Transcription
So let's choose what's which parts of it are we going to grow. I think that's the whole point.
And we grow it with our actions and our thoughts.
Yeah. Repetitive actions, thoughts, and memories. Believe it or not, one of the interesting things is if you take a memory in the past.
Yeah.
And you think about it over and over and over. It's as if you're hap it's happening over and over and you're growing the neurons that are needed or you're growing the connections between the neurons that are needed to trigger that memory. Think happy memories. Okay. If you sit next to your partner and focus on one thing that they do and go like they say do this, they do this, they do this, they do this and forget that they do a hundred other things that you you love and and appreciate. Your neuroplasticity is making you completely obsessed about that one thing and you can only see that one thing and eventually you know some of my friends after a breakup I go like so what happened then they'll say one thing it's like just you they obsess about it over and over because your brain is growing to say he needs to think about this right I'm going to make it easier to think about this I'm going to make it faster more accessible.
And you'll see it more often like the red cars.
Mhm. You know the old thing about when if you buy like a red car, if you buy like a green car, then every car you see will appear to be green. Or if you buy a Range Rover, every car you see is a Range Rover.
Well, this other thing that's really intriguing topic from our last conversation that you mentioned and you mentioned in your new book is this idea of masculinity and femininity. I don't really hear many people talking about this.
Yeah, believe it or not, my my publisher really was asking, should we include this? It's a, you know, contested topic. Do we want to? I think it's very important for people to understand. We we've mixed up again a few definitions. Like I said, we mix love and romance, for example. We've mixed biology with gender identity, with sexual preferences with the reality of what the feminine and the masculine is. The feminine and the masculine in my definition are approaches to life. Okay? uh some basic basically um some people will want to hold their mug this way and others will want to hold it that way. It's an approach to life. Not no way is right and no way is wrong. Okay. Uh some of us will want to go through life with creativity and playfulness and and you know intuition and some of us will want to go with analysis and and and discipline and linear thinking. It's an approach to life. Neither is right and neither is wrong. There is a high cor correlation between those who are archetypically feminine if you want uh between certain of those qualities certain some of those qualities and you know those who are masculine again there is a correlation uh with some other qualities. So you would find that a person who's masculine, whether that's a man or a woman, straight or gay, it doesn't matter if if a person acts in their masculine, they'll tend to be a little more forceful. If you think about it, you know, we the masculine, one of the masculine qualities is strength. Okay? Strength is a is a quality whether it's strength in mental strength or physical strength. You want to you want to use your strength to move things. Okay? If you're dependent on your masculine side or more associating with your masculine side, you're going to show that. And as I said, statistically correlated, those who have male body parts tend to use that a little more. Reasoning doesn't matter. The problem with our world at the global level and the problem at us about us as individuals is we've decided that some of those properties or qualities are more valuable to our world than others. Okay? If if you live in a capitalist world and the capitalist world is entirely about let's produce more, let's make more, let's you know do more, we're going to have to borrow more from the doing qualities which are mostly masculine. Okay, this leads to a world where there is a lot of doing with little being. Which basically means it's a world where we do a lot of what we haven't really properly thought about. We what what is not really informed by the realities of who we are being being that beautiful sum of the feminine is being the feminine is the masculine does. there is a difference between them and if you continue to do without actually asking yourself that awareness question of what should I do you end up doing things like building technologies that make our life slightly better and destroy the planet in a in in the process why because you haven't really internalized some of the most beautiful feminine qualities of intuition of creative thinking to look for alternatives of um um s sensuality to actually sense h what is actually happening in the world as a result of your doing of inclusion uh you know to connect to the rest of being to understand that this is not just about us it's also about the bees and the and and the bears and everyone else and so on so that world that we've created being hyper masculine is I think the biggest mistake humanity has ever done and I think humanity is paying for that mistake and we'll pay more in the future the the savior is for us to to stop doing this and to start waking up and saying, "Hold on, hold on. We need a lot of being before you continue to do."
So interesting. It's particularly tricky to understand for men.
Of course.
Because men, I mean, there'll be a lot of men, again, you know, listening to this podcast now that hear the idea that they need to embrace their feminine that go, "Oh gosh, no." Yeah. It will scare them. It will it will appear to um hurt their identity. their their sense of self. Um, it'll make them feel weaker. Maybe it'll make them feel like they're they have they lack purpose if they're not that masculine. Because a lot of a lot of us as men, a lot of our sense of purpose comes from being competitive, from winning, from being strong apparently. That's how it feels anyway.
