5 Habits Constantly Draining Your Energy | Yung Pueblo

26:24And are there other things you don't do in life? Like, are you on social media all the time? Are you scrolling? Are you watching television shows are really particular about it. Like, are there things that you cut out of your life because you've realized they take up space in this mind that you want to preserve? It's more so I add in what's important and I make sure to follow through on it. So I meditate two hours a day, every day. I've been doing that since 2015. Started meditating in 2012, but then 2015 was when I started meditating daily. And - Like two hours straight? One hour in the morning, one hour.

27:00And so right before we started chatting, I was meditating for an hour. and then at some point tonight on the plane back to mass, I'm gonna meditate another hour. But I do that every day no matter what, no matter what, you know, without fail, wherever I am in the world. And that to me is like, that's the primary way that I take care of myself. I make sure that I'm, you know, essentially cleaning the mind out in the morning, cleaning it out in the evening because that's what you do when you observe the truth that's happening within the framework of the body is that you're tuning yourself up to the truth of the universe, which is the truth of change.

27:34And change is the exact opposite of attachment. So I'm literally training my mind to embrace change, to loosen up so that I'm not trapped by the attachment. And then eventually, if you stay still in a river that's always flowing, you're going to get knocked down. So I'd rather embrace change than be still. But those two hours a day are fundamental. I make sure to walk, make sure to strengthen my body. And then there's nothing wrong with watching a little bit of reality TV at night. What about what does that look like? Like when you go to meditate, you do it anywhere, you listen to something, you're just silent.

28:09Yeah, at this point, it's just like 90 % of the time is totally silent. Sometimes I listen to some chantings from my teacher. But it's, you know, we I've meditated probably like 14 ,000 hours, which is a lot of time. Actually, this this year, when I finished the 60 day retreat, I looked at my the course sort of all the courses that I've sat and I've realized that I if I take all the retreats that I've sat I've spent more than a year of my life in silent retreats so not all at the same time but when you put them all together and that's been my time to like cultivate myself I think that's been key to the success of my marriage the success of the relationship between me and my parents to, you know, writing more books to just showing up in a way that feels good, you know, like putting, putting actions down that I'm not remorseful about.

29:05And, um, I can't take that away from myself. When people ask me, like, how can you put so much time into meditating? I'm like, it's a better investment in the S and P 500. Like it's, it's a, and it's an investment that gives massive returns. So why would I take something away from myself that helps me be the best version of myself. So true. So funny. Sometimes we have a saying here, which is like, that worked so well. So we stopped doing it, you know? And I think that's meditation for me. I'm like, when I get into a state where I'm rocking and it's been weeks and I'm meditating continuously, I'm like, this works great.

29:42I'll stop. And so, yeah, that's really interesting. But then think about it. It's better to just let the benefits of it compound. And I've seen that, you know, going from those first few 10-day meditation retreats that were so difficult, like so challenging to be constantly with your emotions, to watch everything in your mind arise and pass away, to feel all the tough feelings. And then in the six-seater retreat that I sat this year, I saw all the work that I did before, and that retreat was so calm. But because it was so calm, it was way deeper than anything else that I've experienced. And that would have been impossible without that previous work.

30:26This is a little crazy, but what about all the people that use mushrooms or ayahuasca or stuff to do these sort of retreats or states? Yeah. I don't opt into that. Just cold turkey. No, no. I mean, if you have the breath and you have the body, you have total access to all the wisdom in the universe. So to me, I'd rather be able to observe reality as it is and accept that reality over and over again. And then through that process, the mind just gets ever more concentrated so that you can really, really deeply immerse yourself in that truth of change. So I don't have a need to take something external and put it in my mouth.

31:14You know, that's that. And I've tried psychedelics. I've tried a bunch of different things when I was younger. And it's great. I think, you know, for some people that gives them tons of value. For me, I'd rather observe reality as it is. It's a beautiful statement, actually. So do you have enlightened states when you meditate for that long? I have states of clarity. The word enlightenment is so loaded. And whenever someone's like, oh, I'm enlightened, I usually look the other way. I think you see a person by their actions and how kind and respectful they are to themselves and others. but yeah there are definitely moments of clarity where you know the retreat retreats will start with like the objective of you know trying to maintain your awareness of your breath for a minute but then when you go to these longer 60-day retreats like you could be aware of your breath for like 30 minutes perfectly an hour perfectly two three hours perfectly where and you become so immersed in that that that object you absorb you get absorbed into that object and there is there are such profound states of clarity and bliss.

