#322 David Rossi - Alpha’s Die Early, Meditation and the Omega Man Mindset

David Rossi
Welcome to the meditation podcast. You can find all our episodes on meditationpodcast.org. He built multi-million dollar companies in Silicon Valley. He had the cars, the power, the ego, the match, and then lost it all.

Not to a competitor, not to the market, to himself. Dave Rossi was the ultimate alpha. Driven, relentless, unstoppable, right until he stopped.

His new book is literally called Alpha's Die Early. And spoiler alert, he nearly proved his own title correct. Today, he's the CEO of CQ Construction, I believe is the thing.

You got it right. Meditation teacher and the man who invented the Omega Man mindset, which sounding like a Marvel villain might just save your life. From Silicon Valley to the cushion, please welcome Dave.

Thank you so much. That was really a great introduction. So, I mean, yeah, we'd love to get to know your story first.

How did this alpha man begin? And how did he die so quickly? Well, I'll stop you. What's your cat's name? Well, this is actually kind of a stray. It's really a great cat.

It's our neighbor's cat, and it just kind of lives at our house. And this is my office, and I have the cat kind of come in, sit in my lap. It eats our food.

It sleeps here sometimes. So it's kind of our neighbor's cat. It's kind of adopted us.

His name is Juno, or her name is Juno. You know, I started a company when I was probably 28 in construction. And then it morphed over the years, and I got married in 2000.

And then I started another company with my wife at the time, big construction company, commercial construction. And 17 years later, I just looked back on my life, and I just couldn't believe what I saw. I was overweight.

I was on high blood pressure medication. I did have four houses, three vacation homes, and a primary residence, and owned a building for my company, and had two boats and three kids. And at that time in my life, my best friend had just passed away in an accident, and I was supposed to have back surgery from a football injury, slipped disc in my back.

So I had back surgery scheduled in February of 2016. And I just asked myself, how did I work so hard to make so much, and to be where I am, to be so unhappy? And so I started researching how to survive after this surgery, in terms of getting back on my feet, and getting back to my business. I was in a horrible marriage.

My marriage, my wife at the time had kind of divided my family and myself, so I wasn't talking to my parents. And I started researching how to get back on my feet, and I started meditating, took a meditation class in 2016, and then started reading some spiritual books. And all of a sudden, I found myself reading The Death of Ivan Illich by Leo Tolstoy.

And in that book, I'm not sure if you're familiar with that book, maybe your readers are, I wasn't. And basically, Ivan was a judge in Russia, 1800s Russia, and he always wanted to be a musician. So his whole life, he wanted to have a creative outlet, and he was a judge.

His wife pushed him to be a judge, which sounded very familiar. His parents pushed him to be a judge. My parents were very driven, not to blame them, but they're a driven group.

And on his deathbed, he looked up, and he said, what if I lived my entire life wrong? And I just looked and said, oh my god, I'm living my entire life on the wrong career, with the wrong woman, in the wrong situation, unhappy, overweight, unfulfilled. And I went downstairs and told my wife that I'm getting divorced, and I'm done. And that was kind of the start of it all.

I mean, there's a lot to unpack there, but... Where do you want to start? Yeah. I suppose, your first meditation, because so many people think, ah, this is... What was your very first experience? Can you remember it? It was... So I live in Silicon Valley, and I paid a thousand dollars for a meditation class, and it was a three-visit class. It was like a half an hour each visit, and I'm like, that's really odd how I spent so much money, and I really got an hour and a half of instruction.

Interesting. So I eventually started my own meditation course, and I started teaching meditation. But the first class, it was a little perplexing.

It was like, you have these ideas of what you think meditation is supposed to be, and you have these ideas of what you think is supposed to happen. I was a football player in college. I was obviously a football player prior to that.

You know, I was a big guy, lifted weights, drank beer and ate pizza and did all those football things, and I never could have imagined meditating, and now I can't imagine not meditating. In fact, I'm meditating with my son at age 45. He's in college, and so I'm trying to get him into the habit of it, so I'm going to keep that going, you know, and I think it's such an amazing experience.

And the first experience was kind of by opening, and it was warm and welcoming and open, which kind of helped open the door for me. So kind of moving forward, you know, what's your kind of routine now? Because sometimes people, they say about meditation, and then they find different ways, but has it modified over the years? A little bit. So for me at that time, so when I asked to get divorced, when I decided to leave a 17-year marriage with 130-employee business, that she wouldn't sell me her half and wouldn't buy my half, so basically shut down, my life went into chaos.

I mean, complete chaos. I was supposed to have back surgery. When I left, I couldn't even stay at my parents' house.

I wasn't talking to them, and we were very close as a family. So this marriage really kind of drove that wedge and pushed, you know, my family apart. So I was really pretty distraught.

So I stayed at my friend who passed away. My best friend had died a couple years prior to that. It was like a soulmate to me.

I stayed at their house in this divorce, and at that time, I would meditate twice a day. I would meditate 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes at night, and I would literally get nauseous trying to meditate. I would sometimes lay on the floor, put my feet up on the bed.

My life was in so much chaos, and my mind was so busy trying to save my life. It was endlessly running scenarios and overthinking that I would sometimes get nauseous and run to the bathroom and vomit from trying to stop and process these thoughts. So now I probably do it, you know, 15-20 minutes at night, and then if I don't, I'll do it in the morning.

I like morning a lot better, actually. Very different experiences, morning and night for me. So it just depends.

Now it's once a day. Sometimes I miss it. It's okay.

But in general, you know, six days a week, I meditate in at night, 15 minutes. So I've seen the pictures of the before and the after. I mean, we can look at, you know, you look very healthy.

Thank you. But then, you know, I could have rolled you down the hill. Yes, 50 pounds.

50 pounds with a face like mine was pretty round and full. Definitely. Yeah.

So if you could take us through the transition and the mindset as well. Well, you know, I had the surgery, and I really couldn't walk. So I would get up in the morning, and I would slide out of bed, and I would crawl to my closet, and I would try to, you know, arch my back and do a cow and a cat move and yoga to get my spine moving.

Your spinal fluid would sit. This is before my surgery. That's why your cat was attracted to you.

Cat's still here walking around. She might hop in my lap here in a minute. But I eventually got a shot on my spine.

It was a chordal steroid that would make you function with this, you know, slip disc, which pinches your nerve. And so I would eventually get the shot. And my mindset at the time was to survive.

I was just trying to survive is all I was trying to do. And the shot helped a lot. And then I started researching, you know, therapy so I could, you know, get the surgery and then get back on my feet quicker to bail this business out, which wasn't doing very well at the time because my wife at the time and I just did not get along.

It was a very toxic relationship. You really can't run a business with someone that hates you. And it's even worse if you have resentment towards them.

So a lot of resentment, a lot of anger, a lot of vitriol, a lot of dysfunction. I couldn't agree on anything. And employees were like, you know, watching, you know, verbal plates get thrown back and forth at each other during the day.

