141 Amir Ahmad Nasr: From Activist to Unleashing Voices of Leaders

[00:00:00] Welcome to noble warrior. My name is C Klin noble warriors. We interview thought leaders about their journey from being a burnout warrior to a noble warrior in reclaiming their deep joy and purpose. So you can do the same.

My next guess is Amir Ahmad Nasr. He's an exiled author journalist and pro-democracy activist. His writings have been featured in the Atlantic foreign policy wall street journal in the New York times.

Today. He helps leaders and entrepreneurs tell their own stories with more purpose, focus prosperity fulfillment and freedom.

And on the creative side, he's also the artist singer songwriter, Dreama Starlight working on his debut album.

We talked about the pros and cons of building a personal brand transcending beyond the parent child relationship being rooted in your soul's purpose. Accelerating your [00:01:00] soul audience fit with technologies and finding your soul print and awakening your true leadership voice.

If you enjoy this conversation. Please leave a review on what you got from the conversation on iTunes and all the different platforms. It really make a difference for us.

Please enjoy my conversation with Amir Abe Nassar.

[00:01:23] CK: Last weekend I got a chance to meet with the chief of the Jajuan hour. Try it from the Amazons. And then I had a very visceral experience interacting with in his presence. Just how grounding here. And powerful voice, powerful storytelling, powerful wisdom downloads, and has a very, just the word is powerful, right?

Experienced interacting with a man. And he's only 31. So age has very little to do with, um, the power that he has is very, very [00:02:00] connected spiritually present. And then his facility to sing, to use his voice, to use uses tools are just powerful. And one key insight that I got is the name of the podcast is noble warrior.

So we use warrior metaphors quite a lot, right? The DOE Joe's and martial arts. But for him, it's not a metaphoric description when he is leaning his packs into the Amazon to hunt. Game of survival, truly. He's not only the hunter, but he's only, he's also the hunted. If he's not aware of it, then, you know, Jaguar could to like take them out like this.

If he's not aware, if he doesn't use his discernment, he can get lost in the middle of a jungle and then not being able to find his way home. Indeed. So, so, so I [00:03:00] want to use that as a segue, to your story of being a media warrior for many years, right? You were a journalist, you are a blogger and you let the pack of being an activist, you know, using your true identity, your voice to make change in the world.

Shall we say so. So if you look at those metaphors, I'm curious from your perspective, um, what is the pros of using. That your personal narrative, your personal identity, as well as the cons, the risk exposure that you had to endure to do that. So maybe can you reflect back to me, uh, the nature of my question.

So then before we dive in deeper into your narrative, I

[00:03:50] Amir: love this CK. I already have a good feeling. This is going to be a great conversation. I've already said to you beforehand, that based on what I've seen you do before, like [00:04:00] you are a great conversationalist and interviewer and right off the bat from the get-go, you know, we launch into it.

Thank you for asking that that's a very thoughtful question. There are definitely pros and cons to storytelling and sharing one's message on the basis of one's own lived experience in a very. Rock capacity at times that can open you up to energies that you may not have discerned well, initially. And so when you open up yourself to the world in that capacity, in that manner, without paying enough attention to the energy in the room and the kind of people in the room and also their intentions and what they're feeling, and if your energy field is not strong enough, certain patterns thought forms can actually kind of seep in, you know, there's this whole concept in a lot of Eastern cultures called the evil eye.

And for a long time I dismissed it like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's just a bunch of nonsense superstition, [00:05:00] but there is something to it, what it is exactly how it works, you know, that's for somebody to figure out, but having lived it well,

[00:05:09] CK: came back up. Can you define that first? Cause I'd actually don't know what that phrase means.

[00:05:13] Amir: So the evil lie basically, you know, when you're out in the world and you're doing something cool and. You are carrying yourself and really owning your authority in your power. And sometimes there are cracks in your energy, right? In your, in your energy field. And people are trying to get in and kind of like weigh you down for whatever reasons, you know, they've got going on.

And a lot of the time they're not even aware of what's happening within them. And so envy jealousy, and they kind of give you this, like searing, heated look like, man, just like, oh fuck this guy, you know, just, you know, and th th that can have quite a detrimental effect if you get hit with too much of that.

And, and you don't do enough work to maintain [00:06:00] your energy hygiene, which is a very, very real thing. These aspects of, of our existence were not very clear to me in the beginning, because I grew up with a father who for a very long time had been a professor. So very much cerebral. You know, a lot of cognitive processing very much in his head, very much always reading books and reading books is beautiful.

It's a very important thing for our growth, but there is also this, you know, real thing about reading kind of being a socially sanctioned form of dissociation, not being in your body, not being within your heart, not being grounded, not being present in the moment and just really being all up in the head and too much reading can actually be a bad thing if it's not balanced out with heart-centered meditation, introspection time out in nature, [00:07:00] anyone who's disconnected from nature is really missing out on a lot.

They're not living at their full potential. So I had the benefit and one could say, even the privilege. Of growing up from a very young age because my two older brothers were quite significantly older than me. My older brother's like five, six years older, my eldest, right. He's yeah. Even older. Right? So by the time I was five or six, they were already out hanging out with their friends and I was too little to go out and hang out with any friends.

And then my little sister was born. And so a lot of attention was directed at her as a little baby. And I didn't have much to do except play with Legos and read comic books and other books. And so I would spend time with my father and his friends scholars, and I didn't know it at the time, but I grew up around a lot of academic discussion, scholarly discussion, you know, peer reviewed journals and in normalize that kind of language in that way of speaking [00:08:00] for me.

And it made it very difficult for me to form friendships and just be a normal kid at school. So that was a big blessing. That was a privilege. In other ways, I was not privy to. You know, by the time I was 60 years old, I had already lived through two wars. You know, the civil war in Northern Sudan, South Sudan, you know, we were originally from Sudan and then also the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein in Iraq at the time we were in Qatar and Doha, you know, later on.

And so being in that kind of environment where education was very valued, but in a way that was very cerebral, all about cognitive and verbal development. Um, I missed out on the energetic aspects. And so I learned the Harding aspect. You mean what being in one's heart, really owning one's energy and authority being grounded, not just being all up in the head all the time.

Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, like what about the being, what about being one with nature? What about finding one's own graceful sense of flow and [00:09:00] maintaining that sense of flow? So. That was something I learned later on the hard way as I was sharing my personal story from a very heady intellectual place, but I wasn't really solid in my heart.

And so I was getting all these kinds of psychic attacks and an energetic attacks and like jabs, you know, we've all experienced being out with some people and they don't hit you. They don't punch you. They don't literally jab you with their hand, but you feel like an energetic job. Like you feel it in your heart, like, ouch, that kind of hurt, you know?

And so hence the word heartbreak, you know, oh, the word heart-wrenching right. These are real phenomena. We are energetic beings. Um, whether people believe in that or not just like there is gravity, whether we believe it or not.

Mm.

[00:09:56] CK: Like everything that you said. So, uh, you're speaking to someone who lives in a [00:10:00] very comfortable in his head as well. And, and in many ways, uh, thinking back to my own childhood, uh, I actually wished that, you know, I had more adult conversations with my parents. So it's, it's funny how you lived that life and you wish that you were more grounded.

And I think there's a time and a place, obviously my mind is a full range of development, right? So I'm not saying just one thing's better than others. In my mind. We want to be polymath, right. To be developed with our mind, with our heart emotions, with our body. Right. As well as our spirit. So it's interesting to reflect back on what you hope that you would have had more, which is the more grounding heart.

Level of development

[00:10:49] Amir: and playfulness like that. Can we talk about my comic books? Can we go together? Yeah, let's go. Yeah, it was very academic though, but it is interesting [00:11:00] kind of like that whole thing. The grass is greener on the other side.

[00:11:05] CK: So what about your

[00:11:06] Amir: comic book? I wish we, you know, my dad and I had talked more about like my comic books and my Lego and my toys and had those kinds of conversations to balance it out.

But the thing is, is that he didn't receive that from his father. And so he could not give to us when he never received, because how would he know what it is if he hadn't been provided with it? Um,

[00:11:31] CK: yeah. Um, okay. So that's your origin story, a little bit of it, right? Your environment going through wars grew up in academic household fast forward a little bit, now that you are.

Taken on this, this Baton, this, this, this, this, um, this torch of speaking your mind and being the blogger, you know, sharing a perspective, uh, and [00:12:00] in a very charged topic, religion, right. And politics, it takes a certain courage to actually do that, you know, to, to want to make a difference in, in those realms.

Can you share a little bit about the cost of that?

[00:12:17] Amir: Yeah, well, both, you know, Northern Sudan and Qatar, the middle east in general, you know, in the nineties and up until now, unfortunately we're very authoritarian societies ruled by dictators by the time, you know, it was 19 97, 19 98. We had already moved to Southeast Asia and specifically Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

And all of a sudden I went from being in a. You know, in a school where the language was an Arabic to being in an international school, a British international school, where the means of communication and learning would be in English. And my parents felt strongly about that. They did not like the sense of limitation that was imposed on us.

You know, my dad was fortunate enough to graduate top of his philosophy class at the [00:13:00] university of Khartoum Northern Sudan at the time, you know, back in like the sixties or something. And he ended up with a PhD scholarship to the United States at the university of Wisconsin. So he valued the liberal arts.

