 And I think as an artist, you got two choices. You can either free people or you can dig them deeper into their illusions. I never wanted to be the latter. You know, there's a difference between ego goals and spirit goals, a good idea and a God idea. I know many in our audience have definitely encountered your filmmaking, but I don't know how many know your backstory. So I'd love to hear how you became a filmmaker, what interested you in that creative process and how you got here today? It was music, you know? I mean, listen, I grew up as this shy, skinny kid in the back of the class. I didn't really engage with the teachers. I like sports, I like girls, but I was always shy. I was very introverted. Fast forward to maybe high school, I came in contact with conscious hip hop. And funny enough, we were talking about my dad earlier, but you know, my parents, they wouldn't let me listen to hip hop growing up. I remember one time I had like a, it was a cassette player and I was listening to the radio. I had like biggie Smalls on and my daddy came in, took the headphones off me and listened to. He's like, why are you listening to this? You know, he took everything away from me. So they didn't let me listen to hip hop, man. But high school, as I grew up, I discovered conscious hip hop and it just changed everything for me. I think at that time I was looking for inspiration. I was looking for something and I discovered people like Public Enemy, people like Immortal Technique, people like there's an artist named Cannabis. And they spoke about similar subjects that my teachers spoke about, but they did it in a much cooler way. I always recite this Cannabis line from a, from a PC they call Poet Laureate. It is, I think, top five best hip hop songs of all time. It's like an eight minute piece. And I mean, this guy should have won every award possible for this, it's a masterpiece. And in the song, he's got these lyrics. He's like, alone in my room, looking through the 32 X telescope zoom, adjusting the focus of the moon. One should not assume the philosophy of David Hume is nothing more than a subjective conclusion. What is the maximum field rate application, the runaway glaciation across the ocean basin? And I was like, what? This is rap? First of all, I didn't understand half of it. So I'm like curious, I'm researching who, who is David Hume? I mean, Scottish philosopher did this. And so it just, boom, my mind just opened so much through inspiration. And so I wanted to do that. I wanted to have an impact on people like these rappers had on me. So I started in the hip hop and I started making music. I was still a little bit influenced by, you know, the glitz and the glamour a little bit at that age, but my music, it always had a very conscious element to it. I was always trying to educate the people who listened to my music. And funny enough, I ended up doing my senior thesis at the University of Missouri on the commodification of hip hop. That's how much of an impact this freaking culture had on my life. So making a long story short, this is what I did for a long time. Hip hop was everything to me. I not only changed, it saved my life. And until, you know, I kind of, I feel like I outgrew it a bit. Hip hop, while it's very, you know, this side of it, it wasn't as misogynistic and materialistic, but it was still very competitive driven. It still had the spirit of competition, of I'm better than you. I can put these bars together better than you can. I'm more lyrical. And, you know, that competitive spirit, it was fun, you know, in my early days, but it just kind of got old. You know, I found myself constantly comparing my position as an artist to others. You know, I would be like, okay, why is he on MTV or winning a Billboard award? I'm 10 times better than he is. You know, what's up with that? You know, so I ended up stopping. I ended up just saying, I just want to be happy. I just want to find what is it that's going to make me happy. So I put the mic down and I picked up some books and these books where everything from Buddhism, to Hinduism, to Taoism, to psychotherapy, just trying to understand this thing called happiness. What is this thing? And where is it? You know, is happiness, is it in the cabin? Is it in the mansion? Where is happiness? And through all the research and learning and meditation, I found that happiness, it ain't out there. It's inside of all of us. And as the late great Wayne Dyer said, when you change the way you look at things, those things you look at change. So I started looking at things differently and I realized that it's not the awards, it's not the recognition that's gonna make me happy, but it's first finding the peace inside of myself and sharing that peace with whoever's willing to listen. So I made a big pivot. Now I went from rap to more of a poetic, more lyrical, more informative style. So people say rap is poetry and that's true. Rap stands for as they say, rhythm and poetry. But I just honed in a little bit more on that poetic side and everything changed, my whole life changed. I felt like I was finally in alignment. It was natural, it was free and I enjoyed doing it. But it happened because I first found the fulfillment inside of myself. I wasn't doing it to get the attention anymore. I