32:21But then you use all of that, you know, that really strong nurtured mind to then turn it back into the body. And, you know, you're basically examining like, what is the truth? Like, what is the ultimate truth? And the truth that you're looking at and feeling directly is everything is impermanent. Everything that arises will ultimately pass away. There is a dissatisfaction to life, especially if you attach yourself to everything. And at the ultimate level, what is Diego? Diego is a set of mental and physical phenomena that are interacting really, really rapidly. So whenever I find myself getting stressed or getting too attached or getting, you know, really sort of bogged down by the mundane aspects of life, I have to remind myself, like, dude, you're not even real.

33:07Chill out. Yeah. Yeah, that's actually a really good practice. I think there's like some fear in. Yeah, ego dissolution. Yeah. Is that what that is? I get an actual visceral fear. Yeah, I feel you. Yeah. I mean, the ego loves dominating the mind. And the ego is something that is worthwhile because it helps you survive. And that's what human life used to be. It used to be pure survival. but then now we live in a civilization that asks us to be more compassionate because it's through compassion that we have all these interactions that help build wealth that help build community that help build you know good relationships so trying to live from a place of ego is going to keep you defensive over and over again a living from a place of compassion is going to create harmony in your life but to get there you need to just let the ego evaporate and the ego is going to fight you.

34:06And how does one like evaporate an ego? How do you how do you even recognize when you're an ego? How do you try to get rid of it? And how do you operate from a better place? Even if you don't meditate, you can still do practices that help you dissolve ego. And the ego will like shoot out lightning fast in the moments of impulsiveness. So it goes back to what we were saying before, where the key aspect is slowing down. It's like, okay, I feel the rush of my ego. My ego wants me to respond as soon as possible. It wants me to react in a way where I'm, you know, shutting someone else down or shutting an emotion down or whatever it is.

34:46So instead, let me pause. Let me recenter myself in compassion. Let me honor the truth. Like, I don't need to suppress anything at all, but let me just, can I vocalize what I'm feeling without creating a mess that I need to clean up later? That's really interesting. I think, do you find that successful people are more or less aware or have more or less ego? I think a lot of successful people are driven by their past trauma. And I found that even in myself. I came from such a place of scarcity. Watching my parents fight and struggle with the rent over and over again for more than a decade, that was hard.

35:34And that created a big imprint in my mind. And something I'm personally working on now is just realizing this life is beautiful. I don't need to add more things. I don't need to pick up another side quest. I don't need to... Writing is my primary enjoyment. And it's one of the ways that I get to serve in the world. And if I meet other people and great opportunities come about, I need to make sure that I'm really following through on them because my intuition says, yes, this will actually expand the impact and hopefully serve more people well. But I don't need to follow every exciting path. It's such a fascinating thing that happens almost the more success you have, the more options you get.

36:18Yes. And then the more miserable you become because you have too many options. Yeah. Saying yes to too many things is the path to burnout. Yeah. And so you really have to ask yourself a question. I mean, you have a quote I love that says your intuition will be ready to make a big move before your mind is. And so with these ideas of these paths and all these yeses, how do you know whether something is your intuition or your ego that's telling you to do it? Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. your ego is snappy and it's loud and it's more mental. It's like, you know, try and you can feel that energy of clinging like it really wants something.

36:58Whereas intuition, especially for me, feels much more bodily. It feels like it's coming from here as opposed to up here. And the intuition feels like calm waves that are hitting the shore if you're standing in front of an ocean and they just calmly, repeatedly are pointing you to a particular direction. Whereas the franticness of ego is like, you know, trying to dominate in every moment. That's a good point. When you think about where it is in the body, it really helps. Like I think my ego and a lot of my attachment comes from, like I can feel it in my chest. It usually makes me my, it's like my nervous energy right here.

37:37And then when I have something that just feels great, it's in my belly. I'm just like, oh, that feels nice. But I'm so busy during the fucking day that I stop paying attention to it. Yeah. No, and it's easy to get driven by something that's just totally unproductive energy in the body. You said the word grab, so I got to tell you, when I went into that 60-day retreat, so it was January 1st to March 3rd, my strategy for the retreat was don't grab anything. Like don't like literally whatever story in the mind, whatever emotion that's rising, like observe everything, but don't grab anything at all.

