E162 - Charlie Houpert: The 6 Laws of Charisma: Become Magnetic by Being Yourself

Charlie Houpert explores what charisma really is, and how it goes far beyond charm or surface-level tricks. Charlie shares the 6 rules of charisma, breaks down different types of magnetic personalities, and reflects on his own journey from shy and reserved to outgoing and confident. He also explores how charisma can become something greater moving through you—pointing toward surrender, purpose, and connecting with something bigger than yourself. We touch on ayahuasca, self-acceptance, the blocks many men face, and the process of letting go of old identities to uncover your unique gifts. Try MUDWTR & Get Up to 43% off + a free frother: https://mudwtr.com/knowthyself Momentous Creatine - Use Code KNOWTHYSELF for Up to 35% Off https://www.livemomentous.com Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list ___________ 0:00 Intro 2:38 Why Charisma Matters for Everyone 7:16 Becoming Natural in Your Own Skin 12:40 6 Rules of Charisma to Light Up a Room 25:10 Different Types of Charismatic People 30:07 How He Went From Shy to Outgoing 33:58 Ad: Mudwtr 34:53 Making a Lasting Impression in Small Talk 41:02 Having Strategy Without Being Inauthentic 46:13 Speech, Body Language, and Where it Goes Too Far 51:12 Ayahuasca & Self Acceptance 56:00 Overcoming the Biggest Blocks for Men 1:04:12 Charisma as Something Greater Moving Through You 1:06:53 Ad: Momentous Creatine 1:08:01 Surrendering to Our Life’s Mission 1:18:07 Connecting to Something Bigger 1:24:16 Letting Go of An Old Identity 1:27:06 Developing Our Capacity to Listen to What Life is Asking 1:34:50 Benefits and Harm of Psychedelics 1:39:43 Uncovering Your Unique Gifts 1:47:58 Conclusion ___________ Episode Resources: https://www.instagram.com/charliehoupert/ https://www.youtube.com/charismaoncommand https://www.charismaoncommand.com/cu-new/ https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/ https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Are you ever shopping online and suddenly a discount that helps you save pops up? It makes your day, sometimes even your week. Want that feeling month after month? Well, new customers who save by switching their home and auto insurance to Progressive, save hundreds. Cue your happy dance. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  They're running a Cover 2 defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats, order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  You do not realize the world is a buffet. It is constantly running incredible people, incredible opportunities. It would just take a little bit to make incredible things happen. So if I think of charisma, it's this subtle layer of influence that it's a series of habits, mindsets, beliefs that lead to people responding to you in a certain way. I think a lot of the initial step that people get in the way is they think that every single habit that they've developed, they identify with. So I am the awkward way that I shake hands. And any sort of attempt to adjust or amend that is me changing myself, and I will not do that because that's inauthentic. I would suggest that that's not true. Here's how I see it. The first one is that it is not what you say, it is how the divine moves through you. I'm embracing it increasingly.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  I am beginning to understand what effortlessness feels like, what it is to listen both to myself and to what is being offered by the people and the opportunities around me. When you start doing that sort of thing, the opportunities that arise are incredible.

• 2:00André Duqum?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to the Know thyself podcast. Our guest today is the founder of Charisma On Command, which is a platform, a YouTube channel, that has reached hundreds of millions of people, teaching communication, confidence, and charisma. His work really explains and dissects what makes people truly magnetic, what makes people unforgettable, and so influential and persuasive. His teachings have evolved over the years, and I'm really looking forward to diving into what the essence of charisma is. Is it a gift? Is it a skill? Is it something we develop? Is it reflecting something truer about the human nature? Charlie Houpert, thanks for being here.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  So good to be here, man. Thank you. I'm really excited.

• 2:43André Duqum?

  Yeah. It's been, first off, just a pleasure, like, getting to become friends over the past couple of months, and hang more, and get more familiar with your work, and you're just an awesome human, so.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Scatagories and...

• 2:54André Duqum?

  All the things. You are very competitive.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  So are you. Can I say, it's been so cool to see what a person and a spiritual leader you are. It's been so fun to see both sides of you.

• 3:09André Duqum?

  Oh, thanks, dude.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:12André Duqum?

  Yeah, I love me some games. Man, let's dive right in. I've been excited leading up to this conversation, because I've both seen your work online, and then I've also talked with you at depth offline, seeing the evolution of your work, how you define charisma, and just as you've been growing personally. And so I'm excited to explore more of that side of you today in your work. So, to set the baseline, how have you defined charisma over the past decade, and what does that currently look for you at this phase of your life now?

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. I understood it primarily as influence and leadership, and I think that's a huge portion of it. So if I think of charisma, it's... What makes someone want to date me? What makes my boss want to give me a promotion? What makes the group of people that I'm talking to not talk over me when I'm telling a story? It's this subtle layer of influence. And the way that I conceive of it is that it's a series of habits, mindsets, beliefs that lead to people responding to you in a certain way. And I measured it, both by how I felt internally, but tremendously by the responses that I got from other people. So if I got the date, got the promotion, and if people really wanted to listen to my story and invited me back, that was a sign that I was charismatic. So happy to lean into that. It has shifted, and you've alluded to this.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  I really saw it as something that anyone could develop, and I still believe that to be true. But I did not think that it was an innate quality of each person. And that is shifting for me. Increasingly, I find that it is something that is remembered rather than developed and added to. But I think both of them have to go together in order to go through the full arc of what it is to grow up and mature in life.

• 4:50André Duqum?

  Going through that arc, we will, on this conversation, I'm sure. I'm curious, what is-- why do you think charisma is an important thing to talk about and to learn about?

• 5:00Speaker 02

  It was the most important thing for me. When I was-- became a philosophy major, but fundamentally, I was someone who asked a lot of questions, like, why do we have to do this? Why this? Why are we learning about this history thing in school that I don't care about? And so when I was noticing the things that I and other people seem to want in their life, it was connection. Almost every time, it was, I want this group of people to accept me. I want to do better in work, and I want to move up. I want to get the date, the husband, the wife, the opportunities. And the way that they approached it always seemed roundabout, like they would go get really good grades for 12 years, and then go to a really good college, and then try to make a lot of money. And then, when they were 35, they'd be like, now I'm ready to find my wife.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  I was 21, and I was going, why wait till 35? Why do all that stuff that is secondary and not important? And that was the key insight that made me dedicate myself to it. Not because I thought it was a good business opportunity. It definitely wasn't. There wasn't anyone talking about charisma at the time. But I think it turned out to be a good business opportunity because it really touches on the essence of what we all deeply care about and what makes us actually feel good. It's not, oh, my gosh, I have so much money in my bank account. It's the thing that we think that that is going to offer to us in our social relationships.

• 6:13André Duqum?

  What do you see as the prevalent--

• 6:17André Duqum?

  Why and the reason as to when people like stumble upon your work, what are they looking for? Why would they study charisma? What is it providing for them?

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I think the surface level question might be like, what do I text this girl whose number I got? And I'm really nervous and I don't know what to say. Or it might be, I just got this new job. I feel out of my depth and I'm a leader. How do I not screw this up? What I think people are really looking for is a sense of belonging and a sense of certainty that they can belong, right? So what we provide, I try to give those initial answers to the questions. Okay, here's a really good thing to text for a first date. Okay, here's what you can do in that first initial meeting to establish that you're a leader that can be trusted in a very concrete way. But what they fundamentally want is that deeper sense of certainty that they belong.

• 7:05André Duqum?

  It seems like the more, like I've grown on my own path. I've seen how both things are a necessity. On one hand, we need to build up the habits and skills that we just haven't had in our adolescence or growing up or through schooling or education that we haven't had. So as it pertains to charisma, the things to like start becoming more of a natural way of being that feel almost inauthentic, maybe at first practicing when connecting with people. And then the second side of it is like part of growing is removing what's in the way of who we naturally are and what's in the way of presence.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:43André Duqum?

  And so I'm sure we'll teeter totter both, between both throughout this conversation because it's important to both accept the parts of us that fear and our barriers to connection and remove what, yeah, what stands in the way from what we really want, what you alluded to as being true connection, intimacy. We want to be a part and we want to be accepted. We want to be a part of the groups and fundamentally, we want to be loved and, you know, and be liked.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:12André Duqum?

  Now, there are so many different coping mechanisms and behavioral adaptations that we can have to be liked. Like we will change ourselves in so many ways to be a part of an in-group, to be liked fundamentally. How do you see, as you've supported with people and studied this over the years, the difference between Like the skills and tactics and techniques that you learn, which maybe feel inauthentic at first, to actually like arriving at a place where you're comfortable in your own skin and it becomes more natural and effortless.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. The larger arc, there's so many ways to put it, but you have to develop an ego before you can transcend the ego. So there needs to be a sense of mastery and control and safety, both in your life and in social environments, before you can, as you said, release and let go. I think a lot of the initial step that people get in the way is they think that every single habit that they've developed, they identify with. This is me. So I am the awkward way that I shake hands. I am the uncomfortable way that I twiddle my thumbs at the bar. And any sort of attempt to adjust or amend that is me changing myself and I will not do that because that's inauthentic. I would suggest that that's not true. That actually, there are many ways that are not essential to the core of who you are.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  So for instance, this often started for guys that were trying to get girls to like them. We would go out to public places and bars. And one thing I would see a lot of guys do is when they were talking in loud environments, they would lean in. Now, some of these guys are six foot five and they're talking to someone who's five foot five. And now you have this situation where he's like hovering over her and no matter what he says, she can't feel comfortable in that space. So I would tell people, make the simple adjustment of like lean back, lean against the bar. And when, if you can't hear her, just point to your ear and allow her to enter into your space. It was amazing to watch, without almost any other input, the dramatic tenor change of the conversations that guys would have. And so that was a very core, key example of the type of thing,

• 10:13Speaker 02

  which is, look, this is not who you are. This is a habit that you unthinkingly developed at some point in your life. A lot of the habits that we carry are from who we were in eighth grade and we just take them through as if this is who we are. So it's in unwinding some of those habits. And that could be everything from eye contact, how you introduce yourself, what you say you do, if you trail off at the end of a sentence when you're telling a story, how you handle interruptions, all these sorts of things. And we can touch on any of the particular skills. But those are not essential to who you are. Then there is this thing that happens that I've seen after 10 years of doing this, where you get such a degree of mastery over a social situation that there's a you that's missing.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  I know what to say to make this work. I know what to say to get this person to like me. But I'm not leaning into my vulnerability. I'm not leaning into the parts of me that I'm not sure will work. And that's when it becomes time. Okay, let's start to remove some of these skills. The habits will remain. We could still lean back. We still don't need to invade people's space. We have a felt sense of that. But there's a there's a different arc that can develop at that point in someone's life.

• 11:18André Duqum?

  Hmm.

• 11:20André Duqum?

  I've heard you define charisma in a couple of different contexts, both like can you influence people and then also do you awaken the best in people? The latter isn't always like understood as part of charisma. And I'm curious your thoughts on how charisma, do you feel charisma is inherently like like neutral? Like because there are very charismatic leaders in the past that have done horrible things, right?

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think Adolf Hitler was undeniably charismatic. I think Martin Luther King Jr. was undeniably charismatic. What is the difference? It is not the tool of persuasion that they use. It is what they directed it towards. And this comes, we'll get there, I'm sure, to like, what is running through your system at the time? Where are you leading people? But in both cases, you can learn from people that you despise. You can learn from Andrew Tate. I think this is a huge missing piece in so many of the people that are upset with Andrew Tate and his influences that they're missing the incredibly captivating way that he speaks. They're not learning from it because the tools of communication and persuasion and all of these things are inherently neutral.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  But there's a value system that where you point it that has a dramatic impact.

• 12:33André Duqum?