was doing it because I felt like it was my, as they say, Dharma. And so here I am today, over a decade later, trying to continue to walk the talk and be the change that I'd like to see in the world and share tips, tools, strategies for people to ultimately find the peace in their own lives because what's more important than that? I don't think too many people listening could imagine you as being shy, seeing you on stage, seeing the content you create. So do you feel like being shy has helped your creative process? I do, I think it's a gift. I look at a lot of celebrities like Lady Gaga and all these stories of these artists still living with their parents and talking about how they're shy offstage, but they turn into some type of superhero or to ego when they're on stage and maybe it's like that for me. But the shyness, I think, was a gift. I think the introspection allowed me to look deeply within myself while everybody else was looking outward. Everybody else was trying to learn about other people in their friend group while I had the time to learn about me. And I think that's super important when it comes to peace, purpose, and satisfaction in life. I couldn't agree more. I feel like being shy allows that opportunity for you to look inward versus being so focused outward. Part of that looking inward is the comparison. And I feel like so many in our audience are really struggling with that. You mentioned in rap, but even in content creation, there's views, there's likes, there's comments. It's so easy to compare where you stand versus other people. So can we talk about that journey to remove that peace or move away from that peace that was causing so much suffering for you? Cause I know many people listening are feeling that same way right now. Oh yeah. I mean, this is what I think these platforms wanted. I don't know if they have evil demons working behind the scenes to lower the vibration of the world. I don't know what it is, but this is, I mean, they're pretty clear. This is how it's founded upon, I mean, comparison. And I think when you compare your behind the scenes to somebody's highlight reel, you don't feel pretty crappy about yourself, but it is important to be mindful. And I try to look at it like that. For me as a creator, I mean, it's impossible not to look at the numbers. And I think the mind can definitely lean into that comparison trap because that's exactly what it is. It's a trap. The comparing mind is the doorway to suffering. And I've experienced it. Like I said, it's impossible not to. And I think if somebody is dealing with that, you gotta really take a step back. You gotta, first of all, audit who you're following. I always say, you know, you gotta make a life audit with all of the information that's coming into your field of consciousness so that you don't feel crappy about yourself. You know, you gotta architect your environment in a way that's gonna create success and not misery. It's a practice as well. So for me, when I find myself getting caught into the comparison trap, the reflex is, all right, Prince, are you doing it for the numbers? Are you really doing it for the impact? I think you gotta really come back to why are you doing this? Why is it just an ego boost? Are you just trying to get the numbers, get the fame, get the glory? Cause that'll never create true happiness. It'll create a little excitement, a little, you know, a few dopamine spikes, but it ain't gonna create fulfillment. True fulfillment is created by first, the peace within yourself, the stillness within, and sharing that stillness with others. So for me, it's a good practice. It's a tightrope sometimes to walk, but if I ever get caught in the ego, I'm, you know, are you doing it for the views, for the awards, or are you really doing it because this is why you're here on this planet? You know, there's a difference between ego goals and spirit goals, a good idea and a God idea, right? The good idea is, you know, you're creating, you're doing good things, you're a do-gooder, but the God idea is you're doing that thing that you were meant to do out of love. One of my hacks is if this was the last video that I ever create, what am I gonna say? And when I do this practice, what comes out is not something to get, you know, million likes, it's something that really has a deep message and hopefully we'll get a million likes as well, but it's more balanced. It's not as ego heavy. Yeah, well, I certainly feel the love piece is so important in all of this because when you look at it from a place of abundance, I know the apps try to create this competitive nature, but there are so many people who are creating a platform of impact and living their life on their journey. And when you express love for someone who might feel a little further ahead than you, who might have accomplished something, maybe they got more views and likes, I think that puts me at a better reference point. So there's this self-love of like, I love what I'm working on, I love the impact that I'm making, and I also love that that person is doing amazing things in their life on their journey and shifting that perspective away from being in battle with one another. That's it. That's it. More of a collaborative than a competitive nature. I think you can't be, when