141 mitch dearmon

CK: [00:00:00] Welcome to Nobel warrior. My name is C Caitlyn noble warriors, where I interview entrepreneurs leaders about how they move from the first mountain of achievement to the second mountain of purpose and legacy such that you can find your own higher purpose, clarify your own vision and express your own voice, meaningful ways.

Now, if you have any friends who are on this journey, who could use a little bit more help to take that leap of faith, go ahead and share this episode with them. It really thank you for it. My next guest is Mitch. The Armand he has had 30 years of working with teenage boys is a former founder of young men's ultimate weekend, serving over a thousand young men.

He's the co-founder of men to men at org initiation event. For men. We're looking for the strength that comes with associating with other great men is super passionate about young men's work and men's work. Please welcome the Harmon. [00:01:00] Good afternoon. Awesome. Mitch, let me just say first, uh, when I first met you, we will.

At a leadership retreat and you started speaking very passionate about, uh, what you stand for and your passion to Ben's work is palpable. Can you tell us why initiation is important for both young men and men

Mitch: first? Um, first of all, I'd like to say that, um, the main thing why it's important is, has been done for thousands of years.

So if we just trust legacy in history, we understand it's important. Secondly, I believe that there needs to be a demarcation point where we surrender our childhood attitude and desires and except the social obligations that our culture, um, [00:02:00] suggest that men should perform, whether that be good manners or I'm going to work every day.

What did whichever that's going to be? The culture decides, but there's always been an attitude that men needed a place to say, today's the day, this is the beginning. And let's go. And I, and I think that, that those kind of phrases speak pretty strongly to men and also, you know, in the national sense of things, uh, females have a place in their lives where it marks there are no longer children.

They start their menstrual cycle. They go into a boys, don't have that. And so the culture made up for that by having initiations, because if you take the word, initiation just means this is the beginning, it's it starts now. And, uh, when they go into an initiatory situation, what ends up happening is you [00:03:00] learn the social, moral, philosophical obligations of being identified as a man in your culture.

And so as those, um, definitions have been altered and changed and ignored, and it's just forgotten. Um, we got a lot of young men and men wandering around kind of aimlessly, just filling in, you know, a role of a provider without really having the connection to a much more serious social responsibility in the, in our presence, in, uh, walking down the street, you know, there's a way to walk down the street where you actually bring security to your neighborhood rather than you're just going somewhere.

And those, the responsibilities of the men have always had.

CK: So let [00:04:00] me ask you a up question. You know, you know me, I'm a believer, right? I, I love men's work, I think is deeply. However, there was a point in my life where I didn't think gender, you know, masculine and feminine, these type of roles are, you know, as a little bit too restrictive when I was younger.

Whereas now, today I feel that as a, as a very liberating, you know, expression of who I am as a spiritual being, right. My masculine essence. So to those who are thinking about, well, you know, men's work, women's works a little bit to, you know, gender roles to step of, you know, restrictive where we're, we're beyond that 20, 22, how would you respond to that?

You know, that skepticism or that questioning of, uh, Hey, this is a little bit too old school like too.

Mitch: Um, I, I would answer it like this. We haven't really [00:05:00] gotten beyond it. What we've always done, um, with the inclusion of other ways of identifying ourselves is that we've diluted all of them. We've just diluted them down into a conversation about something, but, uh, people have other identifications, they don't have the rituals in place so that they feel solid in their identifications either.

And so they're wandering and the masculine is wandering and the feminine is, seems to be the most certain of all of us. And so. Um, it hasn't really gotten anywhere yet, as far as transformation into a consciousness that is helping us all cohabitate better. It's not really built into the social structure that is functioning well.

And so, um, as, as the different identifications decide how they're going to, uh, create their identity and, and [00:06:00] validated as a substantial presence in the social network, um, we don't want to lose the ones that are already there because they're basically the foundation of it.

CK: Yeah. Thanks for that. I appreciate it.

I mean, the way I think about it for me, I'm very Dallas, right? This is the Nobel warrior. So I'm very, Taoists the yang, the yang, you know, finding the harmony in the middle for me, it's wa it's it's, um, let's see the responsibility of oneself to find that harmony in the middle, as you said, you know, how do you find that the identity that substantiate that, that, that, uh, sustain who you are the most and whether it's gender or roles or, uh, different roles, the positions that you play in life?

I don't actually personally care how people find their harmony. I just want them to find their harmony because when everyone's harmonizing and guess what, collectively society as a much, much [00:07:00] better place. So. You know, if I here's what I will say to younger CKS, Hey, before you dismiss it, try it on at first.

And then it just see how he feels. If you don't like it. Great. Then you want to try on something. Now that's some other philosophy. Great. Do that too. Like I don't, I'm not attached to, you know, them, uh, embracing quote unquote masculine principles or things like that. I really don't just find the principles that, you know, that feels good inside for you.

That's the way I would advise younger C K.

Mitch: Yeah. And what I, what I've taught my, my boys is before you change the directions, you should know, the directions is like once you know the directions, if you want to build a bicycle a different way than the directions, say they go ahead and build it, but know the directions first.

So you have a foundation that you can always find a way to end up with a bicycle. If that's what it comes down to, like you're kind of [00:08:00] stuck with it is only going to be a bike and you left that way. But if you don't know, you don't know. And if we don't maintain those things in our society, then we're going to continue with this.

Just pointing why the other thing is the most wrong thing and nobody's going, and here's how you do it. We don't, we don't have a real, uh, you know, a real part of our society that says anybody is willing to say, this is the way. It's it's left. And this is, I think, of a fault of not having a clear connection to our elders is that, um, the elders used to be the ones who established this is, this is the way it's done.

This is how we do it. And they'll show you and you go along. And of course you can change whatever you want to do. And at least in a lot of societies without any, anything else. But there was somebody that said here's ground zero. [00:09:00] And I think that that's one of the obligations of, of keeping our elders in place because you know, the good elders that I know, they don't say, be like me, they don't got that going on.

They just go, you know, there, there is such thing as right and wrong, and this is right, and this is wrong and you can go from there. So it's, it's uh, because it's a social structure that we're trying to live in, not just, uh, validating the individual, you know, it's, it's when you bring up the, the yin and yang, you know, I, I know about the harmony within oneself and also, you know, I also have to have that with another person.

So if I am, I'm married, I've been married for 30 something years. And my wife brings a lot of feminine to the, to the table. Well, if I don't, if I don't match that with a mutual masculine, then things are a little bit. Out of harmony [00:10:00] with the language, right. And it shows, and it shows it's, it's, uh, difficult to get along when it's that way we're not being, um, in the same energy, she's basically being masculine.

She's being feminine. We harmonized great. There's a middle, you know, the phrase that you find that there's a middle to that, but if I'm out of whack or she's out of whack, where's, the middle is on one side and, uh, that does not have any balance to it.

CK: The guest that I had on before you is Rudy, Rhonda is the founder of anyone and the boa foundation and their whole mission of those two organization is to bring together elders from all over the world.

And specifically from indigenous tribes, from the Amazon and different places around the world, and then have them [00:11:00] share the wisdom. So it was perfect that you're talking about the importance of elders. Yeah. Um, well, so I I'll use younger CK cause he's he's uh, cause I know him and I don't think he would mind me alluding to the younger CK so much the younger CK I'm trained as a biomedical engineer.

I'm very much an innovators. The modern advancement of technology and science and I readily discard traditions and, and lineage and heritage, because I thought I am beyond want to know. Right. But as I got older, I was like, oh, okay. It's don't to just throw it away, actually harmonize past traditions and wisdoms and see how we can use these new technologies to again, find that harmony middle for the contextual, the context and the problem that we [00:12:00] face I 20, 22, and then moving forward that way.

So, um, what are some of the places that you know of actually, no, you are a curator of bringing in elder wisdom, not just yourself, but you curate environments, bring other elders in to help young men and also men in general. Can you speak a little bit more about how you do that?

Mitch: Well, first of all, you have to find brave men who are willing to speak up out loud, that they stand for something it's not a very popular position and it really makes you an easy target. If you establish a position like you were alluding to earlier about masculinity, you know, when you were young, it was easy to discard the notions because that's what young people do.

And it's easy to do that. But as you get older and you get a little bit more experienced with life, you can [00:13:00] see the, the problems that causes when you naively discard things that later on you might need, because masculinity, um, brings on things like initiative. The creativity that is dynamic in the work that you're doing, um, comes from the masculine.

My version of, um, the attitude is masculine is dynamic energy. Feminine is magnetic energy. So when I'm operating in the feminine, I'm drawing energy towards myself. When I'm operating in the masculine, I'm going out into the world. Um, I'm receiving information or putting information into the world. I'm creating something, putting it into the world, all of us, men and women, and have both.

And, and, and so it's [00:14:00] knowing which one to use. And when is the discipline not I've this or I'm that we've, we've all suffered the pains of being around or being the kind of people that have leaned to one side or the other too much and, and had to experience this suffering for ourselves. And so as we outgrow that as from the time we're getting younger to the time we're getting older, we start going like, well, maybe I better pay attention to why they did things the way that they did not just throw it out because it's old fashioned or throw away the book because it's, you know, it's, the book is only 500 years old.

Let's throw that one away and write a new book. And, but probably the most harmful part of it is if we throw away everything old, where are we going to draw respect from? If we're going to put respect into the world, it hasn't been created yet in the [00:15:00] new world. So where are you going to draw it from when you

CK: say respect, can you say more about that?

What do you mean by that?

Mitch: I mean, um, I mean, situations, things that are worthy of praise worthy of, um, what is the word I'm thinking of reverence? It is to have a level of reverence for the existence of it and to the point where, uh, we obligate ourselves to maintain it in some ways. So, um, if we don't, if we discard the past, we have no place to, to grab a hold of and project respect into the future.

And I think we're seeing a very big price being paid for having given up too much. As we move forward. And so our social systems, our schools, or our politicians, it doesn't matter where you look, people are [00:16:00] not addressing each other with the type of respect that I think human beings should get. You know, it's like for, for the hundreds of thousands of years, humans have been coming, getting to here.

At some point we should at least respect each other that we've made it this far, respect our own lineages, respect their own legacies because, uh, all of everything that came before us survived a lot of stuff before it became so easy, like it is now, um, they, you know, they went across oceans and they climbed mountains and, and they spent their whole lives doing it.

And if we cut ourselves off from the history of, of, of how we've lived, not how we have, and probably some of it's avoided dying, how we survived some things it's like, well, where are we going to get the dignity that it takes to move forward in a dynamic and respectful way? How are we going to get that information?

