111. From the Ashes of Struggle to the Heights of Empowerment with Matthew Stenson

Have you ever felt like you were waging a war within your own mind? Matthew Stenson-Bos joins me, Rick, to recount a tale that is both harrowing and uplifting, a saga that charts a course from the depths of despair to the pinnacle of empowerment. Matthew's odyssey through chronic illness and depression is more than a personal battle—it's a clarion call for anyone lost in the maelstrom of their darkest days. In his narrative, we uncover the potent transformation wrought by brain retraining and the delicate dance of personal growth, a journey that ultimately led to the creation of his coaching venture, Forging Your Legend.

Transformation takes guts—and sometimes, a touch of madness. Matthew and I dissect the intricacies of rebuilding from rock bottom, taking a magnifying glass to the mind, body, spirit, and emotional balance that's crucial to the quest. We traverse the societal terrain, contemplating the pressures of modern existence and the necessity of emotional intelligence to steer through today's polarized climate. This conversation is a testament to the strength required to stand your ground with compassion in a world that often confuses strength with hardness.

As the dialogue unfolds, we invite listeners to ponder the virtues of stoic leadership and the power of maintaining an open mind in the face of challenges. We share insights on rising above a victim mentality and the humility suffering can bestow. Matthew's story is not simply one of overcoming—it's about extending that hand to lift others. His call to action is not merely an invitation but a rallying cry for those ready to transform their trials into legendary triumphs. Join us on this journey and discover the resilience of the human spirit and the urgent need for compassion in action.


Connect with Matthew Stenson-Bos HERE! 
Website: www.forgingyourlegend.com

YouTube: Forging Your Legend

Instagram: @forgingyourlegend 

Facebook: Matthew Stensland-Bos

Click the HERE to choose your path!

Click HERE to choose your path! 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

What's up, warriors? Welcome back to the battlefield of the mind. I'm Rick, creator of the Warriors Way mindset, and I'm hanging out today with a fellow warrior, a person who has been through the groups but also has been a part of the development for the programs and for the system itself my boy, Matthew Stenson boss. So, Matthew, you got a cool journey. I'm actually really proud of you for the stuff that you've done and I'm excited to hear some of your stuff, but these guys have no idea who you are yet. So who the heck are you to everyone?

Speaker 2: 0:42

Well, thanks for having me, Rick. It's a pleasure to be here to answer the question. Who am I? Well, good answer to that question. In a few ways, I'll say what I do. I am a coach who helps people get out of really difficult shit, or you could say that my. My tagline is we help people turn their toughest battles into their greatest legends. That's forging your legend, the name of my business. So I focused especially on helping people get out of chronic illness, because that's a lot of where my journey came from. But you know, I work with a lot of things that fall into that category of difficult shit that people feel like they don't have a solution for. And besides that, my other passion is music, music.

Speaker 1: 1:33

So Everyone loves music, so everyone loves music.

Speaker 1: 1:40

Here's what I want to do, though, and I know your story, but people don't really know your story story. I really enjoyed knowing who you are, because you came from hell, and this is where I related to you. When I met you, I was like man, like this guy has been there, he knows what it is to claw himself out, inch by inch, out of the depths of fucking, the quicksand, the muck, the pain, the, the, the isolation, the sorrow, the there's the, just the, the bitterness of fucking darkness itself. Tell people like your story so they can get an idea like what makes this guy even worth listening to. And how did? What did he do? Where was he?

Speaker 2: 2:23

Yeah, so I'll tell you the short version, because anybody who's been through hell knows that there are so many details and twists and turns that you just can't tell it all. I'll give you the the version and then feel free to ask any questions you want to ask. But so I had some health issues. That started fairly young, you know, when I was a kid. They were annoying and they'd get in the way a little bit, but they weren't, you know, they weren't killing me or anything at that point. And as I got to be about 13, added in other things, 15, added in other things to the point where, you know, I had a list of symptoms that just kept growing and growing and start going to doctors and they couldn't help me. You know, I went from just like little things, like insomnia, stomach pain, anxiety, to had chronic pain in my neck and spine, chronic pain in my arms, pretty major depression started having to give up the things I love to do. You know, at 15, the thing I was most obsessed with was playing the drums. I still love playing the drums, but imagine giving up the thing that you love most in the world at 15. You know, it's kind of like, you know, your first breakup. It's brutal. People can say, wow, you're young, you got plenty of life to live. No, it all to this day was still one of the most brutal things I went through, even though so many things after that were so much worse. There's something uniquely terrible about losing something you love and breaking that, breaking that glass menagerie, so to speak, of your illusion of life is going to be good and I'm going to be able to do the things I want to do. So from there things descended further and I had everything from a collapsed lung to I had a seizure that knocked me out for five hours and should have killed me to this day. I'm not sure how I survived it, because I was thrashing for quite a while before anybody found me.

Speaker 2: 4:32

I went from, you know, being really high functioning, really just excelling at everything, to. I limped my way into college and had to drop out, tried it twice. The second time I tried it, I really spectacularly fell apart. I got to the point where every day I was just like having a complete mental, physical, emotional breakdown. I was exposed to mold and toxic chemicals and all that shit just really fucked up my brain bad and got to the point where I was bedbound for a few years. I was really, really dissociated, like to the point where I'd sometimes go months without actually feeling the world around me and I was operating only out of a place of like. I don't know how to put it other than to say there was like a voice in my brain that operated for me Like if I were having a conversation. I could find words, but I wasn't there. I was just like watching myself. Maybe. Maybe I wasn't even watching myself, it was just happening, and that's how I got through the little bit of functioning I could do.

Speaker 2: 5:48

Sometimes I would go three weeks without going down a staircase and at that point there's just not a lot of hope. You have, when you've gone through every doctor you can imagine, done everything from the Mayo Clinic and the traditional medical route with the allopathic doctors to herbalism and homeopathy and chiropractic and mind body stuff and hallucinogenic plant medicine and religious healing, and nothing touched it. And I was 15 years in and just ready to die. And you know, there were only a couple of things that kept sticking in my head.

Speaker 2: 6:32

One was I hadn't recorded any of my music. One was I knew I was going to meet my lady one day and that she was going to need me, that she wasn't going to make it without me. And I also knew that there were some people that I was going to be able to help, that we're going to be able to get through what they're getting through only because I was going to be able to say, yeah, I see you, I've been there and you can do it as well. So those things kind of stuck with me and somehow I started to drag myself out of that pit of hell and you know, now I spend my time coaching people, making music and yeah, that's, that's the short version of the journey.

Speaker 1: 7:18

So I like it. I also like I gotta give, like you know, praise, because going like what people won't understand, I think is just the concept of you. You had years where you didn't move.

Speaker 2: 7:31

That's a long time it's it's a crazy long time. It's like in that period I might have left the house, you know, once every few months and like if I got to go sit in the yard and have my feet in the grass, that was a really good time. That's a lot of weight, man, I think people.

Speaker 1: 7:56

People take for granted the blessings that we're sitting with and people like you are a good reminder of like you didn't really do anything for that to happen. It wasn't like you were trying to do a hold my beer or hold my Red Bull moment and jump off of something, dom, and they got paralyzed. Like it's just not Not, can you know, right? Well, yeah, that's a good thing.

Speaker 2: 8:16

That was why it all went down but like just it hit.

Speaker 1: 8:19

Something happened that wasn't in your control and then all control was taken away.

Speaker 1: 8:31

I could probably go down the rabbit hole with you down on that. But I want to go a little bit more towards the purpose element of what you had the take care of my girl, make music, help others and what hope even was. And so, like I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole with you, I've been saying that I would like to go down the rabbit hole with you. I would like to go down the rabbit hole with you so that you would be able to help others and what hope even was. And so, like honor to you to be able to say you know what? There's an option here to give up and do nothing, and yet here you choose to find purpose when there is hopelessness, way, and that's led you to help others. Can you maybe give me a little bit of what's your own way so that I can go? Man, I need to apply some of this life lesson to myself.