But what is masculine? I mean if masculine is to protect for example because we have the strength uh uh or the masculine has the strength. Can that protection happen without empathy? How how can you protect if you don't have empathy? H you need the feminine empathy to be able to protect. If the masculine is to solve a problem, can you solve the problem without actually identifying the problem? You need intuition and sensuality and right if the masculine is about safety and survival how can you do that without living h without uh beauty without uh you know or or art all of that is in the feminine. Your comment is right by the way but it is not because of any difference between the masculine and the feminine. men will will feel less comfortable with this because women have been sadly pushed to live in their masculine to survive in this hyper masculine world. I I will tell you honestly and I say that with 100% uh hon you know honesty of that view. I thought to myself that I was intelligent until 4 and a half years ago I started to empower my feminine and I promise you I'm 10 times more intelligent. I was in my left brain doing all of the analysis, thinking I'm a smart person. But I was doing all of the analysis with all of the wrong inputs. The feminine gives you the inputs. The feminine gives you the the the picture of the reality, the the inclusion, the big the big view of life. You can't see that with your narrowminded linear brain. And I think the reality is that men who are most successful ever in changing the world, believe it or not, are more in their m feminine than their masculine. Anyone has that has ever changed the world has been more in their feminine than their masculine. The example I give when we we spoke about this Steve Jobs. Okay, most people think that Steve Jobs was an amazing successful CEO because he was pushy. He was, you know, a bit obnoxious actually sometimes. Huh. Not at all. The reason Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs is because of his feminine qualities, his appreciation of beauty, his appreciation, his creativity, uh his art, his uh appreciation of color and shape, his uh empathy to his users needs. All of these are what made Steve Jobs that that amazing visionary that he was obnoxious by the way, pulled it back a little bit. Gandhi, even though sometimes Gandhi is contested, but Gandhi's success is not in saving his nation through the masculine qualities. If it was the masculine qualities, he would have rallied a billion people to kill the Brits. No, he went into a a peaceful uh nonviolent uh a an an empathy, an attempt to make things work through communication. All of these are feminine qualities. And somehow we forget in our narrow-minded hyper masculine world because we've narrowed everything to dollar signs. So productivity and profit and all of those dollar signs. And so if that's the target, yes, doing more, producing more, selling more is a good is a good way to go. But the reality is anyone who's ever made the world better, not richer, did it by living in their feminine first.
How does one tap into their feminine side? Because I think it's important to also say cuz these words have been associated with genders for so long. But uh a woman or someone that's trans can also be too much in their masculine side.
Absolutely.
And vice versa. A man or someone that's trans or identifies as whatever gender can also be too much in their feminine side. But so how does someone tap in more to their feminine self? Is there an activity? Is it just a choice we make? Is
So so I I I think it first requires an exercise of awareness. So, and actually in in that little voice in your head in in that chapter specifically, I have quite a few awareness exercises. Okay, those awareness exercises start by recognizing what's the feminine. Okay, and that's a beautiful exercise. A beautiful exercise that you can actually uh experience if you invited [clears throat] a couple of friends over uh that are, you know, feminine in their actions most of the time and a couple of friends that are masculine in their actions all of the time and all and allocated proper time for each of them to solve a problem. Okay? and observe the behavior, you will find an incredible differences between uh the masculine side, man or woman, it doesn't matter, which will jump in and say, "Okay, we're going to carry this and then take it 10 steps away from here and then we're going to do this and lift it on the shelf right away." Okay? where when the feminine will say things like um I I I feel that this might be a little heavier for John than it is for Jack and I sense that if we can collaborate around it as one being we can do this slightly differently. Okay. Sometimes they'll say uh things like why do we have to do this at all? Isn't there a bigger world where maybe we could uh just keep it here? Okay. and and and by that observation you'll start to to to identify the the qualities. H that's that's number one. Number two is what I call the appreciation exercise. The appreciation exercise is to flip roles. Okay? Is to sit in front of you and say uh Steve how would you solve that problem and then wait and then tell you how would you solve it if you were Jackie? Okay. And that appreciation exercise basically starts to get you to say, "Oh my god, there's another way." And that other way is not really me. It's Jackie's way, but it's interesting. Okay? And then the third is practice, practice, practice, practice. I I tell you openly, I've been empowering my feminine for the last four and a half years. Okay? And now probably 5 years. And my biggest exercise for the last two years has been an exercise of flow. We spoke about that at the beginning. The idea of flow is the is the is the truth of the feminine. The feminine is life itself. It's flowing. It's gushing across life, across the world, across territories, across uh uh uh you know, times and stories. And and we if we live in our masculine, we go like, "Nope, not going there. This is not my place. This is my place. I'm going there." And I I liken it always with a river, a raging whitewater