89. The Lifestyle Illusion: Mike's Eye-Opening Encounter with Entitlement

Mike [00:00:00]:
On this week's episode, you know, you said it to me, yo, go bully her. And I'm like, yo, that's it. Yeah, I'm not gonna let her, like, bully me. And then Kat put some icing on the cake. She's like, yo, you gonna do absolutely nothing. I'm uncomfortable. Like, why the fuck are we here, bro? I'm wearing jeans. I don't fucking wear jeans.

Mike [00:00:13]:
I only wear sweatpants. And I'm trying to understand in my own, like, why am I getting this, like, this ache from this person where before I'd be like, yo, I'll willing to do whatever just to, you know, smell the draws. She's not gonna milk me the way I want to get. Milk me in my pocket. My whole life, I was trying to find a girl who's like this philosopher, but a devil, like, in one. Hey, I like self development philosophy. I like to be a thinker, but, oh, I also like these nice things. It's like materialistic lifestyle.

Eldar [00:00:38]:
Just because you like looking at girls in yoga pants does not mean you like yoga, though.

Mike [00:00:47]:
I've got a.

Mike [00:00:55]:
So the topic is. I don't know how I would probably.

Mike [00:00:57]:
Call it, but I guess I could.

Anatoliy [00:00:59]:
Say Mike goes off.

Mike [00:01:00]:
Full circle, bro.

Mike [00:01:01]:
Full circle.

Eldar [00:01:02]:
Give Dennis a fucking aliyou pear, bro.

Mike [00:01:04]:
Give him an easy.

Phillip [00:01:05]:
What about the mirror? So your reflection.

Mike [00:01:08]:
The mirror is a good one, too.

Eldar [00:01:09]:
Well, I think the phenomena of a full circle is very interesting. You know what? So that whole thing is very good, I think, to talk about. Yeah, I think a lot of people maybe get discouraged a lot of times when it comes to progress. And Philip also talks about it a lot, actually. He's realizing a lot of the times that all the conditioning we've been doing throughout all our lives, living a very specific life for a very long time, we form all these habits that are.

Mike [00:01:41]:
With us, and to undo them and.

Eldar [00:01:44]:
To finally start behaving differently, it takes some time.

Mike [00:01:47]:
It might take years.

Eldar [00:01:49]:
So I think, in your case, I think you finally got a glimpse of this very specific problem turning around. You see in the full circle coming together. I think it's the beginning of it. So I think it's very good to talk about. Tell us what happened.

Mike [00:02:09]:
So I got invited.

Mike [00:02:12]:
You got an itch?

Mike [00:02:13]:
I got an itch in my downstairs mix up. Yeah, I got invited to go out on Saturday to. I don't know, I wouldn't call it a double date, but it was two guys, two girls went on a date, whatever.

Mike [00:02:32]:
Just hanging out, and it was me and kid.

Mike [00:02:38]:
Yeah, I went out on Saturday with Tim, his wife, and this other girl.

Mike [00:02:43]:
That his wife knew.

Mike [00:02:48]:
And Tim was like, show me the picture of this girl. She's good looking girl that I would usually pursue looks wise, right? Obviously russian or ukrainian.

Eldar [00:02:57]:
Pocket rocket.

Mike [00:02:58]:
A pocket.

Mike [00:02:59]:
Yeah. So I was like, all right, sure.

Mike [00:03:05]:
I'm down to go.

Mike [00:03:07]:
You were excited.

Mike [00:03:09]:
I was excited, but I don't think I felt like, blindly excited because not the usual excitement. Not the usual excitement. I mean, I was excited.

Mike [00:03:21]:
Part of it was because I was sick.

Eldar [00:03:24]:
You wanted a whole week.

Mike [00:03:25]:
I was home and I was like, yo, this is a good opportunity. Go out, hang.

Mike [00:03:29]:
Yeah.

Anatoliy [00:03:29]:
For the record, Mike was not feeling well that morning.

Eldar [00:03:33]:
What does that have to do with anything? Just for the rest, just a context.

Phillip [00:03:37]:
Well, four days in a row sick.

Mike [00:03:38]:
Yeah. So I agreed to go out with this girl that I usually would pursue, but I was excited, but not like, blindly. I don't know if I could tell the story kind of like in different parts what it's coming to me.

Mike [00:03:56]:
But maybe part of my excitement was.

Mike [00:03:58]:
Held back because I right away shared with you.

Mike [00:04:01]:
Right.

Mike [00:04:01]:
And kind of the things that you said to me to saying, like, yo, go over there and Bully was on that mindset. I agree with you completely. I was like, yeah, you're right. I'm going to go over there and bully you. Bully her.

Katherine [00:04:16]:
Mike, can you just explain why we would tell you, go ahead and bully her because we don't want you to get bullied.

Mike [00:04:23]:
Well, yeah, because I have a known addiction to getting bullied by these type of girls that look this type of way. And you guys said that to me to know you said it to me. Yo, go bully her. And I'm like, yo, that's it. Yeah, I'm not going to let her bully me. And then Kat put some icing on the cake. She's like, yo, you're going to do absolutely nothing.

Mike [00:04:46]:
She tells me this.

Eldar [00:04:48]:
She tells me it's just between me and her after I show the text messages between me and Mike. And she's like, she's not going to do nothing. I'm like, babe, you got to say this again. And I recorded her. I think we might have it. Let me play.

Katherine [00:05:03]:
I felt really bad about saying it, too.

Eldar [00:05:05]:
She first felt bad about saying, I'm like, yo, don't worry about. You got to speak your truth, how you actually feel and stuff.

Katherine [00:05:12]:
We're having some drinks. We're at a wedding.

Phillip [00:05:14]:
You don't have to explain yourself.

Eldar [00:05:16]:
Yeah, we like drinks.

Katherine [00:05:17]:
Having a good time.

Eldar [00:05:18]:
Yeah, we got those pictures. You saw those pictures.

Mike [00:05:21]:
Oh, look at.

Katherine [00:05:21]:
Oh, Philip. Philip had a reaction.

Phillip [00:05:24]:
Yeah, no, I've seen these.

Mike [00:05:25]:
Yeah.

Eldar [00:05:25]:
And then what'd you say.

Phillip [00:05:31]:
It again?

Eldar [00:05:34]:
That was a funny line.

Phillip [00:05:36]:
He's not doing a goddamn thing.

Mike [00:05:42]:
Holy. Yeah.

Eldar [00:05:45]:
Said it to me, and I was like, you got to say it to him. Yeah. Because I'm obviously cheering for Mike, and I'm obviously know, pumping him up, and I want to make sure that he doesn't know. But obviously, some people still believe that Mike ain't going to do a goddamn thing. You know what I mean? And obviously, that ticked Mike off a little bit. It touched them a little bit.

Mike [00:06:05]:
Wait, what?

Eldar [00:06:06]:
You know what I mean? That's it. Now I got to go out there and prove myself.

Katherine [00:06:09]:
Respect on my.

Eldar [00:06:10]:
Sorry, go ahead.

Mike [00:06:11]:
Yeah, I did. I did send, like, yo, she better put some respect on my. Was like, obviously, I wasn't upset about it. I was having fun with.

Katherine [00:06:18]:
Shoot. Like, maybe. Maybe I ticked Mike. I didn't want.

Mike [00:06:21]:
No, but that would be, like, a wild response in that moment.

Eldar [00:06:24]:
Catherine channel. Totally, probably totally would say the same thing.

Mike [00:06:30]:
Yeah.

Mike [00:06:31]:
And that kind of, like, I guess, among other things that I uncovered after, as I realized what was happening, that was one of the things that slowed me down to not come in there.

Mike [00:06:42]:
And get whacked over the head.

Mike [00:06:45]:
Yeah. So I came in there with that mentality to meet this girl. And obviously, the type of places these kind of girls hang out. So we went to this very fancy place. We're sitting there, we're having drinks. We're getting to know each other. She's talking to the other girl, and obviously I hear what she's talking know. Me and Tim were sitting next to each other.

