch of things that were already shaped as an angel and he's setting her free. And I think about how so many of us are trying to be someone else or trying to.
in this case, take the right supplements, let's say, you know, by a conference and trying to just add all these things when we should be subtracting, right? Maybe it's relationships you should let go of and invest in current ones or fasting when you should be instead of eating junk food, all these different things. What are some of those? frame well i guess breaking frame breaks for you that can help people think about the personality a little differently i mean i love the one you give it's one of my favorite expressions i say i don't solve problems i dissolve them so it's a dissolution process i say life is revelatory and mike lander you know in a similar vein when he was asked how did he create the sculpture of david he said i didn't i just chipped away everything that wasn't david yeah same exact point right so So really, that's why I'm able to do what I do, because whatever anyone's telling me, whatever I'm listening to, I know is on top of it's superfluous.
It's, it's the non angel part of them, right? It's not David. So most people are trying to fix the corner of the marble, as opposed to discarding it, realizing it's not their true essence.
Yeah, so that's why I'm able to do it. Like I say, I can't give you anything you don't already have, but I can remove what's in the way of that. And that's priceless.
Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.
But it changes everything because most people are trying to solve problems, which in fact, when they really understand it, is just reinforcing the fact that they have some. Yes. Yes.
Yeah. I want to talk to a little bit of a different topic, which is visualization. Maybe it's similar. I mean, you talk about how we can visualize certain things in our life. You work with pro athletes, obviously.
So visualization must be a huge thing. I hear a lot about visualization, but I feel like I… I… don't know how to do it properly. Okay.
So how do the top performers visualize the results that they want or the life that they want? What are the actual practices that they? Okay, well, it ties into something that I wanted to add to your previous question. Okay.
So I love it. I can see it in you the joy that you are like, I can really see that like I can really see the playfulness, the sweetness about you, and how fun you would be around. I'm sure if I were to your friends, like they love you.
right? Like I can really see that. And it sounds as though much of that joy you think you found in South America in this case, or doing podcasting and having these questions and interviews versus becoming an attorney or doctor, right? That's how it occurs. So I first want to acknowledge that it's beautiful.
I can see your playfulness. So in order to visualize, so here's one for you, that might be a little bit confronting. What would it be like for you to be that playful in front of your mom?
What would it feel like for you to know that it's not South America where your joy and your freedom and your playfulness exists, but it's in you wherever you go, regardless of circumstance or person? I feel that would be the real relationship because I was like that when we were children. Yeah. I feel as I became a teenager, that relationship changed as real life hit and she put pressure on me. Yeah.
To take on real life tasks. Yeah. Right.
So now just consider this. She didn't put pressure on you. She just said something. She made a sound. She made a sound.
As you say, yes. So then where did the pressure come from? From myself.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's where people get stuck.
Because right now, through no fault of your own, have all the compassion in the world. Anyone listening to this is going to have their own version of mom or dad. It might be literally mom or dad. It could be somebody else. It could be a high school teacher that was a little hard on them.
But she didn't put pressure on you. Now. Of course, as human beings, we can understand the tone of her voice, the body language she had to you, particularly a child that could be scary.
But ultimately, as a being, you actually created that feeling of stress and pressure yourself. If you're an adult or if you were self-realized, you were the Buddha, you would just see a woman who's probably scared, who might be a little angry, who's feeling unfulfilled in her own life and is trying to, through you, establish some sort of... resolution to the unfulfilled expectations of her mother or whatever it might be as a legacy, right? So that's why I was excited by the fact that one, I wanted to acknowledge you for the part, but then you pose a question about visualization, because now you get to go, wow, doesn't matter where you are in the world, who you're in front of. And we could argue that your biggest challenge is your mom, that you get to express the joy that you are regardless.
That to me would be freedom. So that's a form of visualization. So how would I visualize that?
Well, you're doing it with me right now, right? Some of it might be discomforting. Some of it might be imagining her face and what she might say.
If you were just to be like blasé about, no, I love South America and I never wanted to be an attorney. And, you know, I realized that you love me, but the way that you love me is that you're trying to get me to do things. And that's cool because it's fine, but I'm never going to do it.
And, you know, like to be that fully self-expressed. and her anger and her like, how dare you speak to her? Your dad chimes in and don't talk to your mother like that. I don't know what would go on in that house.
But for you to be totally at peace with all of that, that would be freedom. So to visualize how that happens would not necessarily mean that's what actually transpires. but it gives you the energetic resonance and the frequency to see that you could live from that place and i'm supposed to feel the emotions that i would feel if i was to be in that exact situation yes because if i just even presenting this you never knew that i was going to say this nor did i i didn't know anything about your background in terms of especially you know i could have guessed with the korean culture but i didn't know this whole dynamic with your mom right So in a way, we're creating visualization now by just having this conversation.