you stand too close to the painting, you can't see the picture, right? When you stand too close to the painting, you can't see the picture for what it is. So, you know, a lot of people, I think in our world have this thing about time, real hangups about time, but you gotta trust. I think there's a trust in a surrender that you are exactly where you're meant to be right here, right now, that all is well and unfolding as it should. And, you know, if you know, no gardener that I know would have success if, you know, they planted a seed and they saw it growing a little bit and then they tried to pull it up, say, grow faster, hurry up. Nah, you're gonna destroy your whole patch like that. So you gotta trust and you gotta just keep watering that seed. And sometimes the, you know, the flame that burns the brightest, you know, dies the quickest. So you gotta trust your timing. Now, the flip side of that is when you pour everything into a piece of content, when it's had a great impact on you, but the seed doesn't germinate and it doesn't resonate for whatever reason or it doesn't have the impact that you had hoped. And there's that bit of self-criticism that comes up. Like you felt so strongly that the audience or the platform would resonate and it didn't. How do you deal with those failures or setbacks and do you view them as failures or setbacks as you create? Yeah, you know, if there was a, I wanna create a dictionary. And in this dictionary, I would put words that really exist and failure is a word that I would not put in that dictionary because it doesn't exist. There's no such thing. It's experimenting, it's testing, right? So when I create something that might not go as far and wide, I say, okay, I look at it with a curious mind. Like, okay, interesting. Okay, what can I do differently? Let's try it on the next, you know, next go. For me, it's just data, it's just testing, you know, I mean, that's the way to really get the most out of those experiences is to really use it for the next iteration as simple as that. So evolve the message. Yeah, 100%. Some people that I work with, they can get caught into traps and even I can get caught into the trap of blaming. Oh man, that's so stupid. How can they not like this video? That doesn't do anybody any good. Oh man, the algorithm, no, man, F algorithm, you know? That's disempowering. For me, I just take it as a lesson, okay, let's not do something that we did in that time and do something different in the next one, you know? So we grow from it or as you say, we evolve the message. Yeah, I think in creating and the creative process, there's the trust and there's the patient's piece, watering the garden. And it's very easy to look at other people in that snapshot and see their success and not see all the work that got them there. Oftentimes it's not even posted, it's not even talked about, it's those minutes of fame that they get. And then of course the comparison starts, but what is your perspective on being patient and watering that garden? And for those who are thinking about entering the creative space or who are struggling in their career right now with impatience and the pain and suffering that causes, how do you bring patience into your life? I think somebody said he or she who experiments the most wins. You know, I'm a big fitness advocate and they say he or she who does the most reps looks the best, right? So it's the repetitions. It's the times that you experiment with what you're doing that gets you closer to where you wanna go. You're learning, you're becoming more durable. You're building. And also, you know, success too fast can be a curse. Man, they say don't be too good at something you hate or they'll make you do it for the rest of your life. Yeah. So you gotta look within the self to make sure you're in alignment with what you're doing. Truly, that's the first step because listen, I meet a lot of creators that are successful. Hey, YouTube, how you doing? It's a beautiful day. And you meet them behind the scenes. They're just their face, man. They're just down. They're sad. They're addicted to social media and they're addicted to the numbers. And I would never wanna switch places with them. I mean, no disrespect. But first, it's important to really walk the talk, to live it, to be the message that you wanna see in the world, to be it. To be the message, don't just speak it, be it. That's the hardest. That's always been, historically, that's always been the hardest thing to really live it. So I think when you are living it, you adopt a, first of all, things become easier, you love it. The repetitions, the reps are fun. It's play. It's not a job, it's play. And ultimately, you're doing it for a bigger reason than just yourself. This has always helped me because I think there's an issue in our social media culture around artistic integrity. And I think as an artist, you got two choices. You can either free people or you can dig them deeper into their illusions. I never wanted to be the latter. I always wanted to try to free people. And if that's your goal, if that's your mission, then whether you get 200 views or 200 million views, and I've gotten both of them, you look at them equally and you look at them as, okay, what can I learn and what can I do better? Even when