He valued the freedom for critical thinking and. He wanted that for us. And he could notice that we were struggling because at home we were quite free to, to critique him and to question him academically other things, he didn't like it very much, you know? Um, so they made it a point, especially after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

And there were these like public service announcements, we had to wear, you know, practice wearing masks in case of a chemical weapons attack. Like, you know, as a kid, I could sense the fear in the air. So we were very relieved when we ended up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and from my parents, you know, they also want it to be in a Muslim majority country that was, you know, a bit more forward-thinking and modern and like open to the world.

And qual important. The time was really emerging as a cosmopolitan global [00:14:00] city. And now it's become a really incredible city to be in, to be honest. So they're going to international school. For the first time, I'm now in a state of like being where there's just so much diversity, you know, I've got Chinese friends who are Buddhists, atheists, Indian friends who are Hindu, you know, Punjabi seeks.

Right. Um, some of them, Christine, many Muslims and, and it was a really good state of being to, to, to really experience that they weren't, you know, um, openly at least like, you know, Jewish people. But other than that, like there was just so much diversity in, in this society. And so it was very refreshing for me and I really began to bask in it, but I could still feel the cost of having lived up until the age of 10 or 11, you know, in, in the middle east where it was just so stifling and any kind of critique, anything said that was wrong.

Cleanings, [00:15:00] um, bullies like fist fistfight. You know, blood all over the floor, like it was fricking nasty and horrible. And so like you had to either comply or suffer the cost and suffer people did for sure. You know, and I certainly went through some heinous experiences that no little boy should ever have to go through, but it was a different reality in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, relatively compared to that, it was a lot better.

There were still issues and problems, but still it was a lot better. And I joined the debate club once my English started to become better. You know, my oldest brother was born in the United States in Wisconsin. So he's an American citizen. As I said, my dad, you know, obviously knew English already and taught Arabic at the university of Wisconsin medicine.

And he was doing his PhD in oral traditions and folklore. And so he taught us at home through storytelling, but it was never personal. It was always referencing books. Like literally if my brothers [00:16:00] and I. My mom would yell at us and scold us and smack us and get us to calm down. Right. He would just walk in very, very like, you know, Sterling and like yell at us to sit down and then he would get into a lecture.

He would literally start talking about the theory of conflict in sociology states that were just like, oh my God, like, when is this going to end? And my brothers and I would be looking at us just like looking at ourselves and looking at each other. They bear the cost

[00:16:32] CK: of fighting is due to endure a lecture from that.

[00:16:35] Amir: Literally he would start talking about the theory of conflict, you know, based on research in the field of sociology.

You know, and, and so like, okay. Okay. We get it. Hey, I'm sorry. Are you sorry? Yeah. I'm sorry. Okay, good. We're done. Can we just go now? Can we just go back to our rooms? You know, so, so we wanted to connect with them on a more personal basis, you know, looking back at it. And, and we, we [00:17:00] all had that yearning.

It's like, can you talk to us as your sons rather than your students? Why does home have to feel like a professorial classroom all the time? But again, he didn't know better. And I would find out later that he was actually sent off to boarding school. So he missed out in his own childhood and, you know, growing up on the experience of being like in a family that.

Really like very huggy, very touchy, feely. You know, I love you. I love you too. Let's sit around. Let's play. Like he didn't know what that was like. He went to boarding school and so his father was very stern education, education education is the way out of humble beginnings. And that that's kind of where that contrast comes from then the internet arrives.

[00:17:49] CK: Well, before you move on to, um, is this still alive? Is it still

[00:17:52] Amir: doing well? Yeah. Thank you for asking. Yeah, he is right now as like recording this, having this conversation with you. He is, and he's 81 and [00:18:00] he's still reading books and still advising PhD candidates on their stuff. And you know, for the first time we're also working on something together for the first time.

And I'm really glad I get to do that now. Especially both industries

[00:18:12] CK: transcend beyond the father son relationship, the student professor relationship to hopefully related to each other more on the human to human. Over the

[00:18:21] Amir: last three years, I went through psychedelic therapy, you know, with, with, um, MDME and, um, I had to go through it because of my PTSD because of my work in journalism and activism, which, you know, I guess we'll get into shortly.

And that has had a profound effect on me. And the therapist have said to me, you know, this work that you're doing on yourself, good for you. It's going to be really tough, but just stay persistent. It gets worse before it gets better. And it's going to have an effect, not only just on you, but it will have a profound effect on your closest relationships, starting with your family and [00:19:00] then your closest friends and your colleagues, and it's going to ripple outwards.

So just know that when you get tired and like really, you know, hurt and you just feel. You're feeling, you know, demoralize at times, keep going, like to stay persistent with it. And th th it, there really is a big pay off and you will experience even some long, you know, dead relationships, um, going through a resurrection as you go through your own spiritual resurrection.

So now I'm incredibly fortunate. I think it's one of the most satisfying things that I'm really feeling is three years, you know, after the psychedelic therapy, which I began in April, 2019, you know, now we're talking here three years later at last, I've been able to transcend that relationship and it's been healing for him because my two, um, oldest, the oldest brother and my older brother, the two of them, they're not very bookish.

They love watching documentaries. They're more visual. They're a lot more social than I am, you know, being out in the world and, you know, very sporty, but I'm [00:20:00] kind of the bookish one because I didn't have the experience of socializing with friends like they did. So I was kind of. And I wanted attention from my dad and, you know, okay.

He likes books. If I like books, maybe he'll like me to, you know, the mind of a child. Right. So now I'm working with him to take the best of his life's work and we're creating a compilation volume. That's going to be quite a big book. Um, and, and I could tell, like, he's just so gratified and happy that his work will continue through me because I can see his inner child now, like it's gotten to the point where I could see him and appreciate him as an individual.

Not all dad's father. It's like, no, you're good. You really did well. You produced a lot. And given what your generation went through and the tougher circumstances you live through, I mean, good God, you remember a time when there was no electricity and all of a sudden there's electricity, then you've got TV.

Then you've got phone lines with landlines, you [00:21:00] know, and I know at times. Of before internet and after internet. And now I'm looking at my nephews on their iPads and they have no fricking clue what the world was like before the internet, you know, so we've definitely been able to transcend it and I'm working with him on that.

And we're going to coauthor the introduction and the conclusion of the book. But the actual content is all his academic publications and books that he's written over the years over the decades. Really.

[00:21:26] CK: I love the, the father son relationship where you now get to be the container for your father's legacy, you know, with all the skills that you honed as a journalist, as a, as a consultant communication consultant guru expert, you can now tell his story in the most beautiful way.

So as a way to honor who he is, honor his life honor his, his gift to generations to comment in the process. Yeah, you get to relate to each other [00:22:00] as human beings, you get to, um, heal whatever trauma, whatever, as you're growing up. And the beautiful thing, what I'm hearing is also, you get to heal that for yourself, right?

The intergenerational traumas, and then stops with you. And then, then you get to give a new gift to future generations, you know, should you have any children later on?

[00:22:24] Amir: Yeah, no, totally. Um, as beautifully said, exactly. And, and it sounds strange C K, but because I've asked enough questions about his childhood, where he can remember, and also going through the psychedelic therapy, you know, while I was on the psychedelics with the, the guides, you know, on my eight hour, very intense journey, do

[00:22:47] CK: they interact with you throughout the eight

[00:22:49] Amir: hours?

They keep it minimal. And only based on my own questions and my own. Responses to what's going on within me, you know, then they would respond back [00:23:00] to me and it was always about encouraging me to go back inwards, like, okay, put, put the shades on and put the headphones back on. And cause this is like a soundtrack that the journey, you know, and go inward, like make use of the state that you're in.

Don't get so chatty, you know, so I'd have questions. Um, but it was just, it was, it was a very beautiful thing because I felt like I was talking to his father, my grandfather, whom, you know, I don't remember because he passed away when I was like two or three. So I don't really have, you know, cognitive, you know, conversational memories with him.

But I suppose one can say my body has memories of him holding me and hugging me and I can feel his hands. Right. And, um, this reminds me of a conversation that I was listening to, you know, between Tim Ferris and Gabor, Mati, and Gabor Matteo said something to Tim, which really. Caught my attention, which is that as children, you know, we can help it, but one to [00:24:00] fill the void in our parents' lives, you know, so who he became to some extent, to a, to, to a big extent, was about filling the void in his mother's life and the void in his father's life.

And I think as a kid, I kind of felt the void in my father's life, the absence of the familial experience. And he was very frustrated with publishers. He would write, he would do his job and like he always stuck to standards of excellence. He was really, really, very stern about that. And. You know, sometimes to a fault, he always expected us to be the top of our class really drilled in us.

You know, when it came to education, you know, we needed other things to feel more nourished, more well-rounded, but he didn't have an awareness of that necessarily for himself. So he didn't really anticipate that we would need that for us. You know, his paradigm was different, but, um, I think I grew up hearing him talk a lot about his frustration with a publisher.

It's like they have only published, you know, this number of copies and they're not doing a good job promoting it. I did my part, I did my [00:25:00] part. They're not doing their part and he'll be really upset, you know, talking to my mom and in a bad mood. And so I think hearing that. And then later on in Malaysia and being an international school and I know English well, and I could speak to him.

And now both English and Arabic. And for the first time I can read not only the Arabic books he wrote, I can also read the English publications, you know, the English language. And I could converse with my oldest brother and my American brother in English. And I could appreciate the American music he's listening to, you know, and actually understand the lyrics.

Things started to shift for me. And I really want it to have a voice, a bigger voice. And I'm like my dad, I wanted to speak from a very personal place because I wish he had done that with us more often, which he's doing that now, you know, more off, you know, in the time being and when the internet became a thing, you know,

[00:25:53] CK: before he go into the internet, I want to double click on the interaction with your father a little bit more because I want to make sure that this [00:26:00] is as personal right through your story to other.