And so that was kind of my life at the moment. And I, like I said, I started reading and I was never much of a reader. And I just said, what am I going to do? I'm in the hospital for like, you know, three days and then, you know, back surgery.

And then what am I going to do for six weeks? I can't move. So I started reading and that opened my life up. And I think those books, and I will never forget a famous quote that said, when the student is ready, the teachers, the teacher will appear.

And so my teachers came in all these books and then I would read them four or five or six times to understand them. These really complicated, you know, David Hawkins and Untethered Soul, Michael Singer. And, you know, I started reading some ancient texts, the Sutras by Patanjali and the Dhammapada, Upanishads, you know, a lot of these, the Bhagavad Gita, which is a wonderful book.

And they really did a tremendous, tremendous service for my knowledge base to get through all this. And because you mentioned you got the injection after, so did the operation not give you relief and you had pain afterwards? Great, great question. I had the shot and it wore off.

And I actually went skiing with the shot. The shot was so magnificent. Like all of a sudden you could move again.

And I had a ski trip planned that Christmas and I skied a little bit and the shot wore off. And then I said to the doc, hey, you know, what am I going to do until February when the surgery is? He said, we'll get you another shot. So I get the second shot.

I started doing this therapy that I found online and meditated. And I do cry to meditation for part of what happened. I canceled the surgery.

It was a two disc rupture. And after the second shot, I said to the doctor, hey, I'm not in that much pain. Like I can still kind of move around.

What's this shot like duration? He said, well, it peaks at three weeks and then it goes down. I'm on week four and I can really walk and move and like I'm kind of okay. So you can't heal this.

You have to have the surgery. We already have it approved. Insurance has covered it.

We have an operating room. This is happening February 29th. I said, well, I don't know that I need it right now.

It doesn't matter. You can't heal this. It's going to come back.

It's just remnants of the shot. You're going to have to come back. And then I went and saw a second doctor and he says, yeah, you can't heal this.

I saw the MRIs. This is a major rupture and you're never going to heal this. And your nerves are going to pinch in a matter of time.

I said, okay, well, I'm not in that much pain. Let's cancel it. And then we'll schedule it later if I need it.

He's like, you can only have two shots a year. If you get hurt again, you know, you can't, you can't have a shot. You're gonna have to deal with the pain.

And then the second doctor gave me like a prescription for this high anti-inflammatory. He's like, if you need it, take this. But if you're going to cancel it, you know, good luck.

Cancel the surgery. Here I am. Never had surgery.

Never cut my back open. Never cut my discs out. Uh, I run, I lift, I, I backpack.

Uh, I do everything. I ski and I credit meditation to, to most of that recovery, to be honest with you. And why I say it touched a nerve because I understand that I was in my early twenties and I had the same thing.

And I think it's stress that brings it on. It's overwork. And they say the disc is protruding.

I have a book there of all the things I tried. I tried acupuncture, chiropractor, physiotherapy, faith healer, physically or spiritually. And then they gave me a, an epidural.

They said they'd put me under and manipulate me. And I was getting pains on the other leg. And I unfortunately got the operation because I believed them.

They're lies and it didn't help. Yeah. And what helped me was I got a book, a book healing.

I know the way you just mentioned earlier, something lands on your lap. This book landed on my lap, healing back pain by Dr. John Sarno. And he's dead now, but there's even videos and there's free books.

And I healed myself within about two weeks. And it was like, and I've heard that book actually. Yeah.

There's been, I'd say at least 20 people that I've heard because sometimes people get it down the arm as well. They said the trapped nerve was there. Everyone I gave that book to healed.

So that's a lie that they're feeding us on that one. Yeah. And, and, you know, God bless you for fixing it yourself as well.

Granted, even though you had the surgery, it was probably those other things. And Dr. Sarno, I've heard of that book, um, that really did heal you. And I think you're right.

I mean, the mind built us, our brain built us at one point in time, you know, for me, 50 something years ago, it can do it again. And I think it's our mind that limits us. And I think, you know, meditation offers that, you know, in, in the book office that early, I use meditation, I call it a basic, like if you're a soccer player or a football, you're going to run, runs kind of like the basic, you have to have that cardiovascular strength.

If you're a swimmer, if you're a water polo player, you have to swim. So it means kind of like a basic thing you have to do. If you're a hockey player, you got to ice skate.

Like these are things that make you do the sport. Wow. If you live meditation, I think, I mean, if you can't control your brain, then your, your, your, your mind really controls you.

And I think meditation is that, that running to soccer and the swimming to water polo and that ice skating to hockey that you really need to help you do everything else more functionally. And I think it sounds like you, you kind of use that to heal more so than the surgery. No, definitely.

And there's another little thing that I don't normally tell people, but I feel like I had the scar and like always people say, what's that? You know, cause I was able to play squash. I was doing it. Everybody was like, and I was like, I think I was around 30.

I decided, all right, I'm covering this up with a tattoo. And I got this big yin yang over the scar. And then my friend said, that's a Trump stamp.

You know, so then I got a Jack Daniels tattoo on my arm, all because of that. Well, it's funny is, you know, I, uh, I don't think we'll believe, believe it. Like I also had knee surgery when, when I was younger, I got my new skin.

And then I went in for an ACL reconstruction and, uh, the doctor was a really great doctor and he started the surgery and he said, you know, we're not going to do this. We're going to stop. I said, stop.

Like I was literally, you know, had the anesthesia. It was a localized knee surgery anesthesia. And I was sedated a bit.

He says, you know, I'm going to pull out some cartilage and I'm going to leave the ACL. We're not going to reconstruct today. He says, why? He says, well, you're neat, you're young and you're good enough shape.

Let's just wait until technology improves with, uh, ACL surgery. And this is like in 1990 or something. I said, okay, well, it's 2026.

I've never gone back and had a knee surgery. Um, I used to have a knee brace. I didn't even wear it anymore.

I still ski and I do jumps every day, play tennis, you know? And I, and again, I credited a lot to meditation to put myself back together again. And I don't think people believe it. There's actually, I forget who done it.

There was a study with knee operations and they just drilled the holes, but they didn't do the operation and they got the exact same results. Yeah. The power of the mind.

The power of the mind, you know? Yeah. Well, and that's what happened with my son. I, we were at, uh, dinner a couple of nights ago.

He plays water polo at a division one school. And I said, guys, look, why you tell me why every really famous goat athlete, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Simone Biles, uh, Michael Phelps, why all of them meditate and you don't just, I'm just, I'm just curious. Like, like why? And they, they just really couldn't, they couldn't get given answers.

So now I'm kind of starting, starting them on it, uh, teaching them how to do it. And even cause like I'm an avid learner, I'm always reading it. And I remember Dennis Waitley, cause I've got the CD set there.