Speaker 2: 9:15

That's a great question. So I used some tools that got me started. You know, I used some brain retraining programs that were helpful and so I started to build off of those, because I found that every program out there had some major limitations and so I used what I could from a bunch of different places, put a bunch of things together and then started to make my own connections when I kept failing. That's often the best way to learn is you fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, and then after a bunch of that, you say wait a second, maybe there's something I can learn here. So yeah, I definitely at times wanted to give up, because when you try to do one thing for 15 years and you are worse than when you started by a long shot, that's the kind of shit that makes you lose your mind, and I did lose my mind at one point. But at a certain point, like I said, I found these brain retraining tools and they got me a certain foundation built. So I should stop here and define what brain retraining actually is. So this works on the concept of neuroplasticity.

Speaker 2: 10:25

Neuroplasticity is basically the brain's ability to change itself according to stimuli. It's this idea that it's been proven scientifically. Your brain constantly is changing, rewiring, remapping itself, you know, and that can be good or bad or neutral. You get addicted to smoking cigarettes. Your brain has changed. It's literally rewired and reshaped itself around that addiction. Now you can also get rewiring, because every day you get up and say I'm going to do the best I can, I love myself, I'm going to show up and I'm going to serve. That's also rewiring your brain. So, taking that farther, you can be very, very, very deliberate about how you actually rewire your brain.

Speaker 2: 11:09

And I got very, you have to say, obsessive because I was in such a dark place where my brain was so broken Like I literally couldn't, even if I needed to write something, I couldn't.

Speaker 2: 11:25

I didn't have the focus, my brain's ability to stick with something long enough to read a whole paragraph and like think through do these sentences make sense? So like I was coming from pretty much zero. So I was brain retraining every moment that I was awake and there's a lot of different ways to do that, a lot of tools that are involved. Different people use different things, but essentially I was using a process of going through some steps that directed my focus in a certain way, that taught my brain how to function differently, which taught my body how to function differently, which eventually rebuilt my health. And sometimes that was a very formal process that I went through all these certain steps, did all these certain things, and sometimes in other moments it was simply repeating to myself ad nauseam I will beat this or die, trying. Even that is a form of brain retraining. So does that answer your question?

Speaker 1: 12:33

It's an answer for sure. All right, so let me try and do this and like let me layman's this thing out. So some people are like okay, I hear what you're saying, so help me disprove or disassociate wrong information. So is this like just have good self-talk, positive affirmations, just repeat things over and over again and you'll do neuroplasticity. Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 2: 12:57

I mean, that's not a tool for neuroplasticity. Honestly, if you simply have an inner dialogue all day of I can do anything, I'm amazing, god loves me, et cetera, that is a form of neuroplasticity. But if you're dealing with really really deep, dark, difficult shit, that's probably not going to be enough because you can sit there and repeat to yourself I love myself all day. But if the feeling isn't there with it, it's not going to do a whole lot. If you're saying I love myself, I love myself or I can do this, I can do this as you keep making the same decisions, or you keep having a massive stress response, it's not going to matter.

Speaker 2: 13:37

But when you're doing brain retraining to a level where you're actually going to change something, it involves not just the way you talk to yourself, but learning to understand all the pathways that are involved in who you've been so you can alter those into who you want to be. That includes anything that relates to a stress response. I'm not saying all stress is bad, but stress should be. I got to get this done and I'm going to have a little positive stress to get me there. That's an example. Or I got to save somebody's life. Right now we're going to save my own life, but most people are operating under this chronic stress response and that's what we got to shift. If you're not shifting that stress response, it's not going to change a whole lot. So it's self-talk, it's changing pathways, it's altering that stress response and getting yourself into positive neurology, like getting the dopamine, the serotonin, the oxytocin, the endorphins going instead of the cortisol, adrenaline, norepinephrine that's how I describe that.

Speaker 1: 14:47

All right, let me repeat, and I'm probably adding to this based on what I do, because you've been through my stuff too, so I'm maybe adding Just help me see if this clarity helps give a step by step. You said it's the way you talk to yourself and then you added in how do you feel about it? Then you get to the understanding of yourself and then it rewires a belief system that you really do believe what it is and that starts to change your neuroplasticity.

Speaker 2: 15:12

Yeah, that's a big part of it. I could break it down even further if you want and say what did I all use? So, when I describe that formal process that I mentioned earlier, that's what we might call a brain retraining round and, without getting into crazy detail on it, it essentially is okay. You're recognizing a pathway, you're stopping that pathway, literally, often out loud, often with emotion of your arms of some kind, engaging your physiology in that decision. And then you are maybe doing some self-talk like hey, I love you, you're safe, it's going to be all right, or whatever kind of words you need to hear if you were your own coach. Then you're going into making a decision. You're stating out loud this is what I choose instead, and then you're going to back that up in some way, and usually that involves visualizing or even using all five of your senses to imagine how you want to respond. Maybe you use some memories of how things were at a certain time where you felt super confident or you felt super safe or you felt super, whatever you're trying to feel. Maybe it's a future visualization of okay, I'm going to be doing this thing in a few days and I'm anxious right now. So I'm going through this process. I'm stopping it, I'm making some new choices, talking to myself in a good way, and then I'm going through and I'm imagining how I want that thing to go. So that's one piece it surrounds. Another one is just throughout the day you're catching, am I going down a pathway? That's not helpful for me so that might be a phrase that you use like I can't do it. I never do anything right. There's a pathway you got to catch, or maybe it's your tendency to get on your phone and distract yourself instead of being really present with your family, or maybe it's some other pattern that you don't even recognize as a problem, but you're catching these pathways. Another thing and we should come back to this, but it's really focusing on your purpose and why you're here. Your purpose is one of the biggest ways you rewire your nervous system and your brain. That was a big one for me. It's especially important, I think, for men, but often it's a key for women as well. Let's see.

Speaker 2: 17:43

Oh yeah, another one would be the physiological component of it, and this would be something like somatics, where, to put it in the simplest terms, you're developing a more intimate relationship with your own body, not in this fluffy fru fru way. It can be that and that's fine, but I'm saying it can be anything from sitting there and just feeling your body as a meditation to doing certain movements that re-establish the connection between brain and body, because when you've been through a lot of trauma you often lose that connection. It can be progressive relaxation through your body. There's a lot of ways that the somatics can work, but it's engaging not just your brain but your body as well, because it's mind-body, not just mind or just body. There's often some work that you need to do around and this is where you get into kind of the old pathways, the things you need to catch throughout the day.

Speaker 2: 18:48

How are you relating to people? How are you believing? So we work on relationships, we work on core beliefs. It's essentially an entire reworking of your whole self. And when I was getting out of bed, when I was just starting to get down the stairs on a regular basis, just starting to peek my head out of the cave, I had to be on these things all the time, because it's not something you can just say, oh yeah, I'll just put 10 minutes into this and it'll work If you're in a spot where you're doing pretty good and you just want to change something small. You might be able to do that, but if you're in hell, it's going to be absolute fucking warrior mode, because you're up against something that if you don't bring your all, it's going to kill you, or at least it's going to keep you stuck for the rest of your life, which is worse than death in some cases. So that's the best answer I can give, just kind of off the cuff about what that looks like for the process.

Speaker 1: 19:52

There's a lot of powerful stuff there, man, and I can see that. Riddle me this, tell me if I'm right or wrong. It seems like this process also becomes a little more subjective, depending on the client, Like depends on what battle they've gotten, how they approach it, because this is, it seems like the pathway itself needs to be continuously challenged so you can recalibrate. And then you said that physical response like whoa, this is one of the paths. If I look ahead, I can see that this pathway leads me to away from my goal or away from my purpose.

Speaker 1: 20:26

And then you're catching the connection to your body. This seems like you're doing the yin and yang, the mind and body, and then you're also is there. There's got to be an element of like your purpose as your spirit, or even the feelings, element of yourself, the way that you feel about your abstract thinking to visualization and association to your senses, which is the heart side. It seems like you're trying to find a balance between all four sides to be able to move someone out of their own hell.