Mike [00:07:06]:
We're just kind of talking about our own know. And this girl, all she's doing is.

Mike [00:07:11]:
Just talking about where she's been, where she lives.

Mike [00:07:16]:
Basically, anything has to do that shows how rich she is, the type of life she's lived.

Eldar [00:07:20]:
Like, status.

Mike [00:07:20]:
Her status. And I'm looking at her, and I'm listening to it, and I'm like, all right, whatever, I guess. Okay, I get it. She's definitely seen a lot of crazy shit. She lived a crazy lifestyle. She was, like, married to a billionaire, dating another billionaire after that next level shit. Whatever. And just the whole night, the whole thing is progressing.

Mike [00:07:44]:
This whole conversation is all about this kind of nonsical shit. At first, I'm like, okay, she's good.

Mike [00:07:52]:
Looking, obviously, when I saw her.

Mike [00:07:55]:
But throughout the night, I was actually listening to what she was saying. I was paying attention, the way she was interacting with the waiters.

Mike [00:08:02]:
She was nasty, arrogant, felt like she.

Mike [00:08:06]:
Deserved people to treat a certain way.

Mike [00:08:08]:
Because she's like, oh, I've been to.

Mike [00:08:11]:
This restaurant in Monaco. You're not supposed to treat me like this. This is a high end place. Wow. So she's like comparing this place, this restaurant that she was in a different country. And this is very specific because this is how it is. So she's obviously upset about, oh, this is taking too long. They're not bringing this, they're not bringing that, and she's not doing it as a lady.

Mike [00:08:35]:
She's being just nasty, nasty person. And I'm watching and I'm listening, I'm paying attention to what's being said. There was maybe some glimpses of like, yo, the story. She's here by herself for a couple of weeks.

Mike [00:08:50]:
She's fishing.

Mike [00:08:52]:
She might be fishing. Yeah, she's fishing because she's not dating that rich guy anymore, so I think she's looking for a new sponsor. Yeah, so she's here by herself. She's single, I'm single. But every time I thought about, hey, maybe I could take her out, show her around, maybe I could spend the time with her. Every time that idea came to mind, I'm like, yeah, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but I was like, nah, and I don't.

Mike [00:09:21]:
Want to do that.

Mike [00:09:22]:
I don't think it's a good idea. Initially, obviously she's good looking. I'm a guy.

Eldar [00:09:27]:
You imagine. You imagine things.

Mike [00:09:29]:
You start, they were not dragons. So I was like, initially thought about it, but then that was a very short lived idea because I was just observing the behavior. It was not attractive. I realized if I go down this alley with this girl, what I'm going to have to face, I'm like, I don't want to face this.

Mike [00:09:49]:
It's not worth putting up with this stuff.

Mike [00:09:52]:
And the squeeze is not worth the squeeze. Having to do all this thing act a certain type of way. It's like too much headache. And I wasn't getting the vibe that I was like, oh, she'd be fun to hang out with, or she has something to really say or offer. All she has just nonstop talking about herself, what she's done, where she's been, all these experiences and other unattractive things. You know, the guys have the cooler talk thing and she was not even, what's it called? Holding back. She had no problem being just also saying whatever, not having any respect to present herself as a lady, even though she dresses like one, she looks like one, but her attitude is nothing like that. And this went on the whole night.

Mike [00:10:45]:
I didn't enjoy the experience. I was just trying to understand what actually happened because she was nonstop.

Mike [00:10:55]:
She was like a bull all.

Mike [00:10:57]:
She just kept just regurgitating.

Mike [00:10:59]:
Same shit.

Mike [00:10:59]:
Yeah, the whole night. And these girls, they haven't seen each other in a while, so it was like showing off her resume. Oh, look where I've been. I had my wedding here. I drive this kind of car. I got this kind of apartment. I live in this kind of area. The whole night, the whole conversation, and I'm trying to understand in my own, why am I getting this ache from this person where before I'd be like, yo, I'll willing do whatever just to smell the draws.

Mike [00:11:27]:
Yeah.

Mike [00:11:29]:
And here I am, I'm having completely no desire, even as a nice guy, thinking like, oh, she's here on her own. I could show her around, take her places, but I'm like, yo, I don't.

Mike [00:11:40]:
Want to even do that.

Mike [00:11:41]:
I could tell her some nice spots that I know, but going there and having company with this person, I know what it means. Like, we're going to go to expensive.

Mike [00:11:48]:
Ass places and I'm going to have to treat her and I have to.

Mike [00:11:52]:
Listen to her stories about nothing.

Eldar [00:11:56]:
She's going to say a whole bunch of nothing.

Mike [00:11:58]:
Yeah, she's going to be trying to impress me, I guess, or, I don't know, hook me, whatever.

Mike [00:12:04]:
Nonsense.

Mike [00:12:05]:
Milk you probably milk me. She's not going to milk me the way I want to give milk.

Eldar [00:12:11]:
You know what I'm saying?

Mike [00:12:13]:
Milk me in my pocket.

Eldar [00:12:14]:
Yeah, exactly.

Phillip [00:12:17]:
What's a Birkin bag cost nowadays?

Eldar [00:12:19]:
Oh, my God, a Birkin bag.

Mike [00:12:20]:
30, 40,000 easy.

Phillip [00:12:22]:
You can get waxed for, like, you don't get waxed anymore. You can get waxed for like a five figure shop.

Mike [00:12:29]:
You can one day easy at the Birkin, whatever.

Phillip [00:12:35]:
Because it seems like he's describing this.

Eldar [00:12:37]:
Type of like 100%.

Mike [00:12:38]:
Yeah, these are the type of girls.

Eldar [00:12:40]:
That will whack you for that. Yeah, they will whack you a high fluten obviously scum.

Mike [00:12:50]:
I guess in a moment it was confusing because I'm like, this girl is usually a girl that I like. I like to engage with, have some kind of relationship, whatever, with intellectual conversation, deep conversation.

Eldar [00:13:02]:
And then you were like, what the hell is happening here?

Mike [00:13:04]:
And then, yeah, because she was turning into, well, yeah, definitely not that, but because she was so aggressive and kind of like, it was unattractive seeing that. Seeing that behavior from her, because it was just so in your face and whatever. We went separate ways. Everybody kind of. She went her place, and we all went back home. And I come home and I'm trying to understand what's happening because I feel like it's totally a different way. I feel very confused. I'm trying to make sense of what's happening.

Mike [00:13:41]:
I'm not that drunk.

Eldar [00:13:43]:
What are some things that are coming in that moment?

Mike [00:13:46]:
I was. In a way, I was feeling, like, depressed. I'm like, yo, but why am I feeling depressed? Like, I shouldn't be feeling depressed. Yeah. I didn't over drink.

Mike [00:13:55]:
I didn't over promise.

Mike [00:13:57]:
I didn't do anything that would cause me to feel, like, bad or feel depressed. And I felt really bad.

Eldar [00:14:04]:
Yeah, but you weren't able to squeeze out the same stuff that you used to squeeze out the excitement level, right?

Mike [00:14:10]:
Yeah, right.

Eldar [00:14:12]:
The planning and stuff like that. More things for the future and stuff, like amping yourself up. All those things that used to ramp yourself up. You didn't do any of that.

Mike [00:14:21]:
I didn't ramp.

Eldar [00:14:22]:
So your mind and your body or your old self almost was like, wait, what's happening here? I'm not understanding. This is not how you.

Mike [00:14:28]:
This.

Mike [00:14:28]:
I was very confused.

Mike [00:14:29]:
Yeah.

Mike [00:14:30]:
And the whole night, the whole time that I was asleep, I was, like, in and out, and it felt almost like a nightmare. Like, yo, I'm in a weird ass state. Like, yo, I feel like shit. My thoughts are like shit. I can't sleep. And all this thing is giving me this turmoil internally. This whole experience in the night before where I just went out, had three drinks. I didn't go crazy that I'm hungover and on drugs and crazy, crazy drunk.