  Hmm. What the work you're really doing and have focused on over the past decade is like the art of relating, like all of life is relationship between people, between self, between like our work, our career and In so many different ways, becoming charismatic, becoming more comfortable with yourself, knowing how to effectively relate to and authentically connect with the things around you, it doesn't seem like there's an area of life it would not radically transform. In terms of the career we'll be able to step in, that's more aligned with our true essence and what we want, the relationships that will magnetize all of it. And so what I want to do is sidebar the Jesus versus Hitler, the place it's coming from, all that I'm excited to dive into.

• 13:17André Duqum?

  But let's go a little bit more first into what has been more of your historical work and exploring some of these things, because they're useful understandings and ideas to be able to have just like that one thing that allows you to connect with somebody a bit more, which can lead to so many different things in life. And so let's run through a couple of things.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  Let's do it. Yeah. So I'll take you through the mindsets, but just to double point to what you said. I was 22 or 23, maybe I was 24. Because of the relationship that I had built with the boss of the first company that was a consulting firm, when it came time for me to quit and move on, it wasn't like, oh, sorry, I've got to get out of here, relationship ruptured. We were able to do it in a way where I stayed on with the company in a remote role for a period of time. He gave me a 90-ish percent raise because I was shifted to a contractor role. They made all of these sorts of exceptions that they'd never made for me. I got more money, more freedom, more of everything that I wanted. And it was directly because this was the stuff that I had been doing, that for the months in which I was in that workplace, I went out of my way to form a relationship

• 14:24Speaker 02

  with the president of the company, which would have been a little bit strange for somebody at my level to actually have a friendship, a relationship there. And it came from a lot of these principles. So I'll run you through, I think there's six mindsets that are really, really core to developing charisma. Each of these has a series of tactics and behaviors that we can pull out from them. But here's how I see it. The first one is that no matter what, I will be okay. And I think this is the essence of charisma. When you look at people that you are attracted to, it is because they take social risk. And if it feels like a social risk, it's very hard to do. But when you realize, look, I can say this joke, I can be vulnerable, I can extend praise and the other person might not accept it.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  It really takes the pressure off a lot of things. And this is what makes people so funny, so cool, so interesting in their core group of friends, and then they go in for the interview and they're flat. It's because they don't have the belief that no matter what, I will be okay. So that's the first one. Second is I care more about my character than my reputation. Again, just coming back to, if you try to manage other people's opinions of you all the time, people sense it. It might work for a short period of time, but what will inevitably happen is that people will catch a doublespeak thing that you've said, and they will learn that they can't trust you. And I think this is early in Joe Rogan's career as a podcaster, the thing that made him the number one podcaster in the world, is that people really felt like they could trust him to say the thing that he was thinking, even if it would upset the guest.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  And it made his conversations alive, dynamic, and interesting. It is incredibly powerful. So I care more about my character, what is true about me, rather than what people think about me. And what they think about me tends to fall into place as a result of that. Impeccable honesty and integrity is another thing. What I find is that if you tell, and I found this in my own life, there was a period of time where, like everybody, I'd tell lies of convenience, not evil lies, but hey, I'm on the way, but I'm not really on the way, I'm like brushing my teeth in the shower. I'm on the way to being on the way. I'm on the way to being on the way. And I found that even these subtle little lies created dissonance in my system. And so, when I was talking to people, one of the core aspects of charisma is conviction.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  Can you look them in the eye and communicate that you believe what you're saying? I found that those lies undercut my ability to speak with conviction, because there was some part of myself going, is that true? You lie sometimes. I don't know if we really believe the things that you're saying all the time. So when starting at those easy ones, just, hey, if you're brushing your teeth, say, I'm running 10 minutes late, instead of I'm on the way. When you start doing that sort of thing, a sense that you can trust yourself emerges, you broadcast that to other people, and you speak with conviction much more easily in almost any situation. And what flows from that is you'll appropriately say, I don't know, when you don't know. But when you do know, it comes across. So that would be the third one. The fourth one is I don't need to convince any individual of anything.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  Which can sound like a contradiction because a lot of charisma is, what do I say and do to get these people to hire me, date me, et cetera? But everything that we might talk about is to increase the percentage that you meet someone with whom you are a match and that they have the opportunity to connect with the truest part of you. It is not 100% hit rate that this person will give me the job, this woman will go on a date with me, this man will be my friend, whatever it is. And so when you drop the need to persuade any individual, you begin to listen to, one, am I showing up in the way that is like most available, most authentic, charismatic, fun and engaging? And is this match appropriate? You need to be able to drop it if it's not and move on. And it enables you to draw boundaries, all sorts of things that become incredibly important.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  But if you need to convince everybody, I need this person to like me, I need this relationship to work. It communicates neediness and it undercuts you both internally and in the relationship. How much of that communication do you think is subperceptual? Because it feels like in ways we can't always articulate verbally, we see when someone has an agenda and we feel that. Yeah, I think, you know, one thing I've noticed, there's, with, men and women can have it, but I think it is a more feminine mode to feel it and not necessarily articulate it as clearly. So I've noticed with girlfriends that I've had, they get these spidey senses of like, I don't know, I just don't like that guy. And I'll say, well, tell me why. And like, I don't know, I just, it just feels off. And two years later, it comes out and I was like, why don't you tell me? She says, I did tell you, you just couldn't hear it.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  So it is, and I think we also as men have this internal intuitive sense of like, something feels uncomfortable about this. Something feels a little bit off. We can steamroll it sometimes. But yes, I think that it is a real, slightly under the level of consciousness feeling that we get when we're around people. But the outcome of that is we buy or we don't buy. We say yes or we say no. We don't necessarily know why, but it's communicated for sure. How do you see that changes as like there's a power imbalance? As you've grown successfully in your career or whatever, if people have a perception because they've seen your stuff online and they want to connect with you. Mm-hmm.

• 19:30André Duqum?

  But there is that need to convince you that I'm worth connecting, or whatever it is, right? Connecting with. Yeah, how do you juggle that?

• 19:38Speaker 02

  This is where it's most important. It is the place in which it is most important to treat a person as a person is when the power imbalance is enormous. The way that I connected with my boss was not by asking him about the TPS report or demonstrating that I was an eager beaver to get to work. I would come in looking a little bit tired on a Monday morning. And he'd be like, what got into you? I was like, oh dude, I was out till 4 a.m. on Saturday.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  And he's like, oh, really? Where? I said, I went out to Midtown. He's like, I used to go to Midtown. And we connected over the, you know, the old glory days, 25 or 30, whatever, years ago, that he used to go out to these places, what it was like then. And people don't realize that the thing that the boss, or the me, when you're reaching out to me, connects with our friends over is not the placating, I'm one step down, you're so amazing thing, that it can be tempting to do when we feel that power imbalance. Another example, Chris Williamson, who I've gotten to know, was amazing at this. And for so many reasons, I'm not surprised that he succeeded in the podcasting arena. But when we first got put in touch, I was a fan of his podcast. I'd liked it. But the way that he behaved around me was immediately as a peer,

• 20:47Speaker 02

  despite the fact that I had millions of more subscribers and like, probably would have been a good interview for him to get at that point in his career. Now he doesn't need me. He's killing it. But the way that he treated, we spoke for an hour on the phone. And while he wasn't ever wasting my time, he was never tentative about, is it okay? Oh, I'm sorry, let me, let me return your time to you type of energy. So it's very, very important that when we feel a power imbalance, that we tap back into, this is another human being. They put their pants on one leg at a time in the morning. The things that they connect with their friends and their wife about are not this distance that I feel. And I can just affirm that having had people reach out to me, it's beautiful and wonderful to mention and say the impact that my work has had.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  But where connection forms is when that distance between us dissolves quickly. And we're able to meet as peers rather than guru-student.

• 21:41André Duqum?

  Yeah. No, it's that thing where you, if you pedestalize somebody, it's like you'll never be able to see eye to eye. And- You'll distort your behavior around them and then you're not actually, they're not interacting with the authentic version of you. So it's just, it's fascinating, but it's also somewhat inevitable. Like as we grow and like we meet people that we get awestruck by or that have impacted us, you know, it can, it can distort the perception and make us forget in many times that, oh, they're a human. They actually have shit that smells too.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. And we don't crack the joke. We're like funnily sarcastic with our friends. We like give them gentle ribbing stuff and then we're around this person. We're hyper polite and deferent and that doesn't feel good for the other person. They want a little bit of like, hey, you know, what's going on? The, the human side of things is where people create possibility to connect.

• 22:34André Duqum?

  Yeah. Amazing. So that was four?

• 22:36Speaker 02

  That was four. Five would be I proactively share my purpose. I've told the story on other podcasts, I'll avoid it about the buried life, but it's, it's what put them on the map was they came out and said to this effect, we are here to help people scratch items off their bucket list. Will you help us with our bucket list? And as a result, they were able to play basketball with Obama and do all these incredible things.

• 22:55André Duqum?

  Do you know Ben Nemtin?

• 22:57Speaker 02

  He reached out because I told the same story on the Dyrus CEO podcast.

• 23:00André Duqum?

  I've had him on the show and he's a good friend. Yeah.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. But the ability to sit with yourself first and clarify, what do I care about? What do I want to do? And to share it proactively is so important because in the early phases of conversation, people are going to ask us questions that they really don't care about. Where are you from? What do you do? What brings you out here? Do you come here often? We, you should not answer these literally. You should receive these as opportunities to share the things that you value in your life. And we could talk about exactly how, but if you work your values into answers to those questions. So if you were to ask me, for instance, and I cheat on this all the time, but what made you move out here? Why did you move out here? I can say, I came from Brazil and I like the weather. Or I can say, you know, I run an online business and I'd been chasing summer for the last six years.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  And so I wanted to come somewhere that had really cool media for the business that I do, as well as cool surf spots and, you know, all the, and so you say it like that and this person can hook into media business, surf spot, like extreme sports, whatever, whatever your values are that you incorporate into these answers become the threads of conversation that people can continue down versus I'm from Philadelphia. Oh, cool Eagles. It's like, I don't care about the Eagles.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  So that's, that's why proactively sharing your values and your purpose is so important. And then the final one is to go there first. In groups of people, there is this unspoken thing of like, can I joke? Can I be vulnerable? Can I offer praise? And if nobody does, you sometimes get these very stilted interactions where everyone is being kind, polite and separate from one another. And then one person cracks the joke or like pushes the button or does the thing or is, uh, extends praise. And the entire dynamic of that group shifts to follow it. It's like, oh, we can, we can joke here. People remember who led that initiative and they trust them more. They follow them more. They have, they, they just want to be around that humanizing energy more.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  So go first when it comes to being a human. This means with the cashier, when you're checking out. This means with this, the neighbor that you have seen a dozen times, but never really spoken to. It means in the elevator, when you're on your way up to work and you haven't met the person before. If you humanize these interactions, it's not just fun in the moment. And it is, you'll walk out of that elevator and think, God, this is such a better way to live. The opportunities that arise from these sorts of random things are incredible. Like you do not realize the world is a buffet. It is constantly running incredible people, incredible opportunities. And what's sad is how many of them slip through our fingers because we're being polite or insular. When it would just take a little bit of stepping outside of that comfort zone to make incredible things happen.

• 25:43André Duqum?

  I love that, man. It really, I, I love when you speak to the different like charismatic types, because it seems like the more that we lean into what comes naturally to us too, we can connect with people in that mode versus if we're trying to always push in a way that is, feels a bit more forceful, that doesn't feel as natural to us. It's just going to be another barrier to be able to connect. And so when you run, could you run us through those different types?