Like we have enough [00:17:00] people suffering from low self-esteem right now, very common phrase. Everybody knows some way that, you know, somebody suffering from low self-esteem. Well, where do they get their esteem from? If they don't look back and go, you know, my great grandmother came across the ocean and. You know, whatever kind of boat is like something to be proud of that and proud of the fact that she endured it, she was tough.

She was strong and she had toured this thing is like, where do I create the expectation for myself to survive? I just rely on my instincts that were, come through nature. What, we're not very connected with those kinds of instincts anymore.

CK: Yeah. I mean, that's actually a really good point. Um, so I used to be that man that you talk about, right, who struggles with insecurities and you know, all these, you know, lack of confidence or lack of focus.

Right. [00:18:00] And it was a journey to actually reclaim my own inner sovereignty. And to remember that just the number of sperms alone, I'm one out of 500 million. So I'm born a winner, not to mention 250,000 years of human history. That's, you know, I don't know, I can't do math publicly, but, uh, basically tens of thousands of, uh, ancestors, they're all winners.

So it's a family of winners. This survive the wild. They competed quote unquote competed, right? They, they thrive rather, you know, out of all those circumstances, however difficulties they may be. And then here I am, I'm standing on their shoulders, right? And then I'm not just this accidental happenstance from the universe like Tara, [00:19:00] here I am, no lineage, no relations to anyone else.

This is at least for me, this narrative is a very empowering narrative

Mitch: and it's culturally significant in our morality that we have obligate. We have moral obligations to honor. All of that came before us in order to perpetuate it in forward into the future. And, and or do we know the stories to tell the people to get, to go to the future?

You know, sometimes it's myth, sometimes it's metaphor and, and without those, without those stories that came from the past, what are we motivating with? Well, what we seem to be motivating with in my limited vision is greed, greed, prosperity. Yeah. We have more things than we could possibly stand there's entire industries to store the stuff that we [00:20:00] don't use.

You know, I have five hammers and four of them are in a story. Yup. And it's like, that's great. And then, but it's mine. And so that whole possession is they didn't come across the oceans and over the Hills and through the valleys carry too much stuff. That's not how they made it. They made it with, you know, the word sustainability, right.

They made it by sustaining themselves, bringing the right things, which is a level of intelligence that was well thought out. Well-planned guesses of what they might come across and preparation. Not just you walk out the door with your, and put the keys in the car and drive off, and then realize later you forgot your cell phone.

It's like, oh no, they had to sit down and prepare how they're going to make it for months and years in [00:21:00] advance. That that is a lot of intelligence that we're not accessing right now.

CK: So bring back to my question. You said finding brave men who is willing to share their perspective, however, strong their strong beliefs may be.

How, how do you go about finding them?

Mitch: Well, first of all, you've got to be social. Okay. That helps. And I think we put way too much on it. Cause a lot of times, uh, you just got to say hello. I was. Coffee shop in Escondido, California, and this group of old guys, I mean, older than me old guys. So when I looked at him, I went, these guys are old and they were, and they were way too loud for the little coffee shop and way too boisterous.

And one guy comes in and he's got bandages on his head and the other guy's got a [00:22:00] Walker and another, guy's got an air tank he's pulling behind him. And these guys are just having a blast together. And I saw, I went up to him. I said, what are you guys doing? They go, what do you mean? We're just socialized.

And we've been friends for 50 years. Wow. And this is of us. This is who's still alive. And they were all ex Pacific coast baseball players and, and finding, why do you get together? He goes so that we can get along with the rest of our lives. So these are old guys who don't do men's work, who just came out of the professional, original professional sports days.

And somehow inside of them, they knew that they needed to hang together and enjoy themselves together. So they go and deal with all of the other things that for them at their age, it was like cancer, high blood pressure, you know, all that stuff. And they really knew that they had to be alive and to be together.

And, and so going around and finding [00:23:00] those kinds of guys meant that I had to get out of my little world. Oh, my God. Are they going to be upset if I go talk to them? I mean, how many times do we not say hello? When we walked by a person? When you're walking down the streets of Los Angeles, there's asking, or know how many times, how many people do you walk by?

And you don't even say hello or good day, just a basic social grace that probably not very far in your past, your relatives did. It could be just a nod of the head. So giving beyond this individuality and with a stronger component of we're obligated to socialize, not be individuals, you're already an individual.

You don't need to prove it. We can see you. And, and, and what's ends up happening is we dilute ourselves with all of these definitions of ourselves. We actually dilute our identity, the more [00:24:00] things we put on it. So instead of just, it's real easy to go. I'm a man there's only one thing to consider. It's like, but then when I start putting in ethnicity and culture and, and relat relations in the past by ancestry and all of that stuff, all of a sudden I'm diluting down the person that you're seeing right in front of you in the dialogue, it may deepen me personally to know all those things, but to socialize a lot of that information isn't necessarily.

Well, I need to do is be disciplined by what I would call social grace, be polite. I mean, what is w how often do you hear that word be polite, be kind, be respectful when you address other people. It doesn't matter who they are. It matters. It shows who you are. So, so having a set [00:25:00] of, uh, moral or ethical training, which should start early to the, and the training should be, here's how you socialize in our society and, and not, um, just for personal achievement, because first of all, achievement is going to change over time.

You know, like at one point you were motivated to be, to be, to achieve some things. And now you're motivated to achieve other things, but that does not devoid me of the responsibility of being respectful to others. How I was raised in intergeneration, how you treat others was more important than how you treat yourself.

And right now they're in the psychotherapeutic movement of things. There's a, there's these other means that are being generated that I think if we look at them more deeply and don't just [00:26:00] have feelings about. Um, there's some answers in it. Like you can't love somebody else until you love yourself. It's pretty common thing to say, well, if you don't do it for yourself, you can't do it for others.

It's like, is that true? A child who has no identity knows how to love. And you're going to tell me now as an adult, I can't love anybody until I love myself. Well, evidence says that that's not true. All of a sudden this is giving me permission to be more self-centered or selfish. And what ends up happening is, and now we have, you know, in the last couple of years has been, we've all gone through some pretty intense narcissistic training.

It's it's become a very, very popular word, right? Well, we trained people into it with this idea of individuality. I got to take care of me for, you know, I hang with us. One of their things is I think most people, one of their things is, you know, you've got to put the face like an airplane. When the airplane goes up, you gotta put the mask [00:27:00] over yourself before you do your little children there with you.

It's like, that's what they say. But, you know, I don't think that whoever wrote that one was a parent. A parent is going to try to make sure that their children survive and the amount of discipline it takes to practice putting yourself before your kids is, um, I haven't done it yet. I haven't been able to put myself before my children.

Am I always this way?

CK: Yeah. Selfless as another first before

Mitch: I think it's a part of nature, actually. I don't think it's something that a human who is, who is, you know, the word authentic to be authentically human is you, you have to take care of the future. You have to take care of these little ones that need to survive.[00:28:00]

CK: Oh, I don't mean your kids. I mean, just in general,

Mitch: have I always been this way when I was younger? No. What I was, you know, it's, it's the same thing that you were taught when you were younger, you thought a certain way, discard certain things. And it really, you know, sheds the skin of being a child into being an autonomous or independent being.

And then when you deal with the loneliness of that, you have to start connecting with other people and you start and you start practicing other things, you know, in, in schools and stuff. It's, you know, in the elementary school we're taught to be considerate of our friends, know, be considerate of others, how's it going to affect the other person we weren't taught?

How does that affect you? We won't ask questions like that. We were talking, how are you affecting them? Which is really the measurement of.

CK: What do

Mitch: you mean? [00:29:00] What, when you can take responsibility for the impact you're having not just have an impact, you can take the responsibility of, of intention. I know I want to have an impact.

Here's what I'm going to do to have the impact. Here's the expected results of the impact that I'm having. And here's what I want done with those results. Am I willing to sit back and consider all of those things prior to me just jumping in? Am I willing to make a plan? Am I willing to try to get as honest as I can with myself that I do have intentions because that's an adult attitude.

That is the attitude that you start adopting. Once you're past the years of innocence, everybody has an intention, everybody all the time. Everybody has a purpose all the time. Are they, can they be honest [00:30:00] with it? Because sometimes when I was quite a bit younger anyway, not that much, but I'm getting honest with what my purpose and intentions were, was a little bit embarrassing and how selfish I am.

It was a little bit revealing about how much of everybody else. I, I did not really care to connect. I just wanted to add mine for my comfort and my pleasure and everybody else, you know, I'll be as polite as I need to be, but doing it as actually as a virtue of character,

it took a while. You know, I'll just say well into my thirties.

CK: So let me ask you this question. Cause you started this young men's weekend, right? Help a thousand plus young men going through their initiation. First of all. Awesome. I wish such initiation was there [00:31:00] or at least I found out about it when I was younger.

I do this mental stimulation a lot or stimulation simulation a lot in my head. How would I be as good as I am today facing my 14 and 15 year old self. I'll probably slap that guy a bone a little bit, just a level of entitlement and arrogance as a 14 year old would. Right. And yet, so, so I'm gonna make my point.

You created a weekend surrounding yourself with that thousand 14, 15, uh, number, uh, teenager boys. Uh, that's admirable from that capacity to be with. I remember when I was 14, 15, what I was thinking like your capacity be with that, that that's Amor a boy in [00:32:00] itself. Can you say a little bit more about the inception of that idea?

Why are you so passionate about, you know, 30 plus years young men's initiation? Why are you so passionate about it?

Mitch: Because here's what, here's what I know. Here's what I know is that it's, when we talk about it, it sounds like a big deal, you know, because we have an idea about young people that as our media has motivated us to have, we think it's difficult.

We think it's a pain in the rear end. We think that they're hard. And we think we have a lot of thoughts we have about young people. But if you haven't been with a lot of young people, what do you know, except for what the media has told you. So knowing that humans are just, um, monkeys who can talk about themselves is, is young.

Men [00:33:00] will calm down as soon as an older man walks in the room and he doesn't have to say.

So we have all these things in, in the pre 19 hundreds, I looked up. So a lot of things, you know, I, I did some work with, uh, looking at reading Joseph Campbell and Michael Gurry and developmental psychology. And what I found was, um, there's a natural state of, of calmness that comes over young men when older men are around, it's not this imposition, a domination thing.

It's we walk in the room and they go like, oh, thank God. Somebody is in charge. This is do it. And so it's not as difficult as, as some times we get credit for, you know, we're getting into the trenches and all the ways that we glorify and glamorize ourselves for the work we're doing, I was, you know, as in youth authority [00:34:00] and doing some programs in California, youth authority, and they would do their little intimidation, gang bang, thug thing.