Because I would assert that and I'll make it personal. I want to have that kind of relationship with my father when my parents really, and the challenge has been, um, transcending the identity, right. You're big on identity, so, right. So there's identity of parent-child and then they have to hold on to whatever past decisions they made as parents.

And it takes certain amount of courage and openness to look at it now as adult to adult, you know what I mean? Absolutely. So, so, so tactically, how did you cultivate that safe space for your father to open up who he is as a human, rather than staying the protective, um, barrier or the bubble of being a parent?

Does that make sense?

[00:26:53] Amir: Absolutely. Thanks. Thank you for bringing it back to, to, to this point. And I think also the listener would really [00:27:00] appreciate it, I guess. You're helping me realize right now in this moment that, um, perhaps I've been taking it for granted a little bit, what I've been able to, for the lack of a better word accomplish, um, after three years, not just of being on psychedelics, because that's the easy part, frankly, taking the MDME or the LSD under a

[00:27:22] CK: superbill go through eight hours.

[00:27:24] Amir: Yeah. Like that's actually the easy part, especially with, with, with guidance. I mean, I had, you know, professional psychotherapist and professional nurse works as a nurse in the hospital. So like very qualified individuals. And that's actually the easy part. The hard part is the integration afterwards. How do you now integrate this power?

A full eight hour journey where so much has been revealed that it just shakes up your entire sense of identity and your existence. And in the first one, as I said earlier, I feel like my grandfather was talking to me like my [00:28:00] father's father, because I saw images. Of my dad's childhood. It's like, it was like a movie reel.

I hadn't seen it, but like somehow connected to my father. And it's like, his unconscious was talking to my unconscious and then his father came to me to help me understand him, the son, my father more. And it became this kind of like this beautiful sandwich. Right. So my grandfather on one side and I'm on the other side and it's like, my father is in the middle trying to understand himself, but he's too close to his own stuff, you know?

And so now I have this like meetup perspective and part of what happened after that is, you know, and the Reverend Michael Beckwith explained it really well. You know, I've had the pleasure of some deep conversations with him in person, you know, for like a couple of hours at a time. Um, I met him in Cancun at a, at an event called a Fest.

Awesome. Yeah. Walks on the beach. [00:29:00] It was just profound. Like I'm really grateful to him. You know, he had a really big impact on me to spend that kind of time. And like, he's like one of Oprah's favorite teachers, right?

[00:29:07] CK: He is, he is definitely when I think about someone who was really connected a lot, like an empty vessel who can just transmit SOC guru, you know, uh Micro-Pak with like in, and also the, the chief that I just met this past weekend, like meeting people like that is very transformative.

[00:29:29] Amir: Yeah. You know, he, he is the kind of person I aspire to be. As I'm now stabilizing into this new identity, you know, this whole awakening, resurrection experience. So the way he puts it, Michael Beckwith is that once you're tapped into source in a really deep, profound way, you become so fulfilled with your own capital L love, which comes from solar.

Source being [00:30:00] also capital L love that you're so self-sustained so self nourished that at a certain point, you're like, I don't even want to spend that much time with my mom and dad anymore. I don't even want to spend time with my girlfriend or my wife or my closest friends. Ah, I am one with the two loving divine presence.

Oh yes. The true loving divine presence. And then he talks like then, and you can feel your vibe and your frequency rising to be one with the eye. Uh, I

[00:30:37] CK: love that. That is, that is exactly how he talks. That's awesome.

[00:30:41] Amir: Right. And, and so having gone through the experience under the influence of psychedelics, which really, really helps you be so tapped in the integration was a practice of reminding myself, go inward.

To be one with the cosmic mentor, [00:31:00] right. Guidance from source, the divine loving cosmic mentor. And as you go through that, what you're really doing is you're learning to reparent your inner child aspects, your wounded aspects of the little boy, the little girl, the little kid, what the kid did not get. And so rather than seeking small L love from mommy and daddy, you begin to understand and feel that wow, there's actually such, um, like a vast infinite source of capital L love that we can all be tapped into from within.

And so when I started to feel that I began to also go through a really painful mournful state of almost like feeling as if like my parents had passed away. And so the relationship of like the kid, you know, mommy and dad. Like that starts to kind of wither away. And it's a bit scary because it [00:32:00] feels like some actual death is going on.

Like, oh no, my mom and dad know, but I want to hold on to them. And then once you get to the state of you realize, right, this is just a little ego talking and the ego never completely dies, but you can pull the ego upwards and, and transmute so much of like the lower density stuff, the fear, the, the, the guilt attachment, the anxieties, a little kid stuff.

And now the ego ascends, along with the soul, your higher self, the Supreme self to a higher realm of being still ego, but a lot more mature, a lot healthier. And now you can actually include the ego as you transcend the ego in a way where the ego can play a healthy role to be a functional individual in day-to-day human society.

Cause you're going to deal with people with these. So this whole notion of like the ego dies and you've got to eliminate the ego and the ego is the [00:33:00] enemy, you know, in terms of like everyday language vernacular, like I, I get it, like, it can sound cool and it can kind of get this point across. But if we're talking based on the definition of the spiritual traditions, whether you're talking Zen Sufism, even Christy and monastics, you know, people like Thomas Merton, there's no such thing as the ego is the enemy and the ego has to be killed and destroyed and the ego is ended.

And annihilated, there will always be some level of ego, you know, function that, that exists within us. And it's a good thing, but it's got to serve the greater good and there will always be shadow every light cast, a shadow, right? So rather than denying the shadow and repressing the shadow, it's really important to actually harness the shadow, acknowledge the shadow.

Don't repress it, acknowledge it, own it reintegrated in a healthier. Right. All the shadow aspects of the ego and then harness that for good. So I know part of my shadow sometimes can be, you know, a desire for [00:34:00] vengeance and you know, it can go from vengeance to revenge, you know, and the two are actually very different.

So

[00:34:06] CK: before we get into the theoretical, I want to make it really practical and tactical coming back to the way you relate to a father, right? So is there any tactical thing that you can offer to people who are listening, who desire more authentic adult to adult, healthy relationship with their, with their parents?

The

[00:34:27] Amir: step one, sit your ass down before you go approach your mom and dad like and meditate, get into your heart, meditate and realize whatever it is that you're a needy for. Don't be needy for it in that moment. It can be really hard, but it's not hard to do it for a brief. It's very hard to completely like suspended, you know, sustained, like that's difficult.

It's difficult to get to that, but I think everyone has the capacity to, at the very least, for a brief moment, suspend [00:35:00] their own neediness for, you know, mommy and daddy and that need is, is coming from the little kid. So meditate ground acknowledge that you have certain needs. Some of them could be really legitimate and mature.

Some of them very kiddish and, you know, childish and very like needy DDDD media. Like, like, okay, you can have both. And it's okay. We've all got stuff to continuously transmit and work on acknowledge that they exist. And for a brief moment, just tell yourself, this is not about me right now because my father and my mother they're human too.

They've got their own needs too. And they've got an inner kid within each of them. And they went through experiences in prior generations where life was actually tougher for the majority. So how about some patients, some graceful compassion and some acceptance that whatever I'm [00:36:00] needy for, whatever I'm genuinely needing in a healthy way, I may not get right now.

In fact, I may not get at all ever. So let's not make it about me now. Start there once you've acknowledged those needs and neediness, and you've kind of tempered that just, just temperate step into the conversation with either your mother, your father, whoever the person is, and just like you see keeping an amazing interviewer, think of them.

And imagine them almost as an interview subject, like being a journalist, right. And I'm not here with gotcha. Questions. I'm not trying to trick you. I'm not trying to get anything from you and pull on your life force. I'm respecting your autonomy and your sovereignty. And as I respect your autonomy and your [00:37:00] sovereignty.

Okay. Okay, mom. Okay, dad, you know, it's really interesting, you know, long time ago, you told me the story about your father, your mother, get them to talk about their parents. You know, assuming their parents were in their lives. Assuming they have certain memories. If they were raised by an uncle or an aunt, same thing, a stepfather step-mom, same thing.

Ask them about that because what you're doing by asking them about that is you're putting them in a state where they start to tap into the inner child and they kind of regressing their memories and they go back in time and they start talking from that place, from that space within. And just listen and observe with no agenda, nothing that you want to get hold space and allow them to connect more and more into that space of who they are, because they've probably never been asked that in a long time and feel what it is that's coming out of them.

Don't just listen to the words, feel [00:38:00] the music, we all have music emanating out of us all the time. And as you feel the music and you get a sense of their mood, you'll begin to see. Hmm. Is there a feeling of guilt? I wonder why they feel guilty about this or that with their parents? Is there a feeling of hurt and yearning?

Is there anger? Is there a resentment what's going on there? And when you start to see those things and aspects within them, you really begin to see their humanity. And in a funny way, it actually makes us so much easier to love them even more and accept them even. Um, and as you do that, you also heal and you begin to accept aspects of yourself that were undernourished because of whatever reason, and you make it a practice, you don't do it every day, but you can do it once a week, twice a week.

And then three months later, six months later, one year later, it's, it's an [00:39:00] entirely different paradigm. And it's like, wait, I don't even recognize who we were and our relationship. And it's like, gosh, this was available to us to create this entire time. Yes. One, person's got an initiated though. One person's gotta be proactive.