I don't even think people use CDs anymore, but, and yeah, he was training Olympic athletes and it was like visualizing it. And then they done all tests on that as well. And it was like, people that didn't train visualized this, the people that didn't do anything different and the people that done both.

And obviously that done both better, but even the people that visualized it, that, you know, had them, it's so it's, it's fascinating that I think it's positive belief as well. Cause like, I suppose if we, like the self talk, cause most people they're putting themselves down and they're, yeah, rating themselves and that, you know, they don't realize they're hard on themselves. Yeah.

They don't realize the power of words and how it affects ourselves. Well, you know, I kind of equated, um, I told him, I said, yeah, get a cup and hold it, hold it up like this. And I started pouring water in this cup.

And I said, is it giving any heavier? Like, yeah, it's getting heavier. This is a dinner. And I poured more water.

I says, is it getting heavier? He said, yeah, it's getting heavier. I said, well, the, that water are your emotions that you're carrying. And now I want you to carry this for 15 years, just like this 15 years, just keep holding it.

And it's going to get really heavy. And I think meditation is kind of like the, oh, I can put, I can put this down and let that, that emotional pressure off my brain. And when you do that, and again, I do credit it to healing and you do, you, you did as well.

So you believe me. Thank you. Right.

Um, I think what happens is when your mind breaks free and this was for me and my business, and this is for me with my health. And this is with me for even, you know, getting into another relationship and remarrying last year, your mind has room to grow and learn and fix and repair and see. And here it's just an amazing experience.

Uh, I mean, for me, it was pretty rough. Like when I lost my business, my ex-wife wouldn't sell it. She wouldn't buy my half.

I shut it down. This is a good thing. Goodbye.

Shutting it down. Like everyone fired. Goodbye, everybody.

You know, we had $9 million in accounts receivable. So everybody wanted their money. Uh, accounts payable was 9 million receivable was 9 million.

So there's no real money, but everyone that owed us money, it's like, yeah, we're not paying you because you're going out of business. Sue us. And everyone who was doing like, we need our money.

So we're going to sue you. So there was lawsuits and there was fighting and the bank eventually took my house or my primary residence at three houses. I went to trust.

And the main one was, uh, securing the debt for the business. So lost the house. And, um, you know, if it wasn't for meditation, I wouldn't have made it, but more importantly, I look back and all the things I learned, I wouldn't have learned the things I could have learned if I couldn't calm my mind down.

And I learned so much. I would never trade those experiences for, for who I am today and what I've gained today. And I think people don't realize how much it benefits you till you go through it.

Cause like I built a kind of a big real estate empire. A lot of people who are complaining. I was, you know, built 30 apartments and other things.

I got wiped out. I was doing okay, but like I had syndicates and they, they were big boys. They got wiped out first.

Eventually everything kind of came down and I was personally liable for 5 million lost. I had a lot of properties, lost everything, including my, my own house with, with my belongings. And it's, it's the meditation that got me through it.

It's like gratitude. And this is one that I want to ask. I'm not sure.

And maybe you'd want to, because you mentioned about, you know, because of your ex wife falling up with your family when you changed, were you able to fix that or. Yeah. You know, um, absolutely.

I mean, I was always incredibly close with my parents and, um, 17 years of, uh, of a drought of emotion between my family and I, um, uh, separated us and they respected that I had a life and I was, you know, they basically saw a psychiatrist. Cause your son's hijacked. He's, he's, um, he's brainwashed with this woman.

And, you know, you're not going to do anything until this ends. And then the therapist was like, yeah, it's never gonna, you're never going to get rid of this girl. You know, she was, you know, she had really narcissistic tendencies and really kind of dug her claws in and I was running around doing everything for everybody.

Um, but I've, I've reconciled my family and I'll never forget, you know, I hadn't talked to them and I went over to their house and I said, look, um, I'm divorcing, do we get divorced? And they were like, so happy. And I said, don't get that happy. I'm so pretty mad at you guys.

Like you guys really played a role in, in where this, where this went. And, and, you know, I learned a lot and I, and I had this quote from, uh, from Mark Twain that said, uh, forgiveness is the scent of violet leaves on the boot that just crushed it. And so I went to my parents and I said, I think you're a really horrible parents and I forgive you.

My mom was like crying and she was a great mother by the way, but you know, she would, you know, bake cookies and she would make Halloween costumes. We're talking about the best mother on, on, on paper, but emotionally she was busy and she was volatile and she was keeping my dad together. It was a successful lawyer and, you know, they did everything they could.

And, and, and, but as a middle child, I kind of got neglected and I, I kind of lost a sense of love as a child. And so from this marital collapse and this enlightenment of learning for me, you know, this bonanza of reading and understanding how the mind works and understanding how the world works and understanding, you know, new ways of integrating this. I said, I forgive you, mom, I forgive you for being a really shitty parent.

It was a really, a real cathartic and moving moment. And it was kind of like, it was my chance to give back and really understand what it meant to forgive. And, and that's such a hard thing for people because they think if they forgive that that person's going to hurt them again.

And it's really all about yourself. It's letting go of resentment and letting go of pain and letting go of all of the thoughts that you hold onto that make all those really negative emotions stick and stay in your brain. So I released it.

All this came out and I built an amazing relationship with my parents. They're in their eighties now. I took them to Tokyo last year.

My current wife and I organized a trip, took him to Hong Kong, took him to Tokyo. We traveled with them. They're amazing people.

They've always been amazing people. There was a times when it was rough, but now it's just a really amazing, amazing experience with them. I think, I mean, I know myself that there's been some relationships that I've been in and when you look back, you go like, knowing you're being manipulated and you know, like when you're trying to get away, then they're, they're, they're changing to get you back in.

And because you really care about them and you're attracted to them, they kind of know what strings to pull. And yeah, like the new me can see that a mile away. Cause it's like, I don't know, I was attracted to the thing, but one thing that I was able to do, and I'm not sure if you were able to do it as I was able to forgive them because like, like the, you know, cause what you say, it's the cells, they're poisoned.

And so you were able to forgive her as well. Oh yeah, no, I a hundred percent forgive my ex-wife. No.

And I, and I mean, this is someone that literally, when I said I'm going to get divorced, every dollar we owned, she transferred in her name. So I went on my bank account and said $16 and I'm like, what happened to everything? Why? I transferred it. Why did you do that? So you wouldn't.

So you just did something to stop me from doing it. I don't understand. Yeah, sorry.

You're divorcing me. So, you know, so I went, you know, I had to sue her and get divorced and I had to borrow money. My parents helped for my divorce.

And I literally had $16 in my name, three houses were in a trust, one house has been taken by the bank. And I had a company that was folding lawsuits, fighting no money. I couldn't get a job as I was working on all these lawsuits.

And it was pretty rough. And I a hundred percent forgive her. I don't have any resentment towards her or anybody.

In fact, I'm grateful. I wouldn't have the life that I have now if it wasn't for that experience. Yeah.