Mike [00:15:04]:
I didn't understand what was happening, but I just felt like. I felt very depressed.

Eldar [00:15:08]:
You were off.

Mike [00:15:09]:
Yeah, I felt completely off. And I was know. I didn't know where it was coming.

Mike [00:15:15]:
From, why I was feeling this type of know.

Mike [00:15:19]:
And I called Phil because.

Mike [00:15:22]:
Dr. Phil.

Mike [00:15:23]:
Dr. Phil. Yeah, you know, Dr. Phil. I called Dr. Phil because I know that we had a conversation a few weeks ago, kind of this whole area.

Mike [00:15:32]:
Of the girls that I like, the.

Mike [00:15:35]:
Places that I like to visit, the watches, the identity. That identity. And I was like, I know that Phil can relate to this because we just had a conversation recently about it. So I was like, let me call him because maybe he can help me make sense of why I feel this way. What the fuck is happening to me? Why am I depressed? Why am I having this, maybe some little bit of anxiety, even discomfort, for sure. And as I'm telling Phil the story, what was happening, I'm starting myself to understand what actually transpired, what actually went on that night. Why am I feeling the way I'm feeling? That made me think and understand more what was going on. And I started to realize what I was seeing in that person, why I would chase those people, right, and what it actually looks like from the side, because it know, just saying this now.

Mike [00:16:28]:
But it's from the side. Like, I was there on Saturday, but somehow it wasn't a live feed, but.

Mike [00:16:37]:
I was able to. When I was talking to Phil, I felt like I was more of an observer in that engagement versus how I usually am. I'm like, yo, I just jump in and I'm ready to fucking swim with the sharks. Yeah, I'm ready to like, yo, you want to talk about this? Let's talk about this.

Mike [00:16:50]:
You want to do this?

Mike [00:16:51]:
Let's do this.

Mike [00:16:52]:
Yeah.

Mike [00:16:52]:
But because I was slowed down, I didn't jump to any conclusions. Cat's comment, right? Being sick for a few days, slowing down the conversation from two weeks ago about this identity that I created for myself, all those things kind of, like, helped me. I'm sure a lot of other ones, too, that I just can't think of now. But a lot of those things helped me to come in there, really slow down. I maybe said, hey, this girl looks like the type of girl that I go for. She looks like trouble. She's going to try to do my head in, but don't jump to conclusions. Go see what's actually happening.

Mike [00:17:29]:
Pay attention, be observant. Subconsciously. I guess it happened because at no point throughout the night that I can remember where I was like, oh, yeah, I got to do whatever, say whatever. And I didn't have the ability or the desire to even think of acting, how I would typically act to get my end goal or to present myself a certain type of way. I came in with a different mentality, and I really listened to her. I was very attentive to what she was actually saying and how she was carrying herself. So this was like a completely new experience for me in the moment. I guess I didn't feel it.

Mike [00:18:13]:
I didn't really understand it because I was in the moment.

Eldar [00:18:15]:
You were in the moment, and you were paying attention when you came out of it. You came out of it. You almost had, like, a little shock.

Mike [00:18:21]:
I had a shock, yeah.

Mike [00:18:22]:
That's why I couldn't sleep. That's why I was confused. And I was telling Phil, like, yo, I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. In a way, it's very scary.

Mike [00:18:31]:
What was scary?

Mike [00:18:32]:
Well, because you're having a pain, but you don't understand where the pain is coming from. Like depression, right?

Mike [00:18:37]:
Yeah.

Mike [00:18:40]:
You don't understand. So it's very scary. And obviously, when me and Tolly started, me and Phil started talking, I remember Toli's words, because he says this a lot. He says, the people are always scared of not knowing. And that kind of made me think.

Mike [00:18:56]:
I know that he redefined that. For me, that thing of not knowing.

Mike [00:19:00]:
Is not a bad thing. It's a good place, because now you can learn and understand, because there's something valuable here. Something important happened here. We talked with Phil for a long time, kind of like digesting everything. And I guess ultimately, I saw that person, her for who she was, but.

Mike [00:19:28]:
Also within her, seeing the way that.

Mike [00:19:31]:
She carried herself, I was able to see myself in, like, she was kind of holding up the mirror for me because I've played that game. I've engaged in.

Mike [00:19:44]:
That.

Mike [00:19:44]:
Schmidugans. Yeah. For a very long time, for 30 years. And then I started again uncovering more things. I was like, my whole life, I was trying to find a girl who's like this philosopher, but a devil. Like, in one. She looks like a contradiction, a huge contradiction. And I finally saw a person who was not a contradiction, who was 100% immersed in that.

Mike [00:20:12]:
And I saw how, I guess, her.

Mike [00:20:15]:
Being so much just one sided, it helped me to realize how unattractive that.

Mike [00:20:21]:
Is and how it's impossible for it to live together.

Mike [00:20:26]:
Those two identities cannot live together. And I finally understood that idea that I sold myself on for a long time is like, hey, I can have that live within me. And I'm looking for a girl who can have that live within her. And I put that sentence on myself a long, long time ago, but I never looked at it because I was like. I always had the belief that, yo, this is doable. This is doable. I always wanted to do it for myself, and I always wanted to find.

Mike [00:20:52]:
A person that was also able to be that right. But I realized that those two things can't survive together.

Mike [00:21:07]:
They're so contradictory. And I saw that whole contradiction within myself, because slowing down, right, cat's comment.

Mike [00:21:18]:
All the things combined, the conversations, plus.

Mike [00:21:21]:
This person who's, like, super fucking aggressive.

Eldar [00:21:27]:
Is strong about theirs.

Mike [00:21:28]:
Extremely. A lot of times I dated these kind of girls. But I always maybe wanted to see another side of them, which I probably wanted to see within myself. Like, hey, I like self development philosophy. I like to be a thinker, but, oh, I also like these nice things. It's like materialistic lifestyle.

Eldar [00:21:47]:
Just because you like looking at girls in yoga pants does not mean you like yoga, though.

Mike [00:21:52]:
No, definitely not. Her bullyingness. And I guess because I was slowed.

Mike [00:22:01]:
Down, I was really able to pay.

Mike [00:22:04]:
Attention to what was happening. And I saw that mirror. I saw myself, and I think I saw my own. I was disgusted with myself because in the moment, I couldn't piece. What the fuck? Was disgusting.

Mike [00:22:19]:
Why?

Mike [00:22:20]:
I was depressed. But as we started to talk more, I was understanding, like, yo, that is extremely unattractive. These are the type of girls that I wanted. This is the confusion I have within myself, this split identity, this identity crisis of, like, who am I? How can I live these two things within one body? And also for the years that I've been tricking myself that I can do it, and then tricking myself.

Mike [00:22:46]:
Like, I see a girl and I.

Mike [00:22:49]:
Give her a pass thinking that she has a good heart, she has good qualities. But it was a lie that I wanted to tell myself that I could get my end goal, which is whatever was there.

Eldar [00:22:58]:
At any point, are you observing her having a conversation, whether you wanted to say, like, you look at her and say, what are you talking about?

Mike [00:23:05]:
No, but, no, I didn't say that. But we were sitting in the restaurant, it's funny, with Tim, and the two girls are having a conversation sitting across.

Mike [00:23:14]:
From us, and I'm like, why is she yelling?

Mike [00:23:20]:
Yeah, I said it to him because I was like, yeah. I mean, the whole night, the whole.

Eldar [00:23:23]:
Felt it, right?

Mike [00:23:24]:
The whole time. She was 100%. She wasn't yelling, yelling, but you know what I mean. Yeah, we know what we want. We know what we're saying in this circle. So I said that to Tim because that's how I felt. Because I wasn't. Again, that's how we talk.

Mike [00:23:38]:
Yeah, this is me, like, who I am.

Mike [00:23:40]:
Monday through Friday, whatever.

