How to Think Like the 1% Elite | Dr K

My new book Own Or Be Owned is out now! I wrote Own or Be Owned to answer one question: how do you make more money, less miserably? I broke it into the 12 Profit Levers… the 12 levers I've seen determine whether you print cash or hate your life. Check it out: https://contrarianthinking.biz/drk You've been telling yourself the same story. That you're stuck. That you need more motivation. That if you just work harder, everything will fall into place. Here's the truth: you're not stuck because you lack effort, you're stuck because you're solving the wrong problem. Dr. K is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who spent years training to become a monk before revolutionizing mental health on the internet. He's worked with everyone from billionaires to young men living in their parents' basements, and in this episode, he breaks down why most people fail, how to dissolve problems instead of solving them, and the exact frameworks the 1% elite use to master their minds and win. This episode breaks down why understanding yourself is more powerful than any business strategy, how the ego runs your life when you don't know how to manage it, and why manifestation is real but 99% of people are doing it wrong. From the five layers of human existence to why depression isn't what you think it is, you'll learn how to build a feedback loop that improves you instead of eating you alive, why stuckness is actually just buried motivation, and how to finally start wanting the things you've been too afraid to chase. In this episode, you'll learn: Why you're not stuck, you're holding on, and how the most crippling source of suffering for a human being is wanting something you believe you cannot have, which causes your mind to bury your motivational circuitry so you never have to fail The understanding principle: how the difference between hard and easy has nothing to do with effort and everything to do with your understanding of the thing, and why all you need to do is understand, not do Why you can't duplicate anyone else's success because you have your own karma, your own advantages and disadvantages, and how the fastest way to lose is to use someone else's strategy when you're playing with different cards The five layers of human existence: your physical body, energy body, emotional mind, analytical mind, and spiritual body, and why Western psychiatry only treats three of them while ignoring the most powerful two Why ego is anything you attach after the words I am, how removing all sensory inputs and existing without an object to focus on is the goal of meditation, and why this is what actually heals people ___________ ___________ MORE FROM BIGDEAL 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@podcastbigdeal 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigdeal.podcast 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@big.deal.pod MORE FROM CODIE SANCHEZ 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@codiesanchezct 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codiesanchez 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realcodiesanchez OTHER THINGS WE DO 🌐 Our community: https://contrarianthinking.typeform.com/to/WBztXXID 📰 Free newsletter: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3XWLlZp 📚 Biz buying course: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3NhjGgN 🏠 Resibrands: https://resibrands.com/ 💰 CT Capital: https://contrarianthinking.biz/4eRyGOk 🏦 Main St Hold Co: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3YfGa8u Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's fall drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon Fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in-store and on lululemon.com now.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Why do people stay stuck? Because they believe it is impossible. 90% of people that I've worked with are fucking losers. What is it that allows them to move forward? They believe that what they want is possible. Difficulty is not created by the world. Difficulty is created by your response to the world.

• 0:45Codie Sanchez?

  My guest is Dr. Kay, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, who is breaking down the most common psychology myths behind success and failure, and then how to build a feedback loop that improves you instead of eating you alive.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  The difference between hard and easy is not the size of the task. It has to do with your understanding of the thing. If I take some dude off the street and I'm like, "Can you make a million-dollar business in a year?", they would say, "No."

• 1:08Codie Sanchez?

  So where do you start if you want to start achieving the things that you want out of life?

• 1:13Speaker 01

  So...

• 1:17Codie Sanchez?

  So many people feel like they're stuck, like they can't move past some sort of mental block, they're struggling in their lives in some way. And even if you're a winner, you go through these moments. So I guess my question that I want to start with is like, one, do you see a lot of people who are stuck today?

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:34Codie Sanchez?

  And two, what do you tell them?