And I mean, it sounds like, I don't know, have you had as many as me? Because if you're still in construction, construction is a game that there's always going to be court. I've had over a hundred court cases and at the start, like my stomach used to churn. It was like just a horrible feeling and everything.

And then I got to, I was in control and I won loads of cases by being calm, paying attention and like telling the solicitor, they weren't, they weren't the ones winning the case. It was me spotting things. And just curious, did you ever kind of go through a transition of when you weren't kind of in control? No, because obviously if you're in construction, there could be still cases.

Well, I took a job. I went from making, you know, half a million dollars a year with my business to $65 an hour. And I was okay with that.

I said, look, you know, life took me here and I had a whole new outlook on life. And that's kind of a lot of what Alpha's Diet Early is all about. It's about being sovereign.

It's about finding contentment in life and learning all these spiritual lessons. And the lessons I learned, you know, and I'll get to your question. These were like, when I would read these old texts, like these 5,000 year old books, and then I'd read modern books like a Neville Goddard or a Wayne Dyer, or, you know, even something Hawkins, David Hawkins, Dr. David Hawkins, they all kind of said the same thing.

Like, wow, there's a lot of, a lot of power in this, in this consistency of these teachings. And so Alpha's Diet Early is really about a collection of these books. I use some Einstein, I use a lot of Nietzsche, I pull in some Joseph Campbell.

I use movies or storylines to kind of weave together these lessons. It's about being sovereign. It's about self-mastery, which Jung talks a lot about is self-mastery.

And so I, and what that means is that you can forgive. What it means is you're whole. And so for me, I started this new construction company in 2022.

We're an eight figure business in very short period of time. Very successful, luxury home construction. I'm incredibly grateful.

I don't have any You know, in the Gita, the Bhagavad Gita talks about you farm because you love farming. And for me, I always say, if you love to walk, you will walk longer and farther than if you walk to a destination. And the Gita, they talk about farming and your yield, your crop yield.

If you love to farm, you farm for farming. And the yield is what it is. It really isn't up to you, the yield.

It's the sun. It's the, it's the nutrients. You can do some things, but ultimately these, these plants are going to grow.

And so for me now, I walk because I love walking a lot. I walk because it's part of my life and I enjoy every step. And in business, it's exactly the same.

I don't do anything for money. I do everything for morality. Everything is, is what I learned.

And every choice that I make is as pure and as honest and as authentic without ever compromising any objective morality. And I think it's an important work because a lot of times people get in situations and they have this, you know, subjective morality. Well, I could kind of take the square peg and round the corners off and make it fit.

You know, I don't do that anymore. So, so I've had no fights, no lawsuits, no arguments. The business runs very, very smoothly and, and it's just an amazing change.

Fantastic. And I mean, through my journey, I kind of realized the freedom as well. You know, especially when you see people trying to manipulate you and the one there, that's the Sovereign Man podcast.

And it's, it's kind of realizing, I mean, I've had guests on the other one and that's why it's specific to this, but it's like realizing your own power. And you talked about the walking as well. Every day I go walking and there was times where you'd be kind of putting other things in the way.

And then when I get a chance and the same with the gym, cause I had a bad accident just at the end of the year, I slipped on ice and fractured my, my pelvis, my vertebrae and my L1. Yeah. So it kind of knocked me, but now I start to come back to the gym and like tomorrow it'll be two, 14 days in a row.

And it's like, before what used to happen is I'd kind of, I'm busy, you know, and I tried to go later and then you get tired and now I'm like, no, this is priority. But the walking over that time and everything, like, and I think mindfulness as you're walking, that you're just paying attention, watching the birds, all these different things instead of kind of going, even like there was a time where I was listening to audio books or a podcast. And, you know, I definitely encourage people to listen to the podcast, but there's times where just being with yourself and your thoughts, because you don't go into the creative mode and your thoughts when you're listening to podcasts, cause you're paying attention to the podcast or the audio book.

And there's times not having anything is good as well. And I'm just curious, like, I mean, if you're walking on your own, it's different when you're with somebody. I love going with my son, you know, we have a lovely conversation and things like that.

But if you're on your own, do you listen or are you kind of present with yourself? Well, I think, yeah, that's a great question. I think walking can be used for lots of different things. And, um, I do it all.

I walk for exercise, you know, I'll go for a hike. Uh, I'll walk with my, my, my wife now. Um, and, and I'll walk for exercise and I'll walk for conversation and I'll walk for audio books.

Cause I think it's a great way to listen, to get some, some movement and listen, but I a hundred percent agree with you. I walk more to let go. And I tell people, you know, when they're going through some tough times, go for a walk and try not to think you can't not think right.

Your brains is going to think like, you know, I always say what your, what air is to your lungs and what blood is to your heart thinking is to your mind. They're all trying to keep you alive with a different, with different content. And so your mind's going to just start throwing things.

But, but, you know, I tell people just look at the clouds, look at the trees, look at the sun, look at the sky, just try. And I think when you, when, when the noise goes down, you can hear, you can hear more, you can hear intuition, you can hear guidance, you can hear ideas, you can hear creativity, you can hear thoughts. And, and, you know, intuition doesn't have much of the brain as a, as an assist to help it get its message across.

So intuition is very quiet. It's very subtle. It doesn't have neurotransmitters or hormones to get across.

It's a very fleeting thought that kind of runs across your mind. You know, you should do this and, you know, fear and stress and, and low self-esteem and even happiness through oxytocin or serotonin or even dopamine. These are very powerful thoughts and emotions that are released from your brain in chemical form.

And they're very heavy. It's like getting hit on the back with an idea and you're like, well, the idea says, be afraid. Oh, wow.

You know, it's very powerful. And intuition is very quiet. And so I think when you walk and, and let go, and it is, it is a form of meditation.

It's kind of a movement meditation. When you do that, when you walk for meditation, you're, you're turning a lot of noise down and then the volume goes up of every other aspect of your, of your psyche and, and your mind and your subconscious, you have access to it. And I think it's a very important activity to do.

Absolutely. So the ego, because that's something I know you touch on. So, I mean, you can even see it with people.

We probably all experienced it ourselves, especially the, you know, alpha man, maybe touch on the ego. Well, I think I, um, that's good. Well, thanks for asking, because I think it's a really important aspect.

And this, this is like, I always say you can't, you can't speak butterfly to a Caterpillar, not to say there's anything wrong with either or, or neither is better. It's just a transition. It's a language.

You can't speak Italian to someone who speaks English. And so you have to kind of learn the language and ego is one of those really big things. And the best way I could say, it's kind of like a peacock, peacock feathers.

Right. And I talk about this a lot in the book, you know, men peacock and masculinity is, is an ego form. Masculinity is part of identity as well as where you want to portray your social economic status to the world.