Speaker 2: 20:54

Yeah, and even the awareness of doing it.

Speaker 2: 20:57

Right, there's a strong component of working in everything that a person might need, so, like we're not going all spiritual, but for people who are spiritually oriented or even religious, this can be tailored toward that and for people who really just need that, that self love approach of like I was abused growing I'm not saying me, I'm just saying like if a person was abused growing up, like and they didn't get any love whatsoever, they might need the path that's more regulated toward, you know, emotional, emotional nurturing. And some people might really need to hone in on that purpose element. And it just depends on where they're coming from, cause, just to give you another example, some people that I work with, they have run themselves into the ground for 30 years based on the idea that they're never enough and they just got to do more. They got to do more, they got to do more.

Speaker 2: 21:55

So for those people will work on something like you know what? Fuck it, you're good enough just as you are. You don't have to do a damn thing to be good enough. What do you want to do from here? And for other people who've had more of that learned helplessness thing never fully developed, it might be more of a all right. We just got to take massive action here. Let's teach your brain that you can just go out there and do shit. Make it happen. Who cares if you screw up? You need to do more. Let's get going. And so it's very individual. I like to think of this as a consciousness technology that can be applied to pretty much any situation.

Speaker 1: 23:33

I dig that consciousness technology. I dig that man. That's pretty cool. I like the way that you're doing this. The neuroplasticity has a lot of different avenues to take and I like your personalized approach.

Speaker 1: 23:46

This is badass, dude. I'm just going to put it out there. I don't know if people understand because, like this is something that I'm just going to, I'm just listening. You know, brother, I'm just going to throw it out. Just seeing you and under, like hearing how you talk, you wouldn't think of this dude as tough as he is. I'm just putting it out there like this You're deceptive. You seem like a sweet, kindhearted gentle soul and I'm like that dude had to rework his entire existence to live Like I had. He had to rebuild everything. He couldn't fucking move and had to build himself up and most people would have just threw the towel in with you. Hell, most people probably would have quit and given up and just be like I'm just going to die it out, I'm just going to die, and you fought to be able to even move again. Like you figured it out when all traditional things didn't work, when all the the holistic stuff wasn't working. You're like I guess I have to build something new.

Speaker 2: 24:38

Yeah, and the best time to do that is often when you're burned down to nothing.

Speaker 1: 24:45

Yeah Well, you. You reveal you to yourself when you're, you're broken all the way down to rock bottom, and this is where I love when people hit the bottom. You'll find out who you really are when you have to.

Speaker 2: 24:57

Those are the people I actually like working with the best. I mean, I, I I am one of those people who can connect to just about anybody, but I really love working with people who've actually hit rock bottom and they're like at that point where they've gone past the I'm going to go kill myself now and they're going to. Okay, I know I could still kill myself, but let's give this one more shot. There's something so magical about that moment, and it's one of the moments that really struck me was when I was. I was going through one of your groups and I don't remember what, what brought it up. But somebody had asked, like, okay, what did you actually do to get out of that state where you were so exhausted that you couldn't lift your arms at times and you, like, leaning over to the side of the bed to grab the phone was too much at times. And I said, well, I did all these things that I was describing to you, and even then, there was a point where they didn't get me far enough and I had to basically put myself into a state where I was riding this line between complete insanity and reality, where I was living in a world where I could do anything I wanted. I was listening to people like James Lawrence who did a hundred Iron man triathlons in a hundred days, and I was comparing myself to them, not out of a sense of I'm not good enough, but out of a sense of I got to go crazy with this, because if I just think, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to heal, it's going to, it's going to happen, that's great for some people.

Speaker 2: 26:32

For me, it wasn't working, and so I had to go into this alternate reality that I kept up in my head 24 seven, while at the same time not getting committed into a mental hospital for it. And that was the moment where I was like holy shit, that was crazy what I did. And I have yet to find very many people who have that kind of commitment. That's the thing. That's hard, it's not the okay. I'm going to try it one more time. It's not the okay. I'm going to do the things I'm told to do. It's committing to the things that are all day, every day, and when they're still not working. By the way, when I started doing this stuff, it still took me years. It still took me years to pull this off, and I had to get to that point of committing where I was genuinely asking myself am I insane? And I said let me be insane if that's what it takes.

Speaker 1: 27:28

Hell yeah, dude, I'll lean into the warrior with you. Like I'll lean into it. Sometimes extreme is necessary, and I'm not saying I'm going violent against everybody, but it's sometimes finding your limit and then kicking it out the fucking window is part of the challenge. Let me ask you something Like and this is this is probably going to be like, feel free to like take plead the fifth, all right. So you've had to do this. You had to take yourself to the fucking brink of insanity, to push yourself to the very limit of limits in order to pull yourself back, even just to baseline. You've had to fight hard to get here.

Speaker 1: 28:08

What is your opinion? Society right now? Because we're in what we consider the good times. We have technology that makes life easier. People have food, shelter, water. We have all these people around us. There's no real super hardships. There's things happening in the news, but even in America there's a heavy disassociation to reality and you see people struggling with like a feeling, instead of having to do the kind of push yourself to the limit, like mentality you're talking about. Now, I know we talk about no blame, shame and judgments, but is there a little bit of like? Come on, you big softies Like you don't even know what you don't know. Yet Do you ever get a little frustrated with like the society stuff? I know, I know I'm pushing it, but I'm just asking.

Speaker 2: 28:55

Well, that's a good question. I see it like two things at once here, and often people struggle with this. Just as a side note. People struggle to hold two concepts at once that seem to kind of contradict each other, and you know like somebody can think differently from you and still be a decent person. There's a lesson that the world hasn't quite caught up with yet.

Speaker 2: 29:20

But two things are true here. One is that, yes, in some ways we have it better than we've ever had it before. We have more convenience than we've ever had, and people are just insanely soft in a certain way, and people do need to learn a certain type of toughness. And at the same time, the kind of stress we're under now is unlike anything before in history. Nowadays, you have to do all these very unnatural things in a lot of cases just to survive. The food we're eating is poisoned, the water is poisoned, the air is poisoned, we have ungodly amounts of toxic metals in our bodies. Even people who are fairly healthy do. Everybody's just being bombarded with constant propaganda about how awful the world is. And it's not to say we're all victims or we're stuck or there's nothing we can do, but there's a unique kind of stress that people are under, and so that's why a lot of my work focuses on getting out of that chronic stress response, getting out of that reactive doom scrolling.

Speaker 2: 30:30

Got nothing I can do. I'm under the boot of the man kind of mentality or I'm stuck in chronic illness. I'll never heal this into what do I need to do? How do I show up? Not how do I fix it all today, but what's the thing I can do today, what's the one way I can show up a little bit better? And when you start from a place not of you're a weak little bitch, figure it out. That works for some people, for other people. They need to hear hey, there's no shame about this, it's your choice. You're worthy just for existing, but if you want more than this, you're going to have to toughen up too. That's where I try to come from. It's that balance of kindness and toughness, because I think that's where there's two ends of the spectrum, obviously, but in the middle of the spectrum, a lot of people just need some of both.

Speaker 1: 31:25

So, yeah, you have to man, there's a balance in battle, and I think this is the thing where it's thrown around often, especially warriors way talk. You've been with us where they have the warrior in the garden mentality. You know it's better to be trained and not needed than untrained and wish you knew it. You know it's better to be capable, but at peace, instead of in combat or in war and having no skills at all, you know. And so it's better to have it and not need it. And so a lot of people don't ever train to be tough and they don't train to fight through hard things and they'll blame and they'll shame and they'll judge. And we're in an interesting time right now where people are what's that saying? Hard times make strong people. Strong people make good times. Good times makes weak people. Weak people make hard times, you know, and we're in the good times. We're in the good times and good times makes weak people.

