YOU ARE THE HERO ON THIS JOURNEY. THIS STORY IS ABOUT YOU!!!!

0:00 Welcome to The Unapologetic Man Podcast, the only podcast that's all about self-improvement, confidence, success, women, and being a man without making any apologies for it. What is up, gentlemen? Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the UMP. I really do appreciate it. And today, we are going to talk about what's called the hero's journey. And this journey, this story, it's all about you, brother. It's all about you. And I want to help you internalize some of these lessons, help you realize why calamity travails, difficult things happen to you, and how to reframe them inside your head so that when they happen, and they are going to happen, you're able to handle them more effectively.

0:46 This is a really interesting phenomenon that's told through stories throughout all of human history. And I want to share that with you today because this has helped me tremendously to deal with some of the bullshit that's coming up in my life, be more excited about self-development, understand why issues happen, why we're always set through these travails, why things go wrong, why problems happen, why life often hands you a shit sandwich and asks you, do you want that on toast or do you want that on bread?

1:15 And you're like, I don't want this shit. I just want my life to be easy. I just want to grow in cruise control for a while. Why do things always go wrong? That's what the fuck I want to know. So I want to share that story with you today. To begin this episode, I want to start it with a fable that comes from Buddhism. And this is a really interesting analogy that I feel is parallel with your development as a man. So thousands of years ago, there was a Buddhist camp and they had this gigantic gold Buddha.

1:47 They made this thing from pure gold. It was probably worth in today's money, millions, if not billions of dollars. And it was just this huge gold, beautiful Buddha. Well, the camp heard that there was an invading army coming in from the east and they would be there in about 10 days. So they didn't know what to do with the gold Buddha because obviously if the army came in, they would steal the Buddha and they would lose something that generations of Buddhist monks helped create. And that was a staple of the Buddhist monastery.

2:14 So someone came up with the idea that they should cover it with mud and clay and just make it look like a stone Buddha. So that's what they did. They took several days and they made the thing look like it was just a stone Buddha and they did a really good job. It looked exactly like it should look. And when the invading army came, they plundered the village. But of course, they didn't find the gold Buddha because it just looked like a piece of stone and stone is worthless.

2:39 So the Buddhist monks that were there were all dispersed and generations went by again and everybody forgot that there was a gold Buddha there. So one day a Buddhist was meditating and in front of the gigantic stone Buddha statue and a piece of clay knocked off its leg. And he looked at it and he saw that underneath was gold. So he called all his Buddhist friends and they came over and they said, what the heck? There's gold underneath? So they started systematically chipping away the clay.

3:05 And of course, what was revealed was this beautiful gold Buddha. Now this is an analogy for life, at least in Buddhism. And if you want to take this on as I have, it's really helped me to internalize some of the lessons as to why we're here on this earth. Now, of course, this goes into spirituality and some of you don't believe it. And if you don't believe it, I don't really care. But if you are interested in this, this is the way I think it works.

3:29 I think that you are born with perfect self-esteem. And as an NLP coach, I've seen time and time again, that you're born with absolute belief in yourself, love of yourself. And it's through life's travails. It's through other people's bullshit. It's through those things that create insecurities and doubt in ourself where we start to question our self-worth. We start to question our self-confidence. And it's almost like the golden Buddha getting covered with mud. So as we go through life, this mud just gets caked on. And the real you, the real essence, your real confidence is covered up.

4:02 And for some of us, it happens more than others. But inevitably, life is going to give you challenges to chip away those pieces of stone, those pieces of clay, that mud that is covering up the real you. And this is done through challenges. Now, whether or not you grow through those challenges, whether or not you allow them to either add more mud onto the statue or take away the mud is up to you. It's how you handle those challenges and whether or not you choose to grow from them.

4:34 You can let a challenge either bring you down or you can let it turn you into the next best version of yourself. And that, I believe, is the purpose of life. So we are coming to this world as perfect beings. Then inevitably, and it's the fate for all of us, we get pretty screwed up. And in my opinion, the more screwed up you get, the higher up you can get in your development, because the more of that mud and clay and bullshit that's caked onto you, and the more you can get off, the more that's exposed about your true nature.

