I attended a funeral this past weekend and it got me reflecting on death (yes, even more so than usual) and how important it is to make peace with our own mortality. In today’s episode, I share some of the conversation I had with my wife’s grandfather just a few days before he passed and explore the difference between happiness (what we think we’re after) and inner peace (what we’re truly searching for).

Takeaways

• Contemplating death and making peace with our own mortality can lead to valuable insights and a deeper understanding of life.
• Love should be put into practice in our daily lives, and it is one of the most important aspects of our existence.
• Inner peace is a state that can be present regardless of external circumstances, while happiness is a fleeting emotion that is often dependent on external factors.
• Focusing on inner growth and handling life's challenges with acceptance can lead to a more fulfilling and peaceful existence.

Timestamps

[00:00] Introduction

[01:40] Facing Mortality and Finding Truths

[06:25] Happiness vs. Inner Peace

[11:33] Handling Life's Challenges

[19:06] The Importance of Spirituality

[28:09] The Quest for Inner Peace

View full show notes here.

If people have been listening to this for a while, you know how much I love to think about and contemplate death. Well, yesterday we were at a funeral for my wife's grandfather, who was, she was actually very close to, and we got to go see him before, on Father's Day, actually, of this year, a couple of days before he passed. And he was certainly with it. He's 89. He lived a full life, a great life. And so there was no, it was more of a celebration of things. But, you one of the things I think is really beneficial is too, is I think people,

when you are faced with your own mortality, I don't mean like the contemplating your own mortality, but until you actually make peace with it, I think you still struggle. Anyways, that's a, we'll put a footnote in that, come back to that later. But for people that are really facing and understanding that, okay, this is it, right? Like even though you know it, everyone knows once you're born, you're gonna die, whether you want to go deeper into that thought or not, but you just know that there is no escaping death, right? As much as you even wanna think about

But as you're facing it, you'd start to see different truths and you start to see things that are differently and what's more important. And of course, there's no difference with him when he passed, you he started, you know, sharing a little bit, you know, reminiscing of stories and favorite moments. But he said, you know, I asked him, actually, I like asking people as long as they're comfortable with it about their impeding death. And so one of the questions I asked him, I asked, said, hey, are you afraid of death? And he said, absolutely not. And it was, was, there was,

zero certainty into that, right? At least in the way he responded to me. And he said, I've never been mean to anybody and I've always been kind. And, you know, I asked him a few other follow up questions and just kind of around that conversation. you know, his wife had passed four or five years ago and asked, you you miss her and he's like every moment. And, you know, so that was that was obviously sad to hear that. But, you know, he just wasn't afraid. And he said the thing that mattered the most was just how he said love. You know, and I know people hear that.

I was talking to somebody about this yesterday. And people use that word love, right? They use that word like, out and love. And I think we hear it, but do we actually put it into practice? Do we actually put it into play? Do we actually bring in that wisdom of these deeper truths of life as when we all face our own mortalities, how do we bring them back into us today? And I think that's the conversation, right? Which is how do I take this?

wisdom to me is when somebody else has gone through something or has an experience, has been through it themselves and they can share it with you and help provide guidance and principles. There's wisdom in business, there's wisdom in spirituality like we're doing now. mean, people for thousands of years have been talking about all the things that everyone's talked about now. Now we're just saying it differently with different words and different intonations. That's the beauty about actually using language is that we can all say it differently and it resonates with people at different times. And that's the beauty of using language to comprehend some of these

more challenging topics to actually put into physicality. Anyways, you have these wisdoms for all these different things that are there, wisdom playing the piano, sports, all these things, right? But then once you actually have it yourself, then it's a visceral feeling. It's like, I get it. It's like somebody could tell you what an orange tastes like, but until you actually taste that you don't know it. And that's the knowing becomes that wisdom, becomes your own wisdom that you can then share. Taking wisdom is before you've actually felt that it's actually been applying it in your life. So you then get the experience of that itself.