So I could recognize that if I propose that to you, if I was your coach and I said, hey, I want you to go home. I want you to see your mom. I want you to have this real life conversation.
I could equally say that your sweat glands would be higher. Your blood pressure would be higher. Your heart rate would be higher because you're in a state of stress because you're in the anticipatory energy of what's going to come back at you if you start to what might seem like to be disrespectful. which is really just your self-expression as a child.
When you're two or three and you're being playful and joyful, you didn't know you were being disrespectful. You were just being a kid who was unencumbered by the creation of his own pressure and limitation based on the narratives that you adopted about who you're supposed to be. But that's still available to you because if we chip away the corners of the angel that you are, then you get to revisit just the full self-expression and joy of being a kid. which is some of the reflections I get from a lot of people. They're like, you know, I just love your levity.
You're just so playful and you're just so joyous. And I'm like, yeah, well, you know, that's because I'm just being me, take it or leave it. What's something that you're trying to free yourself of? Gravity. So funny, we have social comments.
Yeah, well, I'm pretty close to Neo, but I don't have that yet. Yeah. No, I mean, all kidding aside, I'm not trying to because obviously, if I'm trying to, then I'm reinforcing it. But no, I think, you know, I went through a lot myself.
Like you said, you went through a breakup three months ago. I very similarly. And yeah, I guess I would say I'm not really trying to free myself of anything.
I'm just living. And I know that life will present me with whatever it is that I need to let go of, you know, but for the most part, especially on the back of that relationship, which I'm incredibly grateful because as uncomfortable it was, and as challenging it was at times. it's really jettisoned me into a whole new portal of who I be in the world and the way that I show up and the power of my work and so um I just enjoy leaning more into that my my kind of commitments to freedom love and possibility is this sort of three pillars of my own existence yep yeah yeah and the rest who knows I mean I might get confronted by somebody this afternoon in the conference I very much doubt it Don't visualize that. No, I trust life.
And again, in terms of the visualization, because I didn't maybe fully address that, but I think it was a powerful example for you to entertain, right? So you can, I think, again, going back to the desire and the callings that we're talking about discerning, is it really something that I want or is it a reaction to somebody told me what I should do? I think the same is true of visualization.
Sometimes people will do affirmations in a mirror of like, you're a winner and I love you. But it's a reaction to the fact that they don't actually believe that. Hmm.
So you've got to be really careful. It can be really slippery because visualization can oftentimes be again, a reaction to a current holding. So it's an actual visualization of your real life that you don't want.
So it's a reaction. Kind of like a fake, fake it till you make it. Yeah.
Realize you're faking it, then you don't really believe it's just perpetuating it, right? Because you're actually sustaining the very thing that you're trying to get away from by having affirmations or having visualizations as a way of trying to compensate versus recognizing the truth beneath that which is you are everything you're limitless boundless timeless being yeah and if you came from that place of true possibility then what might you declare from nothing not from something that you trying to get away from but really just as pure imagination complete make believe how do you balance that with are you familiar with the judging kruger effect the which dunning kruger effect no damning dunning kruger okay it's a it's kind of an effect that if you have like confidence on one side and then skill to one side Most of the time, let's say you're learning a language, you have a spike of confidence when you first get started. And you often think that you're better than most people or learn how to shoot for the first time.
And then there's a slope down of reality as your skill gets better. You realize you're like a POS, like you're a piece of shit. You don't know anything, right? And then as an expert, you realize that, okay, there's kind of this slope up and then you kind of go down and then you kind of go back up.
And that's kind of the point where a top... 1% professional realizes they have top confidence to have skills to back it up. But most people are kind of stuck at this in-between point where they have overconfidence.
Yeah. And because they think there's a good, they don't put in the work of actually getting to the point of being professional. Yeah.
How do you balance that? um again it comes down to someone's commitment right so i use the four levels of consciousness as an example which might be akin to this uh which is we will start at being unconsciously incompetent right so meaning we have a limitation but we're oblivious to it like so there's compassion we have a blind spot whether it be psychologically emotionally or even in our ability or our habits and then we become consciously incompetent right we become aware of our limitations so for you maybe today you're like oh not today because you've been aware of your limitations as it relates to your mom and the idea of not being enough but then we want to move into being consciously competent right which might be the invitation i gave you of being a fully self-expressed son in front of even your own mother where you don't lose your joy you don't feel like you're being judged or made wrong or pressure that's being put on you and then the fourth level would be going from consciously competent to being unconsciously competent where it's just natural for you to be fully self-expressed and joyous no matter where you are yes yes yeah so that to me is that sort of hierarchy of mastery and it's a continual process final question for you yeah um actually you have this quote which is i think death death is a blessing if it wasn't for death we wouldn't get to value life yeah break that down a little bit for me it's our relationship to time right the the preciousness of what it is to be alive and the experience to have even this conversation with you, a man I've never met before, to me warrants reverence. Now, if I knew that I was immortal, that I was never going to die, there's something gets lost in the value of this experience, right?