• 1:35Speaker 01

  So I think the number-one problem that I see just on the internet today is everyone is asking how to fix problems. Whereas what they should be asking is, what is the actual problem? So if you ask me, like, "How do you help someone who's stuck?", I don't know, you, I guess you get behind their car and you start pushing. That'll help if they're stuck, right? Isn't that the solution? If they're stuck, if they're like in a wheelchair and they're trying to get up the stairs, like you wheel them over to the elevator, or is it, are they psychologically stuck? Are they stuck with alcohol? So right now, what's going on, and this is an effect of kind of how the internet is morphing, we're morphing to 60-second segments where there's no room for diagnosis. So a lot of the work that I do, and this is hard to describe, is I don't help people

• 2:20Speaker 01

  find solutions, I help people dissolve problems. Because even your problem is not exactly what you think it is. And most of what we do, if we talk about like kind of the work that I do, is just like enabling people, it's like helping people understand what the problem is. If you are unable to fix your problems, you're trying to solve the wrong problem. And one of the crazy things, I'll just give you an example, is I would say 50% of people that I work with that are stuck aren't stuck, they're holding on. They're attached to something in their life. Simple example is, let's take addiction. So I did a bunch of addiction psychiatry many years ago. And, you know, like, if you think about why is someone addicted to alcohol, it's not because alcohol is a problem, it's because alcohol is a solution.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  What are you staying attached to that is preventing you from moving forward?

• 3:09Codie Sanchez?

  So then what do you do? So if you figure out, okay, you're not stuck, you're holding on, you're choosing to hold on, then what's the next question?

• 3:16Speaker 01

  So I think that depends on, so I'm a clinician, right? First and foremost, I work with individuals with individual problems. And so we can still generalize certain principles. So I'll give you like an example. So I've worked with a couple of billionaires, but 90% of people that I've worked with are what would be described as fucking losers. So someone who's 26 years old, lives in mom's basement, doesn't do their own laundry, doesn't cook for themselves, jerks off all day, like, this is the people that I work with. And there is like literally millions, if not hundreds of millions or billions of young men who like no one is even bothering to help, no one is even aware of. So that's what I, that's what I set out to do. So I'm going to tell you a story about one of these people.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  So I have a friend, for example, who's stuck, and his basic problem is that he doesn't allow himself to want. Wanting is the basic thing that gets us to move forward. Okay? But if you don't believe you can get what you want, and I see this with like founders and people who are super successful as well, they are really good at like, "Oh yeah, like I can build a billion-dollar company, but I can't get my kids to love and respect me." So then if you, if there is a problem in your life that you don't think that you can solve, what your mind will do is fucking bury it.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  And so what feels like stuckness is actually an intentional burying of your motivational circuitry. Because if I don't want anything, then I can never fail. If I don't want anything, then I don't have to try it. If I don't want anything, and this is the most crippling thing, if you think about like the most crippling source of suffering for a human being, it is to want something that they cannot have. This is something that human beings try to avoid at all costs. So stuck is absence of want. Why do we have an absence of want? Because we believe that we cannot achieve it. When people want something and they believe it's possible, they will move towards it.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Okay? And there are even studies on things like mice that are depressed, that you can drop a mouse in a bucket that has one like subsurface, like place that they can stand on, bucket of water, and so they'll swim around and they find the panel. Then what happens is you take out the panel, so there's nowhere for the mouse to sit. And you drop it in a bucket and swims around, it can't find anything, and eventually it's going to run out of energy and drown. So a depressed mouse is one that gives up trying to find the panel faster. So when we believe something is not possible, we stop trying. Okay? So this is what's really, this is, forget about whether it's really possible or not possible, what we're talking about here is motivation. We're talking about what gets people unstuck, that has nothing to do with outcomes.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  That has to do with, are you moving from zero steps to one step? So my goal is to teach people a healthy relationship with wanting. Right? So like my mission, I spent years studying to become a monk and then, you know, became a psychiatrist and all that stuff and did neuroscience research. And my, my hypothesis or my thesis is that if you understand and can master the most basic instrument that you have, which is yourself, then everything in life becomes easy. That the difficulty is not created by the world, difficulty is created by your response to the world.

• 6:54Codie Sanchez?