And so I think there's a lot of that in there. And, you know, there's a great book called Five Regrets of the Dying, which I think is by Bronnie Ware, which, you know, she's a, she was a hospice nurse. And again, there's five main themes that she saw everyone contemplating towards the end of their life. And of course, the biggest one is not living a life true to themselves. But I think that it's also about, you know, how do you bring these concepts into your life? And that's part of like where the rubber hits the road. I'm dealing with three kids and

trying to figure out finances and I'm trying to get everyone to summer camp right now. And it's just, you get caught up in these, in these moments. And this is where, to me, we, just drive down a few more layers and all those things that we're doing are just things that we're doing. Right. It doesn't matter how big of a business you have or what role you have in terms of as individual contributor or a leader, a business owner. Sure. You've made it right. People will say, you've made it different. What would you make? Right. Like, yes, you achieve the status in

lives, but really, okay, great, right? I mean, it's not, it's like almost like we put so much credibility in the fact that if somebody built, and it's wonderful by the way. I mean, I've loved building a business and I loved building businesses and I loved the leadership and the growth from it. for me, and I've said this, you know, since the first time I started getting in business, that business was nothing but a conduit for personal growth for me. But what I come to realize is all of life is nothing but a conduit for personal growth. And I've, you know, I say that I've realized that business

in the time just I put myself so fully into it that that's that was primarily my life, right? That and, you know, of course, my family. But it was really that was pretty much everything I was doing. So business was this conduit because you wouldn't sign up for lawsuits. You wouldn't sign up for, you know, you know, everyone leaving in one day or half your staff walking out or trying to figure out how to pay payroll. You just go through that. You grow from those things. But what you really are growing is your inward right. You're growing inwardly to learn how to handle life.

so that you can enjoy your experience of it. And this is why I always come back to, to me, spirituality is nothing but just being able to handle what's unflowing. Whether you're handling your child in a grocery store or trying to manage and juggle three different camps in two hours and dropping kids off and traffic and all that stuff to managing an employee issue or one where you make a lot of money or one where you're losing money. It's just all of those things are things that we get to handle.

And it comes up to this question that I really want to get at today, which was, you know, one of our listeners shared, said, you know, how do we really find the difference between inner peace or happiness? And what is, how do you tell the difference? And I think the question itself can be kind of flipped around, right? Which is inner peace and happiness, inner peace is a state, right? Happiness to me is a fleeting state. It's an emotion that people describe that they're feeling.

Inner peace could be described depending on how deep you want to go on the schematics of actual words or the definition of words. But happiness is more of like a state that you achieve that comes from something that you're doing externally, then happiness is put in there. Now, of course, you can use the word more of a broad sense of happiness in terms of it. So for the conversation today, I like to think of happiness as an emotional state that you feel. It's wonderful. And you you're feeling happiness, you should full on feel it. You should enjoy it. You should feel everything that you're feeling.

That's the beauty about happiness. What I think most people are striving for is that these non -circumstances of happiness, what you're looking for is how do I wake up and feel inner peace? At least in this particular case, that's what the question is. How do I actually go through dealing with my kids at a camp or dealing with stuff at work or dealing with my partner at home who's not supporting me in the ways that I want him to? It's really how do I still have inner peace of dealing with those things? And so this is where it comes back to first being, then doing.

All of those things that most people describe that they're looking for is in the doing world. They're trying to do something to generate an emotion that they feel or that they want. They're trying to do something to get that feeling inwardly. By the way, like when you feel joy or peace or happiness, it's not outside, it's inside. So why are we looking for it outside? Again, this is the ironic things that we go out and do to try to get these feelings that are in there. So anyways,

We, again, we, for this conversation, happiness is a fleeting emotion. comes when things go the way you want. It comes, it maybe goes when you avoid something you really don't want, right? It comes, anyway, something happens, you joy, your kids do really good in sports. You know, you have a great month in your, you know, your church. You have a wonderful month in business. don't, whatever those things are. Again, that is the doing world.

So let's just back up for a second. Most of us wake up and we spend 99 % of our life in the doing world thinking that's how we generate inner peace. And what's happening now is people realize, okay, I'm gonna, and this is, I've seen this even predominantly over the last decade, but even more so in the last five years, people are getting more of what they want. And it's not a bad thing by the way, but what they're realizing is they're going, Adam, I've gotten more of what I want, but I'm still not, I didn't do everything for me. In fact, I actually got the job that I wanted.