So I look at it like you, you, you meet somebody and you look at your, your peacock feathers and say, wait a minute. I think this person wants me to be more demure, more emotional, or you've got coloring in feathers, you'd start making feathers and then you, you portray. And then I was working and they like, they like what I'm presenting.

It's like a mask. It's a veneer and it's feathers. And what happens is people end up picking the feathers and not the bird.

And so you go into a different circle, you know, and they want something different. Oh, I have to be brash and I have to be alpha and I have to be a big guy. Let me color in some different feathers.

And you start coloring and making different feathers. And you say, look, here I am. And then they, they hire the, the feathers, not the bird.

And that's a very unsustainable way to start a relationship, whether it's in love or in business, because it's false. It's, it's manufactured identity. And, and the ego is a manufactured identity.

And after reading the book, Sapiens, you realize that the ego was created when, when homo sapiens converted and got cognition, we have 2 million years of animalistic behaviors. And then all of a sudden we got cognition and every other hominoid, hominoid, went extinct. Neanderthal, homo erectus, all these human forms went extinct except for us.

And then, and they went extinct because as a, as an animal, we were not going to survive this world and its transition. So the homo sapien got cognition and became the most powerful animal on this planet. And there's a reason for that in this cognition and it's, and it's ego.

So ego was meant to save our lives. But now, now life is so complicated. Life is visual.

Life is information. Life is computers. It's internet.

It's connectivity. And the ego doesn't serve us like it once did. It's survival techniques.

It's survival mechanisms really just harm us. And it keeps throwing feathers up that really don't provide the assistance that we need anymore. So we, we can't remove that process.

It's part of our psyche, but that's the duality of being spiritual is, is that we, we think we're something, we think we're our ego, and this is back to speaking caterpillar and butterfly. We think we're something. And when we, we hear those words in our, in our mind, we think those, those thoughts are ours.

And it's a singularity. And then at some point you, and it sounds like you've had this experience, you break into this duality. Wait a minute.

I don't need to listen to everything that I think. Everything that I think may not be best for me. I don't have to believe everything that I think.

And usually we're overthinking based on the data in our brain and our brains thrown around ideas. And overthinking is just this heavy thought process of trying to find safety in the world. And, and it's usually trying to find safety for our ego, not for our body.

And then as we, we branch into this duality, we begin to have some level of awareness and we understand that emotions and thoughts aren't exactly the best for us. And meditation is the first chance of ignoring thoughts and letting thoughts go and having some control and some choice around behavior to these thoughts. And then as you keep going, this arc kind of goes to the other side and you become singularity on the spiritual side.

And I think everyone has that path. Nietzsche talked about it with his Übermensch. Joseph Campbell talked about it with the Hero's Journey.

The Bhagavad Gita talks about it with Arjuna and his conversations with Krishna. And that's the path we're all on, whether you know it or not, if you're stuck here, that's great. At some point in life, you might crack that, that singularity into a duality.

And that's an important thing to do. And the ego is very confusing and it changes and it's very, it can be very destructive. And even with, I suppose the craziness of the last few years, but different belief system.

Sometimes there's some information out there and based on propaganda and everything, I get it, how people can fall for it. But even when the truth comes out and you get true information, there's some people, they refuse to let go. They're just like, no, I'm sticking to it.

And that's the ego. It's like, they're just, they're trying to hold face. I've seen that even with cousins and stuff like that.

It's like, you can show them black and white, hey, this is it. No, they won't change. And that's across the world, the way that's going on.

And what I see the ego does, this is like the most destructive thing that it does in my research. And I talk about this a lot and I'm passionate about getting this information out because it's really powerful. We are an animal.

Our biological tendencies are for survival. We are a tree where the leaves are reaching for light and the roots are reaching for water. Roots aren't navigating to Disneyland.

They're literally just looking for water. It's like, hey, where's water? That's all they do. And the leaves are like, not trying to reach for the skies because they want to have aspirations.

They're like, just get me more sunlight. I need sunlight. That's all it does.

And we're the same way in a much more complicated way. We are literally animals in the animal kingdom. And we crawled out of the water and we became homo sapiens.

We got cognition. And so we really should do more than just survive. And that's what the ego does is it's all about survival.

And the goal is to break out of that survival mode and people stick to beliefs because they think it helps their survivability. It's the animal side of us, which has hijacked cognition and is using cognition for an animalistic behavior. Just grab these skills and say, hey, wait, we have these skills as cognition.

Let's use them to survive. And I think one of the biggest things that we see is it prevents being vulnerable. And as an animal, I imagine a dog being put in a defenseless position would not be a very attractive position for that dog to be in.

And so as animals, we do not want to feel defenseless. It's against nature because our goal is to survive. It's considered weak and defenseless.

And then as a man, we're taught even more, don't show your emotions, repress feelings, hold them in. You're not going to be a man. You're not going to be a provider.

And there's some truth to that. A lot of women want the alpha male because that's back of the animal side, those women. And nothing's wrong with anybody in this scenario.

And no one's broken in this scenario. It's just the animal side of us, which is inherent, connecting at an animalistic level. But that's also a woman choosing a man for feathers and vice versa.

It isn't really choosing the bird. You don't even have to be an alpha to get a girl. You have to look like an alpha.

It's good enough. Have the feathers and you're going to get it. And same thing with jobs.

If you want to make a lot of money, you go pretend. It's a shortcut to success and failure. So being vulnerable kind of goes against nature.

And then being defenseless and vulnerable goes against for a man in terms of society and relationships. And yet it's looked as being weak. And it's the strongest thing you can do to be vulnerable.

To share a defenseless position is the strongest thing you can do as a human. It defies nature. It defies society, defies programming.

And it defies the reputation of being weak when it truly is the strongest thing. And when you can do that, you become sovereign. You have self-mastery to swallow fear and say, I need to say this, I need to do this.

I know people are going to think it's very vulnerable, but I have to admit this and not to say this because it's salient and it's important and I'm going to do it. And to step across that threshold of fear and be vulnerable is a remarkably freeing and powerful thing to do. And that's what the ego and the belief structure prevents us from doing and growing.

That's probably the biggest thing it stops us from. I mean, I've with my own journey kind of experienced that and learned that. But for those, because sometimes people, even emotions, they're afraid to cry because they think, you know, because, you know, that's kind of, you're brought up, you know, boys don't cry kind of thing.

And, you know, it's a sign of weakness. And like, I think when you stand in your sovereignty and even like this times, if 99% of people are saying this, but I know this is my beliefs and not being afraid, there's nothing more empowering. And then, you know, you realize it.

But for those that are kind of, I suppose they still have the shell around them because it does. The thing is when you kind of, when you become sovereign, when you become, you can see it in people, you can see, but it's very hard to kind of break that shell because it has to come from within. It can't be me tapping with a hammer and breaking the shell.