  So where do you start? Like, if you want to start achieving the things that you want out of life, where's the first place you tell people to go to start figuring out themselves?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  So step one is not go, step one is understand. And the really scary thing is if you look at like some of these eastern contemplative traditions, they make a bold claim, which I, I'm, I think is correct, which I've been dragged to kicking and streaming, I've tried to argue against it, and I think I'm just wrong, which is that you don't need to do anything, all you need to do is understand. And that understanding is actually not only sufficient for change, but is the only thing that is necessary for change. Which I know is like a crazy idea, because we're all about motivation and doing, but like what I realized recently is, what is the difference between something that is hard?

• 7:49Speaker 01

  So if I asked you, Cody, let's say we, we start, you started from scratch, we wipe out all your net worth, wipe out all your social connections, can you make a million-dollar business within, how long would it take you to make a million-dollar business?

• 8:04Codie Sanchez?

  I think I could do it in a year.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Okay. So is that hard for you?

• 8:09Codie Sanchez?

  I would say it's not easy, but it's simple. There's a straightforward path to it.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Great. Right? So if I take some dude off the street and I'm like, "Can you make a million-dollar business in a year?", they would say, "No."

• 8:20Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  So what is the difference? And it's a beautiful nuance that you added, it's simple. You're not, and now what you're doing is you're moving away from effort? You see what you did there? Like you're moving away from, yeah, it'll take effort. But you're, it's simple, you know how to do it.

• 8:38Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  And so this is the key thing, the difference between hard and easy is not the size of the task, it has nothing to do with effort, it has to do with your understanding of the thing.

• 8:50Codie Sanchez?

  It's so interesting because you had the way you talk about mental health is really simple to how we talk about businesses. My thesis that drives me insane is actually similar to yours in some way, which is that most business advice is only applicable to that business person.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  I completely agree, 100%.

• 9:06Codie Sanchez?

  If I go listen to how Elon Musk runs his business, I think pretty highly of myself. I don't think that highly of myself. I can't go replicate what Elon does. So you could give me Elon's entire playbook and I still won't make it. But if I have an understanding of who I am, then I can actually apply who I am, what are my skill sets to what I want, and then finally come up with a strategy that pairs those two things. So it's interesting. In our thing, we always say like, first you diagnose the you, then you diagnose the want, which would be like, do you want a lifestyle business? Do you want a scale business? Do you want an exit business?

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Do you use the word diagnose?

• 9:41Codie Sanchez?

  We do. Yeah, I will, I will prove it to you. I have it like on 47, uh, 47 PowerPoints. And then, once you understand those two things, you can have a strategy that's like, maybe there's similarity in your world, but I think in business, there's like 12 core profit centers in every business, but you don't know which ones you should play with until you know who you are, what you want, and then you can apply it to just about any business.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 10:05Codie Sanchez?

  Super interesting.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so I, I think this is, this is what's hard to explain to people is like, because everyone is looking for an answer to their problems. But what I, what we try to do and like, it's an interesting, we have a membership thing that we started a couple of years ago because I hated that what I wanted to teach was being dictated by the YouTube algorithm. And what people will click on is not the same as what will be helpful to them.

• 10:34Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  So I had a fundamental problem and I was like, YouTube is great and you can teach people a lot on YouTube, but there's like deeper stuff that is like, how do you understand yourself? And so then I started that and it's been awesome. Right? But the thing is,

• 10:50Codie Sanchez?

  What's your philosophy? How do you start to understand yourself? Like, do you have frameworks that you?

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so I think it depends. So this is where we start with what the problem is.

• 11:00Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  So like, I'll give you like a kind of a simple example, which I think is maybe relevant to your audience, which is like, you know, I think you're, you're, you kind of talk a lot about how you should own your business, your business should not own you, right? So like inside every one of us is what I would call a yearning. This is at the surface level, you have like your thoughts and your emotions and perceptions, we'll get to that. And then beneath that you have your ego. Beneath that you have some weird deep psychological stuff. And beneath that you have like, what I would call a yearning or like a calling. So it's not ego, it's not like psychological trauma. There are