Speaker 2: 32:21

I would say we're passing out of the good times and we're heading into the hard times because the weak people have been running the show a little too long and you're starting to see the return. Now You're seeing people like you and me and a lot of other people like us saying hey, we got to build ourselves again. We got to fat and lazy, metaphorically or literally, and we got to build ourselves again. We got to make our world great again.

Speaker 1: 32:47

It's both. There's a lot of people where I'm like man, you have gotten to the point where I don't know if you can handle your own way to let alone take others on Like there's a lot happening here.

Speaker 1: 32:58

There's a lot happening at a weird one. Well, actually, there's two things I'm going to do. First, let's get into the concept that I think that we need to be able to have for each other. You, like, you just said the two concept at once, and it's said often, but it bears repeating we can think differently and still be decent people. We can disagree and still be decent. Give me just your personal opinion on that statement.

Speaker 2: 33:25

What do you want to know? Be more specific with me.

Speaker 1: 33:28

Well, let's say we both have a concept. It doesn't matter if it's political, if it's religious, if it's about social, economics, it's about people's identities. It doesn't matter what it is, no matter what it is. It could be even our styles of helping people or whether you believe that this is more beneficial than another. But you see people polarized these days because, again, we're not in any actual trauma or danger. We call even somebody saying as sentience I don't like is trauma when there's like real shit. That can happen, when people who have not been through trauma will say, like disagreeing is trauma. Help me out with this disagreement or being thinking differently, but you can still be a decent person.

Speaker 2: 34:13

That's where, ironically, the thing that often gets people sick in a chronic way. This is an important point to make. Often, things like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic Lyme disease and I dealt with all those and more the result of a chronic stress response where your brain sees danger where there's not actually danger and it learns to respond like there's a tiger about to eat you or like there's a man in front of you about to hack your head off when that's not happening. That's a big part of what brain retraining does is teaching your brain to stop doing that and respond in a way that's more beneficial, as this relates to how people react to each other.

Speaker 2: 34:59

So many people are in that chronic fight, flight, freeze, fawn response. That's where they're coming from. They have no self-awareness. When somebody says, oh yeah, you like the color blue, well, the color blue is fucking stupid, then they literally experience that as a trauma. If we just set aside for a moment any judgment about it, their brains are interpreting that as a trauma. They shouldn't, but should doesn't come into it. When we just recognize that's actually what's happening, their work is to be able to say, hmm, what can I change? Is it the person who says blue is fucking stupid. Can I change them? No, I can change my response to it, though I think that's where we've really really lost that core tenet of number one personal responsibility.

Speaker 2: 35:56

Number two some kind of a moral code. I come from more of a Christian background. I still consider myself kind of a weird Christian. But just a moral code A lot of people don't have that anymore. Then the ability to say here are some ways that we can discuss this. Maybe you get to a point where you realize this isn't even a person I want to deal with. But if you have that moral code for example the idea that everybody is entitled to live the life they want to live, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else that's an example of a moral principle then you can still coexist in the same world without having to forcibly change somebody else's mind.

Speaker 1: 36:43

I like it. So we shouldn't be forcing everybody to think how I want to think. So let me just let me see if I can repeat this back. You're talking about the triggers for chronic stress response fight, fight, flee, fight, fight, fight, freeze, fawn. You're talking about the four Fs. The triggers that go into this is the attack, the retreat, the suppress, the hide, the negotiate. This gets in all the factors for me trying to get control when I don't have control right Now, since I lack emotional control, because you said blue and blue is triggering. I hate blue and if you like blue, you're a piece of shit and you should never be able to do anything because I can't handle it. Do you think the people who lack emotional control should be the ones who are calling the shots or be in control?

Speaker 2: 37:28

Well, hell, no, because emotionality has a place. Don't get me wrong, that's. That's part of what makes life good. Imagine a world without anybody's emotions, and that's not a world you want to live in, because emotion is part of beauty. But there's a reason why leaders who are successful have an ability to turn off the emotionality when they need to, or at least set it aside. Because if you need to survive, if it's really do or die, do you have time to sit there and feel bad about the fact that things aren't going so good? If you've got five minutes to get out of a building that's about to collapse, if somebody's having a panic attack, well that's great. But the person who can throw them over their shoulders and run out of the building and not be emotional, that's the person who's going to leave. That's the person who's going to make sure everybody survives.

Speaker 1: 38:30

So yeah, so you're saying having emotional intelligence and rationale, and even in a crisis, is more beneficial as a leader than somebody who panics whenever something doesn't go their way. So the person panicking shouldn't be the one who calls the shots, or the person who's very emotional shouldn't be the one who tells everybody else how to be.

Speaker 2: 38:52

Yeah, I think we're on the same page with that, rick. That's quite a revelation there.

Speaker 1: 38:57

This is mind-blowing, mind-blowing revelation, indeed. It's funny. It's interesting to watch the polarization where people who feel like, because they hate the most, they should say how everything should be. But it's ironic when people hate the behavior they're doing themselves. That's the irony I see too. It's like you're doing the same thing that you say that person is bad for, and yet you should call the shots because your way, without rationale, hmm, hmm.

Speaker 2: 39:32

This is where I don't know.

Speaker 1: 39:33

I don't know if this is in our best interest.

Speaker 2: 39:37

That's where the fact that supposedly we're in a post I don't know how to put it we're in a post reality world, supposedly, where everything is subjective, there is no truth. Everybody's individual truth is valid. I'm not saying this in a political way, I'm not trying to get political about it. I'm saying truly there have to be some objective things that we agree on. Otherwise in somebody's reality, if you disagree with them, they have every right to shoot you in the head. That's their moral code. You see where the problem is with that. There has to be a moral code that's based on some kind of shared principles that are based in rationality but still have a basis in kindness.

Speaker 2: 40:34

How would I put it? It's like in the Jewish Kabbalah. I believe they have these two spheres in the chart. One is judgment and the other is compassion or something like that. I'm probably maiming it, but it's essentially saying you have to have logic and reason, but you can't get so far as to where it's only that you have to have it balanced with the heart. But you can't just have heart, because then you have people having a meltdown when things need to get done and the world burns around you because everybody has to have their moment and have their subjective truth.

Speaker 1: 41:11

Ironically, I found the same answer. We're in post-reality. My truth is weaponized right now. Here's ironic about this. I've been writing about this in my new book.

Speaker 1: 41:25

There's a part in the chapter that I'm writing on truth which is showing how I don't believe that truth exists at the moment, for the exact thing that you just said. We can't A handle the truth. But then it gets into even the old saying I was reading. Just look at a few thousand years ago, you know. Even a quote from Marcus Aurelius in his meditations says everything that we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything that we see is a perspective, not the truth. Yet everyone says my truth or my opinion is fact and the truth. This gives me now moral rights to be able to treat you justifiably any way I want, even if it betrays my own golden rule of how I like to be treated.

Speaker 1: 42:14

I can create a justification based on a subjective truth to make me the good one while I do things that would be very bad if done to me. This is the way of today's soft society. Now what's funny is is we think that, because our emotions are reality, this gives me free will and free reign to impose my forceful beliefs on everyone else. And if you do not believe, as I believe, I can do whatever I want to you, because you're bad and I'm good. That's today. That's what today is, and what's really funny is, in order to defeat rational and strong people, the tools are blame, shame and judgment, because it's not going to be a physical warfare.

Speaker 1: 43:02

We're going to attack you mentally and emotionally to try to make it so. You are censored or self-censored because you're afraid of an emotional judgment, attack that we can do by destroying your reputation or calling you the bad one, or even using any type of what would the terms be where I can just create some sort of a name call. I can call you a racist, I can call you a bigot, I can call you sexist, a phobic, in some way, shape or form. I can just call you names to make it so. Even if you're doing nothing in that sphere, you're a bad guy and I'm the good guy because I called you names and so then I'm good and now I can dehumanize you because my truth is the only truth, your truth. I don't even want to hear it, because you're bad for even thinking. This is all judgment, judgment, judgment.