5:03 That's just my own belief. Whether or not you agree with me, that's up to you. Take this or leave this. It's completely your free will. So I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm simply communicating something to you that's helped me a lot. So throughout life, we have bullshit that happens to us. First, it cakes the mud on, and then its purpose is to take the mud off. And that's done through what's called the hero's journey. So the hero's journey is a series of steps that happens throughout all stories throughout all of history.

5:30 If you look at Native American stories, they have them. If you look at Buddhist stories, they have them. If you look at Christian stories, they have them. Islam, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, as well as stories and movies and fables throughout all of history. The hero's journey works like this. First, you are separated from the place that you started. So you're in your current state, and you're living your life, and then something happens, usually a problem, a travail, some sort of bullshit that a lot of us would rather avoid, happens to us, and we call it bad luck.

6:03 So some bullshit happens to you, and you are separated from your previous self that was living in comfort. That was that gold Buddha that was covered with mud. The next step is initiation, okay? This is your call to adventure, and this is where you learn how to overcome your obstacle. So when we look at movies like Star Wars, The Matrix, Harry Potter, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, as well as a myriad of other stories throughout history, everybody had this. Let's take Luke Skywalker, for example.

6:32 We've all seen Star Wars. First, he's living an easy life on that desert, what's it called, Tatooine or whatever. He's living an easy life with very few challenges, but he kind of seems bored, and he's looking for something more. So then what happens, of course, is the dark side comes, or I forget what happens. I haven't seen that movie in forever, but he's initiated into becoming a Jedi. His aunt and uncle are killed, and then he gets taken away, and he learns how to become a Jedi.

6:57 And then the final step is return, returning a better man, and then teaching others how to be initiated when their challenge comes. So all stories have this, and what's interesting is the most successful stories, such as Star Wars, such as Harry Potter, they all have this theme where they're separated from where they started, then they're initiated, and then they return a better person in order to teach others. Going back to the Golden Buddha example, the Golden Buddha had that mud and clay caked onto him, then the clay gets chipped off, and he's revealed again.

7:29 And it's the same thing. You're separated from what you started as, and you almost forget what you started as, just like the Golden Buddha forgets what he started as. Initiation is that call to adventure, that obstacle, and that way to overcome it. Then those pieces of clay get chipped off of you, and then you are more yourself again than when you initially started. So if you look at your own life, brother, this has happened to you time and time again. Now, it doesn't have to be just one story where you're born into this world, you have a boring life in, I don't know, the suburbs, and then you're called to adventure, you go to war, and then you come back a better man, and then you teach others how to develop themselves into a better man, although that too can happen.

8:11 But for the majority of us, this happens in little stories, even little stories that happen on a daily basis. When you are given a challenge, the reason you are given a challenge, in my opinion, and I believe this is the way it is designed, is so that you can overcome it. And what I personally believe is, brother, you do not have a challenge in your life that you do not have the wherewithal to overcome. And the reason you're given them is to chip off more of that clay.

8:38 Now, as I said previously, whether you choose to chip off the clay or add more to it, that's where you have to step up and decide how you're going to handle these challenges. You look at homeless drug addicts. My best friend from childhood, right now he's homeless and he's a drug addict. I'm watching him post stuff on Facebook and the guy is like completely fucked up. And I'm just so gutted over what this dude is going through because I know that he's just caking on more and more and more of that mud.

9:05 But what I believe is that he could get through it. I believe that eventually he'll have a what's called come to Jesus moment and know that isn't religious. It's just a saying where you have to face yourself. And right now he hasn't yet had that separation. If he goes into initiation, which is the call to adventure to overcome his addictions, he can become a better man than he ever thought possible. And I believe that's a point of life. But for most of us, we don't have that kind of gigantic adventure.

9:33 Most of us, it's just a daily thing that happens to us. Even spilling Cheerios on the floor and getting super annoyed. Are you going to let that drag you down? Are you going to let it put you in a bad mood? Or are you going to overcome it, look at the positive of what comes from it and look at it as, hey, I get to stretch my back and go clean up these Cheerios. Or next time I need to realize that I need to close the package better and let it better yourself.

9:53 Now, of course, that's a very simple example. But since I'm the one talking here and the only reference I can make is from my own life, when I lived in Japan and I had those panic attacks, that was an exact replica of this separation, initiation, return analogy that I'm speaking about. Separation, I left the United States to go to Japan. Initiation, I had panic attacks when I was doing those weddings. And I had to get over my agoraphobia, panic attacks, and massive fucking anxiety. And return, I was able to use NLP to overcome it.