river. If you put the masculine in the boat, the masculine will take will take the the you know the the water then push it because they want to go there. They want to be right there. The feminine will just hold the ar and and and basically say okay the river is going. I just need to balance it every now and then with one one strike just to stay in in and on track. But it's okay to take a little longer with the river to get to where I want to be. Yeah. And and that massive difference I'm sorry to say and and I'm you know someone who associated with the masculine for a very long time is stupid honestly stupid because suddenly somehow you realize that life itself is talking to you through your feminine life itself is saying let go I'm I I'll do things okay I'm much more powerful mighty wheels I can do stuff just let go a little just flow with me a little and if you manage to do that I I chose flow. I I think there are you know several other major pillars of the feminine. One of them is inclusion as I say. So so relating to others. Choose that if you want to. One of them is temporal. Okay. The masculine is very linear. We we associate with the arrow of time where the feminine is very rhythmic. We associate with cycles. Okay. And so if you can actually see the difference between them, that's a very interesting exercise. Um, you know I I think creativity and playfulness uh and breaking the rules sort of I think paradoxical thinking I to me these are the big five pillars. Paradoxical thinking is to in is to be able to be humble enough to embrace that two opposing stories are true. Two opposing facts can actually exist together.
Interesting. And the role of the masculine.
Amazing.
That the role of the masculine energy.
So, so, so that's a beautiful question. So, the problem we had with the the movement of feminism and I say that with love and respect is that it demonized the masculine. No, what needs to be demonized is overdoing the masculine.
Okay? So, you know, strength is good.
That is me sometimes, by the way. I have to admit.
I definitely overdo the masculine. My girlfriend tells me as well. She goes, she'll literally say it like that, though, cuz she's very
In touch with her feminine masculine and she'll say, "You're being, you know, you're being too in the masculine right now."
Yeah. You You know what's one of the most Yeah. One of the most common uh u things I'm told by a woman who's uncomfortable with how her boyfriend is behaving is he's unable to be available emotionally. Yeah. Of course, we we suffer from that.
A consequence of toxic.
Absolutely. So, So let's talk about this concept because it's very important. Huh? There is no demonizing of a quality. Linear thinking is a wonderful quality. Okay? If you can think about a problem linearly h that's a wonderful quality. Overdoing it makes you stubborn. Do you understand? It's the overdoing that's the problem. H strength wonderful. You overdo strength you become violent. We don't we don't want the overdoing. And what's what should be demonized is overdoing that is over overdoing anything including by the way overdoing the feminine. So you know if if you're intuitive it's a wonderful quality but if you're uh if you're too much into intuition you're ignoring linear facts and analysis. If you're um let's say paradoxical my one of my favorite as I always say that if you can if you can embrace paradoxes h it's a wonderful quality it gives you double the amount of information to analyze if you want to do analytical thinking h but if you overdo it you become a little irrational right if you're disciplined as a masculine quality or not discipline disciplined at all you become irrational so overdoing something or underdoing something is not good for any of us what is the right amount of doing something by the way it's how you are configured so I am much more empathetic uh and maybe creative and maybe playful than I am paradoxical okay uh I am much more uh in uh you know in linear thinking and control than I am in um uh you know flow this is why I work on my flow believe it or not through neuroplasticity. So what I'm doing with my life now for the last 2 years is I'm living a life of flow. I'm allowing life to tell me what to do and instead of my hyperengineered mathematical brain saying nope that's not the way it should be done. I've done my analysis. It's 37%. I'm going to do this. Okay. I I start to listen and say hey I'm going to make the decision of it's 37 or not in a couple of weeks time. No harm done if I was wrong. But intuition is beautiful. It's hard to uncondition oneself, but it goes back to this point about we rewiring our brains by repetition. And you know when I think about being more in my feminine energy and my feminine qualities and characteristics, it is a it is achieved by repetition by um being opening up to that side of me and spending more time wiring my myself to in that way which I think is so important. It's funny because I know there'll be a lot of people listening to this that either don't understand or have kind of misunderstood because we're using terms that come with like stigma when we think of femininity or when we think of masculinity. There's there's connotations with that. But it's um so unbelievably true. And if people have listened to this podcast, they would they'll know it's true from, you know, we had Terry Cruz on here who talked about his masculinity and how that became incredibly harmful to him and destructive and risked his relationships and his and everything that mattered to him. We had Patrice Ever talk about how early experiences that made him lean towards masculinity to help him survive. Being abused by his head teacher and watching his brothers and sisters die because of drug addiction on the streets of France made him turn more to that masculinity as a as a tool for survival. But then it but then that cost him so dearly but because he lived out of balance to one day sat with his partner. She said, "There's something not right with you. There's something not right with you." He resisted. He resisted. He resisted. Then boom, burst into tears.