Speaker 2: 44:00

They come from and this is across the spectrum, by the way. I don't want to say it's any one person, it's kind of the disease of our society right now. But it's like because you think different from me, I don't have to see you as a person anymore, you are not entitled to respect or anything, because my truth is the one truth and if you're different from me you are bad and evil and therefore I don't have to give you any respect or any dignity. And that's where it's really really tough to combat that, because people who are working with either rationality or at least good faith, you can come to some kind of understanding with each other. But when people are actually seeing each other, when they're reacting from that limbic stress response place, you're already a monster and a monster cannot be redeemed. A person who's done a bad thing can be redeemed, but a monster will always be a monster.

Speaker 1: 45:13

It needs to be killed. It needs to be killed. You got to kill monsters.

Speaker 2: 45:20

So it's an interesting predicament, but I'm a big believer to kind of turn toward the solution. I'm a big believer that sometimes people just need more love, and sometimes that love is tough love. Sometimes that love is, you know, sometimes somebody just is reactive and awful because they've been treated badly, and sometimes we can just sit there and be like, hey, I see you, what you're doing is not okay, but I just want you to know like I still care about you or I still respect you as a human, even though you're being a dick to me, and that could sometimes change people and for those that it doesn't. You know, we just got to keep fighting the battle of fighting the battle of what you feel. It's not to say it doesn't matter, but you can't, you can't use your feelings to shame somebody and shut somebody up, because then you're you're just turning what happened to you around onto other people. We have to get back to where we can say you know what? We're all people here and we're all dealing with conditioning, we're all dealing with pain that we've held and we've all got to take responsibility for what's happened to us. And sometimes that means people have to be taken and held to account and sometimes it means we just got to move on.

Speaker 2: 46:49

But that's where the healing process I went through, that I help a lot of people through, is very similar to what the world needs now, which is getting out of a victim mentality and getting into, if it's going to change. I got to figure it out. It doesn't mean somebody didn't do a bad thing to you. It doesn't mean like it was your fault that somebody attacked you, or sometimes bad things happen to you. But there's a difference between being victimized and being a victim. And I tried to take everything that's happening to me and say you know what? In some ways I was victimized. Certain things doctors did screwed me up. They made things so much worse. And yet I wasn't going to keep sitting there and keep saying, well, I'm sick because of this, my life's fucked up because of this. I had to say, okay, that's all past, what do I do now? What can I do? And I just did that every day.

Speaker 1: 47:45

Yeah, I like that. You said that I got a hypothesis for you then, because you're saying I'm working on helping people to get stronger because I've been through tough things and the whole concepts of hurt people hurt people, while this is the victim mentality versus the victimized mentality. But happy people don't seem to hurt people. But I've noticed people who have fought out of hell and understand the darkness and then have fought into the light seem to be way more humble, understanding and open to other people than people who have not been through very difficult things and feel like it's the hardest. And the concept of every, every mule feels like their load is the heaviest. It seems pretty true. Until anybody has to switch, switch roles, switch shoes, yeah, you're like oh yeah, that's really tough. Somebody didn't like what you said today or they don't agree with how you think everything should be. That's the hardest thing of your day. You ever been paralyzed for years. You should try it. Maybe you'll shut the fuck up for a little while when you start shitting out blessings.

Speaker 2: 48:58

And that's the thing is. You know, you mentioned how people get more humble when they've been through hell, like there are people that I work with where, quite frankly, they didn't go through as much as I did, just not not in any way shape or form. I've also worked with a couple of people who make my journey look like a picnic at Disneyland, and one thing I really try to not do is I try not to ever judge people and say like, ah, you didn't go through anything, you know and you should see what I went through. It's more of having that perspective of everybody's suffering. In a way, everybody's going through something and I try to come with the humbleness or the humility and say they're going through something. How can I assist them through that?

Speaker 2: 49:47

Because often the reason that people on the other side of it have the humility and have the ability to say you know what? Yeah, I see your pain, even if it wasn't what I went through. I see your pain. It's because when you're in the middle of the shit and you haven't processed it, that's when you're the most reactive and that's when you are the most stuck in it. But once you've processed it, you just look at everybody and say holy shit, I'm just, I'm just blown away that everybody's showing up and still trying and just having that, that grace for people, because everybody's, everybody's carrying a weight and once you get to the other side of it, you know this. You're one of those people. You're like shit. I went through hell. Now I'm here to help other people do it and just show up in the best way you can to make that happen. Well, now I go into hell on purpose to go get people.

Speaker 1: 50:50

Yeah, hell makes you humble. This is one of the things that we say. People who have actually been there they don't talk shit like you do. People who have actually been there they don't talk shit like people who haven't. People who have been through things they don't throw things around on everybody in order to try to cause more control or damage. It seems like we're in a society at the moment where soft people are trying to create blame, shame and judgment, to control everyone around them because they cannot handle the truth. They haven't been in deep enough to be able to get humble. They haven't hit rock bottom to where they've had to rebuild themselves. They haven't had to. And so these people who are using these tools use hatred, they use blame, they use attacks that try to make you feel bad. You should feel bad, the shame. Is this really strength? Using judgment, is it really strength to try to force compliance because you can't handle information? Or is the need for somebody to have somehow through your story make you more humble?

Speaker 2: 51:58

I think, the reason that you often see, because there are people who hit rock bottom, but if they don't go to rock bottom and actually break open, then they're not going to get to that point where they become humble. A lot of people go to rock bottom and then they tighten, they make their story stronger, they make their ego around it stronger. They get more victim, more victim, more reactive, and that's where you see those people. But the people who allow themselves to break open and start over, those are the ones who become humble. It's often a dynamic of. I'll give you a good example.

Speaker 2: 52:41

I'm neither on the side of shitting on the Christian church nor am I on the side of embracing every single thing about it, and there were definitely ways in which in the US it's been Christianity, and other parts of the world it's been other religions or other systems. But people have been really mistreated at times in ways where somebody forced their beliefs on them and the sad irony is now they're repeating that cycle. That's what I see when people are doing that. They're like well, you did it to me, even though you is people like you in the past, so now I'm justified in doing that to you.

Speaker 1: 53:22

And fantastic logic. I love it Because people hurt me. Now I'm justified to hurt others. Yeah, there's a quote that I enjoy. People throw around all these kinds of things where they can justify the judgments that they're doing and how they can treat people, especially church hurt and stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 53:45

I strengthened a quote from Carl Jung where I'm watching what's happening in today's age, where people are judging, and he said thinking is hard and that's why people judge instead. I would add to it because right now we're in an age especially with men I mean two men, not from men because guys show a lot more of this than the women seem to this day and age. And I will stand by that quote, as empathy is hard too, and men aren't getting empathy. Men are still getting. They're getting torn apart because they think men should what? Pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Never had, never. There's no compassion, there's no understanding for a man's heart. We have to suppress all feelings and be lone wolves, which doesn't work, by the way. And so right now, empathy is off the table too for a big, big part of just humanity. So I would strengthen Carl Jung's quote to today thinking and empathy are hard and that's why people are judging instead, and I hope that you guys feel fucking triggered because he's talking about his chronic stress response right now. If you don't like that, it's because you're not thinking or empathetic, so go ahead and feel judgmental. We're in strange times, bro, when people can justify because of Jesus.

Speaker 1: 55:09

I got a quote for you. I just wrote this the other day. I was writing just on the whole thing about people who are men of God or people of God and yet they use God to hurt others or to do silly things. They use God. What do you think about this? Because you just mentioned church hurt. You mentioned when people are like what did I say? Instead of let's see, are you a man of God or a man who uses God? It was a question I sent out Christian, a great question Do you follow Christ or you follow church? Do you follow the pastor or do you follow Jesus or you know Yeshua or however? You want to get specific with it. So you're like who are you following? Who are you? Who are you really listening to? Because if you just start at your name, just start in the Bible, at Matthew, and just start when Jesus is on the scene, just start and then go.