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Sure. Yeah. So first, and I think this is, this one is incredibly powerful, is high conviction individuals. You think of Steve Jobs, Conor McGregor, Andrew Tate, Donald Trump, right? When people sense certainty in another person, there really is this human desire to follow that because we are all seeking certainty. And when we feel it in another person, it's magnetic. Conviction is the type that I think is most easily. Can lead to a lot of different places, right? When you look at some of the worst things that have happened in the 20th century, you will see a tremendous amount of conviction in the leaders who led there. They were not doubting of their cause. So it's something that needs to be paired with ethical values and all that sort of stuff, but wildly powerful to develop conviction.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  And if that, if those high conviction leaders interest you, there are exercises and things you can do to develop your own conviction so that you speak in a way that communicates that much more clearly. The next type would be the authentic type. This is, you know, Joe Rogan, particularly early in his podcasting career. People that you can trust to tell you how they feel, even if it temporarily disrupts social harmony. And the key thing that comes from this is a tremendous degree of trust. You might not like it all the time. It might not feel great, but we probably all know one or two people that can be aggravating, but you just, they just are. You just trust them and they are them and there is something that you can almost forgive at all because they are themselves.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  The trap for these people is that they get stuck not developing. It becomes, oh, this is who I am. I have to be so brusque. I have to say it like, there's no flexibility to grow beyond that. The third type we all know is funny. This is every comedian, right? You can, you can lack so many other skills, but if you can make someone laugh, this is true on dates, this is true on other things. You don't need to be rich, but if you can make a woman laugh, that counts for a tremendous amount of things. And so we've got lots of videos on how to be funny and some of the particular tools that these comedians use. Next type would be the empathetic. I think Oprah Winfrey. I think you have an empathetic quality as well as an authentic quality where you sit down and see other people and they feel invited to share the pieces of themselves that they might not always share.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  And so a lot of people don't know this about Oprah, but people would just come on her show and cry. It's like the thing that you did in the 90s was you could do your Oprah interview and she's going to ask you the question that you've been avoiding in every other interview, but because it doesn't matter, you're with Oprah and she's going to hold that empathetic space for you. So these people tend to do very, very well in one-on-one conversations. Where they struggle sometimes is in groups. And so you can lean into the empathetic, but you might want something else as well if you'd like to do better at a party or a networking event or something like that because empathy tends not to shine in those sort of contexts. Right. And then the last type would be the energetic type. This was the one guy that I often used early in his career and still today, to be

• 29:05Speaker 02

  fair, is Will Smith. Like, he's high-energy. High-energy, and I don't mean this as insulting towards him or anything, can cover for jokes that aren't that funny. I remember I had a friend in college who, was he witty? Not especially, but he just told the jokes with such enthusiasm and verve and volume that it accounted for a lot. So energetic, looks like large, gesticulating body movements. If the friend that comes in and the decibel level in the house just rises, and then everybody then matches it. We tend to want to match energies that are higher than our own, versus when people come in a little bit lower energy than us, that's, unless you're very empathetic, people tend to avoid

• 29:45Speaker 02

  that sort of experience. We like to be lifted into expansive, loud, and we usually avoid being pulled into more quiet, introverted, insular spaces, especially when we're in a social environment.

• 29:56André Duqum?

  What question would someone ask to get reflection on like what their strengths are? And I'm assuming that can be a combination of a few.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, it's, your strengths, you can ask friends, you know, which five of these do you see me as? And honestly, you might be surprised by what comes back. I did not expect for people to tell me that I was high conviction, because I didn't feel that inside of myself. They're like, oh, man, you are, you act like you know everything. I was like, oh, okay. But what your strengths are and the direction you want to go don't have to be the same thing. I think this is one of the key insights that made me lean into charisma, because I didn't have a charismatic type. I was the shyest kid in my high school. I hung out in the woods with my three or four friends, building forts. It was, there was, there was like no charismatic type there. And I was awkward, if you put me in a group, I couldn't even be authentic or empathetic. It's which one of these do you

• 30:47Speaker 02

  most admire in the people that you admire? Of the people that I've listed, which type of that are you most wanting to lean in the direction of? And so you might have your strengths, but I would actually encourage you to go to your desire, to your love, and to what lights you up more. Keep your strengths. You don't need to throw it out, but lean in the direction that excites you.

• 31:04André Duqum?

  Can you share a bit more of you transforming from that awkward kid?

• 31:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, gosh.

• 31:09André Duqum?

  To this weirdo before me?

• 31:11Speaker 02

  This awkward adult.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's been a full circle thing, to be fair. I've started introverted, went out, and I'm introverted again. I was blissfully unaware of the social hierarchy in high school. I just really did want to play video games and hang out with the two or three friends on my street. Goldeneye was a four-player game. We had no need for five. I was like, why have another? The awakening for me was 11th or 12th grade, where I started to really develop crushes. And playing Goldeneye with your three friends will not cut it. So then it was, okay, what do I say? What do I do? And it was years of just total bumbling, like, very late first kiss, very late, you know, late bloomer in terms of everything there.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  And then I went to college and nothing changed. And it was on a study abroad thing, because I had been trying to reinvent my life. I just was not transforming. So I was like, I'll go somewhere new, and then I'll be someone new, which is partially true, because you can sort of reinvent yourself there. And it was through, at the time, it was The Game, Neil Strauss's book, The Game, where he was like, you could say this to girls and they'll like you. And that was, oh my god, crazy. So I tried some of the lines out from the book, The Game. And I remember, we went out, the first night we went out, my friend and I, we were in London. We were on a study abroad trip. And we'd read prior to going out, hey, if you say something and it doesn't go well with a woman, you could just say, well, my mommy likes me, and maybe it'll work. So he went up to a group of girls, and it just went terribly.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  And then he said, well, my mom thought it was funny, and they laughed. And then he kept talking. And that was just like, oh my god. We were acolytes at that point, like hardcore, what do we need to do? The good news is, very early, I was a philosophy major, and I had a really strong ethical bent. It was, well, we don't want to lie about things, and a lot of these lines are lies. So let's find a way to pull out the core teaching of this book without lying about it. So instead of saying, do you come here often, and that sort of stuff, which most guys do, or can I buy you a drink, which is very boring, we would pull from the stuff that he was doing. Oh, there's this thing called an opinion opener, which is, instead of can I buy you a drink, you say, hey, settle a debate for my friend and I. We've got this friend, and this is true, who's dating someone, and we're not sure about, or should we say anything or not?

• 33:27Speaker 02

  Like, that sort of stuff became lines, which became habits. And that was the evolution. It was, here's exactly what I say to, is there a vibe? Is there a mentality, a habit, that I can pull out of these sorts of things? And so by the time that I was 25, 26, 27, I transformed from really going along to get along, keeping my head down, no girlfriend, to feeling very abundant in dating. I was starting this business. People were listening to me teach them. Older guys were asking me questions about leadership. And I was like, well, here's how I lead my band of five gringos in Brazil.

• 34:01André Duqum?

  I'm the captain of my Golden Eye team.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  I'm the captain of the, it was really, and it was the beautiful thing that young people do, which is they bite off more than they can chew and they act smarter than they are, which I believe is a totally necessary phase. And it was beautiful. And through that, I learned from the clients and they learned from me. And I was starting to teach people, first in New York City, then abroad, how to do these things. And I found that the stuff, everyone has this itch in them. For me, it started with, I'm not able to date and I don't have a girlfriend. But for some people, I feel really left out in work. And if I could meet them at that itch, the principles were wildly, wildly similar. So that takes us most of the way through my twenties and then I can talk about how it all melted down.

• 34:47André Duqum?

  We'll get there. We're good to get there. We're building, we're building our way.

• 34:54André Duqum?

  Hey, everyone. If you're looking for a morning ritual that gives you steady energy without the jitters, check out Mudwater. Their blends use functional mushrooms for focus and immune support. And with only a fraction of the caffeine in coffee, you get all of the benefits without the crash. They've got options for every part of your day. Original for mornings, matcha for a green tea boost, and caffeine-free blends like Rest and Gold for evenings. I love mixing their coconut creamer and some honey and it tastes amazing and feels good in your body. All of their products are organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, sugar-free, and vegan. Right now, you can get up to 43% off your order,

• 35:34André Duqum?

  plus a free rechargeable frother and free shipping when you go to mudwtr.com/knowleself. That's mudwtr.com/knowleself. Link in description as always. Or you can find the latest deals with our partners on our website linked below as well. Back to the show. There's a saying that people don't remember what you say, but how they make you feel. And there's also the saying of, like, so everybody's trying to be interesting instead of interested.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:03André Duqum?

  And I understand that can go too far as well. I'm just curious on your thoughts there because it's so true that like people remember how you make them feel in the interaction instead of all the words that you say and the things that we might portray as the best version of ourselves that we think is going to make people attracted to us. So talk to me about that dichotomy.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, it can be, well, I think it is, both of these are not as simple as they may originally appear. Because you can be someone that people pleases and makes people feel good in your presence, and that will not serve your relationships at all. On the other hand, we've all seen it. You can be, it's typically a guy in a relationship with a woman who inspires a lot of doubt and fear and self distrust, but she moves more towards him and not towards the person that is nicer to her, right? So what is true in there is that we think it's our accomplishments and our resume, and I've seen this in New York where guys are handing out business cards that matter. It is the internal experience of the person in front of us which determines so much about if we're able to connect with them and relate to them.

• 37:09Speaker 02

  So the goal is, of course, it's not to make people insecure in order to connect with them, but early pick-up artists realize that you can do that. You can go out, you can inspire some level of insecurity in women, and that is very different than most men, and they will actually move towards that. Problem comes down the line where you have a relationship that is now based on, I make you feel insecure and then you try to win me back type of a thing. So there's that one. And then the other one that you said was be, in order to be interesting, be interested. And you mentioned it can go too far, and it definitely can. So when I'm talking about first impressions with people,

• 37:45Speaker 02

  The mistake is that, especially around people in positions of power, they're like, "I'll just show them how interested I am." So people, well-meaning, will come up to me and be like, "I loved this video that you did and that video, and help me." And it's all very kind and nice. But that can feel like too much too fast. And if you take that and you imagine people in other positions of social power, which can be a woman at a bar, who is going to be approached and spoken to many times, leading with pure interest is actually alienating, right? So what we've tried to help people do is to make a first impression in a different sequence that ends up at, "Let me show my interest." But before that, you run through, have I made them feel a feeling of fun? So the ways that we can inspire fun are these subtle, little, non-literal responses

• 38:28Speaker 02

  to things that people are normally literal about. Any sort of playfulness here. I'm going, let me think of an example. You're at a party. There's a bunch of food that's out in front of you. You're in conversation. "Hey, what are you doing?" They say, "What do you do?" You say, "I'm just here to test the M&Ms," or something like that. Like, a little bit of playfulness. And as you get used to it, and if you do a little bit of improv, there's always something that's available for you to be non-literal in the moment. If you look back at some of the times that we've laughed, it's me poking fun at myself, or you poking fun at yourself. It's when we're not like, "Well, actually, I'm still not awkward today, Andre." Right? So fun is the first emotion that you want someone to feel to make a great first impression on them. The second one is trust. Trust is primarily, in short,

• 39:12Speaker 02

  interactions communicated via body language. It's eye contact. It's, "Are you showing people your palms are like, if I sit like this?" And I'm like, "Yeah." Like, there's an immediate sense that you can't trust me that will come through. And it's subperceptual. Nobody's gonna walk and be like, "I don't trust that guy." But they just might shift to a different area of the party. So trust is incredibly important. Lot of body language stuff that comes through that. And the way that you speak, one simple thing. Is that if you're in a group and people are cutting each other off, that's totally fine, but finish your sentence strong. Meaning if I'm speaking and you cut in, I'm gonna get to my period. And then I'll stop and turn over. This isn't a hard and fast rule amongst good friends, but if you're in a social environment,