• 11:44Speaker 01

  layers of that. But at the bottom is like something weird and spiritual. So I call it also dharma, duty. There's karma involved, karma, we can talk about all those things. I think those things are absolutely scientific. And so what starts to happen is you get into the business for some reason. So I, I want to help people. And then I see, oh, this person is doing it. And this person is doing it this way. And this person is doing it this way. And so then what I start to do is I move away from myself towards those things. And this is really an important distinction. It's not that you shouldn't learn from other people, but that learning should center back into you and serve your mission instead

• 12:28Speaker 01

  of you chasing after and trying to duplicate what someone else does. Because the moment that you try to duplicate what someone else does, you said it beautifully, I'm going to use different term, you have your own karma. You have your own set of advantages, your own set of disadvantages. You have your own, the way your dopaminergic circuitry is wired, what you get addicted to, what your social support system is, what your capital is. You cannot duplicate the success of anyone else. And this is why it's so interesting. You have so many brilliant people giving advice about how to live life. And we have the fucking people are fucked, right, left and center.

• 13:07Codie Sanchez?

  So true.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  And the question is why? And that's because you can't duplicate the solution that someone else has. The best chance you've got, and I'm methodologically, this is sound, outcomes wise, scientifically, this is sound, we can get into the research, you have to play from your position. Right? So you can look at somebody else who wins a hand of poker with a royal flush. But if you've got like a three, seven of hearts, it's not that you can't win, but the fastest way to lose is to use the strategy of the other guy. So your model of like diagnosis first is exactly where I go. And a big part of that is what is really driving you? How does ego enter the picture? And how are you being shaped

• 13:53Speaker 01

  by your perceptions? But like, I think ego is like a big part that like people don't understand. And if you don't understand ego, like it's going to run your life.

• 14:01Codie Sanchez?

  How, how do you define ego? How do you understand it? And how do you overcome it?

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Great. Uh, so it's not to be overcome, first thing. So ego, I love Sanskrit. So there's one, can I, can I go like off track for a second? Okay. So the bit of depth. So in the West, the way that we learn things is through like instrumentation. So we have x-rays, we have biopsies, we take blood tests. And in psychiatry, we use words. That is the way that we try to understand what is someone's mind. Now let me ask you. So this is what's also really interesting. We have no instrument that can measure the mind, right? EEG, electroencephalogram, doesn't measure the mind. FMRI doesn't measure the mind. It measures blood for the brain. We're measuring physical structures. Okay? So this is the fundamental difference between Eastern psychology and Western psychology.

• 14:46Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  You're the only one who has direct access to your own mind. And so the system of psychology that they developed is not based on a model developed through words. It is based on internal observation. And we in the West, we hate that because it's a sample size of one. It is subjective. Newsflash, there is no objective evidence of the existence of mind. You can't measure it. You can't. And then biological reductionists make a big mistake, which is they say, ah, doesn't exist. Since we can't measure it, doesn't exist. Shared delusion by eight billion people on the planet, they say that mind is not real. No, it is real.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  It's just non-physical. It doesn't exist in the material world. We all know it's there. And we act on it through things like psychotherapy. So when we exert influences on the mind, we see outcomes that are measurable. Our, our intervention acts on the mind, the mind changes, and then we see outcomes. So it absolutely exists. It just exists in a space that science cannot touch yet. Sort of. So we also have validated questionnaires and things like that, which we can touch it in some ways. We can directly measure. So now we get to ego. So in the West, they think that there are basically three pillars of mind. You have thoughts, which is one thing. You have emotions, which is another thing.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  You have behaviors, which is a third thing. And then you have like memories. Okay? So the yogis say there's a fourth part of the mind, which is ego. You have a sense of self. So this is, the word is ahhamkara. And ahhamkara is the feeling of I. So ahhamkara is anything that comes after the words I am, dot, dot, dot. So I am successful. I am a loser. Both of those things are true. I'm like absolutely loser and I'm wildly successful. I'm an idiot and I'm a genius. So anything that you add after I am is ahhamkara. That is what the

• 16:53Speaker 01

  ego is. So any defining quality that you attach is not actually who you are. It is part of the clothing of your ego.

• 17:01Codie Sanchez?