Oh, you know, you're a white guy and you're in here and we're mostly not white guys and black and Hispanics. And there's white guys in there too. We've ignored those guys. But, um, but, and they wanted, they tried to do this intimidation thing. I just, nothing's going to happen to me here. And they're like, what do you mean nothing's going to happen to you?

It confused them because you guys are too busy hurting each other. I'm the safest guy in the room. You guys, you guys are looking to hurt me. You're looking to hurt each other to prove that you fit. You guys can't even compete over here. Don't do you any benefit to hurt me? They're like, well, you're right.

And they all started getting along

because they started taking responsibility for, for what they were hurting each other for was for status. And [00:35:00] when there's, when the top dog arrived, so to speak the elder, well, you can't really compete in status anymore, which is what a lot of the competition is. A lot of the competition is a position of status, a position of prestige, instead of like, I'm the top dog.

Well, an elder comes walking in and it, and it really doesn't matter what race the elder is. It doesn't matter if it was some 90 year old person of, of black, black African-American person who was walking in, I'm going to calm down. I'm going to look at them going like, Hmm. Let's check let's it's. Cause it's, it's a, it's a like, wow.

Cause there's so many stories in that there's so much unknown in the elders that, um, they used to say, you know, if you're lucky, they'll tell you. There's always sit somewhere on the [00:36:00] side, you know, leaning on their cane. And then sometimes they'll say something and if you're smart, you'll listen, because they'll tell you things that are coming, coming to you and your life.

You're going to have to face pretty soon because nobody's getting out of this thing without facing most of the same stuff. We're all going to face disease and illness and death and, and, and they they've already done it. They're experience is so far beyond, which is why they seem so wise because they have all the experience.

It's not a trick, you know, sometimes it's not a trick. It's like, they've lived life, they've gone through things, so they know stuff. And so, you know, that's, that's why I think the connection is so important is because people do not need to get themselves in as much suffering and as much pain as they get older.

As people, people who are individuals suffer a lot, [00:37:00] suffer isolation, loneliness sickness, more often. And it's like, so keeping that Lindy's together, it's a healthier thing to do. That's why it's important because it's healthy. Not because it gives somebody identity. It gives somebody the ability to breathe.

Literally factually.

CK: You mentor, I mean, not you individually, but your organization or your former organization has mentor over a thousand youth. Right? So what are some of the top issues that, you know, the LS shows up based on your personal experience that you have observed? What are some of the most common challenges? You know, in our modern days that

Mitch: shows it was a normal, a normal, a developmental challenge of being recognized, being seen.

Um, [00:38:00] I, I, a lot of, uh, young men, cause I've worked primarily with young men, um, they want to be heard. Uh, but what goes along with that, there's, there's a bit of shyness in them because they don't want to embarrass themselves when they're being heard. And, and, um, they want to be respected for what they're saying, what they're thinking.

And, and if we don't take the time to listen to them, um, we, we can't teach them anything. 'cause we don't know where they're coming from. We listened to it. We'd be like, oh, no, most young men do not have intimate conversations with older men, whether it be their fathers, whether it be. It it's there. Our society is busy telling them what to do and, and putting containers around them.

So [00:39:00] that they'll move in the direction. We want him to move. And whoever knows what a young man wants besides food, because always eating, but, but it's like, what would have you ever heard very many young men, especially men have less opportunity even be in touch with wanting anything. Most providers by nature are more concerned with what they have to do.

And they're in their focus and skillset is so they can get the things done that they have to do. According to nature, according to biology, they have to do some things and all those things get mutated in time. But because we have a lot, you know, we have groceries and things. They don't have to hunt every day that that used to take up a lot of time.

So there's, there's the attention. There's the recognition. There is, um, [00:40:00] one of the things I think doesn't, they don't want to be embarrassed or humiliated. Um, so if, if we adults have answers, they want to be told the answers, not peppered with, with interesting questions. So we can pretend they're coming to their own answers.

CK: Chloe back up one sentence. What do you mean? Say that again? They don't want that. So credit inquiry style. They don't like it.

Mitch: Yeah. They know they don't. You have the answer. Just tell me the answer. If you don't have the answer, we can have a conversation about what the answer might be, but don't ask me questions while you're sitting over here with the answer, because you're actually disrespecting them and talking down to them, you're really their inferiority,

CK: but let me do a gentle pushback there.

Well, maybe not so gentle. So, so in my mind, [00:41:00] the ego wants answers, but really what we want is wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to interpret new information coming in so you can drive your own answers. Right? So for me, so credit inquiry is a really powerful exercise because you don't, I, you know, through this exercise, whoever's receiving it.

Doesn't just come up with the answer. They also are training the matter, the brain, the mind of how to arrive at the answers to me is hugely valuable as a recipient, even though it may not be pleasant to be put on the spot and reveal, oh, I actually don't know what the heck I'm talking. Because it's very superficial.

Right, right. By asking questions over and over. And eventually you get to the end where it's like, I don't know why I believe that they're like, oh, okay, great. For me, it's hugely valuable to know that even those unpleasant, so what you're saying is they just want the [00:42:00] answer. They don't want to, you know, kind of go through the steps.

Well,

Mitch: if, if they, if, if you give them the answer, they still have to live life. So having knowledge is the key. They got to go use the knowledge part, part of wisdom is your ability to use the information that you have to have information. Yeah. It's like here, I'm an encyclopedia. I can, I can win a trivial pursuit, but, but if I can't use the information, if I have a bunch of knowledge of things, that's unusable and living my life, which is what a young person would be considering, how am I going to use this to get a date out?

Am I going to use this to get a job? How am I going to use this in the way that I function in the world? If you know that tell them the world will provide for them enough mysteries to keep going forward. But what they'll have is a foundation of security because there's somebody who knows something and watching out for them, [00:43:00] not playing games with our intelligence, but going like, look, man, here's some things you need to know that.

And then, because knowledge doesn't, isn't really usable until you use it. Correct. So when they get out there, they could have all the knowledge in the world that we've all met. People like this, where,

CK: oh, I used to be one. I understand that very, very well from

Mitch: personal experience. Yeah. Like, like get into a big argument over a long period of time.

And all you've done is wasted like three hours. Why used to do that and drink? Right? I could, I could justify having that long dialogue of whatever. And I ended up really drunk at the end of it. And I got something really valuable, done. That was a really powerful conversation we had. It's like, wow, if nothing got done, is it I feel smarter or I feel dumb, or doesn't matter, we didn't do anything.

We just talked. We just made noise while we drank. So, so they're going to [00:44:00] get a chance if they're lucky to go out and independently approach their lives and have to recall the information that's intelligence.

CK: So let me, let me follow up there because I'm not sure. I agree with that point of view. And here's why there's value in.

So I'm a coach. This is what I do. This is why you do too. Right? You, you help people to uncover their own conscientious greatness, basically, right. To, to come to their own conclusion in something to enlightenment in something. So, this is a point in conversation whoever's watching. This is a point in conversation.

Okay. And that is this again, I'm going to go down and go back to the ego. The ego wants answers, but the nuance here, what I'm hearing you say is you can give them the answers, but encourage them to go out and actually try the tool, try the, the knowledge, you know, so that they can embody [00:45:00] whatever they learn.

And then if it works great, if it doesn't work, then we can discern what worked, what didn't what's missing. So we can internalize that versus I think that's what you're saying, right? That is what I'm saying. Okay, great. I just, I guess for someone who is on discerning listening, they say, oh man, she say, just give the answer and go less to the young, to the young kids, right?

Mitch: The ego, especially for people not well-practiced in recognizing it is this, the ego doesn't care about the truth. It cares about its own definition. The answer that it wants is, is becomes a solidified definition of something it's very difficult to change. The ego's perspective. Very difficult. It's hard to change their mind.

When I think a certain thing about somebody, it takes a little bit of experience to start thinking something differently about them. I got to get to know, have I got to see them do different things because you know, a lot of [00:46:00] us have our prejudices that we see that we have when we first look at. And we believe that until we get good information that says we could believe something different.

If the ego grabs a hold of that first impression, you know why it's so important to leave a good first impression because the person's ego is going to grab a hold of it and they may see you that way forever, unless they get to and talk about you that way and talk to other people about you that way.

It's it's, you know, I look a particular way. Here's how well it fits into a lot of, uh, people's perspective of what people who look like this are got tattoos, got a bald head, white dude, blah, blah, blah, wherever you come from, motorcycle rides, the motorcycle really good ones.

And it's loud. [00:47:00] We'll look your window. You hear government behind you, you roll up your window. And there's certain things about that that people think about guys like that. And so, and it's very difficult for them to change their mind. Very good. I actually, the best example I have around the motorcycle thing is I was riding my motorcycle down the highway up here in Northern California.

And a lady I worked with was in her car with her family. And her kids were going like scary, scary biker guy. Right. And she was like, yeah, she was, she was co-signing the entire, uh, that they had going on in their car. And then they got next to me. I looked over and we recognized each other from work. Uh, we're working with homeless at the time, downtown San Francisco.

And she looks over and she goes, oh, he's okay. That's just Mitch, because I'm a [00:48:00] pretty happy-go-lucky guy. All that. A lot of the time I'm laughing a lot. I smile a lot. I joke around a lot because life was for me. Life is too difficult. Not too life is serious enough without me taking it too seriously.

There's enough things I got to do. So, so getting out there, but, but it's the exact example of here's all these prejudices that we have, the Eagles are held onto it because, and we get joy out of, um, when the ego makes a shift. If we're a little more lighthearted, it there's a commercial on television from Mercedes.

And it shows all these bikers with their bandanas on and riding in their lab bikes and they pull up next to the Mercedes-Benz and all the bikers cowering in fear. Oh, it's the Mercedes guys. And it was, it was just a twist of a prejudice that became your [00:49:00] first because everybody, a lot of people, I won't say everybody, but a lot of people who don't know bikers who don't know how many toy runs, they don't know how many special events they put on.

We don't know how much money they contribute to charities, blah, blah, bikers, or, you know, drug addicts and, and dogs. And there's, there's a fair number of those don't, you know, I don't wanna, I don't want to make light of the truth. There's some troublemakers out there, but in general, most guys, the motorcycles are just going out for the weekend, has nothing to do with what, how the ego grabs a hold of something and projects onto it, based on some other belief that we have.