• 39:55Speaker 02

  we tend to trust people that value what they say and can share and play. So get to the end of your sentence before you type of a thing. And then the last is respect. Respect, we can know, I respect this person in advance. I respect what they've done. But also it can be communicated very, very quickly in interaction. And where it comes through is those initial questions that these get to know you questions. What do you do? Where are you from? What brings you here? Do you come here often? Where you share values of your own that the other person can tap into and connect with. That is often where respect is built. So I might mention, for instance, and it comes easier with life and time and success and all those sorts of things, but it wasn't always the case. So I would, right now, if I said, you know, I have a YouTube channel. It's got a lot of subscribers.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  That's gonna inspire a lot of respect in people. It actually makes me uncomfortable to talk about because it can be too much. But early on, when I had nothing and I was a broke consultant that didn't like his job, people would ask me what I did and I would say, what do you mean, what I do for work or what do I love? And they'd say often, well, both or no, what do you do for love? And I would say, well, you know, I'm an aspiring rock musician. I hope you should know. And I would be playful about it, but they, oh, you play guitar? Oh, yeah, you know, and you're saying that sort of a thing. And so now there's an area for them to respect me as opposed to, I'm an analyst at XYZ company, which is inspires little to no respect in most people. So it's answering those first questions in a way that people connect with the values

• 41:25Speaker 02

  in your life and see that you're a person of ambition, drive, connection, et cetera. And then that can all happen in like 30 seconds. Doesn't take long. If you flip interest on at that point, then it's wonderful. Tell me about you. What do you do? Oh, that's so cool. But most guys just lead with, what do you do? I'm a nurse. Oh, my God, a nurse. That's so amazing. And it happens with, I use men because I work a lot with men, but it happens with women too, where in an attempt to be liked, they'll just tell everyone how wonderful they are without revealing any of the cool, interesting things about themselves in that first minute of conversation.

• 41:58André Duqum?

  Those are so helpful and I'm curious what your thoughts are on, we spoke to this earlier about how we need to essentially try and rebuild and do these things that maybe feel unnatural to us at first. My friend Peter Crone has this great saying, decency is the absence of strategy. And so it's like, how do you juggle having strategy, like this is my plan to connect, whereas to not have an agenda is actually like the, in many ways, the way to like be truly present with someone.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I think one thing, I like Peter Crone a lot. He's not my friend yet, but maybe one day.

• 42:36André Duqum?

  You guys love each other.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  Maybe we'll connect, but I enjoy his stuff. I think that one thing that I have to be careful of and that older people have to be careful of is advising people to do things differently than the way that they did it. And so I think one things that the sages and the masters often do is they'll give advice that is like, drop your strategy, just be yourself, let go. It's like, well, what were you doing at 22?

• 42:57André Duqum?

  Strategy.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  Strategy.

• 42:59André Duqum?

  Not letting go.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  And so I really think that it is a connected, even though it seems different, it's really important to allow for a phase. And again, it can be tempered with ethics and values. You don't need to lie, but my goodness, you've learned skills in your life. The idea that you couldn't learn a social skill, especially when so much of us have bad examples growing up, that there might need to be a period of conscious development, that that is somehow insincere, unethical, or not decent, I don't subscribe to. And I doubt that Peter does as well. So I would say there are phases to this sort of thing. And just to be honest with yourself, are you in the phase where it would really behoove you to sit with these mindsets, do some more concrete exercises?

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Take, and this is what's important, don't be pure strategy. Take one thing out with you. So for instance, I would often take, I just have to say one more sentence that I'm comfortable with. I'm not going to sit here and think, how are my hands? How are my eyes? How are my feet? Have I done this? Am I wearing the cool colors? Whatever. It's just when I'm at the line at Chipotle and I get there and she says, chicken or double chicken? I'm going to say, double chicken. I'm a grown boy, I need my stuff. You know, or whatever. And we get to the thing, how was your shift? One more sentence in the Uber, one more sentence with my boss. I would take these core things. One day, it would be eye contact. And I spent like two weeks like this with people. And it was not a good idea, but I had to learn that. So it was one piece of experiment at a time,

• 44:25Speaker 02

  which would allow for authenticity to come through and also conscious development to push my frontier. And now today, it is way more absence of strategy. Like if my eye contact isn't great, so be it. That's, that's okay for me at 37, having taken the arc that I've taken.

• 44:45André Duqum?

  It feels like a pervasive thing throughout all life. Like there's many games we need to play so that we can then be done with them. And I think of the stages of learning that many people are probably familiar with of, you know, take the piano, for example, right? It's like you want to get to the place where you're just flowing and you're not thinking about strategy or anything. But to get to that point, there is a lot of learning and stumbling. And what is called unconscious incompetence is where you start, you know? And then you build your way to conscious incompetence.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Conscious, that's where, that's what it is. I'm consciously developing my fingers, my skills, my social, what am I going to say? How am I going to stand, et cetera?

• 45:22André Duqum?

  Yeah, conscious incompetence and then unconscious competence, where it becomes natural and flows. So I just like that you acknowledge that because we're all at different points. And I'm sure we can all have a bit of humble pie. And still, no matter where we're at on our journey, there's different areas we need, we need to grow still. And so we've hung out a few times now. Is there something in, you've seen, I guess, in my interactions that is maybe like one thing that you would roast? One thing that-

• 45:48Speaker 02

  Roast, ooh. What would I roast? No.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  You, you surprised me with your high conviction, I would say. I anticipated, because you have, you are gentle as well, and empathetic and patient and have space to listen. And I've seen you listen like for a long period of time. And also, like, we play games and you're like, nope, that is not how it goes.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  And so, no roast at all, but I, it is, it makes a lot of, like, I see when people can tap into more than just one of these types, that really cool things become possible. Because, yeah, it's, your conviction is required to sit here and host a show like this and have led the life that you have led. I'm thinking if there's anything socially. No, nothing comes up that I'd roast socially.

• 46:39André Duqum?

  Well, let me know if it comes to mine.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  I'll let you know, everybody thinks that I'm like walking around with a checklist.

• 46:43André Duqum?

  Yeah, yeah, I'm sure at some point in your life, you were doing that more.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:47André Duqum?

  But, uh, no, cool. Well, thanks for, thanks for the kind, the kind words when I asked for some constructive criticism.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  You're not very good at Smash Bros.

• 46:57André Duqum?

  Yeah. So close, beats me by just a little bit.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  It's not close.

• 47:07André Duqum?

  As you can see, just two nerds here. Okay, so a couple of things that we can maybe just, we can go through a bit more quickly because you touched on, you know, we went through first impressions and building fun and trust and respect. But when it comes to speech and body language, let's, there's, there's a couple of things that I would just like to get your thoughts on before we, um, we can go into some other areas. What are the lowest hanging fruit that you see people, uh, could, could improve most on when it comes to speech in particular?

• 47:39Speaker 02

  When it comes to speech?

• 47:40André Duqum?

  And communication, so we could go body, body language as well.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  Body language is the one that I, that came to me first.

• 47:44André Duqum?

  Go for it.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  Okay, most people live in a box. Everyone's box is a different size. So some people's box is like this tight. And it's, yeah, you know, what do you want to do? It's, it's, it's a very small box. Some people's box is in here. When you're filming on YouTube, you have a box that is here that I've learned to do it. To expand your box is one of the most important things, but it's the ability to be like, oh dude, did you see that over, like, it's the ability to fill space that is not belonging to someone else, not punching anyone in the face. And I have been aware of the camera, so I've been trying to frame it because that's the old YouTuber in me. But. If you train yourself, and this would often be the first thing, we would often go out to bars or clubs with guys. And before we spoke to anyone, we always went to the dance floor.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  I was like, "Close your eyes and dance as small as you need to until you can go big." And take as many minutes as you need until you're thrashing around, not punching, not hurting anybody. Open your eyes if you need to, but to get comfortable filling space with your body. That is the lowest hanging fruit. And if you want to do it just in a simple way, when you're talking or gesticulating, try to get your elbow fully extended at some point in your next conversation. Really easy, has a huge, not just perceptual effect on the other person, but it will raise the volume that you speak with. And you will feel more confident. There's this biofeedback loop that kicks in. I can even feel it now as I start to expand. Those elbows. Those elbows, the elbow flare, right? Sounds simple, is incredibly impactful. For speech,

• 49:16Speaker 02

  it's a cliche, but it is substituting and like, and I still have my crutches, for silence. That's the biggest one. Um and like communicate a lack of conviction. It communicates a sense that you haven't thought things through before. So silence is captivating. It's a vacuum in the sense that it pulls people in. You have so much more silence available to you than you realize. I see this constantly in my own videos where I'm like, "So the next thing you gotta do is this, and we gotta do this." And then I see the most captivating speakers, the Dave Chapelles, and they know what empty space does. It is so, so incredibly powerful. So that would be the big one is to simply,

• 50:01Speaker 02

  you can record yourself if you're a YouTuber or a podcaster. This comes, you've heard this before. Listen to your ums and likes and then consciously take that desire for silence into the next interaction that you have instead.

• 50:14Speaker 00

  Are you ever shopping online and suddenly a discount that helps you save pops up? It makes your day, sometimes even your week. Want that feeling month after month? Well, new customers who save by switching their home and auto insurance to Progressive, save hundreds. Cue your happy dance. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  They're running a cover two defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.

• 51:19André Duqum?

  I'm curious what happened in the silence there. That was, it was great, man. Are you cognizant of your vocal tonality and all those little things that you could probably spend so much time?

• 51:29Speaker 02

  I spent, this is where I started to tip too far. I have a pretty high voice compared to some men. That's just the shape of my everything, right? And so I would see, and it is true, that deeper voices are just naturally more commanding. They, there's probably an evolutionary thing that is connected to that with testosterone and size and danger, all of those sorts of things. And so I was, okay, well, I need to learn to change this. And so there are exercises that you can do that are valuable.

• 51:58André Duqum?

  I'm just imagining you walk up to people with your eyes wide open speaking, hello.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  Hello. Hello, small person. Yeah, so there are things that you can do, but for me, this was where I was like, okay, this is now, there's too much self-improvement and not enough self-acceptance. This was really like right about that line. And so I was doing exercises, bouncing up and down, healthy stuff, learning to speak more from your diaphragm so that you can speak for longer periods of time without straining your voice box. That's all good. But it was becoming like pulling my larynx down, trying to speak more deeply. And it's just not worth it, even if it has an impact. If you're blessed with a deeper voice as a guy, congratulations, but it's not worth chasing to that degree, in my opinion.

• 52:44Speaker 02

  But it is worth, if you're someone who is very nervous and who can't take a deep breath and speaks only from here, it is worth, and this is where it becomes a little bit more meditative, more spiritual, learning how to draw breath into your diaphragm, into your belly, into your back, so that you're resonating, literally resonating, from more than just this little tight area up here.

• 53:05André Duqum?

  Yeah. Amazing, man. You mentioned briefly the difference between self-improvement and self-acceptance. And I want to start to go into this now, because for different people that are listening, different parts of our lives, adding more techniques is useful. For others, removing blocks to connection and presence, I'm sure will help everybody. But like, the self-acceptance side of that, of that journey is, is different. And so, what happened to you?

• 53:36Speaker 02

  What happened to you?

• 53:37André Duqum?

  What happened to you? What happened to you, dude? To go from that journey, from self-improvement to self-acceptance, and when you started, when everything, I think you said, started to melt in your reality?