In fact, I was actually able to retire at this point or I was able to, you know, go off and take the summer off and while it was amazing and has wonderful experience, it didn't fulfill me the way that I thought it would. And that is the underlying question that I say we can flip, which is people are still waking up, looking in the doing world to try to replicate a feeling they've had from the doing world. Right. Again, you go out and you succeed in business and it feels really good. And by the way, I should write every

Every event has, know, the Buddhists refer to it as it has its own nature. Nature to me, when I use that term, is just in a feeling or emotion that you feel. That's what it means to have its own vibration, its own nature. It feels differently. A rattlesnake has this nature. When it rattles, it's scary, right? That's its nature. It's supposed to be. When a wolf howls, everyone almost has the same visceral response. It's got its own nature and it's got its own vibration and rhythm to

When a butterfly lands, again, that's got its own nature. When a sunset happens, when snow first comes down on like a fall morning, again, they all have their own nature. are, just, reality is they feel different. So everything has its own nature. So what we do is we go and we say, I'm gonna go find the ones that I really want and try to replicate the world, go out there and spend all my time trying

get the world the way I want it so that I can still have this consistent feeling. And to me, I've said this in the podcast before, but that's really when people say, you know, go out and be successful. What they're really saying is go out and be able to get the world the way you want it so you can have the inner experience that you can try to get. But the reality is that doesn't work either. You can go get all the money you want, get all the fame you want, get as many initials next to your, you know, your name as you want to, but that still doesn't do it. It does it temporarily and

feels good and you can contribute. It's just the same way I can get so lost in work and in good ways and in bad ways. I'm very cognizant on this of being careful of not just to go if I'm feeling bored or if I'm feeling like I need to go feel valued that I just go jump in the work where I can instantly get that verification that I feel valued. That's the really fascinating part about this is we know how to do this so well in the doing world. If we're feeling lack of something,

We then naturally know how to go out there and turn ourselves back on. there's, by the way, nothing wrong with this. And it shouldn't, if you need to do it, I'm part of the growth, you should do it. It's no different than like going out and exercise. I definitely feel better after I exercise, physically, mentally, emotionally, all of that. So I continue to do it every single day. I know I feel better doing that. It doesn't mean that if you can't exercise that you can't have inner peace.

It doesn't mean that if you don't go out there and don't get the job that you want or doing the job that you want to be doing or whatever it is that you're contributing to or driving your kids that you can't have inner peace. To me, there's a primary that is always there first that then leaks into the things that you do, which is why if you go, so then the question becomes, well, how do I actually, you know, the question then goes into the, they coexist? Well, of course they can. The inner peace, this,

joy, this inner lightness, you just want to refer to it as can be there while all the emotions are going to come. In fact, it's going to be there. You it doesn't mean that, you know, if when somebody yells at you, it doesn't mean that you may not feel that right. That emotion is going to feel you're going to feel the emotion you're supposed to feel. That's the beauty about having a heart is you feel the different rhythm rhythms of life. You feel the very low ones at a funeral. You can feel the pain.

the love, the support, the caring that other people had. You know, on other sides, you can feel uplifting. That's just the beauty of the heart in itself. So what causes happiness for ourselves is things outside. So this is, again, to me, you could almost, I've heard them referred to as pleasures versus happiness, which, you know, again, this is just, it's just how you want to define words.

But another way of saying it is like there's pleasures to getting a massage, right? And sure, you can say, I feel great. had a massage. Of course, you know, that's awesome, right? There's nothing wrong where I had a favorite meal or a restaurant or every Friday we go out and do this and it's a happy moment, whatever those things are. That's how you go turn, use the world to turn on and you should, you should. By having those pleasures and delights or those things that you love to indulge in, they're gonna turn you on in certain way. That's awesome. And they should, by the way. But the inner peace people are really looking