CK: Yeah. Um, the former CMO of, um, chief marketing officer of Harley Davidson was on the podcast. Oh, nice. Yeah. We were talking about, uh, you know, similar sort of. Who actually rides Harley Davidson and then what's the brand [00:50:00] and all that stuff. This was really fascinating conversation. Um, but let's bring it back to transformation.

I know you're a huge on transformation. And then we have just alluded to the mechanics of transformation, right? How do you shift someone's mindset? And when we talked about giving the answers versus the, my, my verbiage is, is give them something to go out and try and experiment with it. Right? So that way they can get, um, subjective, uh, data set versus just some theoretical data set.

Right. So what are some of the other mechanics of transformation that you've discovered after working with young men and adult men?

Oh, before you start, I forgot to mention why don't you define in your definition, what transformation means before you go into the mechanics of [00:51:00] transformation? So

Mitch: if I am,

I think we're always going to transform. I'll say that we're always going to do it without effort with, or without effort. Life is the way life is, and if you walk forward into it and you do things every day and, uh, you don't. Act like a reptile and walk up and down the same path every day. Um, you're going to change.

You're going to come in to do things your, your consciousness is going to be altered by your, your multi experiences. And as that is occurring, you're transforming, you're adapting. You're making it easier or better, probably easier. Cause that's what evolution wants us to do is not make it so hard on ourselves and, and have some prosperity so that we can be comfortable and it doesn't have to always be hard.

And, and so, um, but intentional [00:52:00] transformation,

where is, uh, I think it was very difficult because, uh, very few people have a crystal ball and what, how they need to be in 10 years. A lot, a lot of things happen in 10 years. And so from the time that you're 10 to 20, a lot of things happen and you were going to be a different person at 20 than you were at 10, you've transformed, but are you prepared for what you need to be prepared for at 20?

So I think the first responsibility is one of resiliency. You know, if you want to transform, you better learn how to be resilient. You better learn it. Um, bounce back from failure because you're going to trip and you're going to fall and you're going to make [00:53:00] mistakes. And if your ego is too involve with yourself, you'll quit.

Because, because as soon as you make a mistake, your definition changes. You know, it's like all the superhero movies and stuff become very popular because various and only recently have the superheroes, movies included failure. They're not always successful anymore. It's like at the end of the show, it's like something bad has happened and it didn't get fixed.

That's new. And so we're, we're diminishing what was this idealistic heroism, which a lot of people are motivated by through the ego to, in order to transform. When I get to this spot, I'm going to be this way. And when I'm this way, then I'm going to have, I will have made it made whatever it is. Well, in the midst of that, I mean, there's some very transformative moments that [00:54:00] are out of my control and I don't.

And if you don't, if you haven't disciplined yourself to practice a life of good character, going through those transformations can be, can leave you with a lot of damage with a lot of trauma, because you have no character in order to hold yourself up to get through. And, and characters, what gets us most of us through a lot of things.

And so as I, as I go down, you know, if I told you this, so here I am, I'm living in life. I bought a house, big old house on the corner in a, in a and up-and-coming suburb. Um, got a great deal on it. Top of the world guy here I am now I've made it. Wife gets cancer, transformative, and the kind of character it takes to come out the other side with the same hope, with the [00:55:00] same joy, with the same, um, desire to move ahead.

It takes a lot of character. And if you haven't practiced it before that time, you become a survivor, which isn't the championship game. It's like, do you want to be identified as a survivor, the rest of your life? Because to be identified as a survivor, you're being identified by loss,

CK: um, by victimization.

Yeah.

Mitch: Endured loss. Well, there, I guess there's some value to that, but not a lot, nothing I want to brag about. And I'd rather come through it on the other end with a big smile on my face going like, oh, hell yeah. Now let's move on and leave the past in the. I will not with a good character. I will not carry forward.

A lot of post-traumatic stress

with a different attitude. I'll perpetuate post traumatic stress. [00:56:00] Oh. So how are you going to get by, through all that? So the preparation work has to happen. Young. We've got kind of covering 8,000 things that we talked about earlier. So you come through initiation with the qualities of character that we're going to say men need to have in our society.

So things happen. We get through the other end and we can still anticipate and look at life with joy and be excited for transformation rather than my ego controlling me with apprehension to it. It's it's the, the beauty of transformation is it may keep me from having a, um, career sometimes careers aren't really transformative.

They're just, but they're really safe. You know, I can predict it every single day. I'm going to get my paycheck. I'm going to do the thing and I'll limit my life within what my [00:57:00] career provides for me. Or am I going to risk it all and go out and do this other thing? Well, without the assurance of security, there's a lot of transformation that occurs and your ability to pay attention.

It has to go. Because you have to be present for opportunity. Am I present to see opportunity when it's available? And then do I have the courage, the desire, the strength to avail myself of those opportunities. If I, if I haven't built that character by then, I'm going to find out through that transformation, whether I have it now, and most people find out that they don't

CK: do a quick recap.

Okay. Uh, transformation, some of the key skills from your perspective, one is resiliency. The ability to bounce back from failure, and the second is ability to pay attention. [00:58:00] And as you're speaking, I'm also hearing this attitude towards overall life perspective. I'm seeing, visualizing a cartoon that I saw, uh, sometime ago I had actually collected basically, you know, this little girl is about to go into the jungle and then, you know, all her shadows are whispering to her.

Oh, don't go. You're going to die. You're going to hurt yourself and all these other things. And then she, you know, the second or third frame, like she came out of the jungle and then, you know, full of like my hair's messed up a nice grave. And like, you know, maybe arm's a little crooked or whatever. And then she say, oh, that was hell of a adventure.

That's that's the visual that I saw is just really treating life as a, as a whole adventure. How can we make our life an expression of our inner joy, right? Keeping that optimism, keeping that fire alive. There's a reason why this, uh, podcast is called noble warrior noble as [00:59:00] in our highest self highest character.

And then warrior is that warrior spirit, right? The adventure spirit, the striving, the mastery to that, hence noble warrior.

Mitch: Yeah. And, and what I hear the term noble warrior would, it also goes in my mind is in maintaining a level of dignity and self-respect as you go through it, or a nobility is, is, you know, these are hard times and transformation is going to be difficult.

You got it. You're going to be altered. You got to go through experiences. They're not all going to be easy, but can you maintain your social obligations of discipline and respect for others while you're going through it? As you go through the jungle, can you have reverence for the animals that are in there, you better, or they might kill you?

You know what I'm saying? So, so it's a, it's a very good title because it, it really, in [01:00:00] my mind, it, it brings up everything that I really stand for is that, is that the quality of character of a person. Can be transcendent through a lot of our social situations, economy, you know, health a lot. Those are the people that we recognize who maintain their dignity as they're going through whatever they got to go through through life.

I think that's why there's a lot of, there's a lot of, uh, self-discipline in, uh, in a lot of, you know, like martial arts. It's like, yeah, it's really hard to maintain a level of dignity when somebody just hits you in the face and you're expected to, or it's part of the standards and not let your emotions get you so carried away that you make yourself vulnerable.

CK: Okay. Let's let's actually talk about that a bit. Let me do a quick recap and let's talk about the emotions part. Okay. So some key [01:01:00] mechanics of transforming skills slash mechanics of transformation, um, resiliency, uh, one's own dignity, your ability to do state noble and dignify as you go through adversity, your ability to pay attention and in self-discipline.

Yeah.

Mitch: Yep. Okay, great. Well, I think when the going through adversity, we got to put courage in there. Well, as soon as, as soon as you understand that adversity is on the horizon, you have to make a decision whether you're going to break. Are you going to keep going forward because you know, it's going to be difficult.

It's like, do you have the courage to do that? Do you have the, the, are you prepared? Are you internally strong enough? Are you mentally strong enough? And the answer for most of us is we don't know. Are you willing to go ahead? Anyway, that takes [01:02:00] courage. I I'm pretty sure I can make it. I got the heart for it.

I'll do it. It's it's courage comes from the word heart. It's like, oh, the core is the heart. It's not the heart. Is that the soft gooey thing filled with, with juicy emotions, the heart is this thing that is tough, that keeps beating your whole life and gets you through everything. And, and some of that stuff's been turned around to you like Richard, the Lionheart are used for his bravery, not for his, you know, romance novels that he, that he talked about.

CK: So here's one distinction that I realize, uh, very recently that if you think about transformation, the mechanics of transformation, let's say right, there's tons of books that offer tactical things. There are fewer books that offer strategies for your books still that [01:03:00] offers, um, the principles. There are a few books still that really help people discern the identities, right?

All our men's work. And we want to just have the things that we've talked about, but at the, at the foundation of it all in my mind is faith in one song, ability, faith in one's place in the universe. So a huge part, I believe the root of the kind of work transformation is all of these things aside, it gets down to the faith in oneself and one's place in the world, in the universe.

If you don't have that as the root, you can have the best of all the tactics and strategies, the narratives and everything, but boom, boom, and you can even have great results in life. You're not going to be very, um, stable. You have any comments about that?

Mitch: Well, yes, of course. Um, faith is also a [01:04:00] transformative thing.

Your faith transforms as you use it, you know, like you have faith that you can get something done, you go risky, you'd take care of it. You get it done. Your faith deepens in yourself in your abilities, that, and that pushes you to the next thing, right? Because if you're an evolving creature, you're going to be looking at the next thing to, okay.

Now what do I got to get myself into? I'm transformative. Now I'm getting myself into things I'm consciously intentionally giving him. And so then I risk the next thing and what you're risking is mostly your ego. And so you get in there and you do the next thing and you keep on going and keep on going, and then you fail and you got to go through the humiliation and the, and the discouragement of failing.

And then you have another decision to make, do you have I gained enough faith yet to keep [01:05:00] going? Or some of us, you know, we'll go and we'll go take a class at the local college or something to try to build our faith up in our ability to move forward. We'll take another course. We'll go to another event.

Well, we'll do something to strengthen ourselves, to gain the courage to continue forward. And so faith is also a part of the is, is, uh, I want to, I don't know how to say this static and transformative quality. There's the foundation of faith, but that faith is always moving with the transformation. And, and, and I don't think that we, uh, take enough time and we can find it from our elders really is their faith is normally really deep and really strong.

And they don't sweat a whole lot of stuff. They don't get as carried and concerned well that they know why they've been through these things when, when we're younger and we haven't, or our faith is a little shaky. [01:06:00] Sometimes it takes a little bit of faith and a little bit of egotism to get us to move forward.

And at some point the ego gets slayed and hopefully you have enough faith to not just cave in or surrender to a kind of a mundane, average kind of thing. If you're a, if you're the person who's motivated by transformation, I think there's the maintenance people in the world to that, that we really need and are super important to keep us all grounded all the time.