Eldar [00:23:42]:
That's right.

Mike [00:23:43]:
Most of my day, this is who I am. Not that I had to, but I was myself. And all those times and all those places they went to, I was just bothering Tim. I was like, yo, this place is a joke. This is a know. Like, I'm like, wait, I'm trolling. Like, this is also a new. Like, I didn't want to get the noodles on, my know.

Mike [00:24:04]:
So I came there. Tim was pretty cool. He could take a joke. Yeah, and I was able to like.

Eldar [00:24:09]:
Were you confusing him a little bit?

Mike [00:24:11]:
I mean, I haven't seen him in, like, three years, so is possible, but he's cool. He understood my humor mostly, but.

Mike [00:24:21]:
We.

Mike [00:24:21]:
Both felt like, this is a joke. We were talking afterwards, during. I was like, yo, this shit is a joke, bro. I'm uncomfortable. Like, why the fuck are we here, bro? I'm wearing jeans. I don't fucking wear jeans. I only wear sweatpants. I want to be comfortable.

Mike [00:24:34]:
This pretentious, fucking dressing up bullshit.

Mike [00:24:37]:
This shit is like, whack.

Eldar [00:24:40]:
Those are Gary days.

Mike [00:24:42]:
Yeah.

Mike [00:24:42]:
And he felt the same way. He's like, yeah, bro, me too. I don't like coming out here. I don't like this shit. But my wife wanted to see a friend. Whatever, take one for the team. I don't know why he invited me.

Mike [00:24:54]:
Out of all people, but, yeah, I.

Mike [00:24:57]:
Felt like I was being more genuine myself. Joking, trolling. I was even bothering one of the bartenders. It was probably a little bit of aggressive joke.

Mike [00:25:08]:
But he came up to me, and.

Mike [00:25:13]:
We'Re in this fancy restaurant od bullshit. And it's like two guys. One of the guy who's taking our orders for the drinks, and then another guy, like, I don't know who's with.

Eldar [00:25:25]:
Him, whatever, delivers it.

Mike [00:25:26]:
No, he was also in some kind of work role. And he's like, what would you like to drink? I'm like, oh, let me get this. Let me get this whiskey. And he asked the question in a very od way. I don't know how he said it, but he's like, oh, you want that?

Mike [00:25:42]:
Our nice. And I'm looking at the other guy.

Mike [00:25:45]:
I'm like, what is he asking me? Like, this question? Like, yo, what are you saying? Come on, bro. Everybody knows, you know, what's with ice? And other guy? He starts trolling the other guy. The two workers, one of them starts trolling him. I'm like, yo, what is this guy doing? Is he stupid? Obviously not in a mean way, but I'm laughing at this ridiculous fucking scene that they're creating in this restaurant. You have to act a certain way. You have to present yourself a certain way. It was just like, again, I was having fun bothering people, trolling people, trying to show them like, yo, this is not that serious. You don't have to come in here.

Mike [00:26:18]:
And be an actor.

Mike [00:26:19]:
But I was also helping myself to see yo. I don't have to come in here and be an actor either.

Mike [00:26:24]:
Yeah.

Eldar [00:26:26]:
So you didn't request an ice shape of a swan?

Mike [00:26:30]:
No. All right.

Mike [00:26:32]:
No.

Mike [00:26:38]:
That was kind of like the night. Okay.

Eldar [00:26:42]:
So now that you've been through it now a couple of days removed.

Mike [00:26:45]:
How do you feel now?

Eldar [00:26:47]:
What stuck would you reflect on and what you finally kind of concluded?

Mike [00:26:54]:
Well, yeah, before we rip you apart. Yeah, no, for sure. I'm looking forward to that. That's coming up.

Eldar [00:27:00]:
That's next.

Mike [00:27:02]:
Yeah, no, I realized that obviously one of the things that once I signed the stating is kind of scary again.

Mike [00:27:10]:
That I don't know thing because I.

Mike [00:27:12]:
Had again this image of who I wanted to be, what kind of girl I wanted, how I imagined love for myself to be like the kind of people that we're going to be like philosopher fucking hedonist. And obviously the person I'm with, the same.

Mike [00:27:29]:
And I bought into that a long.

Mike [00:27:32]:
Time ago and I always thought like, yo, I could do this. I could make it happen for myself. Then after realizing like, yo, actually I don't want this. This is very bad. This is disgusting.

Mike [00:27:41]:
I had an ick.

Mike [00:27:43]:
Now I'm like, wait, I don't know what I want now, but I still want love. But my whole identity of idea of how I thought love looks now is gone. And I'm like, yo, wait, this is also a little scary because.

Mike [00:27:58]:
I have.

Mike [00:27:58]:
So many questions, I don't even know where to start. 30 years of my life, whatever, 20 years, 25 years that I've carried this.

Mike [00:28:05]:
Identity is completely gone.

Mike [00:28:07]:
And now Mike's identity of who I thought I wanted to be, as in a relationship or whatever, or my identity of wanting to show off that is completely like, it's been exposed. I exposed myself to myself. So that's a huge thing that stuck. But I feel better now because I also thought about like, hey, I don't know. That means I can learn now. I can be maybe more humble. And because that ego that lived within.

Mike [00:28:41]:
Me in this subject, I'm starting to.

Mike [00:28:45]:
See that it's flawed and I can have a chance to educate myself so I can challenge it, so that I.

Mike [00:28:52]:
Can install the right belief systems that.

Mike [00:28:56]:
Actually are the truth, not just like some kind of hybrid version that I've been trying to do.

Mike [00:29:01]:
Yeah, all right, that's all I got for now.

Eldar [00:29:05]:
All right.

Mike [00:29:05]:
Totally. What do you want me to say?

Eldar [00:29:09]:
So what do you think he experienced?

Mike [00:29:11]:
He's been asking since like ten.

Eldar [00:29:12]:
Yeah, right. What do you think he experienced? That whole depression, getting scared, being confused, being, not knowing in his limbo.

Mike [00:29:21]:
What do you think about that state?

Eldar [00:29:22]:
Why do you think this came about? What are some of your thoughts? Aka hot takes.

Anatoliy [00:29:27]:
Yeah, I'm not sure. He was sick for a few days. So he was obviously like a sheltered, small turtle.

Eldar [00:29:36]:
Sally.

Anatoliy [00:29:37]:
Salamander.

Eldar [00:29:38]:
Salamander.

Anatoliy [00:29:39]:
So I think he was probably, like probably in a particular state because of.

Mike [00:29:43]:
That to begin with.

Eldar [00:29:48]:
Are you saying that state helps?

Anatoliy [00:29:49]:
Well, I think it helped to.

Eldar [00:29:53]:
Fit, yeah.

Anatoliy [00:29:54]:
Because when you're sick, you definitely reflect more. I think you're definitely in a very particular state.

Mike [00:30:01]:
But sorry to cut you off. I thought back, right, in those days that I was homesick. I really wasn't actively doing philosophy. I was more like watching tv, watching sports, playing cs, eating, cooking and stuff. I wasn't doing practicing philosophy where I was reading books and stuff or trying to solve riddles that I'm working on.

Mike [00:30:25]:
It was more like a rest and.

Mike [00:30:27]:
A little bit of things that were fun.

Eldar [00:30:34]:
But I think that's a good thing.

Anatoliy [00:30:35]:
Yeah, I think he was in a particular state. Based on I'm hearing the story.

Eldar [00:30:42]:
It.

Anatoliy [00:30:42]:
Sounded like this girl was, like, severely.

Mike [00:30:46]:
One sided in one direction to a very 10th. 10th degree.

Anatoliy [00:30:54]:
Right.

Mike [00:30:55]:
That's definitely what I'm feeling. Which also helps.

Mike [00:30:58]:
What? It helps.

Phillip [00:31:00]:
Yeah.

Anatoliy [00:31:00]:
When someone is so glaringly psychotic, it's oblivious to.

Mike [00:31:05]:
Yeah.