you should be able to have that regardless of what's happening outside. And then by the way, when you have that, you actually are able to contribute without needing to take something. Because when we're actually going out there and trying to get the world a certain way, we're actually trying, whether we consciously are doing this or not, we're trying to manipulate the world in a way so that when the events unfold, it's actually hitting our stuff so that we feel uplifted, that we feel good inside. And that good, you know what I'm talking about,

you feel better inside, which is everyone's looking to do. They're looking for a better inward experience. know, I just reading an article somebody sent to me that talked about, you know, the new form of leadership is inward first. And they're like, it looks like they're catching on to what you've been talking about. I'm like, well, this is first of all, everyone, people have been talking about this for hundreds of thousands of years, right? I mean, that's just, you know, anything that I ever learned, I either learn from my own experience or from other people. So it's just, I mean, I'm just, and I just share those experiences, but it's no different. We're

We're all doing these things. We can all have this experience of, feel great and there could be things, like again, it's when you first fall in love with whoever, right? Your partner is. Other things, they matter, but not nearly as much. but that's like, you that's, call that like human love, right? For what that is. But there's a deeper well of joy that's there that can be providing that while you're handling these things.

And again, it doesn't mean when you're at a funeral that you're not gonna cry, right? It doesn't mean that you're not gonna feel the event or the nature of its own event. That's the whole thing about a beginner's mind that the Buddhist refer to as in every moment it's new. It's a new mind, it's a new experience. But you have to be here for the experience. That's what be here now is. It's wow, this person just yelled at me. I was there for that moment and that felt wild. That felt completely different, right? And then I'm over here and my child's came up and gave me a hug and that felt completely different.

Now I'm with the child giving me a hug, not thinking about the person that yelled at me, right? Or whatever it is. There's been people that like you and people that don't like you. So can inner peace and happiness, how to tell the difference, right? Happiness is a state that comes and goes that usually is brought upon by something that we do, right? That's something that we go out and find in the world that ends up turning us on. Inner peace to me is a state that we work towards that is always just present with us.

Regardless of what's happening again. I've shared with you in the events. It's not renouncing anything. It's not Desiring anything. It's just purely going out there and just looking around and taking it in for what it is and So then always the question comes. Well, how do I get get there? And this is where you start with you know Michael Singer loves to use the just low -hanging fruit and I know and he talks he says people pick on me all the time and you know that he's like I always use simple examples, but it's

They are so true though, right? If you can't handle the car, how many people have talked in the last week to the car in front of them that's driving not the way they want to? Maybe they're driving slow and you're going, hey buddy, where's your blinker? Can you go a little faster? I mean, you're talking to the driver in front of you. So now your state, and the person came in here, and by the way, the person does not care. I bring up that example because the funeral we at yesterday, Donnie was his name. He drove, they actually,

looked at his car a couple of weeks ago and they pulled his average speed out, which was 19 miles per hour over the last like three or four years. Um, and he was driving up to the last couple of months, but basically he was driving on average 19 miles. was half the time it was slower than that. And so was on average 19 miles an hour. And we live in Vermont and the roads are like 40 and 50 miles an hour posted. And he used to have a line of cars and you pull over and wave them by. And he just, just didn't care.

He just not cared that that was his driving. But anyways, a lot of people were probably talking about that. And you're like, it's, so it's just, can you handle that? And all that means is sure, is there a safe time to pass? Is there a different route that I can take? Absolutely, then take it and pass the car or whatever it is that you wanna do, right? We all have it, we all wake up. I do this myself, because I'm driving a lot and I see cars going slower and I look at the speed limit and I find myself instantly wanting to get angry with the person in front of me for the way they want to drive. And then just.

I stop myself and I literally go, how is it my right to tell this person that they want to drive three miles over the speed limit? Or for me, just, maybe I'm the only one, but it's like, maybe it's 40 and they're going 40. And I'm like, how are you only going 40? And then literally I just pause and I go, it's not my right to tell this person how to drive. In fact, the speed limit is 40. So just because I like to go 43 or 44 doesn't mean they like to, right? I don't have no idea what's going on in their life. And frankly, it's just not even my right.