The people who stay home, do the work of the law, take care of business, to give us a foundational, uh, structure to life that we always know. There's this other thing that's not going to change on us. I think that that is those people do that. We need, it's not all about adventure. And then going out there for some of us, it seems to be, but for others of us, it needs not to be because they give, we build faith from what they're doing to sometimes, sometimes we're glad that they're [01:07:00] there.

So we have a place to land when we, when we crash.

CK: Yeah. So, so what I'm hearing and I'm so appreciative this conversation specifically about this part, where do you, uh, how do you dimensionalize faith and then why you just pointed to it? Let me give it back to you. What I heard. Okay. So one is ego, right? It could be bravado or posturing, or I believing oneself, even though there's no evidence.

One is, uh, you can borrow it from your elders right there. Faith in use is so strong such that you're like, okay. Maybe because they believe in me, maybe I can do it embark from routines. You can, you know, because you have have, so, uh, you're so consistent with knowing the lawn or, you know, your daily disciplines or your physical exercises, and that's transferable into other dimensions or other areas of life as well.[01:08:00]

And then you can even have faith in, let's say a phone may experience, as you mentioned earlier, right? You, these elders just have been, so while attune, uh, through the different adversities of life, such that they can, they know that they're strong enough to get through future adversities as well. So they don't, they're not as fragile as someone who's two years old as an example.

Yeah. That accurately reflect what

Mitch: you said. Yes. But I'm not sure I understand how you're using dimensional,

CK: um, different cuts, right? How do you deconstruct different parts of faith as an example, Allah different parts of Mitch, right?

Mitch: I don't think you can deconstruct faith. Faith is a [01:09:00] creation and it perpetuates. And so, um, you can see how it was built, but it keeps building. Um, if it does it, then you become static. And, but you've still built yourself to the point of being static. Um, if you've, if you've disciplined yourself and your character, you can maintain the static condition.

If you have it, then maybe you'll start falling apart and having to realize the truth about yourself. Isn't what you believed it was. And therefore the ego is, is deconstructing. Not your faith.

CK: The last three sentences was very abstract. Uh, could you simplify it a little bit and say

Mitch: it again? Okay. So your experiences, your experience, you're growing in [01:10:00] faith and confidence, and as you're going, because you're achieving certain things, you're getting through other things, you've endured some things.

Yeah. So interfaith is growing that can't be taken away from you and you can't lose. You can't lose that. Okay. What you might lose is, is your definition of what all of that means about you. That would be your ego deconstructing, not, uh, your faith deconstructing. And if you can't distinguish yourself separate from your ego, you're going to be in trouble.

CK: I see. So hold on. And you just use a couple of liquor in my mind. What you just said is what happens, what happened? Those are facts. And then there are the stories and interpretations and narratives that you, or ego or whatever came up with. And those are very malleable. [01:11:00] That's what I got so far. And then this what happens, what happened is when not change, but the stories are very valuable.

Um, not valuable malleable, changeable. That's what I'm hearing. Yes. Okay, cool. Continue please. Well,

Mitch: I'm having an ABV moment because the valuable part of it has got, because like I could start when I was younger, I won a few championships and a few things, different sports, whatever, for a period of time, that meant something about me personally, individually.

Yes. I was a champion. I had championship. Yes. Yes. Yes. And then as I got older and I started to appreciate things a little differently, I realized that I had other coaches with me and there was players involved. I had teammates and those were more the forefront of my consciousness, which got me closer to the truth of my experience, but it [01:12:00] altered my ego.

CK: I was, I

Mitch: wasn't the champion. I was just part of a championship.

CK: Got it. The narrative shifted.

Mitch: Yes. Gotcha. So my ego, you know, I had to take a few steps back in humility to acknowledge that there was a whole social organism working for championships to occur. You know, even, even with wrestling and, and having coaches, I had to start giving coaches credit for my existence.

This is, this is, this is where elders get forgotten. There's very few ugly professional athletes that who don't acknowledge the guys who are the ugliest don't acknowledge their coaches and their coaching staff or the, and whatever sport it is. Those guys, those guys do not get a lot of, uh, respect.

CK: Uh, I, uh, so quick aside I had Jeff Spencer, a former [01:13:00] coach for tiger woods, Lance Armstrong bottle, these extraordinary.

And he made an interesting point. He said, if there's a, an elder who doesn't, you know, whose eyes isn't crooked or doesn't have a scar, or, you know, who's too pretty. Like he doesn't trust them.

Mitch: Right. Because

CK: he says, if you're a true in elder, like you have battle

Mitch: scars, like yeah. And you know, even, even in, in the modern dialogue, right, the young man liked to look at the old guys and call them OT, original gangsters, you know, because they see the scars on us that we've got, it could be wrinkles in the face or, you know, whatever, a bruise, a bump, a dent, whatever it is.

And, and, uh, and they start because those are all things that they know they're going to, they need to learn. I think that's beyond the modern, [01:14:00] uh, I think it's a part of our, our psyche that they recognize it, not, uh, just an average form of intelligence that they look at. They look at, uh, you know, if you see old animals, you could see, oh God, that elephant got attacked by a lion at some time.

Look at that and look at these still standing there. And you kind of, it's a little bit intimidating if they say things like, oh, he's got old man strength. Have you ever heard that phrase? Yeah. You always got old band string. There's there's this. After going through the battles, so metaphorically or literally enough, you get a different kind of strength that is intense.

CK: So, so I have a follow-up question there. I circling back to being a coach. Again, I know we're kind of meandering the place, but circling back coaching younger generations again, using younger CK as an [01:15:00] example. So the younger CK is very arrogant or was very arrogant, right. But it was hiding the, you know, his insecurities, his lack of knowledge.

So therefore that the posturing, the bravado, that's the truth of what what's, what, what w what was so, so when you coach younger generations and young men or younger men, um, how do you discern the coachability and, uh, as a, as a way to help them, not for your ego, but really as a way to catalyze their own growth and development?

Mitch: Well, I think that the, the best quality that a good coach can have is be trustworthy, that a good coach themselves are disciplined to the point where they're predictable, they're they're easily understood, and that becomes a more solid foundation for the young person to take risks. [01:16:00] They they'll risk themselves falling apart because they know that you won't.

So they'll go out, you know, they'll go out on the field, they'll do their thing. They'll try the thing you're suggesting because if they make a mistake and it's, it really has a lot to do with, and this is true of parenting. If your emotional response isn't for Mo isn't parallel to the circumstances that you're going in.

Um, like if you overreact to things, you become untrustworthy, even though there's no use crying over spilled milk, really, there is no use crying over spilled milk.

CK: Right. But I wasn't asking the question on the quality of the coach per se. I was asking you being a coach observing the younger generations, because some of them may have the, the bravado, the posturing, the arrogance, even though they may, you know, the behind all that, they still want to be coached.

Right. So, [01:17:00] so discerning and navigating that space. How, what do you do as a way to help these coachees that you have these young men? Yeah,

Mitch: the, uh, well, here's the discipline of being a coach. You coach the sport, not the person you made sure as a coach, that they get all of the attention and exhibit all of the skills that.

So, whether they're arrogant or not, is it the coach's issue? If it doesn't, uh, have a negative impact on the rest of the team, if their arrogance and attitude is a negative impact of the team, then they don't belong there. And you have to have that conversation with them, that their position on the team is more important than their name.

We need you to perform these skills. I trust that I'm going to [01:18:00] show you how to do those skills. And if you do it better than anyone else, you're going to start not talking about it. You're going to be the starting lineup guy. And I'm going to coach the skill. You're your personality in that? It's formative.

CK: Well, I'm gonna, I'm going to challenge the, what you just said a little bit. Okay. What you, but you also talked about the importance of character. To me, arrogance is an expression of one's character, right? So to be a leader of their team, they must have great discernment and greatest sermon comes from character.

So when they're arrogant, these shows to me as a coach, that they're not. Of the highest discernment. You know what I mean? Yes. So, so yes, coach the mechanics, the sport, no problem, [01:19:00] but who they are actually speaks way louder than the mechanics of the sport.

Mitch: Yes. I agree with everything you said, the element that needs to be included in that is this is a young person not developed or them coming forward with all of this stuff is what they're coming forward with right now, I trust in their transformation and what really humbles the arrogant person is when they understand the responsibility of their position.

It's like, so you can come in and all arrogant stuff, but you have a responsibility to the entire team to perform, not talk about yourself, not tell everybody how great you are. You can do all that too. I don't care if it does not. It's not going to get you to catch the ball. [01:20:00] So if you don't perform at that level, then you are going to be humiliated.

You are going to feel exposed and, and it will be the facts. Can I still treat that person with the same respect that I should because there are. Even though they've gone through that because they're not going to change because I tell them if you're shy, we got, we always kind of want to project onto the more advanced quality people.

But if you, if you have shyness, if I tell you, look, you need to not be shy on this team. You need to be this. Are you going to get over that shyness? Because I said so, so as you add other qualities to, to the, to that, like here's the responsibility that puts you in this place, on the team. You can be the quarterback and you can be shy, but when you start doing the down set hike, hike, hike, you need to be loud enough for [01:21:00] the guts for the wide receivers to hear it.

If you can't do that, you can't play there's consequences, normal for the position based on your ability to fulfill responsibilities. And that shy person may be shy off the field, but on the field, they're making sure that all of their teammates are taken care of by communication. I don't have to worry about it'd be, or the arrogant guy is the same way.

I don't have to worry about how arrogant he is. And most of the other players don't care anymore. If he's in the end zone with the ball, they're going like, yeah, yeah. He's that way. And there is right over there. We just won the game. I don't care. But if they don't get that, they have a social responsibility in all of that, you could be arrogant and socially responsible.

You can make sure your arrogance is more of an expression of yourself, not as it against somebody else. [01:22:00]

CK: Yeah, I see.

So you're coaching them on the responsibility, on the team, the functions of the team and their express, how they express that outside of that function. Uh, as a young man specifically, you don't quite coach them on those, those expressions. You don't want to cartel their expressions, whatever that may be shy, arrogant doesn't matter.

Does it matter?

Mitch: Because in my view, the reason we have organized sports isn't for winning and losing is for social development, high level of aggression, rapid movement, high stress, and you still have to practice sportsmanship. And then, and on the field of you practice the discipline of sportsmanship, then that person learns how to be a social creature off the field.