Speaker 1: 56:03

I listened to what Christ said, not what this guy, not Bob or Pastor Steve or whatever what he said. I'm going to go like well, what Jesus said in Matthew seven I'm not supposed to judge everybody unless I want to be judged myself. And they also said that there'll be false prophets. There's going to be people who do all this stuff in my name. I've cast out demons and I protested and I beat up people and I shamed people and I judged people, said you're going to hell and you're going to hell. I did all these amazing things in your name and I killed and I canceled and I've hurt people because I'm a good person. By the way, if you have to sell, you're a good person. You're probably not one, and so, because good people don't sell their good people, so here I am doing all these things in God's name and in Jesus's name. I'm the good one.

Speaker 1: 56:51

I told a 14 year old girl who's going through a tough time at the abortion clinic she's a fucking whore and she should die and go and she's the worst. See when hell you're going to burn. I told her that in God's name. I told her in Jesus's name, I'm a good person and you're like oh, which Christ are you talking about? Because I don't think Jesus did a lot of that stuff. Well, you're a bad person.

Speaker 1: 57:18

You should be kicked out of the church because Jesus only worked with the good ones and he didn't help anybody who needed help. He only worked with the healthy, good ones. He didn't work with the sinners. He didn't do that. I'm like which Christ are you talking about? If you're a Christian, maybe read Christ's. But if you're going off of blame, shame and judgment, guilt and the parts of the church that tell you you're good and bad and where you're going to go with grand judgment, that's not my job. I don't know. I don't know the criteria. I'm not up with St Peter or Jesus or God to go. Here's where you're going. I don't know the damn rules, but people will use their own opinions and then use God as an excuse to do harm. They've been doing it for years. It's power control. You talked about church hurt, and this is me maybe venting a little, but what do you think?

Speaker 2: 58:17

I'm with you. Nowadays people call God different things. They have different ways of putting something on a pedestal and doing it something in the name of that. It's God, or it's Jesus, or it's equality, or it's anti-racism. You can pick any God to put on a pedestal and be a complete asshole in its name. I think a lot of people nowadays, like I said, they were hurt in a certain way. They say, well, I'm not religious, I'm doing this in the name of something that's right and good. That's what most people think they're doing. They think they're the hero in the story, my whole mentality, and this is kind of like.

Speaker 2: 59:07

If you read my website, this is what I say about my philosophy and the work I do with men. You can be tough and kind at the same time. To apply to this situation, you can stand in the truth and you can still be decent about it. There aren't that many cases where being an asshole is going to help. Occasionally perhaps, but mostly you can actually convey more with calm and steadiness and straightforwardness. To give you an example if you need to be really, really, really boundreed and firm with somebody and you even need to tell them if you come here again, we're going to have a problem. If you come here and threaten my family, I will kill you.

Speaker 2: 59:58

If that's something that needs to be conveyed truly, how is that going to come across better if you say calmly, to the point, right in the eyes, or is it going to be better if you're just foaming at the mouth? It's an extreme example, but to take it like, let's say, you feel like you need to judge something, maybe somebody's doing drugs or whatever, and their life is going off the rails Is that going to be better communicated by screaming at them and telling them what a piece of shit they are? Or is that going to be better communicated by saying this isn't right what you're doing? I'm not going to support this path you're on, but I'm here and I love you and if you want to make this change, I've got you. You're worth it, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:00:46

Which one of those is true strength? The one who can be calm, stoic, strong, hold their line and be compassionate and understanding at the same time? Or the person who's lost control in their enforce mode and raging out fuck you, you mother, your piece of shit, you garbage and that's supposed to somehow be healing. That's the leader. That's who should be in charge.

Speaker 1: 1:01:15

When I work with my warriors, we're tactical with the way we give our fucks. We don't give fucks away willy-nilly. Don't give a fuck about everything. Be tactical in how you give your fucks. And here we are in a point where somebody is struggling, they're hurting, they're doing some sort of self harm in order to feel good when they feel terrible, and the way they choose to do it may not be healthy.

Speaker 1: 1:01:42

You said drugs or alcohol or any type of addictive personality stuff. It can be attention, it can be online shopping, social media, pornography, you name it. Pick a thing that feels good for a little bit that has a big cost later. I don't care how it can be hoarding, just buying a bunch of stuff and keeping it all because I can't deal with a loss or I can't deal with a scenario. It's interesting to watch how people want to control others. When they lose control, you know the foaming at the mouth instead of saying I have a boundary here. If you do come by here and you want to hurt my people, I don't want to do it, but I will very much stop you. Now, which one is better? Or, like I will stop you very hard. I don't want to, but I very much will. Trained or untrained, which one seems more leader like?

Speaker 2: 1:02:38

99 times out of 100. The stoic way is going to be better, and didn't mean don't be dangerous.

Speaker 1: 1:02:45

You can still fuck that dude up, but do it tactically and not recklessly.

Speaker 2: 1:02:51

Trained or untrained. You mentioned earlier how I seem very gentle and kind, and it's true. At the same time it's kind of fun because I'm not the person people expect to have that like if you fuck with the people I love, there will be consequences kind of person. But I've trained myself, I've prepared for the moment will probably never come, but if it comes, to have that as best I can, that calm ability to speak in that way, to act in that way instead of just losing my shit.

Speaker 1: 1:03:35

I think it's part of the like I said, the warrior in the garden I. Just because my sword is sheath does not mean I do not know how to use it.

Speaker 2: 1:03:44

But I use it tactically.

Speaker 1: 1:03:45

I use it for protection, not for control. I use it because I need to keep my people safe, not because I need to control you or your people, and this is why I think we're in interesting times to get back to the whole concepts of think different and be decent. It's okay to disagree, but this is where I still I loved. I loved Aralea stuff. I still enjoy stoic philosophy. I stack it pretty hard and there's a quote from Araleas I had where him being at the time was the king of Rome. I was the height of Rome to before the Argentine plague and so be. Before everything started to just fall the fuck apart Like this was the strongest superpower on earth and he said if you're giving me new information and it's good information, it's usable I reserve the right to change my mind. And this is something I think people have leaned into, like you mentioned, ego. They've leaned into their stubbornness. They can't be wrong because they aren't humble enough from going through hard things To be able to reserve the right to change my mind and me even as a leader. If you give me new information, I reserve the right to change my mind. I don't have to stand on my old belief, simply because I can't be wrong. Even the king of Rome at the height of Rome can go. Well, if you give me new information, well, I reserve the right to change my mind. Then I'll just oh, I didn't know that. If I apply that, that makes it better. Even in the Warriors wave you came in now it would look different than when you went through program, because I've had other warriors who are going through things.

Speaker 1: 1:05:19

Put an idea on the table, just like on Camelot, the round table go. Have you considered this? And I say that's good new information. I Reserve the right to change my mind. I'm going to add that in to strengthen the program to help more people. Thank you. A good idea can come from anywhere. And here we are saying if you wore blue, you are bad. I have a red shirt. That must mean I'm evil. It's like. No, I just put on a shirt today. This is a buddy, gave it to me for free. I just like that guy. This is how I'm like this. Wasn't it a stance? This is just. I didn't want to be topless for the show. It's funny. I reserve the right to change my mind. Give me something new and we don't have to agree and that's okay.

Speaker 2: 1:06:07

That's where you know framing this from a A perspective of the work I do people are stuck in their mentality and they defend it with their life because it's genuinely a sense of I'm not safe without this belief, without this ego, without this story. That's the thing they think is protecting them, and it's often protecting them you know, not really, but protecting them from the actual pain they went through or from facing the world Fresh and open and not knowing what to do, and that's scary as hell for people.

Speaker 1: 1:06:46

I think they're protecting themselves from their own feelings because they're scared of their own emotions. They're they can't handle the truth, and so they'll protect themselves from feeling bad, because if I'm wrong, I feel bad and I can't be wrong, and so you have to be bad. Fuck you and you're like it's okay to be wrong. Just change your mind.