• 53:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I got everything that I wanted, is what happened. Jim Carrey has a wonderful quote, something to the effect of, "I wish that everyone could be rich and famous and successful, so that they could realize that that's not the answer." And I feel the same way. I, it's, I don't want to take anyone off the path of pursuing that social status and fame. I want you to have it. I want you to get it in an ethical way, like I did, and then go, "Oh, shoot," which is what happened. So I was, I was 28, 29 years old. I was dating the girl that I wanted to be dating. I had had dating options before. We were like exploring open relationship. I felt in control, in command of like, my life. The business was starting to make money. It had just made enough that I was able, which was truly beautiful,

• 54:29Speaker 02

  to like, finish off the payment of my parents' mortgage. I had started spending the money that I was making to try to fix familial problems, like, "Oh, I can get us a vacation together." And, and all of this was going down.

• 54:44Speaker 02

  And then I'd have a night where no one was around and I was stressed and panicked and miserable and like, I need to go out, I need to go, I need to go find people, I need to go be around people. And that continued until the relationship fell apart, which needed to happen. And I wasn't getting happier or better after the relationship of like, oh, just start again and do it new and have more power and more ego and more, more things going the way that I've decided I want them to. And that was when somebody mentioned the word ayahuasca. I was a total straight edge. I didn't drink and hadn't drank since I was like 24. I'd never smoked cigarette nor weed, didn't drink coffee. And I was in enough pain where I was like, okay, I'll give this a try. So I did it.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  And without going into the full trip report, that was the first contact with my inner child. And the aspect of the journey that most stood out was, I was sitting there in conversation with my inner child who at first was like playing in the dirt and having fun and defying the rules and like whispering notes to my friend on the other thing like, these people are sad and boring and throwing up everywhere. This is lame. And I had gotten the direction to ask my inner child if there was pain. And I was like, pain? I'm having a great time. So I said, do you feel any pain? And then, fuck, waterworks. And the pain was, you never let me play. And I was like, play? What do you mean play? We play guitar, we play.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  And then it was, no, you don't play guitar, you practice guitar. You don't play with your friends, you perfect these relationships. Like, everything was about better, better, better, more, more, more. And so that was the start around 30 years old of this inner exploration. There'd always been an aspect of it that was confidence and was internal, but it was really, not just inner, but it was shadow. It was what are the pieces of myself that hurt, that I'm ashamed of, that feel not fun? That low energy guy that walks into a room and people gravitate away from? That's what's occurring internally as well, right? There's these low energy, sad, what's the point of being sad, shameful, angry, et cetera, when you could just flip it around?

• 56:53Speaker 02

  And I realized that I needed to spend, I had no choice but to spend a tremendous amount of time with those parts over the last seven years. And through that, I have seen that

• 57:08Speaker 02

  Shame, and a lot of things that I know that you guys have discussed on this podcast, is so corrosive that you can have everything that you want in the world around you. And if you've not addressed the shadow, it will eat you from the inside out. And there will be no joy in the hard work that you've put in, which is really important. And I am so for having a wonderful external life, full of abundance. But if it's not met by an internal ability to receive yourself, you see this in a lot of people, and you can name them for yourselves, and I'm sure you know them in your social circle, who are endlessly in pursuit of arranging the outside world to be a certain way, but can't even receive it themselves. So that's been the last seven years for me.

• 57:52André Duqum?

  Yeah. Thank you for sharing, man. What's one of your, the biggest blocks that you've since illuminating have like found the most freedom on the other side of?

• 58:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think this one is really important for so many men, is feminine, the inability to access the feminine inside of yourself. What I see is a lot of men, because if you grew up in the 90s, like, what shouldn't you be? Girlie, gay, sensitive, vaguely like artistic? And it shifted a little bit, but I'm 37. Like, that was pretty powerful messaging. Weak, you know, all of these things. So there's this entire part of your psyche, which is not necessarily the dominant in most men, but is really important, which is the feminine receptive, intuitive part of you. And most men, myself included, have that shunted into the shadow.

• 58:46Speaker 02

  And then what happens is these men, like myself, accumulate a tremendous amount of masculine force and power in the world. They're directed, they go out, they build things, they discipline themselves, they add structures, they use their mind, they make the world bend around them, which is a beautiful impulse. And, which is nobody's fault, I see then they become totally dependent in various ways around women, because their only access, and this was true to me, to the feminine, is through women. And so in that ayahuasca journey, what came through as a result of it is I was so broken up about that relationship, because I couldn't access the feminine except through women, which meant I didn't have a TV in my house. I hadn't watched a movie in years, except, date night, we're gonna watch a Disney movie, for her, you know,

• 59:31Speaker 02

  not for me. I don't, I don't like this, you know, this doesn't touch me, right? Everything was structured improvement, very little receiving. She was, she would touch, she was a yogi and a masseuse, and was deeply connected to her emotions, and I was, not in a cruel way, but like siphoning that emotional connectivity that she was so deeply experiencing. And because I was wounded in my own, I was attracted to someone who was still working out their own things. And what I saw as really attractive was emotional volatility, and all these sorts of things, because I had so little of that. And it was like, oh my god, life force, emotion, femininity. So it's been a long process of many ways for

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  me, the blocks to it, and we can talk in the depth that is appropriate, but there was childhood abuse that made, in addition to the cultural thing of, am I gay? And if I'm gay, does that mean that I'm girly, that I'm sensitive, that, oh crap, don't be any of those things, that then, then I couldn't access in any other way, than through traditional masculine means of like getting a girlfriend, and that sort of thing. So reconnecting with the feminine part of myself has been so challenging, and so wonderful, and so scary. And what I've seen through that is that it's like, oh fuck, this is the intuitive part of you. This is the part of my girlfriend that just knows that's not the person, but can't describe. Why? And it's the irrational, I don't know how,

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  but I know, things. And it's like, why? I just know. So developing a connection with that aspect of myself that I can't explain has been terrifying, the spiritual, the non-rational, the...

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I probably should just do this and make more money and it would be safer to do it this way, but my heart isn't in it. Like, as I've learned to trust that, my relationship has improved. My relationship with my male friends now includes an emotional component, which was not at all present in that way. The emotions that were available were like, fun, good time, maybe a little bit angry, but like, not vulnerable, sad, hurt, held. And, gosh, with those, it's just like, holy, I know what people are talking about when they're like, if you form a relationship out of incompleteness, there will always be issues. But if you address the completeness inside of yourself, which doesn't mean you don't need other people or relationships aren't important, but if there's a fundamental

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  union of the masculine and feminine inside of yourself, relationships transform because they're not done from a place of secret dependency on the part of myself that I've rejected.

• 1:02:04André Duqum?

  Hmm. Well said, man. Yeah, that, the masculine can in many ways be seen as like the cell wall, where the feminine is a life force energy that animates, you know, life within it. And I think a lot of people can relate, and I have for sure, different parts of my journey and still to a degree where, to the degree we have a lack of willingness to explore those vulnerabilities, is to the degree we have, we're limiting ourself to experience the beauty of life and the expansiveness of what it means to be human. Where do you feel like you're at on the journey? Because that was, what, seven years ago when you started to first getting insights around this with different abuse and things that happened in your childhood? Um, yeah.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  How am I at?

• 1:02:46André Duqum?

  Yeah, how you doing?

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  How am I doing? Well, one, it's so grateful to be here. This is a microcosm, macrocosm moment for me, being here on a podcast, especially, you know, you, who is just so comfortable in this spiritual space, where I'm still, I feel new and I'm learning my bearings of coming out of the closet, if you will, as like, there's a non-rational part of me, you know, very uncomfortable, but I'm embracing it increasingly. I'm allowing intuitive, spiritually felt things that I cannot fully explain or fit into a container to lead my day more and more, including my business. And-

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  I am beginning to understand what effortlessness feels like, what it is to listen both to myself and to what is being offered by the people and the opportunities around me, and to really hear like there's a tuning fork inside of me for resonance, and to trust that much more than, I don't know, this person has a good resume and I said that I was decided to go that way. And yeah, it doesn't feel right, but we're gonna do it anyway. Or, I don't know, I'm afraid of that thing and I don't want to, even though there's a strong like, yeah, this is it. So I think I'm coming out the other side. I think if I had to draw the hero's journey, which has been a really helpful model for me, what I've seen, and I saw you talk to Sadhguru, and he mentioned that there's these 12-year cycles.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  And I'd independently sort of noticed that in my own life, that there's these 12-year eras of my life. And I'm on about year, like, seven, is where I'm at. And what happens about year seven is you're almost three quarters of the way there. And this is the moment of the hero's journey. If you look at Joseph Campbell's original formulation, that is apotheosis, which is to say, you've gone through the trials, you've been in the belly of the beast, you've refused the call at the beginning, and you've come all the way through to you're having that, you're getting it, you're with the grail, you're with the lamp that the genie is in. But unlike the movies where it's like the cool thing happens and then it's over, in the hero's journey, really, there is this whole taking it back part,

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  where you have to get out of the Cave of Wonders. There's all this stuff. So you have to leave the mountain of, oh, my God, I got the insight. And you have to bring it back into the world, into your life, into your community. And that is the final 25-ish percent of this journey where I feel myself now. And so being here is the very beginning of like, okay, I'm gonna start bringing this very solo journey back to the community to share it, which is, I think, ultimately where you hit 12 o'clock again is, okay, I've, I've shared the gift. I haven't just found it for myself. It's, it's been.

• 1:05:33Speaker 02

  Connected with the community.

• 1:05:36André Duqum?

  It's so interesting to see too, how life in many ways is like a spiral staircase where you're growing and you're revisiting cornuroses with more skills and the experience that we've garnered and all the skills that you have through doing charisma on command. Like it serves this unique purpose in being able to help you in your next iteration of expression and how you're going to share yourself with the world. And I'm sure that's just gone hand in hand with your deepening of understanding of like, what is charisma in a deeper sense? And so what started as the desire to increase your ability to influence and be persuasive to like exploring a bit more of the deeper etymology of the word, let's kind of explore a bit, what does that mean now to you?

• 1:06:21Speaker 02

  So, yeah, so when I named charisma on command charisma on command, I was going through a marketing course and he said, here's what you need. You need a name that has, I think it's called consonance or something, which is it's got the Coca-Cola, right? It needs to have a feeling of that so that it's an alliteration, so that it's memorable. And it needs to speak to a particular benefit that people are going to get when they sign up for your business because it's your number one billboard. And that's a very masculine way to look at the name and that's where it came from. Like you're going to get charisma on command. But when I look back at this with a feminine lens of like, why, why was that it? And it's like, oh dude, it's deeper than alliteration. It's deeper than marketing. The etymology of the word charisma comes from the Greek and it was often used to describe people that had the gift of oration.

• 1:07:05Speaker 02

  But beyond that, it was this sense that God spoke through them, that they had a gift of grace, that the muses would come down and touch their tongue and they would speak in front of the people. And that is a widely held belief. Even the Romans have this concept, I believe, I don't know if it's the diamond or the genius in the Roman idea, but you listen to artists today and you listen to Paul McCartney talk about how he wrote Let It Be. And he's like, I had a dream. My mother, Mary, came to me and I was having a hard time. She just said, let it be, let it be. And I woke up and I sat on the piano and I wrote Let It Be. Who wrote Let It Be? Right? Like, he's the instrument, but who is breathing that through him?

• 1:07:49Speaker 02

  And so this is where I get to charisma as remembered, as you clear the shit out of you and you just let it flow through. And when I see Martin Luther King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I go, yeah, he's developed skills and he's got timing, but that is, there's something divine moving through him in that moment. And that's the terrifying part. That's where I get really scared, is something, and I've felt it many times now, is becoming a vessel, a channel for something larger than me to use me, to speak through me. And I think part of the fear of being used is like, look, in this life, being used and abused has been a wounding. When something more powerful

• 1:08:33Speaker 02

  takes control of me, it hurts, it's not good. And so there's been a lot of, can I trust this unknown force that is larger than me to love me and be benevolent as it moves through me?