Anatoliy [00:31:05]:
It's definitely more easier to see that when then compared to someone who's kind of, like, tricky.

Eldar [00:31:09]:
Especially if you're attracted to them. Right. You're like, well, wait a second, I'm attracted to them. But wait, am I attracted to them? Just start opening them out and you're.

Anatoliy [00:31:16]:
Like, wait a. I mean, I hear that. I don't know what kind of interest levels that off the, like, was she interested in Mike?

Mike [00:31:23]:
Was she not?

Anatoliy [00:31:26]:
What was his interest to her? Off the. If, like, if neither of those were high, I think it gives you more opportunity to. And if someone's one sided one particular way, it definitely gives you opportunity to, I think, see what you need to see more.

Mike [00:31:42]:
Yeah.

Eldar [00:31:42]:
But I'm not sure in Mike's case, at least, that's a relevant variable because I think Mike has been very good, notoriously good at this specific thing to call things for what they're not.

Mike [00:31:56]:
Yeah.

Eldar [00:31:56]:
And see things.

Mike [00:31:57]:
I could have seen what I wanted to see in her. I've done this many, many times because.

Eldar [00:32:00]:
She threw out certain things that he would grab onto before he even said she said at one point, she said, oh, yeah.

Mike [00:32:05]:
At one point in the night, she know, like, I'm tired of this lifestyle. I just want to settle down and have a family.

Eldar [00:32:11]:
And that's cue to Mike.

Mike [00:32:12]:
That's like, bang.

Eldar [00:32:12]:
Bang, bang, ring bells right away.

Mike [00:32:14]:
And when she said that what I do is something that we do all the time now, I turn to Tim.

Mike [00:32:19]:
And I go, oh, shit. Yeah.

Mike [00:32:21]:
But not in a way like, oh, this girl, she's so great. I can't believe that she wants anything.

Eldar [00:32:26]:
He found somebody.

Mike [00:32:28]:
This trick is not working. I'm not buying it.

Eldar [00:32:30]:
Yeah, because he bought it before many times.

Mike [00:32:33]:
Right.

Eldar [00:32:33]:
With those little cues that they throw out there. Right. That have no substance.

Katherine [00:32:38]:
This is interesting because Mike went in there for the first time without being a sucker for this type of. Well, yeah, he didn't submit. He didn't fall into the trap. The trap, yeah.

Eldar [00:32:48]:
So that's what I'm saying. I don't think that variable is relevant here because I'm not sure how a real, genuine interest builds out of thin air.

Katherine [00:32:59]:
No pretense.

Mike [00:33:00]:
No.

Eldar [00:33:01]:
But a lot of times he used to build it.

Mike [00:33:06]:
I don't know. Obviously I do understand it, but I came in there with a completely different mentality. But I didn't do it in a conscious way. Like, yo, I didn't say to myself, okay, right now I'm going to go there.

Mike [00:33:16]:
I'm going to pay attention to her.

Mike [00:33:18]:
I think all the stuff that happened, I came in there already inevitable for you to pay attention.

Mike [00:33:23]:
Yes.

Mike [00:33:23]:
And I saw her like, yo, she's a good looking girl, but I didn't think, okay, she's going to dive in. Yeah. Again, I don't know exactly how the whole thing came together, but the mentality was like, yo, I was more like, let me see what she got to say. Because especially with that cat's joke and you first you hyped me up. Go fucking.

Katherine [00:33:47]:
I heard him say it all.

Mike [00:33:48]:
And then Kat kind of like, put the challenge.

Mike [00:33:51]:
And I was like, yo, I can't.

Mike [00:33:54]:
Let her fucking do me. Like, yeah, I came in there with a different completely. Like, I didn't come in there already pre biased things. That's how I felt. Like, as I look back at it, I didn't come in there with a bias about what's going to happen here or what I want to happen here.

Mike [00:34:15]:
Yeah.

Mike [00:34:18]:
I think it's just a lot of things that contributed to that mindset.

Anatoliy [00:34:22]:
Yeah, obviously, I'm not sure exactly what happened. I wasn't there, but, yeah, that's what I'm hearing.

Eldar [00:34:30]:
But can you explain the phenomena that he experienced, that whole depressive state, confused state and not knowing what he's.

Anatoliy [00:34:36]:
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's hard for me to only speculate as to what could have happened or what I think could have happened. But no, I mean, I think he got an opportunity to maybe see something that he's previously not. Because I think he also came into probably all those scenarios, like one sided as well. Like when you have an attachment to something, you only come in one sided. You don't get an opportunity to observe and then make a decision at that point.

Mike [00:35:07]:
Right.

Eldar [00:35:08]:
But.

Mike [00:35:08]:
Because.

Anatoliy [00:35:10]:
Maybe he came in more open minded and not with a particular touchment. And you pair that with somebody who's so one sided. I think when anybody is so one sided on one thing and it's in that kind of category, I think naturally should discuss people.

Mike [00:35:29]:
Yeah, right.

Anatoliy [00:35:30]:
Because it's just like.

Mike [00:35:33]:
Right. I'm not sure if it's just that.

Eldar [00:35:39]:
Because I think, like I said before, he would be able to go in.

Mike [00:35:41]:
There and fold and see what he wanted to see.

Eldar [00:35:46]:
And I think those nasty things were still present in those individuals, which. No, I know, but sugarcoat friends.

Mike [00:35:51]:
Yeah, but I'm not sure if he.

Anatoliy [00:35:54]:
Came into it with an attachment.

Eldar [00:35:57]:
Well, no, I actually think that he came in not alone this time. He didn't come in alone.

Mike [00:36:01]:
He used to always come alone with.

Eldar [00:36:03]:
His own set of tools.

Mike [00:36:05]:
Right.

Eldar [00:36:05]:
And he always painted the same picture with the same brushes that he had in his toolbox. This time he came in with markers, pencils and everything else.

Mike [00:36:12]:
And now he realized that he can have a choice.

Eldar [00:36:15]:
I think there's two identities that were at play there, the old identity and the new identity, and those two had a conflict. And I think the depressed one is actually the old identity showing its little.

Mike [00:36:27]:
Remnants, almost like the ashes after the fire.

Eldar [00:36:32]:
That's what you were probably feeling.

Mike [00:36:33]:
Yeah, I thought about that, too, what you just said.

Anatoliy [00:36:38]:
How was she?

Mike [00:36:41]:
That's who's depressed.

Mike [00:36:44]:
She was polite. She was asking me questions, but we weren't engaging a lot, we weren't talking a lot.

Eldar [00:36:49]:
Right, but if you wanted to, you said you could.

Mike [00:36:52]:
But I could have.

Mike [00:36:52]:
Yeah, but you just didn't feel like it. Yeah, I was more wanted to hear.

Mike [00:36:56]:
What she had to like.

Anatoliy [00:36:59]:
What information were you given prior to her saying anything?

Mike [00:37:04]:
That she's just like a russian devil, and Tim's like, oh, I know you like this kind of girl, so why.

Mike [00:37:10]:
Don'T you come out with us and you can go?

Mike [00:37:12]:
Do.

Mike [00:37:15]:
He say anything else?

Mike [00:37:17]:
No, not really.

Mike [00:37:18]:
We didn't.

Mike [00:37:19]:
So how do you know her name?

Anatoliy [00:37:20]:
So how do you know that she dated, like, billionaires?

Mike [00:37:22]:
She was the one who just kept telling all the stories.

Mike [00:37:24]:
About it. She kept listening.

Mike [00:37:26]:
I was just listening to what she was saying.

Mike [00:37:28]:
Yeah. She was talking to Deanna and Tim.

Eldar [00:37:33]:
Mostly was talking to the girl, but.

Mike [00:37:35]:
She was talking to us. She was telling us all the stuff.

Mike [00:37:37]:
That she's been through, like, oh, I live here.

Mike [00:37:39]:
I live there.

Mike [00:37:40]:
I've been here.