10:29 My anxiety is now completely gone. It's a fucking zero. And I returned to you in order to teach you it. And again, this story is about you, brother. What have you gone through? Now, here's the big lesson. It's how you look at it and whether you use those travails to better yourself or to drag you down into that Buddha who's covered with mud, that makes the difference. So the way I look at life is this. We are here for a purpose. And our purpose is to evolve into the next best version of ourselves.

10:59 Again, whether or not you agree with me, that's up to you. But if you look at the evidence, it just calls to that over and over again. What's the evidence? Shit goes wrong. And none of us can disagree with that. Shit goes wrong all the time. And you will never get to a place where it doesn't go wrong. So why does that happen? There has to be a purpose to it. Or maybe you're an atheist and you don't believe it. But for the majority of us, 92% of people do believe there's a higher purpose.

11:19 They do believe in a creator. They do believe that this is not just random chaos where we're getting shit on by circumstance, but instead it has a purpose. So if shit continues to go wrong, what would be the purpose of that? Hmm. Let's see. When shit goes wrong, I've bettered myself. In fact, boys, that thing in Japan where I had those panic attacks and agoraphobia, that was the best fucking thing that ever happened to me because it allowed me to become that dude who I returned to as your coach to be able to teach you this stuff.

11:52 Being horrible with women and guys, I was the worst of the worst. I couldn't even look at a woman, let alone go approach her when I was in my 20s. And now for all intents and purposes, I'm a girl magnet. And I had to go through that bullshit in order to grow into the coach that I am for you today. So again, let's go back to you. What have you been through? How have you been looking at it? Have you looked at it as a hero's journey where you were separated, initiated, and then returned?

12:21 Or have you let that drag you down? And you can go back in time in your mind and reframe exactly what happened to you and say, you know what? There was actually a lot of good shit that came out of that. I actually grew quite a bit. I didn't really realize that. Hmm. Maybe it was that golden Buddha who had that clay chipped off of him rather than the clay put back on. And it's your decision with every single thing that has happened to you and every single thing that is going to happen to you.

12:44 How am I going to grow from this? And while the initiation is happening, if you're asking yourself that question, how can I better myself through this? How can I grow through this? How can I become the next best version of myself through this? Then you will become the next best version of yourself. And another piece of that clay will chip off of you. Exposing the true you who is confident, self-assured, full of love, full of compassion, not afraid, living through fear. Because fear is just false evidence appearing real.

13:19 And the purpose of fear, the purpose of ego is to set the stage, to set the comparison, to set the juxtaposition so that we can rise above it. I really believe that. And it has been the key to my happiness and the key to my life. About two decades ago, when I was in my 20s, I asked myself, what the fuck is the purpose of this shit? Why are we here? What is the point of this endless bullshit? Then I asked myself, what is everybody trying to achieve?

13:43 And my answer was, everybody's trying to achieve happiness, peace, and to be in a place where they're just content. Then I asked myself, who achieved that? Have Hollywood actors achieved that? Not really. A lot of them are miserable. How about becoming a famous sports athlete? Not really. Oh, I know, becoming a multi-multi-millionaire. Eh, not so true, because there's tons of very rich people that are miserable. Maybe I should go be an ascetic and deny everything and starve myself. No, that hasn't really worked. Many people have given that up.

14:17 So who are the people who have achieved what we're all going for? Which in essence is peace. Who are these people? It's spiritual masters, people who have achieved what in Buddhism is called nirvana, enlightenment, the death of the ego. So whenever I look for tips about the art of living, I always look to those people who have achieved what we're all going for. Now, you may say to yourself, well, I'm not going for that. I'm not going for enlightenment, nirvana, peace. I just want fucking bitches.

14:43 I want Ferraris. I want a mansion. Well, we have this thing in NLP called core transformation. And core transformation is the desire behind the desire behind the desire. So if you look at why you want all those bitches or why you want that BMW or that yacht or that mansion, if you look at the core desire behind it, such as the BMW, why do you want a BMW? Because I want to feel, you know, rich. I want to feel like I'm really successful. Why do you want to feel successful?