How can I handle this? And so I always just kind of have the higher self can talk to the lower self. So I always just kind of have this conversation with me, which is just, okay, that's fine. That's they can drive a 43 is an opportunity for me to pass. Is there a different route that I can take, but I'm not going to sit here and get angry with them. And I just make it a game. Can I handle this? And I just repeat that phrase for me, which is, I handle this driver? And then instantly like I let the event pass. And then it just, I find myself not being bothered by it. So

That's what we talk about when we talk about handling life and the inner peace. It's these lower things because right now we wake up and the reason why we don't have inner peace and we feel angst or anxious or angry at times or frustrated is purely because we are still trying to manipulate the outside world in so many different ways and it's exhausting and it will never be the way we need it to be permanently. The minute you get it that one moment, you're now using your mind

to gain the next moment or gamify the next moment so the experience hits the way you want. This is why in deep traditions, they talked about the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. There's a third Zen patriarch, one of the deepest writings on spirituality, if you will. And the great way, enlightenment, meaning it's state of inner peace, mean, again, that's enlightenment is reserved for very few masters that have walked this world. And it's basically they're in this state.

no matter what happens, that doesn't mean they won't feel the event, but it's like writing on water. It's there for a moment and it's gone and they can handle it. They can truly just handle reality. And that's the beauty about doing this deep work. Or as I referenced earlier, the article that says you have to be an inward first leader to be able to succeed in this next world. It doesn't mean you get rid of leadership skills or you don't go to training and leadership skills or you don't hold people accountable. This has nothing to do with that. Those are just byproducts of things that we're doing. Again, I really tried

create these buckets of the doing world bucket, which is where most people spend their time. And then you have this inward inner world bucket, which is all of your emotions. It's really the 200 % life is inward and outward. That's to me how I describe it, which is 100 % inner world, which is your emotions, which is your feelings, which is your heart or your spiritual heart. And then of course, who is the one that actually experiences that bucket? Who is the one that actually gets to experience that? And I always ask that question. I gave this example.

The other day my son was at a lacrosse camp and he asked somebody to be his partner and they said kind of yes and they went with somebody else and worked with somebody else and he was telling me about it. I said, did it hurt your feelings? He said, yeah, it did. And we kind of walked through that a little bit and then I said, well, how do you know it hurts your feelings? And he's like, well, what do mean? I go, how do you know that you had to hurt your feelings? And then you're able to, now you don't feel the same anymore. Now you feel different, right? And he goes, yeah.

Well, isn't that the same you that experienced now you're feeling fine before you feel that use that experience as you know, I felt, you know, it hurt my feelings like it felt differently, didn't it? But the constant is you who's in there, consciousness, whatever the experiencer of the experience, right? And you can see it, you know, and you can't use necessary huge words and, you know, and drawn out analogies with kids. But in that moment, he could you could see him click and go.

Okay, yeah, you're right. It does change. Emotions come and go. Happiness comes and goes. But this inward bucket of, how do I get that going first? Then how do I then strengthen my leadership skills, my accounting skills, my professional skills, my speaking skills, my ability to read or listen more? You just keep working on that stuff. It's wonderful. Then you can then take the doing bucket.

and explode it, then you can just go out there and share that and whatever is being asked of you or that you want to contribute towards. That's the beauty about this. That's the great gift about being able to do these things is you're able to move those buckets in different places for the areas that you are because all of those pieces continue to move things down the line. That's the great gift of life is here. You know, this morning I reflected on this in terms of what is

What is the single source of life? don't mean single source, like conscious, I don't mean necessarily that, but what is the single source for me to wake up and do every day, which is to grow, which is to grow inwardly. And then as you grow more inwardly, again, so how do you do that? You allow life to shine where you're hit. So for instance, if you're working with your kids and you get frustrated, you go, okay, I'm frustrated, that's a spot that I get to work through. That's how you develop more inner peace. The thing is, it's not the opposite, please. And this is the whole essence of this podcast

happiness is great. It's fleeting, it comes and goes, and then we chase after that fleeting. There's no different than that than chasing after a drug. It's not. We're just using different doing world bucket items. It's like there's a million things in that doing world bucket, and we'll pick things out at our whim that we feel is going to bring us more of that inner peace. But the problem is we all know it just doesn't last. That's why when you can be more authentic with yourself, which is recognizing that, of going, man, I've just, just pay attention.