So what's the best way for the person that's stuck in, I know it's a million dollar question, it's a hard one, but for them to try to find it, to break out of the shell. That is, that is a question that philosophers, Epictetus, you know, Jung, I mean, most philosophers and thought leaders and psychiatrists have been asking for thousands of years, how do you do that? That's a great question. And, you know, I spend a lot of time helping people do that.

That's in both my books, The Imperative Habit published in 2019, my first book, and this book really is about answering that question. And how do you build up that? And I think that the simple answer is, first of all, your ego cannot see itself because it's a mechanism that's being used for survival and it's designed to make you think that it's you. So if anyone listening has not had the experience of just the first crack of duality to have awareness, you know, and awareness is really that word that we have to talk about.

Viktor Frankl talks about it in his book, A Man's Search for Meaning. You know, he cracked the duality in Auschwitz as a prisoner of war in World War II, Germany. Awareness, and it's not awareness of like your surroundings, it's an awareness of your own internal emotions.

When you're aware of what's happening inside of your brain and you can watch it and begin to talk to it, and then when you're aware that you're having that awareness, so when you say, I'm aware that I'm talking to myself, I'm aware that I'm asking fear to take a back seat, I'm aware that I'm asking low self-esteem to just stop for a second and have a conversation with me. When you're aware of that conversation, that's the seat of consciousness. And a lot of new technology or new scientists call it metacognition, and they say it's the highest level of intelligence to have metacognition.

Another word of saying it is thinking about thinking, and the traditional word is awareness or the seat of consciousness. And to have that awareness is what cracks it. And how do you pull awareness in? That is the hardest part, is how you pull that awareness in.

And I think there's lots of steps to get there. And that's why I use vulnerability, because to me, the first step of awareness is to remove the fear that stops awareness from actually happening. Blame, shame, vulnerability, those are the key things to kind of stop awareness from emerging as a common process to live through life.

It blocks your ability to say, stop, I'm feeling fear, and now you've cracked into this duality from singularity to duality, I'm aware that I'm having this emotion of fear, why I'm afraid. I'm afraid because if I say this, I'll be defenseless and vulnerable, and people are going to look down on me, and I'm not going to survive. I'm an animal, and if I get laughed at and told I suck and not get this job that I really want, I'm not going to survive, and I'm going to die like an animal or a tree that can't get water or light.

And there's no truth in that. And everyone thinks there's truth in that. And there's not.

And the reason there's not, and I relied this quote a lot, there is no such thing as stability in nature. It doesn't exist. There's really no such thing as safety in the world, and everyone thinks that they're being safe, but look at Steve Jobs.

He had all the money in the world and his business, and he died of a disease. Kobe Bryant, top of his game, the goat in basketball, died in a helicopter. There's no such thing as security.

When you realize that security is an illusion, then you can kind of use that to pull in some vulnerability. Use that vulnerability to tackle fear and find the courage to release shame, to release blame, and to take some responsibility for your own emotions and decide. I'm not suggesting you walk around the street crying and being emotional.

I'm suggesting that when you need to say something, you say what you need to say, what you have to say. When you have to say it without fear, your life will progress in the right ways. And that takes awareness, and that takes courage.

End of story. And the thing is, when you kind of reflect on your younger self, where you bite your tongue with, whether it's family, situations, work, as soon as you kind of live in the moment, live in your truth, you never say something that you go, oh, I shouldn't have done that. It's never happened to me.

Yeah. It's the time. Yeah.

You know, when you look back and you're tiptoeing, you know, to be around certain people because you don't want to rock the boat, and once you shake the boat and get rid of the people that you don't want on the boat, it becomes 10 times better. Well, this is actually a true story. When I first started seeing my current wife, my second wife, we dated for many years, and we went to Italy maybe a year into our relationship.

And, you know, for me, it was really important. I'm not going to show off. It's all bird.

They do not think I'm this. Don't think I'm lying to you. I'm not a wealthy person.

I lost my company, and this is my life, and don't think anything more than it is, and I want you to see me. And don't you give me any fake feathers either. Like, I want to see you.

I want to see the bird. Don't, don't. And so we went to Italy, and there I am, you know, fresh off of growing, and I probably started seeing this woman three years after my divorce was final, you know, so maybe like 2019.

I left in 2016. Anyway, so we get back from Italy, and I say, you know, I think it's really honorable to give her information on where I am so she can make a decision on me. I don't want to monopolize the choice scenario.

So I said, hey, there are some things in Italy that I witnessed on our trip that really kind of concerned me, and I just need to work on those and figure those out, but I'm at the stage where this might not work out. I can't be sure. She's like, well, what are they? I said, well, I can't tell you because it will change for me and for the relationship, and I don't want you to do that.

I need to come to grips with these and decide if I can accept them or not, and if I can, I own them. There's no resentment, and they're on me. We have to tell me what they are.

I said, no, I can't tell you what they are. I don't want you to change. I want, this is you.

I need to accept you for who you are. And she said, I think that's crazy. How could you not tell me? And I said, because it's not material to you.

It's material to me. I need to decide, and if I accept these, there's no resentment. I have 100% accountability that I accepted this, and I'll never comment or let it bother me again, and it took some time working it out, and I figured that I could accept this.

This is a behavior, and she was just a little more materialistic at that time than I wanted. It wasn't like this big catastrophic thing. It was she was more into jewelry and leathers, and I was more into the Coliseum and Michelangelo, and so that was this gist.

I'm like, is this acceptable to me? But I said it, and I said what I had to say, and it was vulnerable, and it was hard, and I was going to risk losing her for her to say, I can't believe this guy. But I saw it as a requirement to be vulnerable and to share that I don't want to lead her on and give her the opportunity to make a choice, and I needed to work on this myself and say that, and I think that was a really important step, and in relationships, we curate and hold a lot of words in, and we don't really get the relationships we want because we're always obfuscating and giving up things that we want just to keep balance and to keep safety, and I'm not going to keep any relationship. Even when we got married, I said, this doesn't mean a whole lot.

I love you, and this is great, and we'll get married, but just keep in mind that at some point if things happen, it doesn't offer any more security than before. Not that we argue we're having any bad, everything's fantastic, but you never know where destiny is going to take you, and so, and I believe in the quote, there's no such thing as security in the world, and because of that, my life is incredibly easy, and my relationship is open and honest and open in terms of sharing information and dedicated, and it's an amazing, freeing place to be. That's very deep what you've just said, and I think it's beautiful.

No, it's fantastic because what happens usually is you're trying to change the person, and then you end up hating the person because they're resenting you, you resent them, but the thing is, and I'm not sure has this happened, when you kind of just stay true to yourself, and then you learn, I have to accept like what you've done, sometimes by them seeing you, they change themselves, which needs to happen rather than you changing them. That absolutely happened. You know, I stopped drinking many years ago for health, and then I just don't drink anymore now just because alcohol just kind of numbs you and takes away, makes the noises louder.