15:14 Because that makes me feel like I have power and I have freedom. Why do you want freedom? Because I just want to be at ease and just enjoy my life and do what I want, where I want, with who I want. Why do you want to be at ease? What exactly is it that makes you want to be at ease? Well, I want peace. So if you look at the desire behind the desire, it always goes back to four fundamental things that we as humans are all destined to desire.

15:35 Peace, love, joy, and truth. So all your desires, brother, I don't care if it's getting tons of girls and getting as much monkey butt sex as you possibly can. The desire behind the desire is always peace, love, joy, or truth. Who has accomplished that? Spiritual beings, spiritual masters, those who all consistently say that first of all, there's a purpose to this life. Second of all, those travails that are given to you, those things that are called problems in your life, have a purpose, and the purpose is to overcome them.

16:12 In Buddhism, there's another beautiful analogy that I love. It's the lotus flower, which is a symbol of enlightenment. Where does the lotus flower grow out of? That's right. It grows out of mud. Pure mud, pure disgustingness, which we call dirty and filthy, has its purpose. It allows that lotus flower to ascend out of it and open. This beautiful purple flower coming up out of what looks like shit. And that's an analogy for life. So brother, you are the adventurer. You are the hero on this journey.

16:36 But it's how you frame it in your mind that matters most. So the next time some bullshit happens, instead of saying, woes me, my life fucking sucks. I can't do this. Oh, this fucking sucks. I hate life so much. Say to yourself, this has a purpose. And I am going to knock off another gigantic chip of that clay. In order to reveal that best part of me that I was born as before society, my parents, teachers, whoever came and screwed me up. And when it comes to your parents screwing you up, when it comes to that kid in middle school that says something mean to you and made you have a low self-esteem, when it comes to all the shit you've been through, that too had a purpose.

17:16 And that too is beautiful. It's there for a reason. You cannot realize that you are great unless you fall into the illusion of not being great. You cannot realize love until you've experienced fear. And by the way, the opposite of love is not hate. It's fear. And we are given fear, which is in the form of ego in order to ascend past it. The hero's journey, separation, initiation, and return. And we go through it over and over and over again until, in my personal belief, we wake up to what we really are, which is enlightenment, divine knowing, God realization, nirvana, whatever words you want to use for it.

17:57 That's what we all want deep within. And that's what we're all driven to. The steps up the ladder are all the bullshit that happens to you on a day-to-day basis. So have you ameliorated yourself? Have you made yourself better because of these travails? Or have you let them drag you down? Well, as I said previously, you can go back and re-look at them, reframe them, and rebuild yourself from them because they all had that purpose. And I'll tell you something else. Until you ascend past it, it's going to happen to you over and over and over again.

18:29 It's like attracting a girl who it's like the same girl time and time again in a different body. How many of us have been through that? That's because the universe, source energy, whatever you want to say, it's trying to tell you something, bro. You have an issue. So instead of blaming her, blaming those three girls that all cheated on you, look at the common denominator. It's always about you. So take the lesson, ascend past it, grow past it, face the challenges with the fucking warrior's heart, a hero's heart, and say, I have the wherewithal to get past this.

19:00 And once I do, I'm going to grow into the next best version of myself. And that is the purpose of life, at least in my opinion. Gentlemen, I hope you got something from this episode. I know I certainly did. As you know, these are my favorite to record. I absolutely love talking about this stuff. And it's weird because when I sit down, I really have no plan. I just go. In fact, it's funny because the more I think about it before I record it, the worse the episode is.

19:26 I've said this in a previous podcast where sometimes it's like having to take a piss. You just got to like get it out. So this morning, my daughter's actually playing in the kitchen right above me, banging on pans and doing all this shit. But I was like, dude, I just have to talk right now. I have to get this out. So I put earplugs in and I sat down and I recorded this. And I truly believe it's spirit talking through me. I'm just a conduit that just goes.

19:44 And that's the way it feels sometimes when I do these kinds of podcasts. So again, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something from it. You're the golden Buddha, brother. You are a powerful being who is having a human experience. And the whole point of problems and travails and bad luck is to wake you up to that, to wake you up to what you really are so you can attain what we are all seeking. And that is peace. I drop podcasts on Mondays and Thursdays.

20:10 This coming Monday, we're getting back to what I typically talk about, which is how to get girls ridiculously attracted to you. So make sure to stay tuned for that one. And I will see you in the next episode. I'll see you in the next episode.

This transcript was made automatically, so a few words may be off.