  Hmm. Great word.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  But ego is all of the attributes that you attach to yourself. When you remove all of the sensory inputs and you exist without an object to focus on, that is the goal of meditation, by the way. And that is what like fucking heals people. Because all of these problems of the ego literally cease to exist.

• 17:23Codie Sanchez?

  You have so many perspectives that are two worlds combining, right? Not that normal for a monk to go to med school, as far as I'm aware. What do you think people get really wrong when they go to psychologists or psychiatrists? Like, for instance, and this is sort of gross generalization, I've had different therapists for years at varying points in my life. By and large, I found them not very helpful.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:50Codie Sanchez?

  And so it would be like, we'd be talking about the same thing, sort of continuously. You'd have some set amount of time. I'd be repeating all the things that annoyed me that day. And then, um, really not a lot of change would happen. Almost no direction, no specific next steps. I like specificity. And now it almost seems like, you know, we're more therapized than we've ever been in society while simultaneously being less happy. Um, why is that? What are we doing so fucking wrong?

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Somewhere along the way, therapy became, got a monopoly on helping people.

• 18:26Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  So a simple example of this is the fundamental idea that talking about your problems, about your emotions, is the gold standard for being better.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  So 70% of therapists are women, 70% of patients, this is changing now thankfully, but 70% of patients are women. And this idea that talk therapy is the way, that's simply using words. Now, words, and there's a really good mechanism here, right? So it is very effective. I do talk therapy, I love doing talk therapy, but I also do yogic practice, tantraic practice. I also, when I had a 15-year-old who's addicted to video games, my solution to that is, I'm gonna take an MIT incubator where I have a client, and I'm gonna ask them, hey, will you guys take a 15-year-old as an intern? And they're like, sure. Right? So I think somewhere along the way,

• 19:23Speaker 01

  when you have a mental problem, people will say, go see a therapist, for like, all kinds of medical legal reasons, too. And so somewhere along the way, a lot of people went to therapy, and therapy is not designed to help them with their problems, or based on what their personality is, they're not good candidates for therapy.

• 19:43Codie Sanchez?

  You are so right, because it's never bad to say, oh, you should go to therapy. That's always like, no, no, that's great. That's exactly, that's a safe piece of advice, as opposed to, I mean, we have a dear friend in North Carolina, and it was funny, she was super depressed, you know, overweight, really unhappy in life, and, you know, my husband kind of jokingly made a comment one day, he's like, well, you do work inside like 15 hours a day and not move your body a lot, and thus you can't really sleep very well. Like, maybe you should go throw some weights around and get some vitamin D. And at the time, she was really pissed. She was like, fuck you, I am depressed. Lo and behold, she goes on more walks, she gets more vitamin D, and she works out, and that actually worked great for her.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Absolutely, right? So something that happens a lot in the manosphere is when you get dumped, they're like, hit the gym, bro. You know, you don't have to like, grieve and cry and stuff like that.

• 20:34Codie Sanchez?

  What do you think about that advice? Is that what you?

• 20:36Speaker 01

  I think it's really good advice. I think it's a piece, right? So this is where we get to mechanism.

• 20:40Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Where people grossly underestimate, like, a big thing that a lot of people don't understand, this is why I think mental illness is getting so bad. Somewhere along the way, we started to think that mental illness is in the mind, which I think is fundamentally incorrect. So there's a study that like blew my mind. Have you ever heard of a stool transplant?

• 21:00Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Right? So you have someone who has a certain kind of gut bacteria, they're depressed, and the intervention that we do is we take poop from another human being, and we give it to them. Either we insert it from the rectum, or they take it orally, it's like a pro by that, right?

• 21:20Codie Sanchez?

  And this works?

• 21:21Speaker 01

  And it works, right? So you'll see like, somewhere between a 30 and 70% reduction in symptoms of depression, with not one bit of psychotherapy, not one moment of talking about your problems.

• 21:34Codie Sanchez?

  How have people actually tried that as opposed to talk therapy?

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Very few, because I think stool transplants are still in the research phase, and the clinical interventions are not, and then we gotta get the money stool, which are like, so that, you know, which I don't know if we have, but.