I've been doing this doing world bucket, the 100 % outer life, right? To grab all these different pieces to try to make myself feel okay. I get lost in work, I get lost in with my kids, I get lost in physicality, I get lost in reading a book. By the way, nothing wrong with any of those things. Nothing wrong at all. And even if you're getting lost in using a THC or CBD or alcohol or any of those things, that's fine too. It's nothing wrong with any these things. Just know that you're consciously doing

Then it comes down to the deeper work that we do is how do I get myself okay first? That's really what you're looking for. That's what everyone's looking for. How do I get myself to a situation where I feel okay? I feel good, not just okay, I feel great. feel this joy. Great is not even the right word that I wanna use here. It's just, you just feel good inside. That inner peace, that's the difference. The inner peace is the peace that passes all understanding. And all that phrase means

You could be the outer world could be in terms of challenges and turmoils and problems, but yet you are still peace. You're still handling it. It doesn't mean it's not difficult. It doesn't mean that situations are not difficult. Of course not. But you're able to handle it. You're actually able to handle it and you're able to grow with it and the experience. That's the inner peace because you always know at the core inwardly, you have this wonderful inner peace that's there.

That's just building you up. Then you go handle all the challenges outside. And by the way, life is supposed to be full of challenges. It's not about getting what you want. it just, that phrase to me, as much as I talk about it, it's still something I struggle with. It's like, you know, want it, you go get what you want. I predominantly can go out there and get a lot of what I want, right? And a lot of people can. And you keep getting it. And it's just like, okay, I've got that now, but now I need to get a little bit more of what I

and you realize, you just pay attention that that doesn't work. It does not work. The new car, the new house, the new job, the non job, the getting your kids to a certain level or to a certain phase or out of a certain phase or getting through a financial challenge. Yes, they temporarily feel okay, but then you're not, now you're onto something else and trying to figure that piece out so then you can be a little bit more okay. Instead of recognizing go, okay, I'm gonna go focus on the inward bucket first, the 100 % of the inward life. I'm gonna go focus on

and then I'm gonna go play with the bucket outside. And I mean play, it doesn't mean there's not real things that you're dealing with, you just stop taking them so seriously. I mean seriously to the point where you're just now causing yourself to, you know, feel discomfort. Think about it from this way. Imagine if you said, I'm gonna go, you know, I always like to play this kind of imaginary game where it's like, we're up in this land of consciousness and you're like, I'm gonna go jump down on earth.

Right? And it's just going to be, and I'm going to go, I'm going to jump down there and man, this is like this wonderful vacation. And that's going to be down there and I'm going go down there and I'm going to make it miserable because I didn't get everything that I wanted. Or when I got everything I wanted, I'm still miserable because I'm still going to do it. Like we would laugh at ourselves for doing this. This is just taking a different perspective. We laugh at ourselves instead of just going down there and being like, I have no idea what the experience is going to be. Yes, I have a schedule. I have things I have to do. And man, while I'm driving, I don't know how many birds I'm going to see. Or I saw this morning, I saw four bears, right? Like

You just don't know what you're going to see and just you just allow life to be its own experience because every moment something is experiencing something. Every moment there's something unfolding. It's true. It's just unfolding around us. Every there's an there's a moment that's happening everywhere. And by the way, the the one moment that you happen to be experienced wherever you are, there's trillions and trillions of other moments that are happening in your country alone, in your state alone.

let alone the fact that there's billions of galaxies and trillions of stars or trillions of galaxies and billions of stars, you can use them interchangeably. It's just there's so many out there that it's not even fun. There's so many experiences happening that you really happen to have this one. And then you go, I don't like this one. How come somebody else would like it? And you go, well, that's them. It's not me. Again, this is where this is why, and then people go, well, what's wrong with having my own preferences? Nothing. Keep your preferences. But the problem is, is by keeping your preferences, you're also saying how life needs to be.