And, and so w nobody's an individual, really, humans are a social worker. [01:23:00] And, and so when people are, are more individualized in their sports, if there's, if it's a one man sport like wrestling, um, how, how are you going to coach that person that will wrestling as is a two-fold thing? You're an individual on the mat, but you're contributing to a greater whole to a team score.

CK: So actually I have a follow-up question there to you. This is, is similar. Cause you had mentioned courage earlier. How do you help someone to do cultivate their courage? Because it's such a subtle, like a, such a subtle thing, right? How do you coach them to take more risk, to stretch their comfort zone, to leaning to that punch when that punch is coming?

You know what I mean? Cause not to like, you know, not to not, what's the word I'm looking for, not to, you know what I mean? Not, not to, um,

Mitch: pull back. So here's a problem [01:24:00] with our society. Now we go way too fast. If I'm going to teach somebody to have courage, I need time. I don't, I don't go like, okay, on three courage, you know, snap your fingers.

No, it's like, you got to give them repeated experience over and over again to the point where they begin to have success and then they have repeated success. And then the mind, the way the mind works will develop the quality of courage because it can trust itself. It's performance. If you don't have repetition, if you don't have a time to make all the repetitions, you're not going to have the courage.

And this is what practice is for. And, and we don't, we have very little practice going into life. We used to be able to practice going to school, but schools aren't a social network. Like they used to [01:25:00] be,

CK: oh, it reminds me of a boxing coach. I had once. Cause uh, my natural response, when I first started learning boxing, I'm probably still the same way is to when the punch comes, I would, you know, do this right.

Versus actually just hold my ground versus so he said, you're being too scared of the punches coming your way. And then he started the tapping of just boxing gloves on my jaw super lightly. And then over time, bigger and bigger, heavier and heavier. Then eventually I got used to it like, oh, okay, this is not as bad.

I don't have to be so scared of the punches coming per se. So effectively exposure therapy. Right. There you go.

Mitch: Yeah. And it's it's same. Every it's like when, when you have really little kids that are practicing, I like to coach football because there's 10,000 things and the consequences are immediate and yeah.

It takes them a [01:26:00] while to get used to the pads will work. So, so like, we're, it would be a normal response. If somebody is going to hit you and you have no pads on that, you'd want to be covering up and all that. Well, they take a little while to really, they realize that their, their pads become tools, not just to get a job done as much as something to protect it.

And, and it, and it takes time. In some cases it takes months. In some cases, it takes a couple of years. Some kids, when you get to be around the same young people over a period of a few years, you really get to see transformation because their confidence level goes up. They trust their equipment. I mean, that's, that was one of my big things is we always want to provide, uh, equipment that they can trust because then they can focus on the game.

And so the security, you know, get [01:27:00] provided as much security as we can so that the leaps aren't too big. And, and, you know, we're, I think we're seeing a lot around the world anyway, the point where people don't even get the opportunity or time to, to transition those and they're breaking down and, and, uh, but they got to do it because they're trying to, because they actually know what it is.

They're trying to survive. Know very few of us have, get to have the example and gratefully. And if I fail, I die, you know, I might get hit. That's one thing. But if I fail, I die. And the motivation behind that is a much deeper place than most of what we're talking about.

CK: So in our modern times, as well, we've been using sports analogy to illustrate this.

You said that the importance that happened, the right tools to cultivate trust, cultivate faith, cultivate courage, right? In when oneself in your, with your [01:28:00] teammates, with the game society as a whole and so forth. Right? So it broadened that further, the work that men to men does cultivate and all of that, but in a different arena, different domain.

So what are some of the tools that you have developed, found curated put together to offer courage, faith in oneself, community brotherhood incidents, so that people can thrive, not just survive, but thrive. And 20, 22,

Mitch: I, me personally, I don't go to the thriving spot with anyone that has gotta be their own personal motivation. So, uh, if they're willing to take responsibility for that, um, they can keep pushing themselves forward at man to man. The maintenance part of, of life is what we're dealing with. We're [01:29:00] dealing with it, the trust worthiness of men be there for each other, regardless of the conditions.

So if you're just came back from the championship, or if you just had a serious illness or if, or if any of those everything in between men need to be together, if you need to raise, or if you need to grieve, we need to, we need to create environments where those things can go on so that you can leave those environments and go out and do the rest of the social life.

Not, um, pretend that you're going to be able to hold your mud. After, you know, loved ones, die. People are sick yourself included, and, and you have, uh, established the men around you are trustworthy so that you can fall apart and your life won't fall apart so that your, as your ego gets [01:30:00] destroyed by what life is going to do to it while you're building your faith back up, there's other men around that are keeping an eye out for you.

So that all those other responsibilities that a good life has in it continue to get taken care of. And, and that, that takes a lot of discipline. You have to have discipline men around you. So the standards of conduct have to be. Um, they have to be consistent so that there is a security in what you're doing.

Um, so taking a response could, because it's a whole nother level of character when you decide that yes, I'm an individual. Yes. I'm an adult. Yes. I'm all these things. I'm a businessman, I'm this, I'm that. And I'm also going to take responsibility for your life. I'm going to, I, you're on a, you're on a great path.

You have this company, noble warrior, you're doing what you're doing. I want to [01:31:00] support it. I'm going to show up on time because you're valuable to me. It's like, I want to make sure I'm going to try to say the very best things I can say on your show because your success is important to me for the only reason, because you're a fellow man, you're a fellow man, and I want you to be as successful as you're capable of being.

And I can show up for that. So I don't want to clown around too much. I want to, I don't want to, I do want to cut around a lot more than that, but, um, there's, there's a presentation that's going on here. Um, I want to make sure that I give my very best for your success. And, um, the coolest thing I think about human beings.

If you do that for people they'll do that. There's very few people that [01:32:00] take the goodies and run there. There's, there's a, I think there's an innate

CK: there very few people

Mitch: that take the goodies and run. If you give them generosity, if you give them kindness, if you give them respect, very few people don't pass that on.

Yeah. I'm all that they go like, oh wow. I can be differently different with the next guy years ago, there was a pay it forward movie. And it's like, and as we continue to discipline ourselves so that what we contribute into each other's lives is at a higher resonance at a higher level. Um, that person starts contributing at a higher level to the next person.

We're all connected whether we like it or not, you know? And so, and so, you know, now we're all the way back at the beginning, you know? Right. We gotta we're, we're all trying to find the balance in the middle. [01:33:00] And if we can do this at a, at a higher level, for each other, everything continues to improve. What, what, where it ends up getting, getting crazy is when I, my ego gets involved and I think by some weird law of nature, I deserve more than you.

CK: He go getting involved. Um, what do I say? This

my sovereignty, my agency operating from my highest self is really important for me. And I do my best to not believing in my own bullshit. In my mind, I do my best not to be, um, shaken by external narratives. And so what are some of the ways that you have to ensure that the ego doesn't get involved? How do you maintain this equanimity?

Right. Big [01:34:00] word. Does this, this groundedness, right? So you don't believe in your own hype and you don't believe in other people's hype about you.

Mitch: Okay. Well, it's been vigilant. You have to be vigilant because my ego is going to get involved. I am going to believe my own hype and it's going to happen. The duration of that is, is where it becomes concerning.

It's like, yeah. So if I believe it in my own hype for 15 seconds, that that might lead to a greater faith in a higher level of esteem and, and all that. And then I find out whatever, when I got to feel good for a minute. So I'm going to keep moving forward, feeling good. And then getting back to. The real life stuff of how my treating you.

I mean, the great humility is, is in socialization. It's like I, don't got to, if as soon as I put [01:35:00] the concern of my end responsibility of the impact I'm having on you, the ego has a very difficult time because it may go out, it puts you before me. And so I, even though I have, you know, some other kind of distress in my life, I'm concerned with my kids or whatever.

I can discipline myself to still treat you in a way that, um, I want you to be treated based on the fact of how I feel about humanity. And, and so, um, it's important, but the ego, it's all discipline. It's all this being committed to disciplining ourselves more than, um, validating ourselves.

CK: So, okay. I'm going to push that a bit, right?

We use the dojo example as a, as a metaphor, a lot, the way I see it, it's easy to [01:36:00] be lovable, right? It's easy to be loving to someone who's lovable. Right. And it's why the puppies, the babies always get all the love from. But when someone let's say cut you off, cussing off, like just staring you down, whatever, you know, treat you with disrespect and violence.

That's the real test. That's the stress test, right? So in that moment, what do you do, Mitch? What do you teach other people do in those moments? Or example breathing or meditation or mantra, or step away, get some space. I don't know, whatever the thing is.

Mitch: We do. Well, we talk about Amanda. Ben is to become, hyper-sensitive pay.

In other words, be aware or pay attention to what the act what's actually occurring is like somebody cuts me off in the car. That was, that was a experience that lasted, you know, a [01:37:00] 15th of a second. The adrenaline pumps up through my system, pay extra attention, be extra aware of that moment because what I realized now is they missed and I'm safe.

And all I have going on in my system is adrenaline. Now I'm consciously aware that I am secure. The threat has passed it's over. And that's one of the big confusions I think we caused in the seventies and eighties, sixties, seventies, eighties is we've confused. The idea of being sent. With the idea of being emotional.

And so people are pretending that they're sensitive and their ego is generating emotion after emotion, after emotion. And they're not only causing damage emotionally to other people when they're doing it, [01:38:00] or they have no responsibility for the damage they're causing, because you know, you can't judge their feelings.

Can you and, and feelings, emotions are just judgments.

CK: Okay. Before you go into that one, this is an important point you're making. All right, circling back to the truth about what happened in reality, and this stories and interpretation and narratives that you make up in those moments, what Mitch is saying, those moments where you're triggered, become hyper aware of what actually happened versus getting involved in the stories of, you know, why did this person did this?

And then the other thing, the stories of your emotions.

Mitch: No, it's, it's, it's, it's not getting involved with what happened, cause that's gone. It's when you become extra alert, sensitive, paying attention, aware, whatever word we're going to use this decade, when you're really paying attention, the, the threat has [01:39:00] passed will live in the moment.

The realization is that there's no longer a threat. Yep. And your emotions will be disciplined accordingly to your consciousness. Not the story of what I just went through. I see. And what it could have been and how it might've turned out different is that I'm cruising 55 again,

CK: what is actually happening right now?

Not what just

Mitch: happened. Yeah. You hear it all the time, but we don't really elaborate, like be in the moment, if you're in the moment when the threat has passed or the thing that you're afraid of is no longer occurring. The, you only have seconds to go before those feelings should change because in the moment you're now aware of something else and all of the emotional indulgence afterwards is all egotism.