It's like a megaphone in terms of amplification, and so she stopped drinking eventually, and I said, I don't care if you drink as much as you want, but if you start storing your words or you get a little bit beyond you, I don't want to be around you. It just dates over. Like, I don't care.

I'm not going to shame you. It's your life. I'm not going to tell you how to live your life.

You know, being sovereign means all decisions are mine that I have to make, and sometimes those are hard decisions, and so I think early on, she may have had a cup of glasses of wine, and I could just hear a hint of her voice. I said, you know, let's just go home. You know, I wasn't going to make a big deal of it, and I didn't, but that's the point where I need to establish my boundaries.

My boundaries aren't to insult people. My boundaries aren't to defy people. My boundaries are protect me and honor me, and when I violate a boundary, I'm basically sabotaging a promise to myself, and I think when you become sovereign and you live that life, the people around you either adopt or it just kind of fades away, and had she not done some of the things, we probably just would have faded apart, and that's okay.

I didn't need to. You know, things went the way they're supposed to go, but the fact that she wanted to change for her, and I would say, don't not drink for me. Don't do anything for me.

Don't change for me. Don't try to get me. Don't like wash the dishes because I have three kids and I'm a single parent to help me unless you genuinely want to do it for you because I don't want you to try.

I want the bird. I don't want any feathers. Do not ever veneer me, and I think because of that, there's no resentment.

I've never had a relationship, and I call it a non-attachment relationship, which is a very big loaded word because the relationship isn't based on me getting something or her getting something. I'm not getting camaraderie, although I have it. I'm not in this to get a partner, although I have it.

I'm not getting this to have someone to travel with, although I do. Those things I'm not attached to, and when you get in a relationship and you're attached to share bills or to have a roommate or to not be single, those are the things that you're dating or committed to, not the bird, and so for me, I could walk at any moment, not because it wouldn't be hard, but because it's vulnerable and it's the right thing to do if something happens that I would stick up for myself and be sovereign and have the mastery over fear and the mastery over the worry of the future to do the right thing if I had to, and attachment wouldn't get in the way. Beautiful, beautiful.

So, fine, like I was looking at the book with the reviews and it was like all fives there, which in beautiful comments, which is fantastic. So you might just tell the listeners what you're covering in the book. I know we've touched on some of the stuff in it, but you kind of give a little break down.

Well, the book starts with, there's three parts. The first part is the problem, and I see a lot of men, I have two boys, I see a lot of young men suffering. They're suffering, and I go over why I think they're suffering.

I go over the anatomy, I go over the statistics of where they're suffering. Three to four suicides are men, mental health crises are up for men, drug abuse is up for men, incarceration is up for men, higher education is down for men. Men just aren't thriving, and I think it's an identity issue.

They, the definition of being a man has changed so much. The definition of an alpha has changed so much, so rapidly, that they don't know what feathers to create. They're trying to make feathers, and every swipe of social media, they need new feathers, and they're constantly coloring and making new feathers to survive.

And so it starts with the problem, and then it starts with how deep the problem is, from Darwinian origin of species, and DNA factors of how we are as animals. It goes into society and programming, it goes into individual programming from our own individual nucleus family, and how that family and birth order affects our identity and our survivability. And then it goes in how to break the trend, and then it goes into how to become sovereign and have self-mastery.

And these are really deep spiritual practices, and when I say spiritual, I mean things like awareness, I mean things like vulnerability, which to me are, and I look at spirituality like, if you're running, your legs give you feedback and say, hey, there's lactic acid in your muscles, you should stop. And then a little voice says, no, no, no, keep going, we can keep going, we're going to get stronger if we keep running. That to me is a spiritual behavior, to act beyond feedback that's trying to have you do something else.

So to be vulnerable, and to remove shame, and to stop blaming, and to step into higher self-esteem versus lower self-esteem, is define the feedback of the body. So in running, lactic acid, heart rate, flush face, hey, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, this is a lot of feedback, this is heavy, stop. No, no, I'm going to keep going, I'm going to keep going.

And on the spiritual side, it's, this is fearful, don't do this, you could die, all these thoughts of, you can't say that, or you have to act this way, or do this way, or say this thing. That's feedback of fear, and to act beyond that is spiritual. So the book really goes into how to create those skills, how to find those skills, and really about how, and the book goes into the value of this, that isn't that apparent on a social, you know, news, social media scale, but the book really talks about who and what people have really become amazing, like some of the most powerful people this world has ever seen, the most influential people, have these traits and these skills.

And so the book really goes into, step by step, here are the basics, here are the basics, here are the challenges, and here are the plays. And so there's 15 plays, there's four challenges to overcome to make people aware of them, and then basics. The basics, like meditation is one of the basics that you got to do.

You just have to train your brain to be able to utilize it as an effective tool for growth. And that's, that's kind of the nexus of the book. Yes, and I said finally, but this is something, because I just love, you know, your whole thought process and everything, how you analyze things.

You mentioned that you were a middle child, kind of like the forgotten child. I have seen that a lot in my life, that first child, ooh, the baby, and then the youngest, ooh, the baby. And for the parent that has three children, what advice would you give them for the middle child? Oh, I've become such a better parent.

I wish I had this skill when I was a younger parent. Now I treat all my children like sovereign people, even if they're not. I can support them and pick them up for money and experience and wisdom and knowledge, but it's their life and their choices.

And so my middle son, you know, you can't escape programming and you don't even know how your children are going to be programmed, but they're just going to be programmed. And it's not up to you. It is to some degree.

I mean, you know, being calm and model, model behavior is a very powerful thing for a parent to lead what kind of behaviors are good, but they're still going to get programmed. There's even fetal imprinting now that science is going into. Epigenetics also affects the growth of a child and has nothing to do with parenting.

But in terms of parenting, you know, what I mean by letting my children make their own choices is I realized that suffering is good for children. I know a lot of parents are like, don't let your children suffer. Look, suffering serves one very important value, and that is to teach you that you no longer need to suffer.

And typically we suffer as long as we need to suffer until we learn we don't need to suffer. And that's a very long, could be very long life lesson. And my middle son was very overweight and he would go order two hamburgers and two pieces of chocolate cake.

And my brother's like, you can't let him do that. And I say, that's his life. He's got to have to choose.

And I say, Hey, you know, to my son, you, you know, that that's going to make you fat, right? You know, that that's informationally from experience, you know, that's like really bad. You're going to be fat. He's like, yeah.

So, but you want to make that choice. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. I'm going to admit, okay, it's your choice.

I'm not going to, it's your choice. And he suffered. He was really overweight.

But, but at some point, what I did do is I taught him how to make choices. I taught him, you choose this, you get this result. You choose this, you get that result.

And it doesn't always happen immediately. Sometimes you got to put some tenacity into getting the results you want with your choices. I taught them how to make choices.

So now he, he's a Division One water polo player. You know, he, he's stopped eating two pieces of chocolate cake, stopped eating two pieces, two hamburgers and this really bad diet. And he learned how to make choices.