Then I work to go get it that way. wouldn't it be easier to say, you know, the Buddha went out and said, all life is suffering basically because of preferences. Wouldn't it be saying I can handle life. So therefore life is nothing but a wonderful joy gift here. That's, that's the difference is you just wake up and just, I don't need life to be a certain way. I'm going to allow life to be what it is. And then I'm just going to interact with it. You'll be a much more happier that way. I'm phrase that in there. I'm be much more have inner peace that way. You have more inner peace.

So this long standing question that will continue to be asked in many different forums and different ways and using different language to describe it, which is this inner peace versus happiness. To me, how do you tell the difference? One is that it's conditional. So if I can point to why it's happening, that's more of a fleeting happiness emotion. The reason why for thousands and hundreds of thousands of years, they've said the peace that passes all understanding and they've written about it, which is you can't point to it. Because if you point outside in the doing bucket, there may be challenges.

But yet you still go, but I feel great inside. I feel inner peace inside. Again, if you're stuck on the highway at one in the morning in the rain trying to change your tire, you may not say like, my God, I'm ecstatic. This is just wonderful. And it's just great. But you can always accept and expect and honor the moment. You go, this is just not what I was looking to do at one o 'clock in the morning. I never thought I'd be this tired. This is really challenging. Dude, you can have that conversation with yourself. Again, that's just a way.

of trying to make it a little bit more positive there to handle more of it so that you don't store more of this garbage inside so that we end up having to try to get more preferences in life more the way we want it to. And then in the end, I'll kind of recap to where we even started from, which is when we contemplate deeply our own death. And I don't mean that in a negative way or morbid way. We do realize that at our last moments, it's just, did I enjoy the experience that I was given? And I hope you can say yes.

Not that it went the way you want, not that you got everything, not that there weren't severe challenges and minor challenges, and not that people weren't better looking or more successful or better athlete or anything. They're going to be, there's all those different things, but did I enjoy my experience? Did I enjoy the experience that I was able to have here? That's really a question you wanna answer. So then it works, then you work backwards, which is, okay, now that I've listened to this, now I'm gonna go out in the world and wherever I am, how do I enjoy my experience more?

Well, when life hits and it will in the next seven minutes, right? You probably get done listening to this or check your email or get the next phone call. There will be some sort of challenge. You go, I can handle this. Yeah, man, that man, that felt wild. That felt different. There's going to be those challenges, but can I handle it? Can I actually handle what's unfolding in the minute? You can say, yeah, I can. That's when you have more inner peace. And just to backtrack and iterate, which is how do you do that? You start with the things

that are smaller that you can handle, the driver in front of you, the weather, Something smaller in business that you're dealing with. You your kids being a little late or not picking up everything. Can I handle how they can do that? Yes, those are the places you start. And then as you get better and better at those, the bigger things will show up. It's like this, it's like when you're learning to run a marathon, right? And you go out there and you first run a 10 minute mile and you go, man, I can't wait till this feels easier.

And yeah, maybe there's a certain element in the very beginning that in the next couple of weeks, it starts to feel a little easier, not as sore. You start to get more comfortable to it. But the reality is once you start running a 930 mile at a 140 heart rate, right, the goal then is to run an 830 mile at a 140 heart rate. So the pain that you feel or the level of discomfort physically that you feel never really changes. You just get faster. And that's what happens in same thing in spirituality, which is the letting go process

of getting these things out and the personal spiritual growth, is why we're here, never goes away. It just becomes bigger, but you can handle them and so they feel a little bit less. It's the same things. Again, the doing world and the inner world, the doing bucket and the inner bucket, are all, very actually similar to a lot of these different things. So anyways, enjoy your experience today. See how much you can bring it in and enjoy. Life is a great gift. It really is. And I know we hear

And I know as I started, know, the most important thing is love, love for yourself, love for compassion, but just love for your own growth. You know, we don't, not just the human love, which is what somebody else turns you on to feel. mean, love for life, for your own spiritual growth, which is why we're here in the first place. Enjoy working on these things and thank you for being interested in this. And it's just, it's very difficult and it's the hardest thing you'll ever do, but it's the way towards inner peace, which is what everyone's looking for anyways.