• 1:08:47Speaker 00

  Are you ever shopping online and suddenly a discount that helps you save pops up? It makes your day, sometimes even your week. Want that feeling month after month? Well, new customers who save by switching their home and auto insurance to Progressive save hundreds. Cue your happy dance. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  They're running a Cover 2 defense, but you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.

• 1:09:45André Duqum?

  Hey guys, a quick share about creatine. I'm not sure how many of you know about or consistently take creatine, but I have genuinely noticed the effects it has had on supporting my training, workouts and muscle growth the past year, but also my mind while I've been supplementing with it. If you don't know, creatine is not just for gym bros. It is comprised of three amino acids, which is not just for muscle. It's essential daily fuel for your brain, your body and your long-term health overall. Momentus is the gold standard. I've been loving using them because they source Creapure creatine, which is the purest, most effective creatine monohydrate available, single sourced from Germany, and it's not cut with any fillers or junk. They tested, they screen it, it is super clean.

• 1:10:30André Duqum?

  Their lemon flavored, single serve travel packs make it easy to stay consistent. They're convenient, you just mix it with water and it tastes amazing. If you're keen on trying them out, just head to livemomentous.com and use code know thyself for up to 35% off your first order. That's know [email protected]. Link in description as always. Back to the show.

• 1:10:54André Duqum?

  That understanding of charisma is life's and the universe's unique expression through you as you. And like, we get to be in the remembrance of that and the reclamation of that is, is super powerful, man. And it's no, like, it's so obvious from the outside in. From the first person perspective, it's a bit harder to see. And unless we have mirrors and reflections around us, like what that is. That's why it's so much in alignment, like this new deepening of understanding of charisma and like what I, what you see and what I see very much so you're here to do and how that's taking shape with what I'm, with what I'm doing with this podcast is like helping people really understand their own individuated.

• 1:11:40André Duqum?

  Self, both developing the ego, waking up beyond the ego, and then, and then almost turning back to it and like realizing we're here to live a human experience and give to the world and the unique capacity that we have. And that's really exciting. And I'm curious for you to share a bit more of like what you feel like that is coming through you.

• 1:11:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, for me, I mean, throat, you know, it's very, I'm a speaker. I talk, you know, like if I look at my history, I'm glad that you mentioned though, that it is, it is not what you say, it is how the divine moves through you. It's remembering that. And I'm so grateful to be alive today because I think if it was the 1600s, there might be one violin in my town. And if I'm a musician, I might never have the opportunity for my gift to correspond with what the world can, can receive in that way. But what I see happening so much more with the internet is particularly in the West, and I think there's opportunities for this to expand is that your gift, the thing that your parents told you, you shouldn't do that, that's a waste of time. Like, I remember growing up and there was like, don't

• 1:12:42Speaker 02

  play video games. There's no careers in that. What are you going to design a video game? And now we have these Twitch streamers. And not that everyone should be a Twitch streamer, but there are some of them that that is their dharma in a significant way. And it's a beautiful thing. And it's not, may not be their life forever, but like, that's perfect. I have played Dungeons and Dragons with a guy who is living his charismatic gift. And he's a charismatic person to be around because his love for D and D is so intense and pervasive and inviting that if you've never wanted to play the game, but you hang out with him, you're like, sign me up. I want to do this. And I think what it is, is when you see people in their gift, whether it's music, Dungeons and Dragons, speaking, dance, being a businessperson,

• 1:13:25Speaker 02

  like numbers, Warren Buffett is living his gift. I don't think everyone should be in finance that is. I think that's a lot of ego pursuit of money. But that is a guy who would be an asset manager in almost any life, right? And so when you see people living their gift, it wakes something up inside of you. There is this non calorically restricted increase in energy that happens. It's like, where did that come from? I don't, did I have a big meal? But it, no, it just goes up. And so what I want to do is unlock that more fully in myself and know that. And I'm coming to know that. And it certainly has to do with speech, but it also has to do with courage and a willingness to open up vulnerably to the things that terrify me.

• 1:14:09Speaker 02

  And so for me, that has been, plant medicine has been a lot of that. And not just plant, MDMA, that sort of stuff as well, has been tremendously important and will continue to be. And I think would be an offering that I would one day love, one day, not now, love to invite people into. And so I'll answer concretely now, because I've spoken around it. There are three places I hated as a kid. And it was church, school, and hospitals. And I thought I hated them because I hated religion, education, and health. And what I realize is the pain, as I've had these journeys of remembering, is like, oh, God, I want it.

• 1:14:53Speaker 02

  These places are so sacred to me, and the way that they're done is so not connected, body and spirit. It's stand up, sit down, say this hymn, get out, get out of here, eat the wafer, you're done, where I grew up at least. And that was painful. And I thought, I was like, oh, I just hate this place. It's boring. It's like, no, it was painful as a kid to feel that separation of body and spirit, where it's like, the body just has to stand up, sit down, move through the motions, but there's no spirit that is moving it. And so what I want are some combination of, and the Greek tradition really is powerful for me, of a church, a school, and a hospital, a place where people can come to pray, where they can come to learn, and where they can come to heal.

• 1:15:37Speaker 02

  And when I feel it, it's just like, yeah, I bow to that. I feel a submission, which was something I could never do. There was no submission in me, right? But there's this instinct to lower my head and bow when I feel that inside of myself. And it's a beautiful, though challenging, impulse to like, this is given to you, Charlie. You don't get to, like, this is given to you. You are receiving this from something larger.

• 1:16:07Speaker 02

  And then to lift my head again and go, oh, you know, that's going to take a long time. I'm moving towards it, but that's what I hope to have, and I hope that the channel is a small piece of that school.

• 1:16:22André Duqum?

  Why is it so moving for you? Like, when you imagine what is usually so divided into three different areas, which doesn't have to necessarily be, there can be parts of us when we're healing by remembering something through learning something, through praying for something, all that. But what is it that is so emotionally moving for you, moving for you there?

• 1:16:44Speaker 02

  There's this deep unconscious belief that I'm going to get hurt, just somehow, and it can be attached to any number of things, but it's just, I'm going to get hurt if I touch this place.

• 1:16:59Speaker 02

  People will shun me, they will shame me, they will kick me out, and I had a whole streak, to be fair, where I was hyper-materialist, critical, have every angle of attack on any sort of spiritual or religious tradition, oh, your crystals, you're this, you're that, you're the other thing, and now you've seen my room, it's something else. Yeah, there's this internal belief that I will be hurt, that does it, that I'm working through, and I think probably what needs to be reclaimed is the ways in which I have been and was, and that might not necessarily be something that is, while it may happen, it's reclaiming the old hurt that enables you to move forward today with willingness

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  to be hurt, no matter what, and this is the charismatic belief, I will be okay.

• 1:17:47André Duqum?

  Yeah, I know, in so many ways, it would be awesome to have the internal dialogue or diaries of Malcolm X, MLK, Jesus, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, in those moments where it's like you're being, you feel you're being asked, and it's okay that not everybody feels that on that scale, you know, it's like... But for those of us that feel like and we're feel like we're being asked to and called to in a bigger context, in a bigger scale, where there's more, so to speak, on the line, more lives you're affecting. There is that scary part where you're owning up to the possibility of how light you're, how big your light is and how it's also ego to say no to that.

• 1:18:32André Duqum?

  Just like we might have perceived it's ego to think that that's that's for you. You know, so it's just fascinating to be in that in that reflection. And I know that it's been super beneficial for me just to be in conversation with people where they can see that in you also and reaffirm that and know that like, like, no, you're moving through with integrity. Like, if anybody should have this power and ability to influence and create these things, like, you should be doing that. You're a great leader in that aspect. And so I see that in you and I'm really excited to see what comes to fruition. And, um, and yeah, but, but I totally just resonate with you on the part that's like, it's scary to kind of accept the scale of what we're here to do sometimes.

• 1:19:15Speaker 02

  I love that you referenced, because I've gotten so much value, and this is where Jordan Peterson, I think, entered the zeitgeist of these archetypal stories, right? Being able, whatever your religious tradition, there, I have gotten so much value from the myths of various religions, the Greek ones, but you mentioned Jesus. Absolutely not on the same scale, but to be able to sit with what Jesus may have felt in the Garden of Gethsemane, understanding that he was going to be crucified the next day. And the line is something to the effect of, you know, "I will do thy will, but if this cup may pass over me, please let it pass," right?

• 1:19:55Speaker 02

  Like, if this, if this can be avoided and it's not important to you, let, I don't want to be crucified. And to just have that as an archetypal, like, lead, big brother example of like, look, this is what it is to, to really give yourself up to God and the world. Can you let in that fear? Can you use this as an example of what might be asked of you? Because I think the thing that is scariest is that we don't know what is going to be asked of us. And there's this sense that if you open up that innermost chamber that can listen to those messages, that those messages are so undeniable that there becomes no choice but to listen.

• 1:20:39Speaker 02

  The only choice is if you're going to pretend that you can't hear it. And so, yeah, I don't think he's going to ask me to be crucified. I'm pretty sure. He's probably going to ask for something beautiful. In fact, I know that's the case. And yet, it is scary to open up to the power of something so much larger. And when I say he, I don't have a particular tradition in mind, but...

• 1:20:59André Duqum?

  But it is interesting, when you look at all these individuals who have radically, completely transformed within their lifetime, how the social contracts move, or the belief system of billions of people on the planet. And you can see the through line between all of them, that whatever their connection and how they labeled it, to source God, the universe, the Father, like, whatever it is, you know, they were being moved by, through a connection to something greater than themselves. And I'm just curious, how do you describe your relationship to whatever that essence is now? Because if charisma is that grace, like, that divine grace in revealing that in our

• 1:21:42André Duqum?

  life, it's like, it's listening and being more connected to that space.

• 1:21:47Speaker 02

  I think, oof, it's family. Like, family is the big thing. It is not a mistake that they say Father. Like, the intimacy of that is, I think, essential. And when you have God, the big scary guy, that is just a punisher, that has set up the whole world and is so separate from you, but I experience, and I'm not saying that this is the truth, that anyone has to accept this, but there are Greek gods that I was like, brother, you know, uncle. I just have this connection. And that, to me, having worked through the concrete wounds of my family upbringing in this go-around, right, has opened up to a possibility of relationship, as I've started

• 1:22:29Speaker 02

  to heal my family, of, oh, these people are not to hurt me. Like, you know, this, for instance... I have experienced energy that I would say is an archetypal energy of Aries at different times, which is this like intense frenzied, not necessarily like it can be, you can channel it into a warlike, but it's intensity and frenzied and unafraid. And to feel that as both intimately connected to me and beyond me, right? To relate to the archetype in that way has been really powerful to be like, this is both in me, yeah, and beyond me, and this is brother. Oh, yeah, fuck it.

• 1:23:09Speaker 02

  And this is like, when I felt that, these beautiful, clear messages came through. There was, this came at a period in time where I was having issues with my co-founder for a long period. We were moving in very different life directions. It was unclear what would happen with Charisma and Command the business. I had this experience where I felt that frenzied energy and it was just so clear. It's like, you are buying this. You are buying this business. You're offering this price. And, and I walked outside, I took a walk and I was like, "Grrrr." And that, this is the reconnection with the body that has been so important. The ability to emote, the ability to like,

• 1:23:51Speaker 02

  "Grrrr," do that stuff in my own home in a private container, to cry, but not just cry, to wail, to let those big emotions move through, not just in the stifled like nonviolent communication, "Hey, it made me angry when you said that." But to really let the physical expression of it through in a way that didn't hurt anybody and was safe, that has unlocked so many, so much ability to receive more safety, more comfort, more guidance and like just deep, deep confidence. And I think that was something that was missing in the first leg of my journey was it was all controlled. It was all within a certain box of acceptable expression and to really touch the edges

• 1:24:36Speaker 02

  of that in your own space and then go, oh, wow, I can get big. That's awesome. That, that leads to a, just a different way of connecting with people.