• 21:51Codie Sanchez?

  That's a whole new side income business I have not pondered yet.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:55Codie Sanchez?

  Maybe in the future.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, just high-quality shit.

• 21:58Codie Sanchez?

  But actually, that's really interesting, because it's probably also not as profitable. You know, talk therapy for, I mean, how many people do we all know that have gone to talk therapy for like 15 or 20 years, and nothing's fucking changed? That's a lot of them.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  A lot of them wind up in my office.

• 22:12Codie Sanchez?

  They do.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:13Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting. As opposed to if I can do a stool transplant, I can feel some sort of trigger change, and then I can have actual habit change, maybe my life could actually change.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think this is where specific, like you said, in your framework, there are 12 fundamental areas of profit.

• 22:28Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  So I think the mistake that therapy makes is there's one. So here's the conception that I think is like functionally useful. It's something called bancha gosha. Gosha means sheaf.

• 22:38Codie Sanchez?

  Okay.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  So bancha means five. One aspect of our being, which is our sheaf, our food body, is the way to think about it, that's our physical form. So there are certain ways to take care of the physical body.

• 22:49Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Then the second layer of our being is pranamaya gosha, which is our energy body. Then third layer is our emotional mind, so that's our emotions. Fourth layer is the, I guess you could say, the analytical mind, our reasoning capability, cognition, right? So Western psychiatry has actions, emotions, and like cognitive stuff. And then the fifth layer, which I call soul or the spiritual body, which I now understand is different, but that's probably not for today. So then there are interventions at the level of like purely spiritual.

• 23:28Codie Sanchez?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Which most people don't.

• 23:31Codie Sanchez?

  Which would be like praying.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Not unless you do it right.

• 23:37Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting. Deep meditation?

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Yes. So this is where I would, I would talk about tantra or tantra. So I think like tantraic interventions.

• 23:47Codie Sanchez?

  What is tantra? I think about that as a sexual.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so tantra is translated as technique. You know, you can make like a prediction based on a model or analytics, but then sometimes, when you start a business or you launch something, you put some oomph into it.

• 24:07Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  That is not mental, that is not hours of labor. Is that, does that map on or resonate to you at all? That sometimes you got the oomph.

• 24:15Codie Sanchez?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  So like, when I try to explore what is that oomph, and I think a lot of people who are successful will know, that there's something that is not describable or reducible to an analytical model.

• 24:28Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, like when you say I was turned, like, I really turned it on today.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 24:31Codie Sanchez?

  I was really in flow today.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, right? So then we have some of these approximations of shakti, which is flow. So flow is the gateway to shakti, from a neuroscience mechanistic standpoint. Flow is the verifiable door to something greater. Flow's not the goal, it's the first step.

• 24:51Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  The problem is that the more subjective we become, the more that we go towards the mind, the further we move away from science, and the less verifiable things become. And then we get to function, because it's like, do you want to do something that is verified? Or do you want to do something that works?

• 25:07Codie Sanchez?

  I want to do some rapid fire, if you're down for that. I want to rapid fire some like tropes that I've heard. And you tell me quickly, true, false, why? It takes 21 days to build a habit.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  For some people.

• 25:22Codie Sanchez?

  We only use 10% of our brains.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  False.

• 25:28Codie Sanchez?

  Tell me why.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  I mean, 100% of our brain is active, basically 100% of the time. Yeah.

• 25:33Codie Sanchez?

  Okay, so we've just been sold a bag of goods. Time heals all wounds.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Absolutely false.

• 25:39Codie Sanchez?

  Why?

• 25:41Speaker 01

  If you get a fracture, and you just leave it alone, 10 years from now, it may heal to some degree, but it's not gonna heal right. So time may heal all wounds, but it'll heal them in a broken, fucked up way.

• 25:52Codie Sanchez?

  So good. You have to love yourself before anyone can love you.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Other way around.

• 26:00Codie Sanchez?

  Explain that.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  We learn how to love ourselves from, as a reflect, we are, the modeling of how to love me comes from other people. How do I love me? My parents teach me that.