And so stop waiting for mom and dad to do it. Take the initiative, make yourself the person who does it.

[00:39:22] CK: Amir beautifully said, um, as you're speaking, it kind of, I was reliving my own journey in my attempt to establish a greater and deeper relationship with. And so I came from a Chinese family and, you know, raised by Confucians traditions and stereotypically Chinese parents are not very deep regarding sharing their inner world.

They do take care of the external world, right? The practical things, you know, physiology, security, everything like that. But [00:40:00] getting into the real, the, the inner world of like huggy and trying to understand your kids, like they don't really do that culturally speaking. Mm. So, so, so, but thanks to the transformative transformative work that I've been doing.

One question really pivoted my experience because even up to, into my like twenties, maybe a little bit to my thirties, there's still like some level of, or a resentment, a wish my parents would apparent. Differently and so forth. Right? There's still a little bit of that. And then one penetrative question really helped me transform, which was, are you relating to your parents or still as a little boy?

How are you relating to them as a, as an adult like that? Just like sappy out of like, oh, I didn't realize I was still being that little boy relating to my parents and to a point, yes, [00:41:00] we all have needs and yes, there are human and there's still that dynamic of parent-child. But nonetheless, now that I'm an adult, I'm a sovereign being, I'm now capable of parenting myself.

I'm now capable, also providing space and grace and compassion towards my parents as a human being. And it does take that willingness and that courage, that grace, that compassion to be with our parents and, and, and really appreciate who they are as a gift. To, uh, our lives. Yeah.

[00:41:36] Amir: Right.

[00:41:37] CK: Absolutely. Versus like a burden or like, oh, they just happened to be our biological parents.

And that's that the opportunity to deepen our relationship while parents are formative relationships is, is, is right there. So what a beautiful way to articulate your journey to do that. Um, awesome. Thank you for that. [00:42:00] Thank

[00:42:00] Amir: you. So

[00:42:03] CK: I want to double click on the word warrior because in my mind it takes courage.

It takes a willingness to look at, I don't know if you phrase this exactly, but our lower self, right? Our survival instincts. And then, and then also choose different. To our higher commitment, our higher values, you know, what we stand for, what we, what we aim to, um, to do in the world. So could you double click on a little bit of, what's the word warrior to you?

What does that mean for you?

[00:42:48] Amir: We can speak about it from so many perspectives. You know, more recently have begun to appreciate more [00:43:00] deeply, you know, certain aspects of the tradition I grew up in which at a certain point I had really resented because it came with a lot of authoritarian impulses, but that's.

That's not really from the essence of the teachings themselves. And so I'd love to unpack it here from the perspective of the Islamic tradition, but mainly from the mystical aspect of it, because that's really, what's missing for so many people, unfortunately. And that's the Sufi aspect it's called Sufism.

So Sufism to Islam is what Kabbalah is to Judaism. Right. And in a way, it's what yoga is to the Hindu tradition, right? So if you look at the externalities, the exoteric aspects, the exoteric aspects, and all the traditions can be really quite problematic if they have not managed to keep up to date with the evolution of society in the modern world, that we now in habits, you know, so that the Hindu tradition, for [00:44:00] instance, you know, a downside of the exoteric would be the cost system.

You know, it's being chipped away at it's being undermined thankfully. But it's been there for a long time, you know, like, oh look, you have the higher casts. And then those born into the lower casts. And it's like, you can't even shift out of that. So the same thing with Islamic tradition, very similar as that, you know, this whole notion is word that, you know, a lot of Americans are familiar with, unfortunately for very bad reasons.

You know, the word jihad jihad in Arabic can be translated to English as struggling, striving, aspiring, right there, there are all these different translations that quite, you know, don't quite capture the full meaning, but like it's, it's, it's there it's it's enough there, you know, sufficiently in terms of conveying what the word means.

And there are actually three levels of jihad. The lowest level of jihad, the [00:45:00] least impressive is jihad. Literally as a warrior wielding a sword. Or in this era wielding, you know, machine guns or whatever, and literally being on a battlefield and actually fighting with proper rules of conduct, don't target children, don't target women, don't target civilians, don't target non-combatants.

If you're going to engage in that target people who actually chose to be in combat as well, otherwise it's a war crime, and this is where unfortunately terrorism comes in because there's, don't even respect those rules. And yet they insistent calling it jihad. So they're actually operating outside of the rules of the tradition.

So that's the least impressive, you know, and, and a lot of, you know, toxic masculinity in the world unfortunately holds that up as like the highest kind of ideal of being a tough man and, you know, a warrior, it's the least impressive. It's the lowest form. Then there's a secondary form, right? The second level.

So it's. [00:46:00] We just covered the lowest. Now we'll go to the second one little higher. And that's the level of being a doctor, working in a hospital, treating patients in the emergency room, you know, wanting to find a cure for, you know, a certain kind of cancer. And it could be really just, uh, frustrating. And, and, and you need to maintain that striving, that sense of striving.

And in that sense of struggling, because certain things are a struggle, struggle, never disappears. It's part of our human existence, but can you find meaning in it? Can you still maintain the ethos of that aspiration, you know, for the benefit of all humanity? So that is that the highest form of jihad, the greatest form of jihad is the inner struggle, the inner aspiring, the inner striving.

And that's all about transmuting patients as a. Cultivating love from within capital L love, divine love from within [00:47:00] and emanating it outwards, even when people are spitting in your face. And so in the Christian tradition, Martin Luther king really exemplifies that beautifully and very well, you know, he stuck to an ethos of nonviolence because he felt that yeah, there are times that call for picking up of arms weaponry.

That should be like the last resort and it should be like the lowest form of the struggle. The highest form should be to maintain an ethos of non-violence and love for all, regardless of skin color, to judge people by the contents of their character and not the creed, or you know, who it is that they, you know, hold themselves up to be, you know, small identity, but rather to be tapped into the Supreme identity of, of the beloved and in these different traditions, you know, we can refer to God with different names.

We can disagree on theology, but we should never let that, let that get in the way of the fact that our true nature is, is non-separation. [00:48:00] And even in the Islamic tradition, a lot of people think that, you know, Muslims worship Allah, actually the word Allah is just the Arabic word for God. That's all it is.

Arabic speaking, Christians, Christians in Lebanon in Egypt. Who go to church who worship in the Christian tradition, refer to God as a law. So it's actually a really big misconception to think that Allah is the Muslim God all as is the Arabic word for God. So whatever we call that source divinity Supreme identity, it's all the same at the end of the day, the essence of it.

And to me, that's really the greatest form of aspiring because it's about maintaining a higher spiritual state. And one may even call it spiritual warfare because hatred will come at us. People will try to undermine us and they will come at us in, in a, in a way where they really want to inflict harm.[00:49:00]

And you need to undermine that attempt with as little desire as possible to inflict back harm onto them. And that's how you stop, you know, bad karma from perpetuating or in a more scientific, rational, you know, evidence based way that we can actually, you know, discuss in peer review journals. That's what it takes to stop intergenerational trauma from continuing.

Um,

[00:49:26] CK: thank you for, for sharing that. And I asked that question is part of my meditation inquiries during my, uh, my journey, this pastor past weekend at our time today, where, you know, Russia and Ukraine has this conflict. And when the world is watching very closely, it's not a very popular time to talk about, you know, being a warrior per se.

And I was thinking to myself, I'm a pro-peace guy. Why am I, I'm not attached by why do I use [00:50:00] noble warriors? My. And my definition of warrior is exactly, as you said, like I'm at war, not towards others, but rather towards my own Bolivian, lack of understanding, lack of consciousness, lack of clarity. That's the war that I'm declaring the internal war and the wallet.

And then the warrior to me, that is the courage to lean into the discomfort is easy for me to just be whatever I'm living in and fade into nothingness. It's easy because I can just watch Netflix and numb out, but actually it takes effort. It takes, you know, sometimes purging or long hours of, uh, meditation, and then just really discern, you know, what is it that I'm committed to and choose in that spaciousness between stimulus and response, choose to opt into.

[00:50:59] Amir: [00:51:00] Steps

[00:51:00] CK: to four for greater clarity. So I love the three levels, you know, it's the inner striving, transmuting, the lack of clarity, the oblivion to clarity, and then to, um, to share, create tools and narratives, to share with others so that they can take the same tools to create their own inner clarity as well.

[00:51:26] Amir: I love that. I love that, that you brought it back to the first question, because if we're only sharing stories and speaking based on referencing books and making it so heady and intellectual and cerebral, and we're not tapped in, then we're actually missing the power of what communication can be. You know, a lot of the work that I do with founders, you know, founders in different capacities, whether they're entrepreneurs or, you know, also the CEOs of their own enterprises.

A lot of that is about getting them to be tapped into their inner music. [00:52:00] You know, so I don't use spiritual terms, you know, I keep it as neutral as possible, you know, in my work with them. And I always share a story, um, of my experience with my grandfather on my mom's side, you know, he had a beautiful line tree in his garden and one day I just came up to him like, what's this thing, what's this box.

And it was a chess set, you know, within chess set. And he sat me down and he started teaching me chess and we were under the line tree and he did that every time we went back to Khartoum in Northern Sudan for holidays. And one time, I guess, like I was just kind of in a bad mood or I just wasn't feeling good and kind of a little bit, you know, not focused.

And he picked up a fall in line from the grass and he split it open. He pinched it and you know, he plucked out a seed and he held up the seed and he said, this is Alliance. It only produces a lime tree. [00:53:00] It cannot produce a mango tree or an apple tree or a guava tree, no matter what, it can only produce a lime tree and see this lime tree right here is getting old.