Speaker 2: 1:07:04

Right, I think we've we've demonized changing your mind. I like. I remember. I remember back in 2012 when Mitt Romney was running for president and he was labeled as a flip-flopper and whether you like him or not, like I, have my opinions on him, but it was the fact that they, they were demonizing him for changing his position, and you know there is such a thing as a person who changes their mind with whatever way the wind blows, but changing your mind as a whole doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Speaker 1: 1:07:37

Well, flip-floppers, a judgment Again. The look at right. If I can, this is Matthew, bro. My attacks right now are against the attacks themselves.

Speaker 1: 1:07:49

Judgments is the way that people are trying to create an authority by just name calling so other people will bandwagon. This is how I say you're. You're just a piece of crap because you don't do what I say. And so I don't listen to pieces of crap like Matthew's a piece of crap. Yeah, I called him a piece of crap. Like I don't like crap. Yeah, I don't like crap either. So he's a crap and I don't like him.

Speaker 1: 1:08:12

Like I just make up a judgment and now you should Remember, should Feel bad, you're not good, your, you shouldn't do it this way. You're too much. This you're not enough that you're a flippy flopper, you're bad. I never listened to flippy floppers, their pieces of crap. And you're like we make up, just make up a, just a subjective opinion with no facts required to create a new belief system. No facts required. I just make up a judgment and now everyone Should jump in, without challenge, without understanding, without any new information, just go with like well, so and so said they suck, so they must suck. It's like why did they say that I don't ask questions like that. I just go with it. I am controlled by judgments. This is the attack on people. This is what makes a strong person back down. This is the reputation demolition. They call him a flip-flopper, so you shouldn't be president. He's like wait a second, it's in the president, who reserves the right to change his mind with new information. I'm more capable leader Now.

Speaker 1: 1:09:27

I didn't vote, met Romney at the time, but when you say it like that, I also didn't have the faculties or tools that I have now as a. You know, I was much dumber at that time, so I Didn't have the understanding I didn't. I didn't have the awareness at that time that I do now, and so at that time I would have been just as easily Manipulated because I didn't have the awareness or training to go. These are judgments that are trying to make it so that something that's actually very positive is negative. But we didn't challenge anything at the time. We just go along because somebody who is loud Told you to, because they were opinionated, mean and you didn't want to be on the receiving end of their cruelty. Why, right?

Speaker 2: 1:10:10

that's where there's a concept that I use in brain retraining and it's I'm sure I didn't come up with it it's the idea of generating versus reacting. It's so important because, to put it in the context you're talking about, if somebody says, you know Ricky, he's kind of, he's kind of a dick, I oh Is he? I haven't actually met him, I haven't seen anything he's done, but somebody said that, so I mean he must be a dick, right? Whereas that's reacting, that's people getting their ideas from social media, getting their ideas from whatever. But if I am generating, I'm gonna be saying to myself well, first of all, what do I believe? Okay, here are the facts. I don't. I've never talked to Rick. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go for my own opinion.

Speaker 2: 1:11:01

Or, you know, if you take, like, a different situation, like you know, let's say You're dealing with an addiction you know the reactive approach would be to say, well, I went through all this stuff and I'm gonna keep running from it, I'm gonna keep avoiding myself, I'm gonna keep coping in this unhealthy way. The generative approach would be stop and say how do I want to respond to this? What are the facts here? What's gonna happen if I keep taking this approach and I think a lot of people don't have the awareness level to Do that. And when they do have the awareness, they might get a moment of clarity, but then, because they lack the tools to do it, then they just start to feel bad and they're like I'm. If I start to look at that too closely, I'll realize I'm a shitty person or I've acted like a shitty person and I don't want to see that. So I'm just gonna go back to reacting so I don't have to look too hard, because you know, it's one thing to just be like, oh yeah, rick, rick's a dick. Like that doesn't have a huge consequence as long as you're not like spitting it out everywhere.

Speaker 2: 1:12:11

But there are decisions that we make like that Reactively that have big consequences and we don't want to look back and see, oh, I really fucked that up, I really screwed up somebody's life by being reactive and and that's that's a tough moment to hold space for yourself in that and to say, okay, what happens now that I see that I'm doing the thing that I hate people for and I've accused them of being horrible people and monsters. That would make me a monster, so I better hide that as far away from myself as possible and I better stay reactive and stay a victim so that I don't have to take responsibility. And look at that. It's tough to do. I have compassion. It's tough to do because it'll break your world, but then it'll get better.

Speaker 1: 1:13:02

Thinking and empathy are hard, and that's why people judge instead.

Speaker 2: 1:13:08

And I'm not above it, like I've had moments where somebody was like oh yeah, that person total, total loser and I'm like oh, that person's a total loser, okay. And then I stopped myself and I'm like oh, I haven't looked into that myself, oh, We'll just go with you, name called I'll just I'll just jump on with you.

Speaker 1: 1:13:28

Yeah, this is where people are having a hard time if they're not disagreeable. It's okay to ask questions like why? And then go and challenge things to see does it make any sense or not. It's okay to disagree and I reserve the right to change my mind. Well said I got a twist for you, matthew.

Speaker 1: 1:13:45

We've been killing this thing for a little bit. I feel like we beat the shit out of that dead horse. How about this? I got a fun one for you and then we can bounce out of here. All right, congratulations, my friend. You just found the genie's lamb, and I am your genie. I'm your. I'm your Robin Williams, or your Will Smith, depending on your age. And so here I am, I'm your genie. Ah, you get three wishes, matthew. Three wishes. Nothing, clearly, because most genie stories are tragedies. So make sure that you think, think hard on your wishes. Now, of course, genie rules. You can't wish for more wishes, can't bring people back from the dead, and you can't wish for people who love you. That's fucked up. So now we're here you three wishes. What would your wishes be?

Speaker 2: 1:14:33

That's a great question. Feel free to fuck this up.

Speaker 1: 1:14:39

It's fun here if you do. If you want a million bucks, I'm gonna give you a bunch of deer.

Speaker 2: 1:14:46

Yeah, you gotta be very specific right, I would probably. I Would probably, and I'd have to think about the specifics of this, but I probably asked for an amount of gold, that an amount of gold and other precious metals and land and that kind of wealth. That Would be the kind of wealth that I would never have to think about it again and would allow me total freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want in this, in the ways that are allowed by Financial wealth and, more importantly, would allow me to then turn around and bless the world the way that I want to, because there's a lot of things I would love to do in the world that I can do some Just by being myself, but I can do a lot more of with a lot of resources in that way, beyond that one.

Speaker 1: 1:15:45

Okay, well, listen, you probably get killed by that one, cuz I just drop a bunch of gold on you and now you have all the gold, yeah where do you want?

Speaker 1: 1:15:52

to put. Where do you want your gold placed? Where do you want it to be? Because, remember, I'm just gonna like here's gold. Now you're buried in golden dead. So, like, how do you want it? Where do you want it? Remember, be specific. I'm your genie. I will kill you with this wish. It's a no jins work. Here's all the gold like I want it to be shaped, like this in this place, and that way, give me Fort Knox, it's now mine, or whatever it would be.

Speaker 2: 1:16:15

Right. Well, I'd probably ask for um a thousand acre branch with a vault inside the house where all that gold could be stored. And you know, the alloid old title, the alloid old title to that property owned completely outright, no, no government involvement in that contract. So I'm sure, I'm sure there's ways that you could.

Speaker 1: 1:16:42

These wishes are getting into like 10 wishes put into one wish.

Speaker 2: 1:16:46

Right, right.

Speaker 1: 1:16:48

And like these superpowers in this exact way, at this place. And this reality, and not in a comic book like I was interesting how he has these wishes yeah. I would watch some genie stuff, or else I get like literal.

Speaker 2: 1:17:04

Right, there's a lot of ways that if you're, if you're a genie, that you could find a fuck with me on it.