• 26:14Codie Sanchez?

  It is what it is. Radical acceptance, generally.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Absolutely true, but gets hijacked by ego all the time. Is a great way to avoid responsibility. Yeah, sorry, this is who I am. If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best.

• 26:32Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, I've seen that Marilyn Monroe quote, like, actually, you know what another one is that I want to throw in there? What about radical transparency, always?

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Satya should always be subject to ahimsa. Truth should always be subject to nonviolence. Truth should, so if you have a choice between being honest and being hurtful, or hurt is not worth truth, basically, right?

• 27:01Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah. Every motherfucker I've ever met who always has like radical truth or radical honesty in their profile, I always end up.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's a license to be an asshole.

• 27:12Codie Sanchez?

  It's a total license to be an asshole, and then tell you why they're polyamorous, and it's okay. I think they go hand in hand. That's just my science. What about the body keeps the score?

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely. No doubt.

• 27:24Codie Sanchez?

  Depression is a chemical imbalance. Chemical, mental, spiritual, all, why?

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Uh, it's not. So there's a great paper from molecular psychiatry that actually makes a really strong case. We have really no evidence that depression is a neurochemical imbalance. We believe that because SSRIs, which boost serotonin transmission, work with depression. So then we reverse engineered the cause because the treatment works. And then, yeah, I, so I, I don't, I don't think it's a neurochemical imbalance, but there's probably some, there's, it's a piece of it. Let's say it's a third.

• 28:06Codie Sanchez?

  Do you get murdered on the internet when you say that?

• 28:08Speaker 01

  No.

• 28:08Codie Sanchez?

  Really?

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:10Codie Sanchez?

  I get in a lot of trouble if I say, are we always just depressed? Or might we just need to take a different action? They're like, how dare you say I'm not depressed? I'm like, I'm not sure that was the point of that statement.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  Here's another point. I think there's a difference between depression and unhappiness.

• 28:25Codie Sanchez?

  And most people are what? Unhappy or depressed?

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Uh, most people are unhappy and they can have depression on top. These are two independent things.

• 28:35Codie Sanchez?

  Everyone needs therapy.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  No. So I think people who believe that everyone needs therapy want to live in a world where everyone behaves in a way that they want them to behave. I can't walk through a world where people are fucked up. I want everyone to be healed. And if, if everybody else is perfect, then I, then I'll be happy because I won't have any friction with anybody. Everyone doesn't need therapy.

• 29:00Codie Sanchez?

  That reminds me of the African proverb, which is like, do you want to pave the world in leather or wear leather shoes?

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Excellent.

• 29:07Codie Sanchez?

  You know?

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 29:08Codie Sanchez?

  Let's try the leather shoes. Manifestation is real?

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Uh, is real, but 99% of people don't know how to do it. There's a scientific mechanism behind it, which all the new age people who believe in manifestation, none of them are rigorous.

• 29:22Codie Sanchez?

  How do we become rigorous? I want to manifest for real. I got a lot of-

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Contrary.

• 29:25Codie Sanchez?

  Oh, this is what, this is where you go back to. Yeah. Because my problem is, you look around Austin, a lot of the people who are manifesting and meditating and crystalline all day rent apartments, not by choice.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I've worked with one guru who, his rate of training is five figures for round one and multiple cycles of that, six figures for round two and seven figures for round three. And he is so effective that people will start his stuff with, like, with a net worth of like $50,000. And, and the money will come. It's insane. So I would love to do a scientific study on this and I try to collect data. But I think manifestation

• 30:18Speaker 01

  is real if done properly and 99% of people who don't, who talk about it, don't know how to do it, haven't done a rigorous study of like how it actually works or experimental trials.

• 30:30Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  So to believe that manifestation is not real without a scientific exploration for it is in and of itself unscientific.

• 30:40Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Right? So if you want to know whether something works or not, you have to test it.

• 30:44Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah. Except heroin, I'm fine. I don't want to test that one. You know, I guess there's lots of studies that it does in fact lead to massive addiction.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 30:53Codie Sanchez?