Mhm.
And that's the moment where he opened up.
Yeah.
And allowed.
You see it. You see it and you know it. But and by the way, I think I think in reality what I'm asking for is now that the world has finally accepted gender diversity and fluidity and so on. I'm asking us not to be more categorized. Okay? I'm asking us to stop saying so I'm category A, category B, category, category D. because we've just moved from man woman to more categories. Now I'm asking us to say that Mo h is unlike anyone else in his mix of masculinity and femininity. I'm 58% okay in certain qualities of the feminine I'm more than others and you could be 42% and in other qualities of the feminine and not more than others. And I think the idea is to say each and every one of us is an individual. Each and every one of us is a category of their own. Okay. everyone. The only category I fit in is I'm a mo. That's it. That's my category. And that category includes a beautiful blend of qualities that I can use that are not any better or any worse than anyone else. Okay? Those qualities that I blend together might be amazing for this podcast conversation, but horrible at making pizza. I don't know. Right? And I think the reality is if you can become true to that reality of who you are, you'll become the best at that that you're supposed to do in life. And without that balance, you will always always feel incomplete. No, you've written what is [clears throat] another legendary book on a very related but incredibly foundational topic, which is our thoughts and that little voice in our heads. And um I think if this conversation is a flavor of the book then it is I think in everyone's view that's listening a must readad. You know it's funny that we I I talk about time being the single currency that we can allocate to determine the outcomes of our lives. But thoughts are the
Interesting.
They are the thing that is determining how we spend that currency.
Yeah. I think I think time is the rhythm of your song. the song of your life and thoughts really are the lyrics that you put on top of it. They are the melody. They are they are as as we spend a minute of our life thinking a certain thought that minute completely shapes how the song of your life is going to be. It's quite interesting how we ignore that.
And so maybe maybe thoughts are the most important thing. And what this book does is it helps us to adjust the code that runs our brains. At the the last line in your book, um you say, "I have one last selfish request. Please find the compassion in your heart to want happiness for my wonderful son Alli and wise teacher. Send him a prayer, a generous wish that he is happy wherever he is right now. He started it all and he truly was the kindest, happiest human I have ever known. I'll keep working on mine for Ali.
Why did you bring that up? We were having an easy conversation.
Yeah. So, um, yeah, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for what he taught me and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the example he set and I wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for him leaving us. And um and I uh I it's interesting that I told I may have told you this once before that I write the last sentence of every book before I write the rest of the book. Yeah. And I I have to say I have been blessed with so many people that send me messages that say I love Ali. And uh yeah, I feel that if it was that only that that I got from the work I've done, then I've lived. It's there's nothing worse more. And and and but I'm getting so much more. I'm I'm getting so much um purpose if you want, but I don't want to be forgetting him in that purpose. I think that's where I stand today that I'm so driven but by what I'm trying to achieve and he's been away for seven years almost 8 years now. So I once again need him to be part of our journey. So so yes please send him a happy wish.
The work he's done through you is truly magical.
Through you is the exact right word. It's funny when when we spoke about the idea of control being a masculine quality. Only when I let go, only when I let go that life, whether with him or through him or maybe he's the boss, I have no idea. But what I've what I've accomplished was so much more than what I did when I was trying to control everything. And it's because of how he showed me to do to do it.
[snorts]