It's dying just like me. And one day you're going to grow old and you're going to die too. But before your time is up, you must ask yourself what's my inner seed. And in essence, he was referencing the seed of the soul. And I was like a seven year old at the time. Ask yourself grandson, what is my seed? And continue to maintain this inquiry throughout your whole life.

Do so with humility approach the inquiry with reverence. And as you do so life will reveal your purpose here on this planet. Trust that even when times are hard, [00:54:00] even when the wind blows, make sure you're deeply rooted and keep going. And one day you will bear fruit and the world will benefit from that and you would have fulfilled your soul's purpose.

Hmm. What's my seed. And so that means we must be tapped into who we are and to come from that soul identity. And that can really take our storytelling and communication to a whole new level. And unfortunately, in corporate America, for too long, we have been in an environment that's been very secularized.

This had a lot of toxic masculinity that has, you know, thought of struggling and fighting and crushing it and all of that stuff in ways that yeah, we could use that as a language jokingly, but where's the meaning. I got no issue with the language, but as the music, the right emanation behind it. And when it is usually the language shifts, do you know?

And it's such a [00:55:00] sports culture just to star Strohn, you know, gladiator sports. And we've had that throughout all of human history. And right now we need less of that and a healthier expression of strength and assertiveness. And that cannot come unless we really are tapped in. So self discovery self-awareness self-acceptance we can just stop it.

Oh, okay. Now I'm aware. Yeah. But do you accept? Is there self-acceptance uh, I want to be Elon Musk. Well, you're not Elon Musk and you will never be Elon Musk. Uh self-acceptance. You have innate capacities. What's your seat. Uh, lime seed only grows into a lime tree except that ah, great. You've accepted that.

All right. Ongoing self-mastery and [00:56:00] thus self-actualization self-realization self-fulfillment perpetually Dan day out, just like in Buddhism. What happens before enlightenment? What are we supposed to do? Chop wood carry water. Okay. And after enlightenment. Yeah. Still chop wood carry water though. Now with self-acceptance and self-mastery has just such a joyfulness to it.

You're full, you're mindful. You're joy full. You are full filled day in, day out.

[00:56:38] CK: Uh, I was listening to Joe Rogan's conversation with Socceroo is very, very recent. About few days ago in Socceroos say something was a very penetrative observation. He said that when you, you know, uh, you know, America life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness [00:57:00] is, are given, right? Yeah. But when you pursued something, what does it imply?

It implies that you don't have that thing. So, so if you built your life based on the pursuit of happiness, happiness is outside of you, right. Versus if you use your life as an expression of your inner joy, that means you already have it in a, you use it to share a bundling with people around you. So I think that's a beautiful comparison to what you just said in my mind.

Right? How do you be fulfilled? And make your life, uh, search to share what you already have versus talking to mommy or daddy. And in order to make you feel whole, right, it's one place, a lack versus a place of

[00:57:50] Amir: abundance. Absolutely. You know, one of the reasons I'm very at ease and comfortable talking about all of the [00:58:00] different traditions, all the world's different spiritual traditions that we, as a humanity have inherited and that we practice.

And I don't ever bother with, like, you shouldn't be talking about my religion with what gives you the right, because I'm human and it's human heritage. We come in so many different expressions, so many different looks, creeds colors. Different types. Like we're all human at the end of the day. And if we were to look at all of it as human heritage, yes.

Confucianism in particular is Chinese heritage. It's part of Chinese lineage that said Chinese are humans and I'm human too. So it's also part of my heritage as a human being. And I can benefit from Confucianism and learn from it. And I also can engage with it in a constructive manner or I'm constructively critical, same thing with my own lineage in my heritage.

Thank you for bringing your perspective. Cause I'm too [00:59:00] close to mine. Wow. I've never considered that. Thank you for stating. Now I'm considering something different about Sufism, about newbie. And the Egyptians and the new beings who also came together and United cause they were warring a lot of the time and they build the pyramids and some of the greatest temples and architectural achievements of human history.

That's not just my heritage that I'm going to hug it and control it's our human heritage. And we ought to learn from one another. And so I'm a big fan of, you know, philosophers like Ken Wilber. Who's the, who knows he's, he's a philosopher featuring the matrix. Trilogy said, no, a lot of people don't know about it.

I'm quite surprised, you know, along with Dr. Cornell west and his whole thing is the integration of east and west. You know, the enlightenment, the European enlightenment was so cerebral and like really, really robust and, and give us so many great things, Western civilization, modernity, and all of that, that said there are also a lot of pathology.

And so we need the best of Eastern west [01:00:00] integrated put together robustly discussed and applied for the betterment of all of humanity. We cannot be closed up only to our own cultures and our own heritage because we don't have a monopoly on truth. Everyone has something to share. And I really wish that we had the perspective of an alien coming from another planet landing on planet earth and saying, you know, I want to learn the ways of humanity, these humans, man.

They're so fascinating. I want to learn the ways of humanity and I'll embrace the best of it and kind of coming like a sociologist almost right, and a storyteller and a communicator and take the best of humanity and then take it to another planet or another dimension of the galaxy if need be. If we had that perspective of what they call an academic literature, the overview effect, you know, what astronauts feel when they go up into.

We would have a much, much better state of affairs. And if we made that part of our education system, starting from kindergarten onwards and DNA tests or a [01:01:00] thing to understand that identity is such a social construct in so many ways, you know, that I'm not a pure this or a pure that, you know, I'm 30% of this 12% of this 15% of that the world would be a much, much better place, but people would rather hold onto their false certainties and divisiveness and have a sense of, you know, superiority that really rests on eggshells and is actually nothing at the end of the day.

Uh,

[01:01:28] CK: you're preaching to the choir. I definitely am right there with you, to me, these constructs, these identities, these narratives that are a tool in my mind, right? Yeah. Heritage, DNA science, you know, all these are just different narratives. If you really drill in on it is. Someone somewhere had to make up a premise to build on the so there's no absolute truism per se, right?

Capital capital T. Truth is the, is the [01:02:00] totality of it all. But without getting too esoteric, it takes a certain capacity to hold paradoxical ideas, you know, as both true, possibly true, and find your own truth in the middle of somewhere. Right? So, so, um,

[01:02:17] Amir: and you need to be in the right soil for the right seed, with enough water and fertility and sunshine to grow because you can know who you are as a seed, but if you're in the wrong soil, it's not going to matter much.

So that also is a part of the equation, you know, and it can be very practical. You could have a really great service and offers an entrepreneur, but is it being served to the right market? Because some are like, oh, nobody likes my invention. Nobody likes my product and services. Well, what if it didn't suck?

What if it actually is an amazing product and service? You're just trying to market it to the wrong audience you're in the wrong soil.

[01:02:54] CK: So, okay. So let's talk about that a bit. Let's, let's make it practical for the people who are listening. [01:03:00] Um, external narratives is super powerful, uh, especially as an entrepreneur, you're, you're bringing your, your narrative to the marketplace.

So let's talk about the science of finding power for narrative in the way that you want to serve for them for the maximum impact. So, uh, can you concretize that a bit, a bit more? How do you help someone to discern what is the core narrative that will help for, um, their mission in the world?

[01:03:36] Amir: So it's important to start with the acknowledgement that, Hey, I might not be as self-aware as I think I know.

And that's a constant process because if you ever get to a point where you're like, that's it, I am so self aware it is done. I'm enlightened, you know, the end. It just isn't like that. That's not life. So one exercise that I really recommend, it's very practical and [01:04:00] that OU just offer so many revelations.

And unfortunately too many, too many people just don't go through with it, you know? Cause, cause it brings up stuff. So even if it does stay with it patiently persistently just bit by bit, I call it the story, timeline exercise. And it's not this like revolutionary thing. It's something that has been discussed among songwriters artists, producers, because being an artist, what does it really, it's an exploration of the self.

So you can excavate and mine and then bring out the best of who you are and offer it to the world and then match it with an audience that actually could really benefit. Yeah. And the story timeline, the way that I go about it, basically it's a sheet of paper, a journal with four columns, right column one year.

What year was it your earliest childhood memory? What year was it? Second column, age? How old were you? Third column [01:05:00] event in just one to two sentences. That's it? Keep it very simple. And then the fourth column, was it a high or was it a low, was it a high point or was it a really low point? There's a lot of stuff that happens in the middle.

We're not very much interested in that for the time being, we want to know the highs and the lows. So like, oh yeah, my earliest childhood memory, I was playing in the garden and my brother came and then he took the water hose and he sprayed me and we fought and we tumbled and we laughed. Yeah. And then after that, when I was five and a half or six or seven, yeah.

It really got bullied in school. Like that really was a very low point of such a horrible fight that would, that your house such a low point. And then I was number one in class high point, and then I joined the poetry competition and it kind of sucked and I got booed and I got made fun off. And that was a low point.

So as you do that, you don't have to do it in one day. You could [01:06:00] take a number of days, weeks, months. Like my story timeline now is like in the dozens of pages, you know, every little detail imaginable possible. So anything that triggers me, I have the self-awareness to be like, yep. That's from that event, it still has an emotional charge.

I still haven't transmuted in diffused it. I'll get to it. So there's such powerful practical applications. Once you have two pages, three pages, four pages, five pages, 10 pages, 12 pages, and you can see patterns. The highs and the lows, the extremes, and these patterns. Usually if you go back enough, like, you know, just far enough, you'll notice that in storytelling terms was there was an inciting incident.