38:16And it was so helpful to realize, you know, in the act of not grabbing anything, you saw that everything that arises passes away because we get scared by pain. We get scared by heartache and we think it's going to last forever. But really, it's just another thing that's going to change. So that's kind of that's interesting. So that would basically be like something, a feeling, a quick decision or something comes to you. And our natural interaction as a human is like, okay, I'm going to do something with this. I'm going to react to it. And instead, in your practice, you take a little bit of a breath or you kind of are pondering it, almost just looking at it, deciding do I want to do anything with that.

38:55Exactly. And these are two ways of living where one is the internal dynamic of how do I keep progressing as an individual. But then sometimes people get it confused. They're like, oh, well, does that mean I can't have goals in life? Does that mean that I can't accomplish big things? No, if you focus on living virtuously and not harming yourself and not harming other people, and you try to do your best to provide service to the world, then there's nothing wrong with having big goals and really realizing that this universe that we live in, like what I would mention earlier, you know, what is this idea of Diego?

39:31At the ultimate level, it's nothing. So this universe that we live in, you don't want to hurt yourself. You don't want to hurt other people. But then other than that, it's just a canvas. You can paint on it however you want. You can do whatever you want. So if you want to dream big, like dream as big as possible. Do you think that people should try to be happy? I think that people should try to develop a sense of peace where they have a relationship with their emotions where they're not grabbing every emotion. They're not trying to like constantly get bogged down by the heaviness that's in the mind.

40:06So when you can have that like internal resilience of, okay, I feel heavy in this moment, but I'm not going to let it dominate my actions. I'm not going to let myself speak harshly to other people. And actually, I'm going to focus in this heavy moment. I'm going to focus on being gentle to myself and to others. Then you are able to build this deep inner peace, deep resilience. And happiness, I think it's possible to be happy, but a lot of people just confuse a word. They think of it as a constant high, a constant high of excitement, a constant high of bliss, a constant high of pleasure, but the beautiful moments in life are usually really simple and small.

40:45So I'd rather have a focus on inner peace than a focus on happiness. Yeah. It does feel like we're all chasing something and that, you know, often in entrepreneurship, at least we obsess on not being happy. And like, there's also like a sort of a cult around it. It's like, no, this is hard. How much more castro and it's difficult. And I even found I have a saying, which is choose your heart. And I have to be careful how often I say it, because I realize like, oh, am I really focusing on one aspect of life and only paying attention to the difficulty and liking that? And so I guess my question for you is like, how careful do we have to be with the words we say to ourselves?

41:32And are there words you do or do not say to yourself? Oh, that's a good one. I really see the way the intentions in the mind support your external actions and support how things land. So I'm actually really cautious with doubt, really cautious with negativity. Like I don't let it swim in the mind too heavily. Like if I find the mind starting to like, oh, this isn't good or this interview isn't going well, or this interview, you know, like whatever it could be. Before that, I make sure to just like pause all that negative self-talk. I accept that there might be some nervousness there, but then I start thinking to myself, actually, this is going to go really well.

42:19And actually, it has gone well, even though it hasn't happened yet. And having that framework just allows way better flow than, you know, that clunky sort of attachment. Sometimes I struggle with, this is maybe little in some ways, but also important. Have you ever been around a bunch of people or a few people and they really like to talk negative all the time? Oh, yeah. And they want to talk about other people. How do you how do you engage when you're around people who want to be negative? Yeah. I mean, it's it's interesting because when you stop, when you opt out, right, and you're still part of the conversation, but you're not like doubling down on talking trash about somebody or just being negative and you say your truth, like, actually, I've never met them.

43:00I have no idea what they're actually And I hear other people say things about them, but maybe they're, you know, who knows? Like you can't really trust people's judgment. You take the gas out of the negativity. I think a lot of times when we're interacting, like we're both coming in with different, you know, fields of emotion. And if I double down on the energy that I'm feeling, instead of just adopting the energy of other people, not only is that going to preserve my peace, but hopefully I'm welcoming you into my peace as well. yeah yeah i think that part's hard thankfully it's really hard you know because you also don't want to be a jerk you know sometimes i'll be like i really don't like to talk about people you know i just i don't it doesn't make me feel good i don't like the way i feel afterwards yeah um but people don't usually like that you know the response is almost negative because we want to commiserate we want like you know if i'm feeling angry or if i dislike someone i want you to join me in that tension.