Mike [00:37:41]:
I've been there. She hasn't seen her friend in like 15 years. So she wanted to show like, hey.

Eldar [00:37:48]:
Look, this is who I am.

Mike [00:37:49]:
This is who I am now.

Eldar [00:37:50]:
This is what I've accomplished.

Mike [00:37:51]:
And it was funny because they were, afterwards, they were looking at pictures from, like 15 years ago. And this girl, you would not recognize it, bro.

Mike [00:37:57]:
She was like a complete mess.

Mike [00:38:01]:
Complete messy, like, not attractive, hair all, like, weird. Yeah.

Mike [00:38:06]:
So that was more to the end of the night. But she was flexing on, like, hey.

Mike [00:38:14]:
I came from this ugly, like, duck. Now look at me. Yeah, ugly duck.

Mike [00:38:17]:
Do you have that picture as well?

Mike [00:38:18]:
I don't, but I can get it.

Eldar [00:38:21]:
If you really like.

Phillip [00:38:22]:
Yeah, I like to see, like, the transformation.

Eldar [00:38:25]:
Yeah, you like before and after stuff, right? All right, thank you, Tolly.

Phillip [00:38:31]:
Like subway, when they take the pants off when they're really big and they throw them away.

Mike [00:38:34]:
Yes.

Eldar [00:38:36]:
Philip, do you have something for that? Did anything else come up?

Mike [00:38:42]:
Why? Yeah.

Eldar [00:38:43]:
Why do you think that he experienced such almost epiphany right on his face?

Phillip [00:38:48]:
The devil coming out of his soul.

Eldar [00:38:50]:
The devil's coming out of his soul.

Phillip [00:38:52]:
Yeah. I think there's stages, right? So the stages are having this brought to your attention by people that you respect and that you like, like your friends, like us. And you guys been saying that you pointed it out for years. And then it was brought to my attention that this was Mike's number one thing, that this is like a big thing that's been going on for a long time. And I've been an observer of it now since I've been here and back in 2019, I've seen a lot of progress already. But what I've seen is that when it got brought up like two weeks ago and we brought up the Rolex and the status and the Houstons, and I guess now it's attached to girls, too. It's all this mentality. Mike didn't like it.

Phillip [00:39:37]:
And I think it's natural to not like it and have anger towards it or know, add humor but with underlying anger there and say, you know, I can go to Houston's. No, know, I'm not really a watch guy. I am a watch guy. There's a lot of back and forth and I think the difference between a back and forth person is that just like Mike said, part of him wants to be this philosophy guy. The other part know he wants to be a. So, like, he's thinking that he can rewrite the script of life and he can do this. And this other girl is saying, hey, you know, like, I'm fully, like, I'm not trying to be awake at all. They don't want to be awake.

Phillip [00:40:14]:
You go to Harry Trippion, all these nonsense places. These people don't want to be woken up. They don't want to have real conversations. The reason that all these surface level conversations exist is because in this pool of nonsense, you're allowed to be this character. So if you're half in, half out, and you see people acting 100% and you're not with anybody else to point this out to you, this is the first time that he's probably seen out by himself. Now that this is brought to his attention. Oh, shit. This is what Philip and Eldar and Toli were talking about when they're at like, I didn't see this.

Phillip [00:40:47]:
So that, to me, is like, if you actually had an honest reaction to yourself, you probably feel really low and ashamed and disgusted. You probably do feel anger. But then from that point, I think depression is a natural state to come from that, because you have to basically tell yourself, damn, not only was I wrong for a really long time, I was basically fighting them on something that they're helping me with. And now I'm seeing it, and I don't like how I feel. That, to me, is very normal feeling. So that low state afterwards is the realization of this life that I thought I can do. Half in, half out, it's gone. So there's a sadness to that because being a pisser sounds pretty nice.

Phillip [00:41:27]:
If you don't have to do the other. If you can be half philosophy guy and then the other half can just be a piss pig and just do whatever you want, I think anybody would sign up for that. I can do less work and I can get everything. There's no consequences morally, ethically, and I can get everything that I think that I want, and I can still be the person that I want. On the philosophy side, he realized and had that realization that he cannot. These people don't value. It's very easy to see this. So I think what he felt was like a temporary amount of sadness.

Phillip [00:41:57]:
But what I was telling him was that the good thing is that if somebody had this realization that was outside of this group, I always come back to this that. What is this person doing? What's their next step? I was telling Mike that he's made a lot of progress, and on a day to day basis, I would say that he's more of the philosophy guy. I would say it's 90% that, and these 10% little blips come out every once in a while when we bring something out, and he has resistance to it. And again, I think that's normal. So I think his saving grace is that on a day to day basis, he's putting in all this work that maybe somebody else wouldn't have the opportunity to do, or maybe they would have to go outside of themselves or their friend group to try to get help and to figure this out. But I think now, the way that I look at it is that now we can have conversations about this. Mike won't be as resistant, and then I think it can penetrate even more. And then as we all do stuff together, we can point it out, and then we can do, like, live experiences with mike, plus have conversations, because now he's had a live experience by himself.

Eldar [00:42:57]:
How about.

Mike [00:43:00]:
Now?

Phillip [00:43:00]:
Now we can do that with us without, I guess, being shut off about it. Because I didn't believe when me, you, and him were at houston's, he was not hearing us at all. So to me, that was like, that's not even an experiment. That's so, like, now that he's heard this, I think if we went back to houston's or we even went anywhere, I think now we can have more of this conversation, and he can witness himself around us and how he acts. And if he has to go, I told him, if he gets that itch where a guy, like this guy tim, or another guy calls him up, and if he has that urge, I think he should still go again and witness himself again in this scenario, I think it's definitely beneficial. So until somebody calls you and you don't have that urge anymore, you can look at it with genuine humor. I think if you think, okay, I know this is wrong, but I still kind of want to do it, I think he should go again.

Mike [00:43:53]:
I agree.

Phillip [00:43:54]:
Until you're telling me genuinely, hey, philip, I understand what you're saying about houston's. I think the same. And I genuinely don't want to go. Or he's saying, hey, you know, like, I like the shrimp cocktail, and I'm so willing to deal with all this nonsense conversation and fully immerse myself in watch talk and shoe talk and all this surface level materialistic stuff that I'm willing to bypass that to just get some shrimp cocktail. If you told me this, I'm saying you have to go hang out with that guy again until you fully get it. So to me, again, only time will tell with all this stuff, because this is not like, all of a sudden it goes away. Like it's like a genie's wish. Yeah, I think there is a process.

Phillip [00:44:37]:
So I see it as a positive thing. I don't see it bad. But ultimately, the sadness and the depression, to me, makes sense. The anger, to me before made sense to be resistant to it.

Eldar [00:44:49]:
What about the last one, the fear? Why did the fear creep in?

Phillip [00:44:53]:
Well, the fear of the unknown. If you're looking at it as like, I'm 37 years old and now, I don't know. I think that can be a scary place because of all the ideas that you feel like of yourself that you probably had, not even knowing, maybe Mike specifically, but just in general, most people are saying, okay, I want to have a certain amount of money. I want to have a certain type of love and girl in my life. I want to have a house. I want to travel and do all these things, and I have a purpose in my life. I want to do all this stuff. We're all still figuring this stuff out.

Phillip [00:45:24]:
I mean, most of us, right? So if you have to tell yourself, I don't know, that's basically saying up until this point, you weren't really living your purpose and doing all these things right, you were doing them incorrectly. You can use these as a lesson, but the positive that I think from the unknown is that is the first time that you admitted you did something wrong. And now you can have the opportunity to open up this portal to something else that actually will serve you. So I think that darkness can actually be a nice thing. And the way that I talked to Mike about it, I think I talked to you about this also, is I look at this a number of years. I don't have a rush on all this because I trust in what we do on a day to day basis, where we work, where we offer a service for our actual job, and then on a day to day basis, we're talking about this stuff every day at lunch, just during the day. We have podcasts about it. I trust that just through the conversation and our process on a day to day, that it's going to get fixed.