There was some kind of core trauma, some core wound within the soul that occurred. And as long as that's not addressed, the patterns will repeat. And it's fascinating. I mean, I've worked with founders and entrepreneurs. I've seen hundreds of these now, hundreds I've [01:07:00] personally reviewed them, gone through them, discern, analyze, assess to help with revelations.

It's fascinating. CK, how people go through these different, like hero's journeys and they, they go through these cycles and sometimes they're like, really just heartbreaking. It's like, gosh, like you've repeated this same pattern. Do you know? You've lived the same? Holy shit, no wonder. I've had such messed up relationships.

And my girlfriends were just this and that and oh, Wow. Yeah, it started right here that said, have you noticed this other pattern? You have always crushed it at every sport you joined you're in badminton, you were in hockey, you were in basketball, you were in football, like you were in rugby. Like you realize one of your core lived values, not aspirational and dreamy and dissociated.

No live is movement. It's physicality. You just can't help it. Holy [01:08:00] shit. Yeah. But my parents told me never to get into sports as a professional athlete because they wanted me to be in the family business. No wonder you hate being in the family business. Oh my God. Yeah. Crap. What do I do? I don't want to disappoint my parents.

I'm like. Can you maybe apply movement and physicality through the family business and kind of make it a bit your own so that you can have an outlet for your own expression while still honoring your loyalty to your family so that these things don't have to be in conflict. Can you harmonize them and reconcile them?

Wow, thank you. You know, what can we just end the session? I need to go start journaling and reflecting. I think that might be an opportunity. Fantastic. Email me when you're done. We'll have the next session. So the philosophical is not a luxury. You know, people treat philosophy is a lot softer

[01:08:53] CK: than a luxury.

What do you mean?

[01:08:55] Amir: People treat these kinds of inquiries as just some [01:09:00] philosophical, you know, waste of time, you know, pontification and it's like, shit, I got a business to run, man. What are you talking about? Great. Are you fulfilled? How's your quality of life? Do your kids love you?

Cool have fun with your legacy. I never try to convince her persuade the moment that becomes a thing. It really is the thing that messes up everything afterwards. It always needs to be invitational. Right. And that is the nature of an inquiry. That's when you know, somebody is showing up in inquiry. If they're not in inquiry, I can't do shit.

I can't coach for a desire. I can coach for curiosity. So that's usually the core value that I look for them. Is somebody innately curious, this is why frankly, I've gotten all kinds of requests to be interviewed. [01:10:00] And you know, I'm not still like in the podcast tour stage yet, but with you, it wasn't easy.

Yes. I'm like, I love this person. Like, he's awesome. He's great. He's so inquisitive and so curious and so genuine. And so human I'm going to enjoy the conversation with him. It's not going to be a drain is going to be energizing. Let's do this earlier, before I actually hit the podcast tour and he can have like one of the earliest ones and we can delve in, in a way that I'm probably actually not going to delve, you know, with other interviewers, because they're not as curious and inquisitive as seek it where he's actually living in inquiry.

And he's got a bunch of amazing interviews that he's already done. So you know what, I'll happily make time. Let's do it. Let's go for it.

[01:10:39] CK: I appreciate that. Thank you. Uh, I appreciate the praise. It's how do you, how can you tell if someone who is genuinely curious, someone who has the skill of curious?

Cause I would say. I do get that a lot. Like you ask such good questions. You generally curious, you know, and part of [01:11:00] my, uh, insight from my, uh, medicine journey this past weekend was my questions as a gift to whoever who is being, um, interview. So I really thank you for accepting my gift.

[01:11:14] Amir: No, thank you.

Thanks. Thank you very much. I really appreciate the earlier questions, especially about how do you transcend the father son relationship? I had never really thought of it that way. I kind of just took it for granted. And yet here I am, after three years of our due, uh, integration and in a word and jihad internal striving and struggling and aspiring to get to this point.

And so that one question, if that's all you had asked me, thank you so very much CK. What does.

[01:11:47] CK: You're very welcome my friend. I mean, I would say this, that potentially it's a, it's a, it's an offering that you could do it for the world, um, to, to really coach people and to [01:12:00] repair, transcend, integrate their relationship with their parents.

That's so huge, you know, you just imagine the intergenerational wow. You know, trauma that you can heal and then perpetuate new parent-child relationships for generations to come. You know, that's huge.

[01:12:19] Amir: Wow. You just, um, you just connected something. Even the example I just gave you of the, the student that had been working with, you know sure.

In business terms, we can call them client, but I always tell them this is a teacher, student relationship. He's actually a real person. Obviously I'm not going to name him and I'm going to keep it vague and, you know, respect, confidentiality and privacy. But, yeah, he's, he's one of several whose main issue was being in the family business and struggling with yeah.

The intergenerational aspects and different perspectives and being a hyphenated identity, you know, multicultural and east and west and all of that. [01:13:00] And I never made the connection, but in a sense, I was helping him reconcile the conflict within, and also among, you know, him and his family members, especially with his father, uh, because yeah, they had expectations for him to run the family business in a certain way and loyalty, but also his true self.

And so, yeah, in a, in a sense, that's what I'm kind of innately doing. And another gift. Thank you very much. You're very

[01:13:24] CK: welcome. Em, and I think in many ways, both you and I with served sort of a, a therapist, healer, you know, capacity, and, and, and I, I do want to double click on this, this question. Our mind is a story making machine.

So we can make any meaning out of anything. If I gave you X and Y. And I said, tell me a story, you know, someone's skills. Like you can immediately tell me a great story. Our Maya's like that. Um, the caution that I have with these type of narrative therapy, so to speak [01:14:00] is when the charges are still there a hundred percent double clicking on the narrative, then you're just perpetuating the old narrative per se.

Right. But if you actually integrate the negative charges you have on these narratives, then you can look at it objectively and the use narratives to serve you. So for example, uh, I know that I'm kind of speaking very upstream. Um, let's say let's use the family business thing as an example, if I can alleviate or relieve any kind of like, oh, my father wanted me to do this because he just wanted me to live a great life.

Let's just say, right. He's not really attached to me doing a family businesses in a particular way, per se. Right. That's just a proxy to the outcome that he wants for me. And also the legacy that he wants me to live on. Right. Then I can say recontextualize a reconstruct, a [01:15:00] narrative that will speak into his listening and create harmony versus perpetuating this weight of expectation and construct based on this existing paradigm of stories.

[01:15:14] Amir: At times the people who show up in. The inquiry in and of itself is creating a burden. And if you stay in inquiry in regards to that thing too long, then you start to acknowledge it too long.

And it creates, it creates a stuckness in the person's energy flow. So very often I say that, you know, you want to know the highs and the lows of your story. We don't want to dwell on the lows. However, we simply want to surface them up, acknowledge them. So we know where certain things are coming from. We don't want to dwell on them once we've done that we need to move on and focus on the highs.

And how can you actually replicate more of the highs? So you can live in an elevated state so that the previous lows, those patterns don't repeat again. And even if they repeat, [01:16:00] they're very subtle until they just kind of die off and you've transmuted them and then you've ascended to the next level. So don't shy away from them.

But also once we know them, let's not dwell on them, you know, and it really goes back to a lot of the work that, you know, call young has left. You know, as his legacy, which we all benefit from. And one of my favorite sayings from him is if you don't make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

Well, it's not fate, it's a repeating pattern and you can disrupt it and then reinforce the really good patterns. So you can have more wins based on those and play to your strengths.

[01:16:38] CK: So I'm going to respectfully disagree with you a bit, a bit. Let's have a, I have an inquiry about that. Sure. Um, the Buddha said source of misery or suffering comes from two things simply said, right?

One is the grasping of positive emotions. The other one's averting the negative ones. So, so [01:17:00] in my mind, in the most simplistic sense, There's value in holding on to, and then reinforcing the positive narratives. Absolutely. However, when we have too much gravity, when we're too attached to it, then that's still a source of suffering because we will never be able to hold onto a positive feeling per se, because those things are fleeting as we know.

Right. So, so I see the value in reinforcing things. And I do advise sort of, uh, my, my clients to, in the beginning stages to re to, to let go of the negative, but, and then reinforce the positive celebration. Self-acceptance all these things. However, I do feel that that's, that's sort of, uh, um, you know, at the black belt level, you want to be able to release all of the

[01:17:54] Amir: identities you agree with and, and

[01:17:57] CK: be able to just be fluid.[01:18:00]

In the context of whatever circumstances that we face, both internal and external to try on different identities. Yeah. We're

[01:18:09] Amir: actually, yeah, we're actually 100% in agreement and you said it, well, you said black belt, the majority are not at the black belt and aren't even anywhere near the black belt. And so they're still living in a narrative.

They're still living in a story. So in the earlier stages, even like the middle stages, you want to work with a narrative, but to your point, the black belt is you become storyline. There is no story it's gone and it's only musicality and music and you layer the lyrics and the story as appropriate based on what the music flowing through you is wanting to convey.

And it's not even so much about what you want to say anymore. It's about, wants to be said through.

[01:18:59] CK: I appreciate this. [01:19:00] Thank you. So let's bring it back to your role previously as an activist, your attempt, your effort to make a positive impact in the world through this identity of being an angry activist. I think you, you said it in your Ted talk, right? I was angry. So, so knowing why, you know, today, because now you're trying to a new identity in the musician, right.