you get to that 200 million point, you're like, okay, what can I do better? You know, you're never happy. You're satisfied, but you're not necessarily happy. You're content, but it's not like, oh man, I made it. You're just always trying to figure out, learn and grow. And staying true to the message, the core values who you are versus chasing what the trends and the fads and what other people are posting that are those empty social media calories. Yeah, I mean, the trends can be your friend. The Dalai Lama said, learn the rules so you know how to break them effectively. So you learn the trends and you put that aspirin in the applesauce, you put the medicine in the sauce. We call it the cheese on the broccoli. Okay. No one wants to eat the broccoli as a kid, but you put a little cheese on it and plate something. I always like cheddar broccoli, that's true, man. Love it. You mentioned earlier, your journey was turning towards books. Was there a mentor involved? How did you turn to these books? How did these books appear in your life? Yeah, I was shy, man. So it wasn't a mentor, it was books. Also, I didn't have the resources. Show your picture of the room I used to, I grew up in. So this is when I was living on the north side of St. Louis. St. Louis is home for me. St. Louis is the most, I think FBI statistics say, it's the most dangerous city in the U.S. We literally lead the nation in some of the worst categories, violent crimes and this and that. I grew up on the north side of St. Louis, which is the worst part. I was lucky I had both of my parents. Dad was a cop, mom was a nurse, and they were together. Next door, drug dealers. I wake up going to porch. You see bullet casings on the porch. You hear gunshots in the middle of the night. You get used to it, it doesn't freak me out. Somehow, sometimes I even find comfort in here. And I don't know, it's kind of weird. Anyway, so this was my room. These are the books in my little messy, messy room. This is the window, bed. So this is kind of like where I come from. So for the audience who's listening, it's bed, window and stacks piles and piles of books. That's all you need. See, the books were the way out. Chris Rock made a joke. Love, Chris Rock. Chris Rock is edgy, man. Yeah, he is. He said, if you want to hide something from a black person, put it in a book. Funny joke. Yeah, you're trying not to laugh. I know you are. Bill Gates was interviewed by a reporter. They asked him, Bill, if you could have any superpower in the world, what would it be? Bill, he didn't say he wanted to be strong like the Hulk or fly like Superman or spin webs like Spider-Man. He said, if I could have any superpower, it would be to read books faster. Warren Buffett said, the more you learn, the more you earn. Books are everything to me. That's such a simple investment, but it can change everything. Every problem that you're dealing with in life, somebody else has gone through that problem, transcended it and wrote a book about it. The books are the cheat code. So for me, it was picking up books about how to be happy because I knew first in order for my life to get better, I had to get better. One of those books that had a huge impact on me, it is the second most translated book in the world, second to the Bible. Some say it's the wisest book ever written. It's called the Dao De Ching book of the way, Lao Zhu. Amazing book, it's poetry. This is probably why I had a connection to it, right? Being in a rap and coming into poetry, but it was books, I didn't have the mentors. So it was the literature for me, spending my last money on, it was studio time and then books, all the money I had in my account because I knew it was an investment. I don't know, I grew up different also for my brothers. I got two older brothers. I don't know, man, I was always like, there's nothing I can't do if I really wanna do it. I never had limitations, maybe growing up, I felt like if I put my mind to it, I could be the best rapper in the world. I could be this, I could be that. If that's something I really wanted to do, I could, I think what Will Smith said, I could be president if I wanted to. I felt that when he said that years ago because I feel the same way. I mean, there's nothing you can't do because it's been done by people probably with worse circumstances than you have. So long story short, I think books were definitely my portal into changing my life. So I'd love to unpack your reading process because many of our listeners love books. We have authors on the show constantly, Johnny and I are avid readers of all the guest work. How do you approach a book and how do you actually take that information? Because that's the big thing for me, it's turning that information to knowledge where you're acting on it where it's actually changing and improving versus having that encyclopedia of information that you draw from but you don't actually live. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Information when our action is impotent. I love reading books, physical books. But also, I mean, you saw the picture of all the books I had. I probably had twice as many audio books. I love listening to books. I love going for walks and reading or listening to the information and taking notes. I'm not a big fiction guy. I've always been into the practical, how can this impact my life for the better? Some of my favorites are Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, Dr. Amen. That was a huge one. Happiness, Equation, The Dow, The Ching, The Ribu Gita, Bhagavad Gita. Basically things involving health. What did he say? Early to bear, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise, right? So health, wealth and wisdom for me. You know, anything that could level up where I am or where I was. You know, I mean, my process is, you know, I download a book, say on Audible and I go for walks. I'm constantly bookmarking, you know, certain places in the book that I find interesting. And the funny thing about books is they'll lead you to other resources too, right? So it's not just, you know, in a vacuum. It leads you into other crazy areas. I just read it and yeah, you're right. You really have to do something with it, right? Thinking of Bible says, faith without works is dead, right? So you gotta work, you can't just believe you gotta do. It starts, it starts, it starts, it starts with identity. You gotta be before you can do and do before you can have. It starts with being because if you don't have the confidence, if you don't have the self image, you won't carry out any of the instructions in these books because some part of your subconscious might believe, I'm not meant for that. I'm not destined to that. Oh, they did it, I'll never do it. Some part of your subconscious and a lot of people face that. I know I've faced that until I realized that the me I see is the me I'll be. So it starts with who I am. The most important question, I think that we can ask ourselves. And I got lucky because for me, my foundation was the spiritual books. And what happens when the foundation, when it's founded upon the spiritual books and principles, you realize there's actually no limits. If you're just, I think personal growth is very limited. You can never perfect the person. The person is can always get better and change and this and that. And that creates an incompleteness feeling. But when you recognize that the spirit is always whole and perfect as it is, everything else is just building on top of that. And when I say spirit, I don't mean something that is an idea. I mean something that's really practical. And I know you're a scientist. So I'd love to know your opinions or experiences on this state of being, we call spirit or soul. But once you identify as that and not this body, what can hurt you? I mean, if you identify as spirit, as this formlessness, what do you care about views or anything? That's a personal problem. You go back to how they came up with the word person because from the Greek word persona meaning mask, right? And our whole world is built upon the mask. Oh, you're acting out of character. So the character is just, it's a fiction. What's real? And I think if you can ground yourself in that, that's it. That's the foundation that true success can grow from. So when you talk about your upbringing, feeling this lack of limitation, your brother's experience more maybe limiting beliefs as we call them versus you. And this confidence journey, do you feel like you've always been confident or how do you feel like you've unlocked confidence in your life? Because many of our listeners, that first step we talked about, I talked about when we came on your show, the mindset piece, like you could have all the information in the world, all the access to knowledge. I mean, listening to shows, YouTube, people listening to us right now, trying to gain that information. But if the mindset, the belief isn't there that you're worthy, you can, how do you act on it? How do you actually create the change? That's it, that's it. There's a story I like to tell of a father whose babysitting is young, his young son babysitting. People will hate me for saying that. He's taken care of his young son. His wife left, she's out hanging with the girls. And he's, Pops is at home, he wants to watch the game, but little Timmy really wants to play with him. So dad is getting a little frustrated. And Timmy keeps coming up to daddy, daddy, play with him, play with me. But the Super Bowl is on and he just wants to watch the game. The dad, he starts thinking, say, okay, what can I do to get some time to watch the game? So he looks at the coffee table and he finds a magazine. So he picks up the magazine and flips through it and he finds a picture of a world map. So he gets some scissors and he starts cutting this map out in a little pieces, thinking that he can create a puzzle for little Timmy that'll keep him occupied long enough that he could finish the game. He's a brilliant idea. So he cuts this map in a little pieces and he says, Timmy, come here. Yeah, daddy? Timmy, I'll play a game with you here. This is a puzzle. And if you could put the pieces of this puzzle together, I'll play with you. But you know what? Not only will I play with you, I'll take you out and get you your favorite toy and ice cream. You like vanilla ice cream, right? Yeah, okay. Put this together, I'll play with you. Sounds like a great deal. It's a great deal. So Timmy, he goes to his bedroom and he gets to work. And the dad is like, yes. Ah, I could finally watch the game in peace. Well, a