• 1:24:44André Duqum?

  When you say family, it also makes me think of how oftentimes we have the perception that like these big callings are asked of us, only us, and we must be the atlas that holds the world on our shoulders. And it's like, There are so many guides, seen and unseen. And forget about the angelic beings that maybe are non-physical that you're communicating, but the physical humans in your life that are like angels that want to work with you and share the mission with you. And it gets to be this collaborative thing, you know? I think we have this depiction of being spiritual of like Jesus walking in the desert for 40 days alone. There's an aspect where the solitude, I think, has a really important part of our journey.

• 1:25:27André Duqum?

  But then you look at how any big change really comes into action and it's a collective effort. And so that takes the pressure off massively.

• 1:25:37Speaker 02

  Jesus didn't write the Gospels. Socrates didn't write anything, right? Like, it was people around them that preserved, fought for, continued, sometimes really distorted the tradition. And that is both deeply a spiritual thing that you just noted, but also it's really, it has concrete impacts because I was carrying the weight of everything. It was like, I'm the one that knows how to make these videos. They have to do this way. And even though there were people in the company, the only space that I had available was like, small helper. That was it. It was like, person who does research for the video that I'm doing. And I didn't know how to listen for anything larger than that coming through.

• 1:26:18Speaker 02

  And I wasn't receptive to something on the level of an enormously powerful partner that was going to grow these things in ways I could not control. It was all like, yeah, you can grow up, but it's within the control that I have. And as I've done this work, I really, like, people are showing up that are powerful. And that while I am a steward of what this business becomes, and ultimately, there are many ways in which I own it, that it becomes larger than I can make it. I might set the vision, but they have a power that was not available for me to even lean on. And so it's like, I get to do less, have more happen, feel better about it. And it's, it's just a win on all four things.

• 1:27:00Speaker 02

  What has to be given up is the container of the small self. It is the fear of stepping outside that boundary into the shame, all of that other thing.

• 1:27:09André Duqum?

  What has been your experience of that identity shift and expansion? Especially when you are recognized societally for massive success and wondering of life as this dude who has a YouTube channel, talks about this one thing. To then be willing to let it shift into something else, like it does take courage. And so what's been your journey and process?

• 1:27:29Speaker 02

  Resistance, like, like, nah, no. Yeah, hardcore. What's been my journey there? Please don't let this be the case. Please don't let this be the case. Can I just be the successful guy forever? Who just like plays the same hit tune always and forever? And I'll be safe and people will like me and I don't have to venture outside of this established, safe box. And it has been, no, you're, you're gonna fuck up way more. You're gonna stumble. You are gonna become a beginner again. I just put out a video that isn't great and people are like, this isn't great.

• 1:28:00Speaker 02

  And they're right.

• 1:28:02Speaker 02

  And to not disown it, because it's like, I had, I can't make brilliance without that. I just can't. I can't not. I have to expand the arena in which I'm able to produce, play and be seen. And there was this, only let the top 3% of you ever emerge into the public space. And it's like, okay, you wanna see what is possible there? This is it. You're at the utmost extreme of what's possible. If you wanna share the top 3% of your polished self with the world. I don't need to go full 100. I'm not gonna stand naked and do that, but like, more. To let more of the crap, to let the views go down, to let the phone calls trickle, right? It used to be, everybody wanted a piece of charisma on command.

• 1:28:47Speaker 02

  And it's just not, it's not there right now. And to have that humbling, ego-deflating, coming-back-to-earth experience of, welcome, you're 37 and you're a beginner.

• 1:28:58Speaker 02

  And

• 1:28:59André Duqum?

  And also not.

• 1:29:00Speaker 02

  And also, you're not, man. You're not. You, you have, you are not where you are when you were 20. You have these skills, you have these powers, you have these things. You have this influence and this Rolodex and like, it's like, be who you are. Not the, oh, I got so puffy, part of myself. So it's been deflating in the best and most painful way, which is it brought me back down to the ground and to earth. And what I found on the earth is, oh, holy shit, I built something really impressive. But it doesn't make me perfect. And so that's where I am.

• 1:29:36Speaker 00

  Are you ever shopping online and suddenly a discount that helps you save pops up? It makes your day, sometimes even your week. Want that feeling month after month? Well, new customers who save by switching their home and auto insurance to Progressive save hundreds. Cue your happy dance. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states.

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  They're running a cover two defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.

• 1:30:34André Duqum?

  You spoke to how important developing our capacity to listen is.

• 1:30:40Speaker 02

  Like, oh, gosh, yeah.

• 1:30:41André Duqum?

  You know, and so much of your journey, both through medicine work and then also therapy and like, there are all these energies within us from our past, things that we're feel like we're being called to in the future, that if we just hadn't spent time in silence to like, allow to come into our awareness. Like Young has quoted, until we make the unconscious conscious, it'll rule our life and we'll call it fate. And so, moving from fate to living as like a conscious human being is that journey of listening to those, those patterns and whatnot. So, I would just love to get your perspective and thoughts to share like the power of listening and developing that.

• 1:31:24Speaker 02

  Dude, great question. I made about 300 videos and spoke about listening about zero times. I was like, oh no, when people, you listen by repeating back what they said to them or by sharing a compliment with them, but it was always like, what am I going to say to what I'm listening? A small story, I have spent years in an attempt to connect with everyone that is close to me, but my dad and to get him to connect and share and do these things and told them, what if you did this? What if we did this? What if we did this? And we had, we did one journey where we were both on medicine and I was in a place finally where I could shut up. And the first hour and a half, there was nothing said and it was okay.

• 1:32:05Speaker 02

  And then he started talking and I realized he would say something and just trickle off. And if I jumped in and was like, well, tell me more. But almost every like 15 or 20 seconds, he would continue. And he started to share things that I'd never heard him say. But I never had the space to hear because the space that was necessary was enough grounded, safe presence in the room without pressure, without push for these parts of him to step forward. And that is true outside of ourselves and it's true inside of ourselves. This is why meditation is so valuable. Well, there's many reasons, but one of them is because the voices that hang to the back,

• 1:32:48Speaker 02

  the ones that need an hour and a half or something, the ones that know things but very quietly, need space in order to do it. So, learning and developing and still learning how to listen has been really powerful. And if I had to share the things that I've learned, it would be you can listen with different centers of your body. And the one that has been most powerful is learning to listen from the center of my being, of who I am, and let things resonate. And what's scary is at first, it can sound like, oh, I'm not picking up all the details of what this person is saying. Like, I couldn't read back to them the story that they said. But I've learned this with my girlfriend, that we would have these moments, they were playful. But I was like, you tell stories in the most roundabout way and like, what are you doing? I don't get it.

• 1:33:33Speaker 02

  Why did you spend so much time over here? And she's like, I don't know. I was like, you need to take the course and you'll learn how to tell better stories. And as I've listened from here, when she tells these stories, she is saying the most profound thing possible, like constantly. And I just didn't know how to hear it. She's telling a story that on the surface is about this little scuffle that she got into with a person, but she's really sharing a story about this afraid aspect of her childhood that is, she's wanting to know is safe to bring into our relationship. And when I've learned to listen, it's like, oh, my God. If you think that people are uninteresting, part of it is a lack of capacity to listen to them deeply, which is essentially the thing, they work in tandem, but it's an inability to listen to yourself.

• 1:34:15Speaker 02

  It's an inability to think that anything but those most surface level, rapid fire, speedy thoughts are the ones that define and shape you. And for me, there was this real thing that needed to happen where I disidentified from the smart kid, the fast one, the one that had the answer the quickest, the one that is really good in trivia, that could get through scatagories super quick. Scatagories? I did not win scatagories.

• 1:34:39André Duqum?

  I did, or second place, but I don't know. I just beat you, that's all that matters.

• 1:34:45Speaker 02

  You beat me. But the one who is quick and to learn patience and love for the one who is slow, and that the one who is slow is not dumb, the one who is slow is really wise, but takes time. And, gosh, that has been such a gift and a challenging one for me to get. Took a long time, still takes time.

• 1:35:05André Duqum?

  Yeah. As it pertains to relating with other people, it's fascinating what you said there about there's what people say and what they think they're trying to communicate, and there's a deeper thing that you can attend and attune to, to actually really communicate with the person and what they're saying. And you see this all the time in guru-student question and answer interactions where they'll answer the questioner, not the question, like really what's underneath the surface. And not that you have to have this psychic ability to get to the heart of something, but like just the subtle deepening of listening to and feeling where somebody's at allows you to connect so much deeper with them, and that of course correlates to connecting with ourselves a bit more.

• 1:35:49André Duqum?

  So I just love that you spoke to that subtle shift, which feels cosmic, and so many people say the longest journey is like the 12, 16 inches from the head to the heart and listening from that place more.

• 1:36:01Speaker 02

  Yes. Gosh, oh my gosh, yeah. The thing that guru-student thing, I'm not that, but what I notice is it's disorienting because you're thinking, oh, I must be a bad listener, I'm not responding to exactly what they said. And there's this trust, Joe Hudson, who you've had, teaches it very well, there's this way, if you ever watch Joe Hudson's coaching, where he is not literally responding to a lot of what is said. He might sometimes, it's not like he can't engage in the world of, tell me about your dad, tell me about your mom, continue. But there comes a moment where he answers the questioner. And that comes from this ability to really hear and courage to move non-linearly

• 1:36:46Speaker 02

  in relationship with someone. And one of the fears that I had, that I think people can have, is they're going to think I wasn't listening. They're going to think I wasn't because I'm not directly responding to the superficial thing that they were saying. But if you can really allow it to resonate and reverberate, oh, my gosh. Like, I've taken conversations. This was huge. There was a, my co-founder and I, I came back with like numbers and or maybe slightly before that, we were discussing the terms of the deal and we were not in a great place. There was a lot of distrust between us. And he was sharing something and it was like we were hitting our loggerheads. And in the past, I would speak, because there were many things that he said were, well, that's not factually true. And that's not, well, wait a second, that's not. And there was a huge temptation in me to correct or say, or you misunderstood what

• 1:37:31Speaker 02

  I said. And I'd been working on this and I dropped into that space. And what came out was, what are you most afraid of? And he took a big breath and credit to him, had the courage to say his fears. And for the next 20 minutes, that was where the deal got done. That was it. It was like, oh, I can hear the thing that you're truly afraid of, share with you what my fears are. And now we can construct a deal in vulnerable witness of what we most care about and try to, to the degree possible, there's still a conflict, do it in light of that fear. Not in command from that fear, but in light of it. And that was where the deal unlocked.

• 1:38:15Speaker 02

  And it was from that ability to listen and non-linearly respond. And I would encourage anyone who's listening today and you have someone you love, see if you can listen to the next story with that and allow yourself to non-linearly respond. And this is where people, it's magic. It feels like magic and like psychic powers and all this kind of stuff because it, stuff happens that you've never seen happen before. Yeah.

• 1:38:40André Duqum?

  I know psychedelics have been a big part in your deepening your ability to listen, especially for those like heart-opening medicines that really allow you to explore these things from such a heart-centered place, instead of being so analytical. I'm just curious your thoughts on like, what has the psychedelic path for you, like, really been able to radically support in its modality? And then one aspect of it that you could see maybe is a bit of a shadow, if not done with integrity, or if not done with the proper integration and such.

• 1:39:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I started it much more materialist, was open to emotions, but not to spiritual, you know? So like, it started as this familial healing patterns. Oh, there was this old thing that is here. What it has uniquely given me, and I know that many traditions can take you here, but the remembrance of who I was before I was born, right? The remembrance, I mean, of the dream that I came here with, which, in so many words, is the union of body and spirit and love. And I don't know, this is where I go really far out on my edge and don't know, but I've had the sense that's like, I am familiar with these places. I'm familiar with these medicines and I, six months ago, wouldn't be here, but like, if I had a past life, it's like, I did a lot of medicine.