Using, using your music as a way to enjoy as a way to transcend the war. Got it. Right. So, so I got, I got your communication. So knowing what you know today and looking at all of the quote, unquote technologies available, angry activism, you know, social media music, And all these things, and also looking at the, the, the sort of the global perspective, you know, the war is going on, you know, uh, the, the [01:20:00] Putin, uh, government is, is you, is what media to confuse truth.

And then off you off you skate such that the west or others would slow down their action and aids and so forth. Right? So looking at the micro and the macro, you know, why, you know, today, what are some of the leavers that you can use narrative to make the kind of positive difference and want to see in the world?

[01:20:31] Amir: It's it's it's a great question. Hmm. Let's start with angry activism. Cause that's where the majority of people are in the level of consciousness and how they're operating. And this is why I appreciate when you said black belt, because it's a journey.

And even the way that I explain things in this conversation was to also convey the sense of a journey for the listener, right? Because not everybody is going to step into this conversation and they're already at a black belt. You know, there'll be a lot of listeners who are maybe angry and frustrated who may be having issues [01:21:00] with their parent.

Um, but you're right. Like, okay, that happens. We transcend all of that. We get to this point, you know, what does that look like? Especially if you're starting from an angry place. And one thing that I always love to point out is anger is not this bad, evil thing. You know, a horrible thing because it's, it's too often treated as that even, you know, among, you know, spiritual kinds of people, spiritual types, Anger is a very powerful emotion and has a very, very positive, constructive role to play.

But we don't want to dwell on it. So people who are in a state of helplessness and despair, right. Anger is a really good thing. Like Ukrainians picking up their arms and saying, we're going to defend our country, like going from panic and fear and helplessness and oh shit. You know what? I don't want to feel helpless and panic bucket.

I'm going to pick up a machine and I'm going to find the invaders. Cause this is a war of choice. We didn't ask for this. So we're going to defend our country and they're rightly livid and furious [01:22:00] and pissed off. Okay. Then what, at some point there's gotta be peace. At some point has gotta be rebuilding and then maintaining the peace.

And so that's where really music comes in and music comes in right from the beginning too, because for people to move from despair to anger, you could play some music to get them really riled up like heavy metal or sounds of bass, lots of bass, you know, and like, you know, high temp or like Metallica, like, you know, heavy metal type of music.

So, so, so then as you go through that journey, you know, you get after that, like the sort of more, um, like a grand soundtrack, like almost like a cinematic or Kestrel soundtrack, right? Like you, you, you, you start to emanate a different kind of music as well. And so we can go through the whole spectrum of human emotions and music is really, really brilliant for that to, to be used.[01:23:00]

And the job of a musician is to evoke the feeling. Right. And then the job of a singer songwriter is to express what is being felt and to give an outlet for it because the majority of people are feeling a whole bunch of stuff, but they don't have the emotional literacy to necessarily convey it. And they don't have the words and the vocabulary to articulate it.

So the job of a musician and a singer songwriter is to take all of that and give expression to it in a healthier, more constructive way, um, to transmute, to wake people up to transform. And regardless of how we seem to be in a moment of peril as a, as a civilization, as a species, we've been through some very, very messy, difficult times, and now we actually have the capacity for solutions and, and, and to create real change.

[01:24:00] And ultimately it's gonna come down to raising conscious. How we do that, my own practice that I've had to get much better at is I can control a lot of things and it's not my job to educate people out of ignorance. You know, I think that I got from my dad, you know, he was very stern and this is just a stupid, how can they do that?

They should know better. And he would get really riled up, you know? And it's like, he saw education as the way out of ignorance, but you can educate someone like forcefully you can't coach for desire inquiry, you know, and, and that's something that's been a journey more recently for me, like really let go of that and accept and respect that I'm here to fulfill my own sole purpose, but this bigger, which is to, to wake people up through music and songwriting and expression and to help them.

Clarifying their own lived [01:25:00] values and to amplify their true leadership voice, you know? Cause most people, yes, speaking, like you hear their voice, but they're not really tapped into their true leadership voice. That's what I call it. You know, Stephen coffee. Yeah. He wrote the seven habits of highly effective people.

Most people don't realize that he wrote another book called the eighth habit because he saw people implementing the seven habits and these like, they're missing the point. I got to run the eighth habit, which actually should be the first habits, but I don't know. I thought they would get it. So I'm going to write another book called the eighth habit.

And what is the eighth habit about helping people realize their inner voice, their capacity for expression to develop leadership. And I just simply call that your true leadership voice. So I'm singing my song. I'm playing my music. I'm telling my story. And I'm just one voice. And there are other stories that need to be told from other perspectives that I don't know much about.

And so the [01:26:00] more of us who are speaking and storytelling and amplifying our true leadership voice, the more of us do that, the better the world can be. And I can also honor my father's legacy when it comes to oral folklore and oral traditions, and we can continue that legacy and we'll see what happens, you know, after I die and by we, I don't know, maybe I'll be, non-physical like, you know, sensing it or something, but that's a whole other conversation for another day.

So

[01:26:27] CK: I want to ask a follow-up question there. I called what you said, soul expression. How do I excavate deep within such that my soul expression, the essence of Hawaiian gets to make an imprint to whoever's listening, whoever resonates with my voice. Right? So for you as a teacher, as a consultant, as someone who specialized, who who's very adapt and skill, I.

What are some of the, um, indicators of such resonance? Can you [01:27:00] dimensionalize that for us?

[01:27:02] Amir: I can say this. I mean, the work that I do at a sort of in-company that is nuance particular, it's in relation it's interactive. And so everyone is a unique, it's really hard to say, just, you know, in a general sense.

And there is really no way for me to judge it. And even if I feel it with my intuition, I trust my intuition. But in working with someone, I don't only want to trust my intuition. I want to trust my intuition. And I'd like to have some data and the story timeline, goodness. Wow. The amount of data, especially when someone really does it well and elaborates on it, you know?

And I usually tell people, speak to your family members. If you went through some really difficult stuff, work with a therapist with a. Once you've excavated all of that, then we can take things to the next level and then you will be ready for the work with me. And so the story timeline, CK [01:28:00] reveals patterns, you know, everyone has a finger, a fingerprint, right?

A unique fingerprint. I call this a soulprint. We all have a very distinct unique soulprint and the vast majority have no freaking clue what their individual unique soulprint print is. And once you know that life is never the same again. Hmm.

[01:28:24] CK: I love this. Yeah. And then, and then, so you and I, we worked similar ways, just different modalities, how we work with our clients, right.

The way I see it is if you're a visionary or if you're a creator, how do you know what's the thing that has sole market fit

[01:28:44] Amir: or that you said, so market fit. Exactly. You talk a lot about. There's

[01:28:50] CK: the inside out. There's the inside out approach. It starts from within to market and there's outside in approach.

Start it from market and hopefully find your way to [01:29:00] what resonates with you. I've try many different modalities, both modalities, rather from my perspective inside out is the shortcut versus the south side, because outside in outside in is very seductive is outside in. You can basically fit any narratives that you think is going to resonate with the market, the people that you want to serve, and you probably will hit success.

However, there is a cost of not paying attention to what feels your soul as the founders that entrepreneurs the operator

[01:29:34] Amir: 100%. And if a person is not fulfilled, then what's the point. And so the kinds of people that I work with are usually founders will have some successful track record, but they're just too ashamed to admit that they're not fully.

Until they finally begin to be self honest and to acknowledge that that's when the real deep work can start and yeah, it, it, it's, it's really person to person, [01:30:00] soul print, soul print, just like a unique fingerprint. So it's, it's hard to say sometimes it's a conversation with parents. Sometimes it's being connected to nature.

Sometimes it's exploring their, you know, artistic side and insensibility more so it's, it's quite hard to say in particular what that thing is, but it's there. The answer is there and the patterns are there. And once you know, the patterns, you can really start to extrapolate and, and really begin to point towards a better way of being and doing.

And that has very powerful, positive ramifications. Especially if a founder is leading a company of a thousand people, you know, that really ripples outwards. And if they have an audience of millions. You know, I see my role sort of like, you know, the, um, the story of the prophet, Joseph, who was the dream interpreter for the Pharaoh back in the [01:31:00] day to influence high level leaders.

And then through them have a ripple effect, outwards, you know, on to entire companies and even societies. And as you know, I've worked with some heads of state and, you know, prime ministers and presidents. And the reason they open up is because I insist on never seeing them purely as a prime minister and president everybody's like Mr.

Prime minister, Mr. Prime minister, Hawaii. And I refused that. And that's something I talk about to make the point that once you begin to see the humanity of these high profile individuals, it's refreshing. That's what they want. You know, so I hesitate to say I'm a spiritual counselor or something like that, but I am a teacher of spirituality.

You know, I'm not a spiritual teacher. I also hesitate to, to own that description because it comes with all sorts of baggage and issues. And I don't like it, but we all have the capacity to be teachers of spirituality. The [01:32:00] question is, are you activating this capacity within you as a founder, as an entrepreneur, as a singer, as an interviewer, as a parent, that that's really, that's really the task at hand, you know, otherwise, what the fuck are we doing?

So

[01:32:16] CK: wait, so let's talk from, from, from teacher to teacher, right? There are tons of emerging technologies that are tons of modalities platforms available to us to amplify our stories, our voice. What for you is your preference in terms of. What actually it would get the eyes and the ears of those as you call them people who with high influence, short form storytelling, long form storytelling, podcasts, music, you know, TV, radio, print

[01:32:50] Amir: PDF.