few minutes later, little Timmy comes in the room with a completed puzzle. Didn't make it hard enough. And the dad is like, what the heck? Who you got back there helping? Timmy, this is freaking me out. How the heck did you put this together so fast? And Timmy said, well, dad, on the back of the map was a man's face. And I knew if I got the man right, the world would come together. I love this story so much because that's it. It starts once we get the man right, the woman right, then all worlds come together. Whatever we wanna do, it starts with understanding who we are, getting us. You cannot pour from an empty cup. It's not selfish to give yourself self love. It's the most selfless thing that we can do. And only when the individual is optimized, is right, is healthy, can they be good to their family? Can they be beneficial to their community? Can they be beneficial to the world? And we miss that a lot. We miss that. We oftentimes wanna change so many things on the outside, but we forget it's us. There's one earth, but there's billions of worlds. And everybody's living in their own individual world. We gotta get our world right, our map right. If we don't, then it's about as stupid as trying to relieve an itch by scratching the outside of the shoe. You gotta get in there. I think it's often easier to focus on the external to try to please others in hopes of winning that value back for yourself to be seen in a different way, to shift the way someone views you. It's often harder to do the internal work, to find yourself, to really put into action everything that you've learned, everything you've taken away. And I think I'd love to hear how growing this platform, building this impact and all of the fame that comes along with it, you've met incredible people along the way. How do you view relationships now, the people that you let into your life that you show the map to and the people that maybe aren't a good fit for you? Oh, wow. Yeah. So important. It comes back to that life audit. Is this person an asset or a liability in my life? If your life was a business, is it a successful one, right? Is other people- Well, how do you find asset? Because I feel like- Well, an asset. It can lead to transactional views, right? Trying to get something out of others. And I think that will often lead you astray as well. It's the language, right? It goes back to that language. Language is tricky. But I see an asset just as a benefit. Somebody who's really there, I think a best friend is somebody who brings the best out of you. Are they bringing the best out of you or are they lowering your vibration? And we can outgrow people as well. And there's nothing wrong with that. These questions, I think are also, it's like, who do you keep in your life? Who do you remove from it? I think it happens once you build up that inner wisdom within yourself. You can, these choices happen spontaneously and they're often made for you. I think you just, when you hold a vibration and energy, I think you attract that energy as well. Jay-Z's got a line. He says that they look at you strange and say you changed, huh? Like I worked that hard to stay the same. It's okay to change. It's okay to grow. Some people will try to pull you back, the crabs in the bucket, but I think it's also a recognition that this life is very precious. I think friends, that's why we're here, right? I mean, relationships, friends, that's the most important variable to health, wealth, success, longevity. It's friends, but I think each person when they really honor and love themselves, they will only allow people in their space that can do that as well. Just like a yarn, it's contagious. It's always energy and just being around it affects you. If you see a smile or if I smile and the same neurons will fire in your brain as though you were smiling, we're connected. You gotta find a tribe. It really fits your flow, fits your frequency, your energy, your vibe. And do you feel that over the years, your tribe has shifted? Have you gone through those moments where you've had to leave tribe members behind? Yeah, I have, I have for sure. Yeah, I call them unrecognizable differences. But people can grow, people can change. But also, listen, you're talking to an introvert. You're talking to somebody who enjoys spending time by himself. Yeah, well, there's sort of two sides to the coin, right? There's the new people who now see your fame, see the platform you've built and want to be a part of it and sometimes want something from you along the way. Then there's also the people who are in your life before the platform was built who know you as the boy with the stack of books, who know you as the introvert in the back of the class. So I think a big part of this journey that we're all on is the people who are joining your life and letting in the right people who have that energy, that vibe, that ability to make you feel whole and love you. And who are the people that maybe we need to leave behind who knew you as the young boy with books in the room in the back of the class being the introvert who maybe aren't a good fit energetically for your life any longer. And some people will call those the day ones. Yeah. The day ones, yeah. I think it's important to recognize that you select friends with a