43:56But one, why would I do that to myself? And two, I don't know if that's necessarily true. That's just one person's perspective. And that perspective is not equated to truth. Yeah, it's a good point. I have a guy that I've become friends with, Dave Ramsey, who's on the internet. And he has one thing that I really like that he says at his companies, which is they don't allow gossiping. So the first time you get caught gossiping, Like, oh, Sharon's doing X and X. They'll just say, hey, we don't do that at this company. We don't gossip. But if you get caught again, you get fired. Wow. Like, just cart plunge.

44:32And I almost didn't believe him when he said, because I'm like, really? That's incredible if you could actually do that, you know? But then I've been to his headquarters and he, like, for instance, they don't have credit cards. Zero credit. The entire place, nobody has a credit card in it. They have debit cards only. And so he really actually believes the things that he says and then does them, which is rare in humans. But I liked that because I was like, you know, it's so easy to fall. So much of your book is about a beautiful way to say that the actions that you take and the habits that you have lead to the life that you live and what is in your mind.

45:06And I think a lot of things we don't realize, we become this amoeba and everybody else's engagement pattern and whatever we take on. Yeah. And like your work is really helpful, especially I like the daily Instagrams because it's just a reminder of like, let's not do that today. Right. Right. Having a little moment to like slow down and reflect, like whether you agree or disagree with what I'm saying, I don't care about that. But more what's more important is, is it building self-awareness? Like, am I taking note of like how my perception is affecting my actions? that's a lot there's a lot of value and just that tiny moment of slowing down especially when everything in society is basically trying to force you to act like a machine but if you act like a machine you're going to be very impulsive you're going to burn out and if you want peace you need to slow down and also if you want success you got to slow down so you can actually focus your energy it's so true i didn't bring my phone here which is a good practice but i i saw this uh the saying yesterday and it was um an ai meat box and uh basically it's like trending on twitter have you seen this no and basically the idea is like when somebody and i'm sure you felt this just sends you an ai response and they're almost like you become this like meat transient yeah between one ai to another ai and all of a sudden all we're doing is going back and forth between the robots, you know?

46:36And so it's interesting what you say, this holding on to your humanity seems so important, maybe even today more than ever. I think one, one like little, you know, theory about the future that I have is that there is so much AI that it's going to change our relationship with social media. I think like already things are so fake. Like whenever I open X, like, I'm just like, this is none of it's real. And, or whenever I see, you know, like, things on Instagram as well, or TikTok, like, there's so much AI that it is, it makes the interaction of, like, actually coming together as a virtual community.

47:15It's, there's, you have to, like, jump over that to be able to actually interact with real human beings, that it's going to create a new premium on human connection. So I feel like the companies that support human connection and the actual like, you know, one of the best ideas that you can have for a business is like buying a theater because that theater is going to be full. Like I'm going to want to see my favorite singer sing. I'm going to want to hear my favorite writer speak to make sure that they're real. Yeah, it's actually a really good point. And now there's some sort of visceral reaction to that at least I feel I'm curious if you do.

47:52But when I can tell that it is AI, AI is like an instant turnoff. And it's also this instant, like, ah, sad. Like if you had just not used the robot at all, this would have been better. Totally. I think a lot of AI, it's just re-scrambling what's happened in the past. So it's hard to get innovation from that. Whereas that's the beauty of the human mind. The human mind is this canvas that's directly connected to the universe. And you can just allow a little bit of your intuition and your values and the way you see your world to connect with that energy of the universe. And it's like, bam, you come up with new solutions for old problems.

48:32And writing is like, just, it's just so critical because it's one of the ways that you practice clarifying your thoughts. Like writing is like really clear thinking. So you can't like take that exercise away from yourself, especially as like a, you know, a creator that a lot of people are depending on. I know. Yeah. It's a, it's a new, I saw like a creator that I think highly of, Hank Green, got a lot of crap on the internet for having some AI. Yeah. And I thought he's, you know, I don't feel that that's fair because I think he does incredible work. But I think it's going to happen. Yeah. And I also think, you know, people make mistakes.

49:11Like, it's be cool about it. Like, you can't expect someone to be imperfect. And we're literally all learning. Like, this AI moment is hitting the world so hard. and I'm hoping it rebalances our relationship with social media so that we use it a little bit less and we interact more in person. But also, like, we're all figuring out, like, how can you actually make this useful for your business? Yeah, and read more books. This one, which I jokingly told you I obviously hated because our entire team has been reading it, marking it up. I know I told Colton, one of our producers, to just pull some of his favorites and this is what he gave me.

49:45That's amazing. So this is really useful for you. Yeah, that's incredible. It's literally your entire book. I got to take a picture of that and just like put it out there. Yeah, you actually do. But literally we went through and like, you know, even like highlights on the quotes that we love. But I was curious for you, if you had to pick like maybe one of your favorite readings from this. Yeah. Which one would it be? Yeah. First off, I want to tell you a little bit about how the book is structured. Like I, this is a year long journey where you're specifically trying to build self-awareness and inner peace.

50:17It's called Journey, the Year That Changes Everything. And to build self-awareness and inner peace, it's not going to happen overnight, right? You're not going to Uber your way over there. You're going to have to take action over action each day. And I wanted to make sure that people could start it any time of the year. So it's not time-based, it's element-based. So it's based on fire, water, air, and earth. And with fire, it's basically actualizing your goals, having the energy to really pursue and like make something that's a vision in your mind a real reality. With water, you're doing your best to nourish yourself.

50:52With air, you're having clarity and adaptability. And earth is essentially balance. So I wanted to read something to you that sort of nows that down. So fire helps you find the courage to break away from old patterns. Air invites you to slow down and see yourself clearly. Earth reminds you to build a strong foundation through steady, intentional actions. And water teaches you how to let go, heal, and move forward with greater peace. I love that. And which one if you had to, now I love this because I have read Daily Stoic for years and I read Chicken Soup for the Soul, you know, back in the day.

51:32And I think there's really something special about choosing the words that you start your day with as opposed to getting influded the words that start your day. So if you had to choose, I want you to read yours and then I'll read you one of mine. Yeah. So five things that drain your energy, saying yes too often, doubting your intuition, not resting enough, exhausting your nervous system. Yeah. So that's been all five of those today. So we're doing great. So we didn't read that today. We should have. I loved this one. This is Air 90. May you believe in yourself enough to know that you are capable of extraordinary things.

52:13And I think sometimes the real truths are a little cheesy, but they aren't when they are true. Yeah, yeah. And it's important to embrace the simplicity of it. You don't need too much to push yourself in the right direction. I think about it as those astronauts in space that they use the tiniest amounts of air to push themselves and course adjust. And I think that's really critical. I want to read this piece, Fire 5, for you. The people with the best energy are the ones who never use the hurt they've gone through as an excuse to hurt others. I think that's key. That's key. Like, so much of the hurt that we experience is just replicated from whatever we went through in the past.

53:02And that's the mark of a good person. It's like a lot of people have had really challenging moments in their life. But can they take that, learn from it, let it go so that they can produce harmony in their life instead of chaos? It's such a good point. Also, you know how I know my ego is bad right now? My initial reaction is like, I should send that to a few fuckers. That is immediately where it goes. That's so, my God. I need a meditation retreat. But also, I do think it helps. I don't really love being public on the internet all the time. There's lots of stuff. I'm like, oh, that's interesting.

53:36I didn't see myself as a creator or turning into all of this. But I think it teaches you so many lessons about, I mean, can you imagine how miserable and mean we would be if every time somebody said something mean to you on the internet, you let that go back? Or if you responded? No, I'd rather let them exhaust themselves. You know, like there's no, why feed into that? And that's one of the things that I've learned from being a creator is that I actually don't know anyone. So I can't make assessments about them, especially quick ones that are based on very little information. So I try to live with a mentality where I'm giving people the benefit of the doubt.

54:17Well, I love the new book, Journey, the Year that Changes Everything, 365 Daily Reflections to Build Self-Awareness and Peace. Such a beautiful book. Thank you for doing the hard work of making something really simple, which I think is incredibly difficult, actually. And only giving people what they need and like not a thing more. It's something I aspire to do, too. So thank you for being here today and writing it. I know writing books are hard. Yeah. It's actually good ones. Thank you so much.

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