If there's an abundance of everything, whether it be that I have a limitless supply of strawberries or, you know, like... my favorite cereal or whatever it is that somebody wants then it loses its inherent value by virtue of the fact that it's a never-ending experience yes so i'm sure there's poets out there that put it way more beautifully and articulately than me but i think our mortality is one of our greatest gifts because it is the reminder of as cliche as it is to never take anything for granted so i think for me there's two ways that i could interpret you know what you cited there that i've said sometime is that the mortality component of our actual death of the presence of peter crone on the planet really inspires and gives rise to what i hope i do a pretty good job of doing which is acknowledging the beauty and the gift that it is to be human which i'm incredibly grateful and especially as my parents passed when i was very young so i think that was another way that i got to orbit through a lot of suffering really you have immense gratitude for the both the fragility of life the uncertainty of life um but also the the opportunity to be human yes the other interpretation that i'm more tongue-in-cheek expressed with people who work with me i do my three-month mastermind where i share all of my theories and i coach people as very powerful containers you know i'll joke with the attendees the masterminders that you know i'm here to kill you So it's a different form of death, right? But it's the death of the ego, the death of the limitation. It's a death of the idea of myself such that I can evolve into a better iteration of myself that's less bound by these feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, or scarcity.
So there's sort of two forms of death. There's the death of the ego, which to me is the ultimate form of life, is that in order to really stay alive and be vital, I have to consistently die to the current idea of myself. And then there is the ultimate death, you know, the death of this current lifetime. Which I would still put in, you know, terms of, if you look from the perspective of the soul, which I feel is eternal, then it's just a chapter in my soul's evolution, right? Like being Peter Crone in this lifetime, being a mother of twins in the next lifetime, you know, being whatever is the next iteration.
There is no real death from that perspective. But the death of this particular life incarnation, to me carries an immense amount of beauty with it, because hopefully for most people and i think i do a pretty good job as i said of really valuing the experience that it is to just have this conversation to go from here and eat some food and experience the taste of yeah you know a ripe nectarine or something that is life's bounty that we often take so for granted because we do live in an abundant universe and most of us at least in the western world obviously there's people that don't even know when they're next getting any food but for most of us um I think we would all benefit from slowing down and expressing a lot more reverence and gratitude for life and particularly the people around us that we love because we just don't know how long we're going to be able to bathe in that experience of relationship with them. Right. It's kind of a beautiful way to remind ourselves that nothing really matters in the end when... when we're all there.
There's a legacy. I don't know if it's true, but there's a legacy of Alexander the Great that once he conquered the Persian Empire and India and all these different empires, he caught something and he was in this moment of death and he had three wishes for the people that were taking care of him and he wanted them to put his coffin and he wanted the best doctors to carry him and he wanted all of the treasures that he's acquired through a pathway. to his funeral and he wanted both of his hands out on the coffin left for everyone to see the reason he did that was he wanted to remind people that despite conquering the whole world probably one of the greatest empires that none of the best doctors were able to save him yeah all of the treasures and the power and the the countries that he's acquired None of them really mattered.
None of them are going to go with him. And he's still going to leave this world empty handed, which is why the hands were up. And it makes me think about some of the regrets that a lot of people have when they're older.
So as a final question for you, what are some advice for younger people that aren't 80, that aren't dying in the next 10 years, hopefully, to make sure they don't have those dying regrets when they are? life leading this world. I mean, I think you kind of summed it up beautifully with that legacy of Alexander the Great.
I mean, if they don't garner something from that, I don't know if I can top it. But I would say from my own experience, to as best as possible, develop a lot of self compassion and forgiveness, to recognize and make space for your humanity, which is like I said earlier, self love to me is not. The way you take care of yourself or groom or go to the spa and but really to recognize that just by virtue of being here on planet earth that you're going to have a part of you that feels inadequate that feels insecure that doesn't love itself and especially in those younger years in the world that we have today in social media where there's so much pressure through comparison right like the FOMOs and the inadequacies of somebody living this elaborate life and perhaps you're not to you to find solace in the fact that your life in ways that you don't understand is already taken care of that your needs are met may not be superficially it may not be materially but in ways that we don't understand the needs that we require for our own soul's evolution are already written and that you can find comfort in that and oftentimes for that reason the two qualities that we need to work on the most are just trust and patience that in ways that i don't understand everything that is going to be beneficial for me in the way that I can discover the divinity of my true essence is going to be brought to me. And that rather than chase life, I can perhaps embody more an energy of allowing life to be revealed to me. So perhaps I can take life from sort of a quintessential rat race to more of a Christmas morning where I get to unwrap the presence, literally the presence of myself on this planet.
That I'm a beneficiary of life, I'm not a victim of it. Me. It's beautiful. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, my friend.