Phillip [00:46:26]:
As long as I'm open and vulnerable to it, if I'm resisting it, and I don't have that kind of group to kind of throw feedback off of and I have to rely on myself. I would say, hey, you know what?

Mike [00:46:37]:
This is going to be really tough.

Phillip [00:46:39]:
So I think if you trust in the process and you know that this place is the foundation for you to basically grow and fix it, then the.

Mike [00:46:47]:
Unknown should be a great place because.

Phillip [00:46:50]:
You basically catapulted yourself. I'm like, I know this arrogant place. And then now you're in the. I don't know. And you can observe the arrogant guy. You said you don't like him now, which is a real feeling. I don't think that feeling goes away if you have a real ick or like a real thing. Now you're saying, hey, you know what? I truly didn't like myself.

Phillip [00:47:09]:
I realized I can't go these places and just be sleeping anymore. And now I can at least open up the conversation without resistance. Because these conversations that we were having with Mike when he was sitting down, none of those are getting through. We're going to have to have those.

Mike [00:47:23]:
Again and again and again and then.

Phillip [00:47:25]:
Go out and he's going to have to have more experiences and conversations with this because it's the conditioning and it has to have, I think, a long term approach to be comfortable in the unknown. If you have like a right now or you thought you kicked it, I think that comes back and kicks you in the butt, and then you don't have a comfort in the.

Eldar [00:47:45]:
So what you're saying in so many good words and very well put together is that Mike is a slow learner.

Phillip [00:47:51]:
Mike's a slow learner. But I think embracing being a slow learner, moving forward long term is the key to being okay in the unknown. I think being a slow learner is okay. I think slow learner is definitely better than being the arrogant, unteachable student.

Katherine [00:48:12]:
What was it last night? We were listening to an interview, Dan Millman, the guy that wrote the book a peaceful warrior, and then it became a movie. He said something about everyone has a different pace of learning. No two individuals are the same, and everyone is going to learn at different paces. But he did say that. I can't remember, was it a study or some observation where some people would develop a skill much faster and those who it took longer to actually did it better? So those that learn faster sometimes don't do it as well as don't benefit longer time. Does that make any sense? So I think it's interesting that we do have different speeds, but nonetheless, you're getting to where you need to, and that's what's important.

Phillip [00:49:09]:
Yeah, me and Mike, yesterday, I think we did. Yeah, we talked about time. I think removing the element of time.

Mike [00:49:16]:
There'S a lack of pressure, for sure.

Phillip [00:49:19]:
Because if you're putting pressure on yourself to a lot of these things that we're talking about, like love and stuff like this, I don't think you put two and two together and you're like, okay, if I do this, this and this, I'm going to get this. I feel like for love, you have to remove the blockages. And to have good relationships, you have to be vulnerable and honest. And these type of things are not like, okay, in one year, I'm going to have this.

Katherine [00:49:41]:
I think that you can plan.

Phillip [00:49:43]:
Timing and planning, to me, doesn't correlate to being open, vulnerable, and having loving relationships and a purpose in your life. I think you should basically be like, okay, my value system is going to change. And I'm going to go from being a superficial, materialistic guy who likes girls just for their looks or something to then saying like, hey, my focus is going to be on me and understanding where I'm at and opening up a new path of growth. That's a totally different mindset. I'm relying on me and growing inside and not anything outside of myself. A girl's attention is not going to sway my growth, which is my main goal. At the end of the day, if I'm not stable, I don't have a foundation and I'm not growing. What is wanting outside love going to bring to me? It's going to bring me temporary happiness.

Phillip [00:50:31]:
And then what? I'm going to make her sad. She's going to make me feel pressure. Like I have to do all these things. To me, finding the purpose, setting everything up is then love will then come in your life. That's how I trust it comes in. Any good thing to me that's ever happened is when I've had a bad situation and then I've pretty much been like, damn, I'm done. I don't know. And then just saying like, oh, shit, I don't know.

Phillip [00:50:56]:
And then new opportunity comes up and then like, okay, like, humble yourself. We always talk about this all the time, right? Like humbling yourself after you think you know yourself or anything. Exactly. Yeah. I think Mike's in a definitely good position. I think Tolle said he wants to hit him with a salami hammer every morning or something. He said he has to beat him every.

Eldar [00:51:26]:
This is why we need a video component to show people what the salami hammer looks like.

Phillip [00:51:30]:
I picture Michelangelo like nunchucks like Ninja Turtle. But everyone he comes in to here and he starts swinging at his head. Yeah, listen, if Mike has to beaten down and held down and just tortured with this, I think the conversations are inevitable. They're going to keep coming up. The experiences are going to keep coming up. But like I said, I think Mike's going to hear us more on this topic. It seems this is what I'm getting from this conversation. So to me, I like it because I think I can share a lot of insight.

Phillip [00:52:02]:
Because I dealt with this firsthand too. And I was somebody even in the beginning. I don't know if you remember the first time we went to SEMA. I think it was, I started in April. I think we went in May. I don't know if you remember how excited I was to show you, like restoration hardware, all the stuff, right?

Katherine [00:52:17]:
The whole thing.

Phillip [00:52:18]:
I don't know if you see that difference in me now. I don't even talk about this anymore. And you guys pointed out in me first that why are you going to the city by yourself? And second, do you like design? Or you just feel like it's something that you can talk about, like movies and all this other stuff? And I'm saying to myself, still in the air, I haven't watched basically no television, no movies besides sports. That's just true stuff that I like. I don't go to the city by myself really anymore, always with Mike or a group, because that's what I value is connection. And then the design stuff, I'm realizing, I'm like, there's so many things. I look back, I'm like, I did projects with design and fashion stuff, but they never took shape. And I would talk about this stuff to girls or just people in general.

Phillip [00:53:00]:
Like, oh, I like the aesthetic of this building, or I like this. And I'm talking to Mike and I'm saying, this is how I approach everything. You like the look of a woman or you like the look of a building? It's aesthetic. It's very surface level stuff.

Eldar [00:53:12]:
It doesn't get anywhere.

Phillip [00:53:13]:
It doesn't get anywhere. And I'm like, yo, what am I talking about? Dumb. It's very stupid conversation. And I realized this and what Mike's talking about. It can be with girls, it can be with relationships, it can be with movies, it can be with food, it can be anything. And it's like, what do you genuinely like and why do you like, like taking the mask off of what it is? I realized I like to do things with other people. I like to have lunch with you guys. I like to go out and have fun going out by myself and doing these things.

Phillip [00:53:47]:
It was just kind of like, if you don't have any other options, okay, great. But these conversations, to me are just to kind of fill the air. It's almost like if you have awkward in silence, it's like, what do you feel confident in?

Eldar [00:53:59]:
If you stop humming.

Phillip [00:54:01]:
Yeah, I stopped humming.

Mike [00:54:02]:
Yeah.

Phillip [00:54:03]:
Okay.

Mike [00:54:04]:
Yeah.

Phillip [00:54:04]:
There, see? That's fill the air.

Mike [00:54:06]:
Yeah.

Phillip [00:54:06]:
So I know that since I was little, I would watch movies and television. Why do I feel confident in this? Because I've watched it for a long time.

Mike [00:54:13]:
Whatever. Okay.

Phillip [00:54:14]:
Maybe I have a certain eye for certain things, but is this what I truly like or do I feel like it's like something that I can kind of almost wow somebody with. It's almost like you want somebody's reaction. Then you guys pointed out people pleaser stuff, and I'm like, oh, shit. To me, once you make the correlation between why you're doing a very od behavior, you have to be able to laugh at yourself and realize it's dumb.

Eldar [00:54:37]:
Yeah, no, that's super important.