Let me answer it for you this way. And I'll tie it back with the previous question. Cause I think I know where you're getting at here. Something precise and more practical. [01:33:00] So in an ACO sense, I would say the right message at the right time for the right person. Right? How do you do that with modern day technology?

Unfortunately, social media has been weaponized, right? But if we're using platforms in a good dignified, healthy human way, well, we're really honoring the dignity of the person that we want to communicate with. First figure out your own resonance, your own music, right? And this is real. Like if you hold up an acoustic guitar, And you hold it up in your hands, right?

And you bring it right next to another guitar that nobody's holding, nobody's touching, but you're holding up yours and you bring it up next to that guitar. When you pluck one string on your guitar, the same exact string starts to vibrate on the other guitar on its own. No one needs to pluck it. No one needs to, you know, do anything simply by [01:34:00] plucking the string on your guitar, whichever it is of the six strings.

Pick one, when you pluck it, the same string starts to vibrate on the other guitar. Why you're someone who knows physics it's because they have the same inherent frequency. So resonance is a very real thing. It's not this woo thing we're talking about. It is shown in demonstrable infant. And you could try it out, pick up the acoustic guitar.

If you have a second one, go next to it, place it just close enough. Pluck whatever string, the same string will vibrate. So this phenomena of resonance also happens amongst us as humans. Now, once you know what yours is and you feel good in your expression, you feel good and fulfilled in what it is that's emerging through you.

How do you then match that? So you could have sole market fit, so to speak or sole audience fit, use modern day technology, go to [01:35:00] Facebook ads, choose an audience. Let's say people who watch Oprah people who listened to Lenny Kravitz or Stevie wonder, or you know, John Mayer. Right. And write, copy, write an ad.

Feel good about it. Almost like you're singing a song. Have your headline, have your creative and run a very robust AB split test. And within one week, if you run 10 campaigns for $10, each let's make it easier. 10 campaigns for 10 days, $10 each, right? So 10 times 10, you will have 10 data sets and you will see what kind of wording, what kind of creative based on your soul resonance is actually starting to click for the marketplace and is getting a higher click through rates.

And they're engaging more with your landing page and registration page for a freebie, a webinar, a masterclass, a [01:36:00] service. And there it is. Wow. It felt really good to put out those 10 campaigns and put money behind them and run this robust split test. And these are the different kinds of audiences who resonated.

Wow. These didn't really give a shit. The click-through was very low. I'm going to focus here and now run even more split tests. Wow. This one worked bam soul market resonance fit. Hallelujah. Go for it.

[01:36:29] CK: I love it. So what I'm hearing too, and then we can begin to wrap is this as a teacher, our spirituality, as a teacher of awakening, there's, um, we need to be polymath in different skills.

And part of the skills is how do I rise above the noise? How do I capture people's attention? Right? And then the way to do that is first and foremost, starting from within what's my narrative. What feels good to me? What do I want to speak about? What is my soul expressing? [01:37:00] First and foremost starts here, then externalize that narrative run, Facebook campaigns run.

You're using these, um, social media platform to amplify our voice and then use that as a way to find the two-man in metal and then serve the, the audience that resonates with us. So in my mind, capture attention, keeping an intention, um, distribution. Right. And, um, and, and then finally, obviously the actual service itself, how do we provide that spaciousness, that container to allow for transformation to occur, to aid them going from white belts, you orange belt to blue belt, to black belt eventually.

And so then they can go on and perpetual. The gifts and they're so expression to, into generations is that accurate? What I heard a

[01:37:58] Amir: hundred [01:38:00] percent and I would say in this era even more. So it is a moral imperative because otherwise we're leaving the platforms open to the tyrants and the dictators and the manipulators and people who want to put a hate and division, and we can complain about it all we want from the sidelines, or we can step up and get involved and put out a better message at a higher frequency to wake more people up and pull them out of that matrix.

Um,

[01:38:31] CK: thank you for the reframe actually. So it's not because what I think about social media ad platforms. I think I wouldn't say victim, but more of the, like the fact that. You know, these big companies or, you know, RO governments, you know, trying to weaponize this and that versus these are just tools they could use it.

That means I could use it to my budget. May not be the same, but I can still create the kind of resonance [01:39:00] that ripple effect that I want to create using existing platform that's available for everyone.

[01:39:06] Amir: Absolutely. 100%. I would say, you know, on a practical level, that's my sole mission is we need better voices of leadership on the basis of non-separation as much as humanly possible on the basis of unity, more courageous.

T to be out there and be more expressive and in really waking more people up and unifying more people and demonstrating that we share a common heritage and a common lineage and the overview effect. If we can bring that to more of humanity, give them a perspective of this big, giant blue rock. And then when you zoom out just enough, it's a little tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny blue dots, swimming through space.

That perspective can be really mind altering and we need more of that. That's something that has a lot more urgency. And that's why with UC [01:40:00] can, I was like saying, listen, I love your podcast. You're a great interviewer. Sure. I'm open to doing this. Let's do it early. You know, I don't need to wait for the podcast tour and you need to be putting out this content more robustly more effectively and, and make it much, much more far reaching because it's very important.

And I can see that can impact a lot of leaders. Cause here's the thing, not every founder is going to resonate with. I'm a little too intense for a lot of people. This is me keeping a chilled right now, you know? And you, you know, like right now, right, there you go, you know, your demeanor, my demeanor, like not, everybody's going to resonate with me.

I could have the best knowledge, the best content, you know, but somebody out there is going to be better off working with you, not me, you know, and vice versa. And so I don't see it as like, oh, you know, no, we have to do it this way and that way. And it's like, no, no, we need more voices to rise to the top.

You know, some women want to work with women. You [01:41:00] know, someone who's gay wants to work with another gay man who can feel, you know, more comfortable and, and right. Some like diversity, some want to be more, much more local, you know, and Laredo, Texas, right. It depends. Some of us love it to be just super fricking international and global because of lived experience so that there is room and space for everybody.

But unfortunately not enough are stepping up, not enough or upleveling. And, and we really need more of that because I can show you the data where things are headed with a polarization, unless something is done, you know, like it's, it's not a very pretty place and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

So first accept that it's going to get worse and prepare for when it becomes better so that the tide can shift and we can harness that momentum and be ready for it because we do need to step up and do the work that's necessary. And rather than [01:42:00] despairing, no, let's accept. It's going to get worse before it gets better, be prepared for when it gets better and play a role.

For when that begins to happen so that it gets better and better and better again than ever before. Um,

[01:42:15] CK: Amir, on that note, uh, where can people find you and follow you? I know you have a book coming out. I know you have a podcast coming out. What do you want

[01:42:24] Amir: to send people to thank you for asking that, um, the best place to go to is assertive dot C O assertive and company sort of on Colt, kind of like Tiffany and co we're always upleveling in terms of quality and really wanting to create a great experience.

And it's not something that I'm growing super fast, just for the sake of scaling. I've been doing it very deliberately in a spirit of stewardship. You know, that to me is really important. A spirit of stewardship, so assertive ass, E R T I V E dot C O. And I'm happy to speak to somebody in a position of leadership [01:43:00] who is a decision maker, a founder, and who really wants to take things to the next.

And that's the best place to go to. I've been off of social media for quite some time to take a break, especially after it became weaponized, because I needed to come back to the game and return to the game with a better game plan to figure out how to like really adapt to this new environment that we're in.

Because in the early days with the blogging and the citizen journalism, the tyrants weren't using them, those tools, we, the youth use the tools and we literally stirred up and mobilize revolutions in Tunisia, in Egypt, you know, all over the north Africa in the middle east. And sure it got really horrible and messy because of how the Tyron's responded, but there is another wave that's going to come.

And the conversation in Egypt has already changed now, thanks to these tools. So for instance, young women are really waking up with a consciousness that my body is. And a man shouldn't tell me what to do with [01:44:00] my body. And I shouldn't be bossed around and all these pathological expressions of patriarchy, like the dark side of it, you know, cause matriarchy, patriarchy can be a healthy expression or pathological, unfortunately it's too pathological.

So even that it's not changed things politically yet the political aspect of the revolutions didn't work out and things got messy, but the cultural shift, Ooh, we don't see it covered in Western media. You know, journalists don't talk much about it, but I could tell you among the youth, there's a big cultural shift.

That's ongoing and it's going to manifest in institutional change at some point. And when we've also gotta be ready, you know, we've gotta be ready for that. We've gotta be ready. And like they say, you know, it's all about preparation and, and, and creating your own luck at the end of. Amazing.

[01:44:51] CK: Amir, thank you so much for sharing your perspective.

Why ranging topics we talked about from your origin [01:45:00] story to your relationship with your father, to, uh, MTMA psychedelic therapy to narrative, uh, crafting our own narratives in service of the world and using social media advertising platforms as a tool to help us amplify the kind of impact that we want to make in the world.

And also to be a part of, um, a new narrative that inspires a new positive impact in the world. So I so appreciate you, man. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your perspective.

[01:45:35] Amir: Thank you for the gift of this interview for the great insightful questions for the conversation. This is easily one of the best conversations that I've had in this forum.

And once it's out in audio, I really do look forward genuinely to sharing it with a lot of people, because I've never been a fan of the interview approach where it's just, [01:46:00] it's just got this thing to it that maybe is not in the right spirit. It's kind of a commercial podcast and ends up sounding like a fricking infomercial, you know, like there's, you know, there's gotta be depth and, and you really do bring that.

And so I honor this time with you. I really appreciate it. I respect what you do much left to you brother, and, um, see her around where we met, which is metal international. All right.

[01:46:30] CK: Wonderful.