• 1:39:58Speaker 02

  Like, there is a familiarity that comes through it with me that is unique. And I've done it with other people and they've sort of reflected this back to me in a way that, yeah, there's, I don't know, something there. So that's the unique angle. And I know that some people are drawn to meditation and I still am drawn to toning, breathwork, all those sorts of things. The shadow is almost, the shadow is that this world is not real, I think. Where they take you to is, I love, and gosh, you had Robert Gilbert on, who really helped me, but I'll put it into my own words, is that psychedelics take you to what feels

• 1:40:41Speaker 02

  like a higher truth of like, I'm not here just to survive, I'm here to like, be. I'm here to be my deepest essence and survival and like these social games and power structures and I'm not going to participate in that. I'm gonna be in my white robes and I'm gonna eat cleanly and I'm gonna have my life on the monastery. And I think that is beautiful and I'm not telling anyone else that they need to not do that. I think there's an invitation today, particularly now.

• 1:41:10Speaker 02

  To not deny the lower chakras, the power, the safety, sex and power. Like, because when the spiritual side of you does not connect with that, you have no one running for president that is, that is, cares about that stuff, right? You have few, everyone's like, oh, if only the 30 most powerful men in the world would just take these psychedelic medicines, we'd all be better. It's like, well, what if the people who took all the medicine became the 30 most powerful people in the world? Why not? And the thing is, well, you have to give up so much. And I would challenge myself, no. What if there's a way to, to live in the world, connect with those drives for power,

• 1:41:53Speaker 02

  for sex, for safety, in a way that is hooked up to those drives? And your conversation with Robert Gilbert was really illuminating for me in terms of what that looked like. And I think an exemplar of that is Jesus, who has wielded an insane amount of earthly power, not necessarily in the span of his lifetime, but like tremendous earthly influence, while remaining connected to what you might call the higher stuff. I don't mean better, I just mean, you know, higher in your body and perhaps higher vibration. So I don't know the question that you asked me to get me there, but here we are.

• 1:42:28André Duqum?

  Yeah, no, it's, it's really important because there can be this impulse to turn away from the material and like-

• 1:42:35Speaker 02

  Oh, the shadow, yeah.

• 1:42:35André Duqum?

  Yeah, yeah. So I just, the integration of both, and it seems like at different parts of our lives, we have, and it's more of a necessity for us to be really in the world and sink our teeth into it. And that usually comes in a new career, or having kids, or a new relationship, where

• 1:42:55André Duqum?

  we get revealed of these deeper subtle qualities by living the world, you know, by living in the world and living, living our life. And then those periods, in those in-between moments, both the small in our day and then longer periods where we might go take space from it all and either do medicine journeys or go on a meditation retreat, or take time in nature alone. So, yeah, they're both essential.

• 1:43:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And, and what that can look like, I mean, I talked about it, but yeah, you can deny the body, you cannot take care of yourself, you could do so much that you get sick and die, like, that is all essentially a denial of the importance of here.

• 1:43:31André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:33André Duqum?

  As it pertains to the shift with charisma and it going from something that you do to the essence of who you are and revealing the individual uniqueness, I'm just curious your thoughts for anybody who's listening right now that feels like a hell yeah to that to that inquiry and that invitation. What have you found both personally supportive for yourself and others to like reveal what is my individual uniqueness? What are my individual unique gifts?

• 1:44:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think that there's a really, there's a buffet of options. And the trap that I got caught in, and I'm so appreciative of people that do it, but don't push it in a way that is overly pushy, is you don't have to meditate, you don't have to take plant medicine, you don't have to do breathwork, you don't have to go for walks in nature. But you've heard these things and we could begin to list them ourselves that provide the opportunity for you to connect with that. And what I think is important is to listen very carefully to the ones that call to you at the different points in your life. So I, you know, I had no friend who just really got really intense into drawing. He's, he's a very successful entrepreneur and his Instagram is all drawings and the hatchings

• 1:44:43Speaker 02

  that he's doing, right? To trust that you might call it more feminine, intuitive, creative, non-productivity based flow in your own life. And I say that because so many of the people that I'm talking to already have productivity on lock. If you're in the flow, it may be good for you to step into a little bit of structure and productivity. But things that I would recommend, and I can just share it. So mine have been, on this podcast, you have people, you have tantricas who do it with sex, you have, you have all sorts of different ways of doing it. I will share mine. And they tend to relate to the things that you loved as a child, which I think is interesting. Like the tantrica mentioned that she was like so connected to her body as a kid. For me, I was like, I loved books. I was reader. I went to fantasy worlds. I did all these sorts of things. So reconnecting with mythology,

• 1:45:28Speaker 02

  and I loved the games that had gods and goddesses and that sort of stuff. So reconnecting with the stories. I talked to chat GPT. I was like, do you think that this is a viable interpretation? And we go back and forth and sharing with my friends. So Carl Jung archetypes, breathwork, I find really, really helpful for me. Journeys of all sorts of plant and synthetic substances have been really valuable. Do it safely. Do it with facilitator. I did it for five or six years with a facilitator, never at a party before I did anything by myself.

• 1:46:01Speaker 02

  So take those slowly because those are powerful tools. But yeah, if you loved movies as a kid, like whipping up the camera and doing that sort of thing, I think it is a, we're closer to it when we're young, so that can provide reference. But the thing that is alive today is excitement, spark, and you should feel an energy lift when you consider doing it. And if it feels depleting, that's probably not like, I'm not going to go to a Vipassana retreat right now because that for me feels draining, but that might be right in a year for, probably will be.

• 1:46:32André Duqum?

  Yeah. I love how pulled you are to the whole like archetypal and mythopoetic aspect of life because this is a big story that's unfolding, like the human story. And there are so many different aspects to it. And I just, I find it so fascinating how drawn you are to all these gods and goddesses and archetypes. And anything you want to add there? Because even from something as like, from like D and D to the statues, to like, what is it that you find so fascinating about like these different energies?

• 1:47:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. What is it? They tell the story of my own life in ways that are bigger, so they're more encompassing is I think part of it. And they tell me where I'm headed in ways that are really exciting and they illuminate aspects of myself that I haven't been open to. So just as an example, I'll give you two. As I started to see that my life was occurring in these cycles, I was like, man, I've been here before. I already realized this. What's going on? I was like, well, there's a cycle and there's a journey and you come back, but it's a spiral. You're ascending. It's okay. Right? So that was very helpful framework for me. But as I started to look at particularly the Odyssey as a hero's journey, I was able to just, as I listened, to find like, where are you, Charlie, in the Odyssey? And I knew it. I was like, fuck, I'm on the Isle of Circe. Like, or sorry, the Isle of Calypso.

• 1:47:58Speaker 02

  And I knew it. So I went back in with ChatGPT and I was like, what was going on at this stage? What was going on with the hero's journey? I was able to locate myself essentially at like seven or eight o'clock on the on the journey in the or probably seven, which is the temptation of the feminine. And this was a stage in my life where the business, my co-founder and I were at Lagerheads. And it was, are you just gonna sell the business, take the money and just be safe? You know, because what's going on with Odysseus at that stage is that he's had this brutal journey. He's lost his entire crew. He wants to get back to his wife, his dharma, his purpose. He's a king. And he washes up on this isle of Calypso, and she's a goddess that just wants to sleep with him and love him and just stay, just stay here. You know, you don't gotta go. And that was where I was, man. It was like, this is so nice. You don't gotta

• 1:48:41Speaker 02

  leave. You could have enough money. You could just chill. And he leaves. And why does he leave? It's like, because he's gotta go. He's gotta return. And then the next stage is atonement with the father, which came next for me, which was literally sitting with my own dad, but also these authority figures that you feel have hurt you spiritually and otherwise. And just knowing, I could, I could go into detail, but knowing what was coming next. And then, and it's like, oh, gosh, this, this is such a helpful, safety inducing framework for me to see that my story is not separate from the human story, and that it is okay to be lost in the belly of the beast. That is part of it, right? Oh, my gosh, so helpful. I'll tell you one more. With the masculine, the feminine,

• 1:49:24Speaker 02

  there's so many stories of Ares and Aphrodite. But they're, gosh, the way that Harry Ares cuckolds his brother, essentially Ares is like the jock, and Hephaestus is like the craftsman tinkerer. And so there's so many stories of the way that the craftsman tinkerer gets back at the jock when he steals his wife is he builds a cage and he traps him. And so what I realized from that story is that, oh, my gosh, the way that I've pushed back against the impulsive, like, I'm gonna do what I want, aspects of myself is I built a cage. I built a smart guy cage. And like, I'm not gonna do that. And so what he does is they go, they have sex, he drops the cage on him, and then he invites all the other gods to laugh at them. And what I see in these smart people is they

• 1:50:08Speaker 02

  They shame impulse. They shame the aspects of themselves and other people that seem dumb and slow and reactive to bodily urges and in so stand above and separate from instead of integrating that in themselves in the way that would make them more whole. So there's all of these stories that have been really valuable and instructive. And I could go on and on, but I won't. So that's, they helped me tremendously to connect with these.

• 1:50:35André Duqum?

  Even just putting our current challenges in context to a larger journey, like the hero's journey, it gives purpose to what feels like meaningless strife.

• 1:50:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:50:47André Duqum?

  So.

• 1:50:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm lost. And it's like, you are lost, but you're lost in a broader cycle.

• 1:50:53André Duqum?

  You're lost on the way of being found and then being lost again.

• 1:50:56Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly.

• 1:50:58André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:50:59André Duqum?

  That's awesome, dude. Yeah, I've thoroughly enjoyed all the aspects of this conversation. Like you have, you're an amazing communicator and you have so much depth to you and you can go to so many different places. With the context of this whole conversation, is there anything else that's like on your heart that you feel called to share?

• 1:51:19Speaker 02

  No, I'm so excited. I hope one day, and you've invited it out, but yeah, I just hope that, stick around if, you know, go to the channel or join the course, whatever you'd like. I hope to have a physical location to invite people to pray, learn and heal one day. And I am so excited. I hope that one day you come up to me and say, I watched you on the That Self Podcast and I'm here. And that would be fucking awesome.

• 1:51:42André Duqum?

  I love it. I'm here to champion and support that and root you on for that, man.

• 1:51:47Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:51:47André Duqum?

  I'm excited. So rad, dude. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. So much, yeah, so much. I'm excited to see how the community responds and please let us know in what ways this episode has impacted you. Because like these, these little moments, like this is a microcosm that somebody will tune into and have an insight or, you know,

• 1:52:10André Duqum?

  whether it's in the first half of this podcast where we talked about the different techniques to be able to connect with people versus the bit more of the poetic journey of connecting with self so that you can be a true presence with other people that you're connecting with. It's just so helpful to have this context, even just reminders for myself and learning. So, thank you, bro.

• 1:52:30Speaker 02

  Thank you, dude.

• 1:52:30André Duqum?

  Yeah, I appreciate it.

• 1:52:31Speaker 02

  It's been a pleasure. Play some Smash.

• 1:52:32André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:35André Duqum?

  We'll leave links down where people can connect with you, your course, which is amazing and all of that down below. And until next time. Yeah, if you liked the first half, check out the course. If you liked the second half, stick around. Yeah, sweet. Links in description. Appreciate you guys. Until next time, be well.

• 1:53:08Speaker 00

  Are you ever shopping online and suddenly a discount that helps you save pops up? It makes your day, sometimes even your week. Want that feeling month after month? Well, new customers who save by switching their home and auto insurance to Progressive, save hundreds. Cue your happy dance. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states.