CK: Yes. And then they're right, which is a great segue to, uh, [01:40:00] emotion. So what I'm hearing you say is being emotional. You're not saying to suppress your emotion. What you're saying is not too attached, who you are with the emotions that are rising within, is that correct?

You're not

Mitch: misunderstood. Uh, well, I'm actually saying you may, there are situations where you should suppress the emotions because you can hurt people with them. You can, you can cause damage. If your emotions are not. And your emotions are not happening in the moment. Your emotions are based on judgments from the past, correct?

If the past is five seconds ago or 50 years ago, correct. And so if every time we get together and we're watching television and my favorite sports team is on and I'm yelling and screaming and being [01:41:00] all emotional, what just happened in the last play. And you're sitting there, you know, trying to have some peace and quiet and watch the game.

My emotions are harming you. They're there, they're causing distress in your life because here's this crazy person who's yelling at a screen. And, and so, um, to be, to suppress those emotions and realize, you know, consciously, like it's just a game, I'm not even on the field. They can't hear me when I cheering for them, which makes cheering at the TV screen.

That kind of a useless activity. I like yelling at it's like, why are you yelling at the screen? Nobody gets it. You know, the, the rest are not intimidated by you yelling at your television.

CK: Yeah. This, this is a meta meta conversation. So, uh, I'll share this real quick. A friend of mine who's very raw. And yet he [01:42:00] would put on.

So he's very aware that he is, he has emotions, but he is not his emotions. However, he also loves to just yell at the screen or yell at the air because it's fun for him to do, even though he knows that he's not his emotion. Does that make sense?

Mitch: Yeah. I think venting is an important thing. Yeah. And socially, can I be considered of the other people I'm around if there, if there's no one around who cares.

Right.

CK: Who cares? So while you were talking about the footprint of your emotions, your emotional footprint that you

Mitch: have, am I going to be responsible for living in a society that I'm always impacting always. And the impact that I'm having, that's what maturity and conscientiousness and stuff is. There's going to be results from me, yelling or crying or whatever am I going to be like, if you and me get [01:43:00] together and we go like, Hey man, let's go watch a game and yell at the television for a couple hours.

Then us going crazy is just fine. You know, we'll have a couple beers, whatever we're going to do, you'll scream.

CK: Uh, I would assert that's what the whole sporting, you know, uh, industry is built around that did the whole collective consciousness of yelling at teams together because it's funny. Yeah.

Mitch: And, and, and I think that it has to be very these days.

It has to be very conscious, like your friend, right. He knows he's not as feeling, but when he does this, he, he's very conscious that he's just yelling and that energy that he's moving is benefiting him somehow, because he's obviously not dumb. And so he's not doing it because the fun is the relief. And so he's so he's, so he's consciously taking care of himself by creating the situation.

That's all good. But if I'm in an environment where there's [01:44:00] like, you know, 10 or 20 people, it may not. I gotta, I gotta make sure that we're all on the same page.

CK: Yeah. Good point. That that's where like, you know, soccer stadium riots, you know, can just escalate really

Mitch: quickly for

CK: yeah. For stupid reasons.

Cause they start, they, they, they, they, they think that the, the, the false rivalry is real the mean reality is actually for fun. Ultimately, when it comes down to

Mitch: is right where you're wearing

emotional. Yeah.

CK: Um, okay. Little segue. Can we go a little longer? Are you cool with that? Yeah. Okay, great. So I know that you're also deeply in the, you know, the world of addiction, right? You're, you're, you're an expert. You, you you've been a lecturer, a sponsor similar, but slightly different flavor of being a sports coach is supporting [01:45:00] others.

Who's going through their awakening moment of finding their sovereignty around substance, whatever the substance is. Right. So here's the nuanced question for you? How do you support someone with ruthless compassion while supporting them to claim responsibility? Does that make sense?

Mitch: So, yes, it makes, I think it makes sense of maybe my answer will indicate that I understand it may not, but, um,

CK: should I, should I contextualize a little bit before you answer?

Okay. So what I meant is in the world of addiction, and then I, and then let me use the word addiction to, you know, in a very specific way, the way I define it, addiction is. Being control by the things that we don't necessarily want to do. So let's say eating sugar or watching TV [01:46:00] or whatever, the substance that you may overindulge too much or anger or social media.

So I use that term very, very broadly not necessarily to just specific on substance. Okay. So when, as a coach, as a friend, as an advocate, as a mentor, whatever the role may be, you see someone addictive behavior and you want to, yes. Give them compassion, not make him wrong, not beat them up for it. And at the same time also support them, empower them to claim like, Hey, you have the power to, uh, to not be controlled by this behavior.

Right. So, so, so, so there's sovereignty there. So how do you do both and, you know, ruthless compassion while supporting them to claim their sovereignty again,

Mitch: I think the first, um, [01:47:00] expression of sovereignty would be my own. So I am not going to let your addictive problem devastate my life. I'm going to maintain my life in a sovereign way that whatever it is that you are addicted to, it's not going to leak over into.

My own, my family, my dog, whatever. And I'm not going to pay the price for what you're doing. I'm going to go for that assurance first. If I can't establish that, then I need to retreat.

CK: Um, that's say, okay, let me pause. If I'm triggered by, you know, one's behavior addictive behavior. If I feel like I have a Messiah complex, I must go save this person.

If, if I can't hold my own agency around this, then I must retreat. That's what you say. Yeah.

Mitch: Great. Continue, please. If I've established [01:48:00] that well, then, then we got to start getting conscious. We've got to start raising our level of consciousness. Do they understand it as a problem and why it's a problem?

You know, most addictive behaviors come out as, as behavioral problems in some area, it could be physical health. Um, also, so do they identify if they don't identify it as a problem, or if they don't want to identify it as a problem, then I better retreat because I'm going to start using resources of time for somebody who doesn't want to have time doing that.

They want to go to the baseball game, not to the movies. It's like go to the baseball game, but I'm going to the moon. Quick

CK: quick pause there. So some mind may argue, Hey, if someone's frowning, do you save them? Even though they didn't ask for the help? [01:49:00] What do you say to that?

Mitch: I can't swim.

CK: Okay. Uh, that's a,

Mitch: but I got, it was established first.

It doesn't do any good if two of us drown. So if I'm not an add depth swimmer, and I've been like close to, to, to, uh, you know, coast guard level swimmer. Yeah. Me jumping in the water with somebody who's floundering is not really intelligent.

CK: Yeah. Okay. Assuming you do have that ability and then they're not asking for help.

Do you jump in and help them, even though they didn't ask for the help per se?

Mitch: Uh, I don't think it's a fair analogy. Relational to addiction. It's not how come[01:50:00]

if you, if you jump in the water and you're not a swimmer at your droughty, that's one thing. If you jump in the water and something happens while you're in the water and you begin to drown. Then that person may be willing to be helped. Most of them are panicking. So, so you've got to be able to endure their panic

and addiction, uh, which is always self-induced was possible for the fact that they're doing that or not is like, and are they willing to take responsibility for, are they drowning? Right. Do you know you're addicted to this? Are you okay with, is the comfort of your addiction so beneficial to you that you want to maintain it?

Most addicts for an extended period of time, they're okay with their addiction. Many of them alcoholics [01:51:00] will tell you that they're alcoholic, but it's not causing them enough problem them enough problems or back to the sovereignty thing, right. It's not causing him enough problem to want to address it because I've only want him to address it because how it affects me.

It's like, I don't want to see them suffer. I don't want to see them die younger. I don't want to see them go through the things, the final progressions of addiction. I don't want to watch it. So I want to help them so that, so that they could be helped. And, and it's kind of a both end, not an either or thing.

So, so then what am I going to do? Well, let them have their sovereignty, not participant, not intrude upon their sovereign. Under the guise of being compassionate, because, because compassionate, these days is a very easy thing for the ego to attach.

CK: You can weaponize it.

Mitch: And [01:52:00] what you're really being is, is abusive or oppressive.

That's right. I'm

CK: going to fix you. That's right. Pretending to be compassionate. Yep. Yup.

Mitch: Um, a lot of people who like what, I don't know if it's so much this year, this year, but last year, you know, a lot of people were, were joyfully identifying themselves as impacts, which is a psychological disorder.

CK: That's wrong. Strong statement, go for it.

Mitch: Okay. Is it the psychological manual of disorders? Because illusion is that I can feel your feelings for you. I know you're feeling even though deeper, maybe than even you do. And it's like, well, that might be possible, but you're the number of people I was hearing do say that it's not possible with that for that many people, but it'd be a herd mentality.

You know, the, the they're validating their egos for being more sensitive to [01:53:00] others than other people were projecting. And what they basically were doing was, you know, decided that they got to tell other people how they should live their lives. So being very careful not to do that with addicts, because they're going to define.

One of the hallmarks of all addicts is that they're very defined. You tell them blue, they say green, you say pain. They say pleasure is that it's not killing me. Well, you're dying, but it's not killing me. They'll argue the opposite because they're just defiant. So you go in there and you want to make, take your own sovereignty first, right?

Well, you got to also have the compassion to let them compassionate means with pain, not having their pain for them, maintaining your own sovereignty allows you to be compassionate, but if they don't want to help, they don't want help. So let me help you answers. No. Oh, okay.

CK: So a nuance question there, let's [01:54:00] say you're relating to them.

You're the best friend. You're their son or their father, whatever the case may be. Right? You care deeply about them. I think the challenge there is you watch them spiral down, right. And say something eventually they did in their life or whatever, the reason. And there are certain guilt. Did I do enough?

Could I have done more? There's that on answer a poll question. Uh, I don't have personal experience with it, but I can empathize per se. I can sympathize rather more precise words. So how do you then. You

Mitch: know, you get your ego out of to be guilty. Is your egos involved? You're making their situation about yourself.

Mm it's like, oh, how do I make that? They're dying about me. I'll feel guilty. Am I? [01:55:00] No, I'm not. Because one of the things I think we got going on and it's very common is we don't really understand compassion. Capacity is not me being involved. The capacity is to be, to be, you can be in the presence of it, but you're not involved with it.

I see that you're in pain. I see that you're suffering. I can sit there while you suffer, but I'm not going to suffer for you. And then there's your sovereignty. Again, I'm not going to suffer for you. I'm not going to let your, your addictions caused me suffering. Like you go ahead, bro.

I'm right here. But because that one of the, one of the tricks that happens in codependency and, and those kinds of things is we have been convinced with, by the misuse of things like [01:56:00] compassion and sympathy and empathy and all of that, that we need to understand illness. That's what we're committed. It's somehow, if I just understand how sick you are, I'm going to be able to help you not be sick anymore.