And my daughter's the same way. You know, I, I say, look, so I'm going to go see a friend. I said, you know, the roads are wet.

You're new with your driver's license. You know you know how dangerous that is. He says, yeah.

I said, so if you crash, you know, it's your choice. Like, are you aware of, of the severity of how young a driver you are and how a new rain affects cars? I just want to give that information. He says, yeah, it's okay.

Don't, if you hurt yourself, it's all you. This is your choice. And, and I can tell you about it.

It's your body. And I think that autonomy, um, there's protection through discussion and protection through conversation and protection through wisdom. But as a parent, I want my children to be sovereign.

I want them to see that the world is abundant. I want them to see that if they suffer, they have to solve it. Um, and they've all really thrived because of it.

All three of my children. It's hard. It's hard.

It's definitely difficult to see your children suffer, but it's, it's, it's their life, not mine. My suffering should not be, um, an impact to how I, how I parent. The way I suffer, my disappointments, my children are nothing like me and none of them are anything like me.

And so I look at them and I can't make them be me. And I can't let my, um, maybe sadness or, or, or thoughts that they're not me drive my decisions and how I'm going to be a parent. I'm a parent a hundred percent on their level, what they need as a person.

And I give them objective reality and objective morality and objective truths. And I try to move the subjectivity. They'll say, they'll say something that's, that's your subjective perspective.

That's not shared by the world. And that's, that's okay. But just know that not everyone feels that way and accept my right to think something different.

And we'll, we'll disagree. And I'll say, well, I think this is best. And she'll say, I think this is best.

And I'll say, okay, we disagree. Who should be the authoritative person in this conversation. Sometimes she'll say she should.

And sometimes she'll say that I should, okay. We are, we're at a tie on the tiebreaker. We're a tiebreaker.

And that creates a lot of independence with my children. Excellent. Like my, my youngest, um, you know, at some stage, you know, he was into hot dogs cause you know, we, we broke when he was just one.

And I just, what I started doing is showing him how it's made and I have an app. So when I'm shopping, I go, it has to be above something. So it's shown me the toxins and everything.

I go, Hey, you don't want this. And even kebabs, you get into kebabs. I explained, Hey, there's kebabs that are kind of molded together and it's not meat at all.

It's all processed stuff. And then there's the layered one and he understands it in it. Yeah.

It worked, but yeah, I never, he's 12 now. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You have one child, right? No, no. My, my eldest, she was 26, uh, yesterday. Wow.

Wow. Congratulations. Yeah.

Yeah. Kind of spread there. Yeah.

Yeah. No, but I think, uh, yeah, it's, uh, the love that you have for your child, but what that's one thing I've learned as well is some people think they own their child and all we're there is to support them and be there from, and just let them become them and learn, you know, the beauty is actually learning your child and seeing what they become instead of molding them or going, you have to be a solicitor because I was a solicitor. You have to be a doctor.

And they just resent that. So I think that's the thing that I find with parenting is don't try to make them something or not. Let them be free.

I try not to be, I mean, I think my parenting, you know, I've taken these, these principles, these universal principles. And so the reason I like to say objective morality is that I take these principles in a vacuum, like by myself, without any stress or any, any pressure situation. And so these are these rules and not rules like said fast food, but their ideals, their, their spiritual ideals.

Right. And then I just apply them the same through, through business or through life or through parenting or through athletics or through love, but they don't change. It's still the same objective and it doesn't get morphed or shaved or curated or clipped or marginalized because of a stressful situation where integrity is, you know, saying you're going to do something and then doing it where honesty is like, Oh, it wasn't my intention to hurt you.

That's honest, but, but you did hurt me. And so integrity is like advanced, advanced honesty, you know, honesty before you need to be honest, you know, honesty can be, can be, I mean, it's honest to say somebody who's overweight, but it really isn't truth. And it really isn't needed to be said.

So I take these principles towards parenting and I try not to be a parent. I try to lead through example, and I try to give my children advice and knowledge, but I try not to get in their way and let them live their life. And it's just a standard, you know, and I, and I see this with people when I see people talk and you can see when it's, Oh, that's just the way I am.

I I'm a, I'm a uptight person. Well, that's a choice. No, no, it's just the way I am.

No, it is. It's the way you were raised. It's your programming, but you can't change it.

No, no, that's the way it was. Do you like that about yourself? I don't like it, but I'm really, really detail oriented. Well, do you like that? Well, not really.

You can change it. Like you can, it isn't just your personality. Your personality was created over time.

It isn't, you're not stuck with it. And so when I hear people talk like that, I can immediately see where they are in their process of being spiritual, which is open-minded, open-hearted, reverence for life. Um, you know, these, these beliefs of gratitude, giving kindness, openness, you know, uh, surrender, not in a quitting way, surrender to the things you can't control.

Some of it's stoicism, but I really call it spirituality. I mean, stoicism is a form of just this acceptance. The life is what it is.

It's raining, you know? And for me, like I would have dinner, dinner parties. I would never ask somebody if they had a nice time because I didn't invite them over to have a nice time. I invited them over to do the best job that I could and enjoy their company.

Them having a nice time isn't up to me. That's up to them. So I would do the best I could for me.

I would, uh, my goal was to have a nice, enjoyable time for myself and enjoy their company. Well, that they had a nice time really wasn't up to me. So I wouldn't even ask So that was so, you know, steadfast on these principles.

So people would lay in and I'm so glad that you came to see me. I really enjoyed your company. Um, I did the best I could to help you have a nice time, but it didn't matter whether they did or they didn't because that wasn't up to me.

So I didn't ask. That's a very good point as well. Cause even like you're having the party, like sometimes instead of enjoying it because it's in your place and your friends and everything, and you can just, you're there paying attention and you're just going around making sure everyone has a drink, everyone has this, and you end up not really being present.

And it's like the old me was like that. The new me is like, no, just relax. Yeah.

Not trying to impress anybody. I don't need to try too hard. I just need to do what's best, the best I can.

And that's good enough. Excellent. Listen, totally enjoyed it, David.

You might let the listeners know where they can find you. Oh, well, I had a great time too, Roy. Great questions.

Really. Um, you really pay attention and ask all the great follow-up questions. And I really appreciate that.

Um, my website's daverossiglobal.com. I have a meditation course there as well as my books, um, books on Amazon, uh, the imperative habit and alpha's diet really released in 2026, January. And then on Instagram, Dave Rossi global and Tik TOK, Dave Rossi global. Excellent.

And make sure I put the links on the video and we have to make sure that we get the cat to confer that it's okay. Thanks very much. So thanks so much for having a great day.

So that's all for the meditation podcast. You'll find all our episodes on meditation podcast.org. You find everything about me, scan the QR code and the sovereign new podcast as well as there. And if you're looking for virtual assistance, go to va.org. Thumbs up five-star and maybe share with three friends.

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Take care.