Speaker 1: 1:17:11

Oh, genies do it all the time, all right. So now you have. You have all this gold, you have all these resources Now, all right. Now what's your next wish? You have lots of gold, lots of money. I would next next wish.

Speaker 2: 1:17:25

I would ask for the ability to heal myself and other people with touch, just like literally lay a finger on them and aging and disease are gone.

Speaker 1: 1:17:38

All right. So you can have super healing powers. You can heal by touch Any limitation or you heal everything.

Speaker 2: 1:17:48

I would say the limitation would be it wouldn't heal something that is truly part of like, you know, if somebody's got a path that they're walking and that's just part of their path, or if they're truly, it's their time to go, or you know, it'd be the kind of thing that I could use my discretion not to use Can't make somebody live forever, or something right Can't stop death. Maybe delay it, but not stop it forever. How much can we?

Speaker 1: 1:18:18

delay it.

Speaker 2: 1:18:20

Well, that's a good topic. I mean, in the Bible they say that people lived, you know, to be 900,000 years old, and I do believe we would have longer life spans if not for a lot of factors.

Speaker 1: 1:18:34

Okay, well, all right, you got some healing abilities. You just can't make somebody immortal. All right, what's your next Good and final wish, matthew, you got lots of gold. You can heal everybody. Now what do you want? Besides, you have a line around all of your property not only trying to get all your gold, but also trying to get you to heal them. So now you have lots of attention. That's a good question. Everyone's lined up around the whole world man they're like this is the guy who cares cancer, cares mental illness, cares diseases, cares everything you have to physically touch everybody. So now it's off the charts.

Speaker 2: 1:19:15

Well, I've got a lot of money so I can hire armed guards to keep them off my property. All right, so now we got?

Speaker 1: 1:19:22

we got armed guards holding people at gunpoint because they want you to touch them and heal them. Now what do we got? Now what?

Speaker 1: 1:19:30

Listen, you got people coming from all over the place. People are pushing their babies in your face like you're my baby, and you're like hold on, hold on. I can only do so much. And you got guys putting at gunpoint, get back, get back. And someone's like trying to get your gold while you're trying to heal a baby and things are going fucking crazy because there's 10,000 people trying to get to your property that's owned only by you. No governmental support. Now, what do we do? What's your final wish?

Speaker 2: 1:19:57

I would say peace, peace in my heart.

Speaker 1: 1:20:01

We just you would love this. We just did a two hour training on what the fuck is peace and we still didn't get to a conclusion, because it's such a weird word.

Speaker 2: 1:20:11

Yeah, this is an interesting one for anybody who hasn't been around Rick enough. He really likes to hone in on the definitions of things, to be precise, to be specific and know what we're actually talking about. And yeah, peace can be a difficult one. I mean, my best stab at a definition would be just, actually, I don't know if I could define it that quickly. I'd have to think about it.

Speaker 1: 1:20:33

You know, I'll send you the two hour training that we just did because we had brilliant minds, we had doctorates and people in there who were all still going like this is a head scratcher. It's not that simple, because, is it? We've had guys who were in war and in fire fights and they said they were in tranquil peace in the middle of a firefight and then we've had people who will be in a meadow and be calm in the forest and be at peace. And is peace internal or is it external or is it both? Is peace discovered or is it made, like this is? And you know if the whole was it?

Speaker 1: 1:21:10

If you, if you want peace, prepare for war. Parabella, like the whole part, like with with how do you get peace? So it's a little more complicated. So if you want peace, I'm like peace of what piece of pie? Peace of mind? I don't know what you're talking about. It's true, um, listen, you're. You're already. Your world's in chaos already. We better be specific, because if you, you got people lined up around your property. You got armed guards. Now you've got people screaming and yelling. You have to touch everybody. People are trying to get to you. It's you're, you got your all these stuff going on.

Speaker 1: 1:21:50

I need to help you, bro, your genius here. What?

Speaker 2: 1:21:52

can I do, for you know what you're making. You're making I don't know what it is. You're making a lot of assumptions here. You're making the assumption that I would be, I'd be advertising that I can do this.

Speaker 1: 1:22:04

Oh, you think. You think there would be an advertisement needed if there's one person on earth who can cure everybody's ailment, including death. Well, that's the thing is advertising campaign you need one person to heal Well that's the thing is that you need one person, and now everyone knows. That's why I guess I'd have to wear a mask. You know, oh shit, now you're wearing a mask. All right, can I help you? As your genie man, you just want to wear masks all day, or what?

Speaker 2: 1:22:34

Well, at any rate, I'd have to define peace of mind. I suppose peace in the heart, but I know what.

Speaker 1: 1:22:40

I know what it feels like. Yeah, yeah, I'm a shit genie.

Speaker 2: 1:22:49

Yeah, that's where we get into. Are you? Are you a good faith genie or are you a you know, a shit disturber genie? You know?

Speaker 1: 1:22:56

I think it's more that we're as humans. We're shit wish makers.

Speaker 2: 1:23:02

We don't think about the cost of winning. That's why I often have this phrase and I didn't make it up, but it's this or something better. Or you could also say that as this or whatever is for the highest good, because I don't know everything. Like if I were told you know you're in charge of doing everything the world needs. You can save the world, we'll do whatever you say. I would be scared of that power because I don't think there's a human being alive with enough context and intelligence to do it all. We all have a piece of it and you know my piece of it's from the journey I've had, your piece of it's from the journey you've had and I feel like I've got some of it, but I couldn't. I couldn't know what to do with all of it. So this or whatever is for the highest good.

Speaker 1: 1:23:53

Yeah, it's a great observation and it's a good point. We all want to tell everybody how everything is supposed to be. We want to say who is good, who is bad, who is right, who is wrong. You should do it this way, you should do it that way. But everything that we hear is an opinion, not a fact, and everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. And just because you have an opinion or a perspective doesn't mean everyone should do what you say. Do your deep work, reach into yourself, talk to Matthew, talk to me, talk to people who are actually working with people to help them understand thyself and pull themselves out of hell, because that hell makes you humble. And together we're way stronger than one person having all the power, because we're fucking wrong when we have all the power, as we've noticed. Brother, it's an honor to hang with you, man. Thanks for hanging out with me today.

Speaker 2: 1:24:49

It's my pleasure really happy we could do this.

Speaker 1: 1:24:52

Yeah, we're gonna put this stuff up Now if you have a request, let's make a real wish here. If you had a request for what you would want people to do who listen to this, how can you help serve others and where do you want them to go?

Speaker 2: 1:25:05

Yeah. So I would say, if you're in a place where you are stuck, especially with a health challenge the kind that you know the doctors don't understand, you try different diets and stuff different supplements and just not getting anywhere. But also if you're, you know, one of those people is just like I don't know what I'm doing, I feel lost, I feel trapped. Come talk to me, forgingyourlegendcom. I do a lot of one-on-one work with people and, like I said, my approach is to bring kindness and also the action that's required to get you out of there, teach you the tools, support you through that process. Come to my website and shoot me a message. I'd love to help you.

Speaker 2: 1:25:50

You know I, like, like Rick said, I've been through his program, been around his, his work as well, and you know they're like, they're different, the ways we work are different, but they're also complementary.

Speaker 2: 1:26:02

So I would just encourage you to reach out, talk to me a little bit, tell me what's going on and see if I can assist from where you are, because I can tell you that when you've been through something that takes 15 years to even move the needle on, that's a very different thing from I struggled with something for a few months and then I found the solution in the end. That's the end. It takes a different kind of mentality, a different kind of strength to get through that kind of fight, and so if you're in that kind of fight, I'd love to help you. I'd love to show you that it's possible, no matter how dire it seems, and you know we get on a get on a call at some point. I'll tell you about some of the stories not just mine but other people in just impossible situations that I've seen change. So take heart book your calls.

Speaker 1: 1:26:55

Book your calls. Way to go, warrior, it's good to hang with you, matthew. Thanks a lot, brother. Thanks, appreciate it, rick.