CK: I don't understand that. So can you say some more about,

Mitch: so, so one of the, one of the traps that, that addicts and alcoholics and people that are addicted as their chronic complainers and are filled with self-pity

and we sympathize with their complaints. Cause we're cause we're human

CK: hence my question about right. Um, encouraging them for sovereignty at the same time, ruthless, compassion, um, maintaining

Mitch: your own sovereignty. And I mean the ruthless part, which is mercy lists [01:57:00] without mercy, I'm going to be compassionate.

So I will sit with you while you die. I'm not going to die with you. And I'm compassionate enough to sit with you all the way to the death instead of intrude upon your sovereignty. I'm not going to call the ambulance. I'm not going to call the police to come take you to the nuthouse. I'm just going to be with you.

If I have another, a different level of empathy, I might call the police and have them arrest the guy and take him to the nuthouse to detox him or whatever. But then we have a kind of a misunderstanding of compassion. It doesn't take a lot of action in, especially if the other person isn't going to take responsibility for taking the action, because as the transition that has to happen, this is very unpopular in the recovery arenas.

Okay. Because they're so self-centered, [01:58:00] they're so filled with selfishness and everything else is like their job is to relate to health, not demand that everybody relates to their illness.

CK: The last sentence, again, I didn't

Mitch: understand, not demand that everybody relates to their illness. A relationship will health with health will take you out of just about every illness, addiction, or not.

Even if you don't understand the illness, you understand health, you can do things that are healthy. It's like, there's, there's a lot of cancer treatments that are here's what health is. We're going to give you this kind of food. We're going to give you this kind of blah, blah, blah. We're going to take away these stressors.

And you're going to have a healthy environment. And, and all of a sudden they quit producing cancer cells by identifying health and conducting itself within the [01:59:00] limitations of health. An addict is a person who can't tell themselves no. So they, they, they can do all the healthy things, but then they do all this other stuff with the healthy things that causes them problems, lack of discipline, because it takes discipline to stay within the parameters of health.

I wouldn't be overweight if I could stay within the parameters of health, I wouldn't be overweight. Wouldn't happen, but I'm overweight because I don't stay within the, I just don't blame you for it. It's like, you know, and I don't blame the grocery store that I walk into. I take responsibility for my own lack of discipline, and I continue to try to discipline myself.

Cause that's what a, that's what a diet to lose. Weight is self discipline. We want to get into this, all this trickery and powders and potions and things to the new, special diet. Well, the new special diet is the same diet. It's always been [02:00:00] eat some greens, drink some water, get too much protein, just enough, understand health and do the healthy thing.

And your body will come back. Like we're back to the beginning of the show, right? We come back into balance. Yeah. But it's by understanding the health that we do it not adding 10,000 years of, of talking about the addiction.

CK: Um, one last question. So will you been, and this is, this may be a big one. This be me whole conversation.

We've been talking about sovereignty. What are we sovereign off agency in my mind is being able to own my decisions I'm making between the space between stimulus and response in that space, pick the options through my own choice rather than my addiction, right. To whatever the thing is. And that's what I've been talking about.

We [02:01:00] also have alluded to the importance of surrounding yourself with people that you trust in your case, men, to men, right? To have a, a, an environment, a community that you can trust them to, um, relying on the trustworthiness. I think the phrase was while your ego falls apart, your life doesn't fall apart because you have a community to support you.

Yeah. So, um, if I just look at those two points, it's a little paradoxical, right? Because on one hand, we're saying, trust your own higher self, cultivate the skills to do that on the other worlds and saying, trust your environment, listen to your, one of the teachings of the men's group that we're in is trust your men, right?

Trust your circle. So, one last thing I'll say, and then [02:02:00] I'll ask you the question is. There is an African phrase or African word on Boone too. It says that I am, and that you are so who you are as a reflection of who I am. And I thought that was a beautiful way to articulate that. So could you address the, the seemingly paradoxical statement that we're making here?

Mitch: Yes. I'm going to say I'm going to overly simplify it, but it's, but I think it's accurate spiritual practice. So the ability between this one side to the other side, the higher self lower self, however we're going to reference it is what is the practice that we're tending to in the meantime, are we continue identifying yourself over here or over there, but in the middle of that is the spiritual practice.

Like you said, [02:03:00] you, you lean in the way of the doubt and you looked for the middle. Well, the meditation that gets you to the middle, you don't start in the middle. You, you have a spiritual practice that reconciles the aspects involved and you end up in the middle as a result of a practice. And that's all we're talking about is like the, the truth of addiction and the truth of.

And you sit there and you start reconciling and reconciling is the spiritual practice. How do I reconcile the conflict caused by addiction with the, uh, I'll say ecstasy of health. It's like, so, so it's it's and it's there on two different lines. The vertical line is ecstatic and serenity opposite ecstasy.

The bottom is serenity. The addiction line is adrenaline and satiation. [02:04:00] I mean, they're going too fast. And how I treat my going too fast is I go too slow. I go to a treatment program when I sit still, I've been on, I've been on crying for six years and been doing too many, too much crystal meth. And now I'm going to go over here and I'm going to sit around.

Well, you're still on the addictive path because the spiritual prep practice that's in the middle of the addictive path is about serenity and ecstasy. And so it's, it's the vertical path to continue the metaphor forward. Right? You're going, you're going up and down vertically. You're not going side to side.

And therefore, like in your meditation of the Dow, you you're staying, you stay in the middle instead of, um, trying to, trying to deal with the opposites. Cause cause the, the addictive path is filled with opposites. It's the duality. And, and so the [02:05:00] center of that is it, is it dif is the ascended path or the transcendent or the transformative path.

And it all sums up in everything we've had now. And here we are, we summed it up the whole day. We summed up two hours now with the trends, with the transformation of, of the spiritual practice at one take. So whether it be your morning, afternoon, nightly meditation, or your prayer service, or your Sunday church, or your Saturday synagogue or whatever it's going to be.

Um, if you have that in place, you have a chance. 'cause, there's a, there's a, uh, human quality that is very different with the kind of egos we have. It's very difficult to access. And it's probably the most important one. And the sum total of everything we're talking about is sincerity. We can, we can get emotional about our [02:06:00] causes and our things and the dramas and the, and the victories.

And we can get all emotional about that. But what what's really important to us, what is the, what is the aspect of our life that we find to be the most valuable? Because that's what is important to commit to you commit to the, to the path you commit to the practice. The path is going to wander. And, but if you commit to the practice, all these things that we're talking about in a much more interesting way, uh, is, is all accessible to us.

We can, we can, we can make the journey, but it, but it has to do with the commitment to that spiritual practice. And, uh, you know, these days there's a, there's a bunch of them. And, and my only recommendation around that is pick one. So, so if you're [02:07:00] going to be, if you're going to be that, if you're going to be Jewish, be Jewish, a hundred percent going to be Christian, be Christian, a hundred percent.

If you're going to practice a doubt, a hundred percent commit, that means you don't get to change your mind when it gets inconvenient and it gets distressful and it's the wrong time of day. And there's some place else you'd rather be practice. Your commitment is like, that's not fun. It's not fun. It's serene.

It's not fun. And you know, I'm, I'm a person who I live on a high level of need for entertainment. My mind operates so fast. I like to indulge it. And some of the spiritual practices I have personally are, they don't do that. They're they're about being still. And so in an active society, like. Average a spiritual practice [02:08:00] of some kind where we can find that stillness within gives us the consciousness we need to do all these other things we've talked about for the last two hours.

Yeah. It's very, it's very challenging because entertainment is a big deal. I don't know how you experienced it, but I, I mean, I like being entertained. I like being fascinated. I like being intrigued. I like all that stuff. It's like, oh, it's really distracting. And it makes you vulnerable to sickness.

CK: Yes. Um, one last question, Mitch.

This is actually, um, poignant. Um, and as an addiction specialist, uh, I'm so curious to know your response. So if needing more and more of something while getting less and less enjoyment satisfaction is called addiction, what does needing less and [02:09:00] less of something we're getting more and more joy and satisfaction call consciousness consciousness.

Hmm.

Mitch: The world is a great place. The trees are beautiful. The ducks are fine. You know what I mean? The fish are cool. Although the other things that run around on the trees and they answered pretty bad. All that stuff is cool. If you'll pay attention to it, it's consciousness. And when they call for our consciousness, we should shoot away.

We watch the ants off our sandwiches and stuff rather than admire them, respect them, enjoy them. It's like appreciation. So I guess with that consciousness, you'd have to say more than that, but really consciousness appreciate what, what it is. That's right in front of you in this moment.

CK: Yes. Uh, one [02:10:00] realization work quick, share one realization, not a hat.

Uh, just a couple of weekends ago, you know, with the war going on. I was deep in my meditation. I thought about noble warrior. I'm pro peace kind of a guy, right? So who am I, or what am I actually warring against? Why did I name noble warrior? The answer that came to me was oblivion. Lack of clarity, chaos, confusion.

That's the war and clarity consciousness is the effort I'm putting forth to move towards that direction. So that's, I think beautifully set it's it's very much align with the mission of no more.

Mitch: Very cool.

CK: And here we are. Yes, here we are. I just want to take a moment, just a really thank you for sharing your life story and your life's work [02:11:00] really.

Cause you've been in this work for the last 30 years around addiction. Yemen's work, men's work. And, uh, it's very obvious for anyone who listens to you, how passionate you are, how much you believe in the work that you do. And then as we mentioned earlier, um, planting a seed, I'm planting it publicly. You know, I want to see your voice gets amplify even more so, so, you know, perhaps starting a podcast and highlighting, you know, men doing great things in the world, I think would be a great contribution to the cause the movement that you're on.

So thank you so much for

Mitch: being here. Thank you. And you know, and it really is a Testament to believing in nature, believe in humanity, believe that it was, it's all been made for good. None of this is a mistake we're just distracted. So becoming conscious so that we can be aware of all of the beauty in each [02:12:00] other.

And all that around us is, is, is the calling your attention. It's like, it is an awesome world. We live in nature did its job. It's we're in good shape. And so let's just pay it. Absolutely get to be on the middle road. Yes.

CK: Yes. And for those that want to follow you, who resonates with your voice, with your energy, with the way you look, uh, with your style, with your voice, where did they go?

Mitch: Um, man, two men.org, hyphen T O hyphen, M E N is the, is the best place to go.

CK: Awesome. All right guys, have a good rest of the day. Be well, cheers.