  So I don't need to play.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  There are plenty of studies that show that it doesn't.

• 30:56Codie Sanchez?

  Get out, really?

• 30:57Speaker 01

  60% of, I think, soldiers in Vietnam use heroin and only 9% remained addicted after coming back to the US.

• 31:04Codie Sanchez?

  I didn't know that.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:05Codie Sanchez?

  That's so interesting. I just assumed I'll never try that thing because the way people talk about it looks too.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  I would highly recommend that you don't try.

• 31:13Codie Sanchez?

  This is what my doctor, as of this moment, because you still have it on paper, says. Okay, I like this. Um, last one. Happiness is a choice?

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Happiness is a cultivatable skill.

• 31:23Codie Sanchez?

  Oh, that's a good.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  It's not a choice.

• 31:25Codie Sanchez?

  If you had to leave somebody here who's listened to this podcast with like one place to start, one truth, you like the pursuit of truth, one next step, tactical, what would it be?

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Understand your problems before you solve them.

• 31:41Codie Sanchez?

  And spend more time on that than just the fixing.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. And one quick tip about that, one of the biggest reasons that that's hard to do is one way that the mind runs away from problems is by manufacturing bigger ones that demand your attention, especially for entrepreneurs whose personal life is a mess.

• 32:03Codie Sanchez?

  Should we all go to an ashram? Do you think I would like an ashram? I'm kind of a freak. I would, I would not like it.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  I mean, you can go if you want. I don't think you need to.

• 32:11Codie Sanchez?

  Really?

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:12Codie Sanchez?

  Why not?

• 32:13Speaker 01

  So everything is an intervention. SSRI has a goal.

• 32:17Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, true.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Therapy has a goal. Ashram has a goal. If you want to do a dedicated spiritual practice, you can go to an ashram. If you want to eat the food and be in the environment, things like that, you should go. But I think that the nice thing is that there's a lot of great spiritual practice that you can learn here. So if you want to go, then go. But should you go? That depends on what you want. If you want to go, go.

• 32:37Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Why would you go to an ashram? To do internal work. But internal work is done internally. It can be done anywhere. So if you want the, the lifestyle and the diet and the atmosphere and the social connection, the environment, then go to an ashram.

• 32:51Codie Sanchez?

  No, orange is not my color. I don't think that would be. Did you wear orange when you were there?

• 32:54Speaker 01

  No, I'm not a, I'm not a sanyas, I mean a swami.

• 32:57Codie Sanchez?

  So is there any dress code? Was there a dress code at your ashram?

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Sort of. I mean, people wore natural things, but my most recent dress code is I hate clothes. So I started doing-

• 33:07Codie Sanchez?

  You're a nudist?

• 33:08Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I'll wear a chadi, but like, like this, like a underwear.

• 33:13Codie Sanchez?

  Okay.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  But like-

• 33:14Codie Sanchez?

  I love that you point down there and say the word, like I'm going to know what that is. You're like, yeah.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  So, so, so I, I've done some very serious spiritual practice in the last two years.

• 33:22Codie Sanchez?

  In your underwear?

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Huh?

• 33:23Codie Sanchez?

  In your underwear.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  And I, I like can't wear clothes anymore. Like this is painful. Yeah.

• 33:30Codie Sanchez?

  That is wild.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's weird.

• 33:32Codie Sanchez?

  I can't actually wait for this headline, which is like Harvard psychiatrist no longer wears clothes. So next podcast, no clothing.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  I'll think about it. There's, there's some, there's some branding stuff, right? Where like now you name things and it's like.

• 33:50Codie Sanchez?

  That does seem like that would do really well on Twitch. Healthy gamer everywhere on social.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  So YouTube. And then I think if people want to learn the deep stuff.

• 33:59Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Which like, what are they going to get? The answer is, I don't know. But it's, you're going to get the stuff that you didn't know you needed. That's over in our membership.

• 34:06Codie Sanchez?

  And where's that?

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Healthy gamer.

• 34:07Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, same thing. This was amazing.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 34:10Codie Sanchez?

  For coming on.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's fall drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy to layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.