common future, not just a common past. That's a beautiful, succinct way of it as a guide for people who are struggling to figure that question out. Who do I let in? Who do I... But there's a level that I think goes beyond architecting certain people and being very strict and rigid on who you let in. I think you've got to be open to that flow too, you know? Cause some people get caught into the trap and I've seen this a lot of what can they do for me? Yeah. Man, that's a toxic way to live. Well, often in life, people can't do something for you right away, right? Relationships take a while, just like a garden to grow, to water, to go from stranger, to acquaintance, to friend, to confidant, to someone you really trust. And if you were to write everyone off immediately based on what they could do for you, well, you're not gonna have too many plants in that garden. Well said, well said, well said. So I think it's based on the inner wisdom. You know, when somebody can really see the beauty and love in themselves, value themselves, you're just not gonna wanna be around people who bring you down. Yeah. And that's okay. Yeah. I think giving yourself that permission too. Cause it's often hard, especially with the day ones who you feel like you spent the most time with, you've invested a lot in and they've invested a lot in you, those friend breakups can be the hardest. Yeah. You know, I meet people who have trouble saying no. And I just have, I don't have trouble doing it. I had a feeling based on the stack of books, they're more important things than the superficial. Yeah, to hold people please and thing. Yeah. It's real. People go through it that need to be liked. Yeah. I don't know, I'm so, I think Rudd you're Kipling got a good poem about seeing praise and blame as two illusions, two sides of the same coin. You know, they said the same sword they night you with, they good night you with. So it's really gonna come down to when you have that inner wisdom, you'll be able to make the decisions for who goes and who stays. Yeah. But it comes from looking within. But one thing that I've actually had, and I'm still working through to make this a, you know, a better part of my life, something that I do. And that's reaching out to friends, you know, telling friends that they matter, that they're special, that I really appreciate and value them because I didn't grow up having that. It's a bit of a, it's something that I see, I observe and that I have to work on reaching out, telling people they're valuable, why they're here? Because friendships are super important, super important. I think I grew up wanting to kind of do everything by myself. What's that movie? Ah, do it myself. Bit of a lone wolf. Bit of a lone wolf. I've always had a few friends, but I was never like that. It's something that I wanna get better at is keeping in touch, staying in people's lives and showing love, showing people that they are loved. You know, because I think as an introvert, we can take it for granted, but we might hesitate to reach out. And even people who want to go out, we might say, no, I'm okay, I'm at home. Just, you know, we say we got big plans, we're just at home petting our cat. I think understanding is key in friendships too, you know, understanding is love's other name. So I think understanding how people operate, not taking it personally, but reaching out, vocalizing, telling people that they matter. Yeah, I completely agree. And I have to be intentional enough to put it on my calendar. Yeah. So Wednesday's for me, the hump day, I have a slot at the end of the day to reach out to people in my life along the way. And that's the great part about social media. You know, there are so many downsides, but what people are posting, they care about. And it's a way for you to reach back out, see what's going on in their life, even if you haven't talked in months and with a pandemic for some, it's been years. So you've got a day, you schedule out people. It's just held on my calendar to wrap my Wednesday afternoon to remind me that I have a tendency to go the lone wolf route, to shoulder it all alone and to let those relationships that matter to me turn into acquaintances, turn into a strange because they haven't heard from me. And it just takes one person to say, hey, I'm thinking of you or I saw you post to this or hey, how was that trip to spark that conversation, to rekindle that connection that may have just frayed because both of you naturally just sort of went your separate ways with life. And with what Daniel Waldinger shared with us of the Harvard Happiness Study, just the impact that relationships have in our lives and his study participants who are intentional about keeping those relationships versus those who went the lone wolf direction and the health complications that followed that, I think for me is just that reminder. But I have to be intentional because as an introvert, at the end of the day, I feel drained and it's often the last day. Are you doing it at the end of the day? Yeah, because I feel like, especially on a Wednesday, everyone's got plans in the weekend, Mondays are crazy, but Wednesday is kind of that hump day where everyone's like, what are we gonna watch on TV? What's going on? And then it's like, oh, a touch base from AJ and the conversation. Yeah, yeah, that's great, that's great. Yeah, that's something that I'd like to do better on. Yeah, I think it's the most important thing in relationships, right? Your tribe, cultivating that and really showing people that their love is so important. Like you said, just, hey, I'm thinking about you. That could change somebody's whole day, super important. So we love asking every guest what their X factor is. What do you think makes you unique and extraordinary? I think I've been graced with a, and when I say I, I think this thing we call appreciate, this character seems to have an insight that I don't see many other people have. And what is that insight? I think that insight is that I'm not these thoughts and I'm not this body. Maybe as a kid I used to look in the mirror and I'd say, who is that? That's not me. Maybe it was like that or maybe it was doing what's called self inquiry practice where you literally ask yourself, who am I to whom do these thoughts come to? But I think it's just grace, I don't know. I mean, some people meditate for 50 years and that insight just isn't there. So I think if there's any X factor, it's that deep self-awareness. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your wisdom. What's your X factor? My X factor, I honestly think it's my introversion and being a deep listener. I've really always just had that ability, whether it's audio books, whether it's podcasting conversations, just always had that curiosity through listening, just picking up on threads, wanting to get to know people at a deeper level. I think that's what makes me unique and extraordinary. Whereas in the past, I feel like I would have used my introversion as a reason to say that I'm a victim or I can achieve or an excuse. I now see it as a superpower. Wow, that's beautiful. Okay, and so your introversion allowed you to kind of get to where you are today, the success that you have attained. It was because of your deep listening skills and learning. Yeah, I was ashamed of it in grad school. I thought it was a real hurdle to moving forward because everyone that I saw as successful was extroverted. I never really saw it as a superpower. And over the years, doing these interviews and having an opportunity to meet so many people, I actually feel that the introversion being introspective and then also deep listening along with that, I feel has created deeper relationships in my life and I view it now as something that makes me extraordinary. Such a good way to look at it. Yeah, I think people should lean into that, right? Turn your weaknesses into strengths, you know? It's in your weaknesses that you were strong, right? They're all gifts, right? If we look at it as a weakness, going back to that language, it can become too big of a hurdle for us. Yeah, look at it as a gift. And you think you're, I asked you this on my podcast, but you think your introversion, you kind of inherited it from your family. Yeah, from my upbringing. Now, do you think it's possible to re-imprint yourself to become an extrovert? I don't, I feel these interactions, like even after this interview, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna want some space even for my wife. So she'll say, there's no shifting AJ to extrovert. That's why I know wholeheartedly that I'm an introvert, like time around people, when I give to my clients in the coaching programs, it does exhaust me. I need to recharge my battery. I feel drained in an extrovert's role. But what's been great about the podcast is I've learned all of these amazing strategies and techniques and ways of being that extroverts use in their lives. And now I can see them as tools, but they exhaust me. Mm, I know an ambivert is something too in the middle of the road. Yeah, you kind of feel middle of the road. There are moments in environments where you feel extremely extroverted and then there are moments or environments where you wanna shy away. Do you feel extroverted at all in certain moments? I think people perceive me as more extroverted than I am. Okay, but you don't really feel that. No. Ah, I'm interested. So it's okay. That's fascinating. Okay, this is another episode. Yeah. That's great. Well, what's interesting now, I think, and we have an influence index on our website. It's a quiz that people can take. And over half of people identify as ambiverts. Yeah, okay. A little bit of both. Okay, that makes sense. I feel like as people are more aware of introversion and extroversion, we kind of have that middle ground that most people reside in, but I'm firmly an introvert. You know, I read a book called The Mood Cure. You would like this. It's written by a PhD, Julia Ross. And she speaks to this. She speaks to depression also, maybe a little bit of introversion, but she provides certain nutraceuticals for people. One of them was, I wanna say, it wasn't theanine. It might have been tryptophan, eotryptophan, or something like that. So I took this supplement and I became an extrovert. Waiting for the cape. I'm waiting for you. I became an extrovert because it was something in my brain, I believe, whether it's dopamine levels or something that might normally be low. So the neurochemistry. Changed it, yeah. Yeah, anyway. Thank you brother. So much fun. So much fun.