Phillip [00:54:39]:
So that's pretty good, because if you told me that. Okay, you're saying this, and I realized, yeah, I'm saying it, but I don't know why I'm saying it. I don't think you can have that, like, oh, shit, I'm being dumb moment. And I think you just keep doing. But, like, to Mike. Mike had that realization, and I had the realization with you guys pointing it out, but I always believe it comes from a third party. I think this is very difficult unless you take the mud trip or whatever.

Mike [00:55:05]:
Nonsense that we talked about.

Mike [00:55:06]:
The mud.

Phillip [00:55:07]:
Mud trip.

Mike [00:55:09]:
You eat mud.

Phillip [00:55:11]:
You go eat mud, or whatever. But I think it's very difficult to have these realizations when they're not pointed out to you by a third party.

Eldar [00:55:19]:
What if you have an imaginary friend? You can do this.

Phillip [00:55:22]:
Possibly. But you guys always point out that if you're the doctor and the patient, how do you self diagnose and then actually give yourself the right prescription? What are the chances that you're realistically able to do this in an honest.

Eldar [00:55:40]:
Capacity, especially if we're dealing with ego and pride? Yeah, those are the tricky guys.

Mike [00:55:45]:
Yeah.

Phillip [00:55:46]:
Just think, your ego is so high that you're saying, like, hey, I don't need anybody else. I can do it. No worries. Mike's example to this was, hey, Philip, like, I can go to Houston's. It's not a big deal. And I'm like, okay. He still doesn't hear it yet. And he was asking, can you say it in a different way? I'm not understanding it.

Phillip [00:56:03]:
There's only so many ways that you can say it before you actually have to experience it yourself. And this is a perfect example of he had to go out to this restaurant, see a Houston's type environment to then be like, oh, shit, now I get it. So I don't think he immersed himself in it.

Mike [00:56:19]:
The lighting was better in there, so I think it was easier to dark.

Phillip [00:56:23]:
But I was telling Mike, I don't think all the conversation that you have leading up to it, I don't think the order and where it happens, I don't think it's like a waste of time. Meaning if he had the experience first and then the conversation and then it all came together, I think all the conversations that we had, I think at some point, even if like 5% of it sticks in your brain, at some point he's out. And maybe Tolly's something that he brought up thought or maybe something that you said or cat and that popped up. That's like powerful stuff. So I think all the conversations we have leading up to it are in a waste. Because if he's even not listening to us fully, I think some of the stuff does sit there. Even if it's.

Eldar [00:57:03]:
Yeah, no, I think you're right.

Mike [00:57:05]:
Yeah, you agree, baby? Yeah.

Phillip [00:57:08]:
I think Mike had a nice breakthrough and I'm looking forward to see Foley beat.

Mike [00:57:13]:
So who's afraid? The ego.

Katherine [00:57:16]:
It's the ego.

Mike [00:57:17]:
Why is it afraid?

Eldar [00:57:19]:
Because the gig is up.

Katherine [00:57:22]:
Mike is losing. He's losing that part of himself. And even though it's the best thing for him, it's closer to what you truly want. Right, but you're still. I'm only saying this because I saw the movie last night, peaceful warrior, and it was like the strongest scene in the movie. It's almost like a scary power where he's losing that identity, that ego.

Eldar [00:57:49]:
She didn't know. He's like, I don't know where I'm going. I don't know where we're going to go without you.

Katherine [00:57:54]:
Exactly.

Eldar [00:57:54]:
He's like, so what are you doing?

Katherine [00:57:56]:
You feel lost? You feel scared?

Eldar [00:57:58]:
I don't know, all sorts of things, but the ego is scared to let go. Ego doesn't want to, but he dumps it. He jumps off the building. And that's why he throws him off the building.

Phillip [00:58:08]:
Yeah, that's good too.

Eldar [00:58:11]:
So I think that's probably why you're.

Mike [00:58:14]:
Experiencing that, and I think that ultimately.

Katherine [00:58:18]:
You'Re aligning with more meaningful stuff and letting go of something that maybe is linked with vanity and just kind of doesn't have substance, is something that you ultimately want to let go of. But it could be hard because it's been a part of you for.

Eldar [00:58:34]:
Is fear always an indicator of some kind of ego situation going on that's scared for growing, for growth, new knowledge entering into our subconscious, conscious?

Mike [00:58:46]:
Well, yeah, because it's a crisis identity, Cris.

Eldar [00:58:51]:
And I'm not talking about, obviously, the fight or flight fear, like you're about to get hit by a car.

Mike [00:58:56]:
Yeah.

Eldar [00:58:57]:
You know what I'm saying? Or you need to swerve away or whatever. Somebody's chasing you with a knife.

Mike [00:59:01]:
I'm not talking about that fear.

Eldar [00:59:02]:
I'm talking about those fears. We get that when we're trying to think and stuff and something's preventing us.

Mike [00:59:11]:
Yeah, I think it's a good indicator.

Mike [00:59:16]:
Fear. Fear, yeah.

Mike [00:59:18]:
Especially if you've been struggling with it.

Eldar [00:59:20]:
But if you're experiencing that fear for the moment, can you really tune in into, like. Oh, yeah, no, I'm experiencing fear because now I'm about to break through or learn something.

Mike [00:59:29]:
I wasn't able to think about it, and I was thinking about it, I wasn't able to. I wasn't able to understand what the hell is happening. It was very confusing for me, but I knew I had to have resources, and that's why I thought Phil would help me.

Eldar [00:59:46]:
He broke it down really well.

Mike [00:59:48]:
He did.

Mike [00:59:48]:
Yeah, he did help me to understand.

Mike [00:59:51]:
It, help me to say it, because.

Mike [00:59:54]:
Also, it's like you got a million different things that you're thinking about. You don't know what to say, what's irrelevant, what's not, and you don't know how to make sense of it, so you're kind of just throwing a bunch.

Mike [01:00:03]:
Of shit at the wall and hoping that somebody can help you to kind.

Mike [01:00:09]:
Of put it in order so you can understand what's actually happening, why it's happening, what actually occurred. And then after, in retrospect, you see.

Mike [01:00:18]:
Like, how it kind of, all the.

Mike [01:00:22]:
Different events leading up to it came together.

Mike [01:00:26]:
And how everything played out.

Phillip [01:00:29]:
I think we also talked about this morning of the indicator for Mike was a woman and her look and the feeling, that's his number one thing that he talks about. He wants to be in a loving relationship. So to me, a girl is the hook for, like, for me, it was like the lifestyle on having money.

Mike [01:00:53]:
Right.

Phillip [01:00:53]:
So it's like somebody who had money, they can say things. And my logical brain would go out and then my emotional brain would kick in and I would bypass, like, hey, how you're treating somebody, how I'm being treated to get this thing. And all of a sudden you get caught up in this world of like, I'm letting this person treat me a certain way. I'm basically bypassing a lot of things that I believe in, moral ethicals, like character, things that actually matter to get this thing. And it's like, why do I want this thing? Why is it attractive to me? What am I missing in myself that is allowing this behavior to happen? So for Mike, I see that is the same mindset, but towards women. And it's like, why are you allowing yourself to be treated like this? Where are you coming from? This place of lack? Why do you have this? And why are you insecure about this thing? So I think that's definitely a good indicator of whatever the thing is, whether it's girls, finance or big things, they're usually like love based things or like the idea of status or something like this that's going to draw you in. And I think from there you have to just be honest with yourself and ask, why do I want this? You know how hard it is to ask yourself and say, like, hey, why do I want this? It's because I'm truly insecure and I don't think I deserve love. That's a deep answer.

Phillip [01:02:11]:
If you genuinely have that answer to yourself and you're sitting at home and you're having that, I think being sad is a definitely normal state. If I said to myself, like, hey.

Eldar [01:02:23]:
It'S a normal occurrence, yeah, I think so. It's like normal in the sequence, the next step, yeah.

Phillip [01:02:27]:
If I told myself, hey, I'm attracted to this because I maybe came from an environment where I wanted a better life for myself, but maybe I didn't feel like I can do it on my own. So I thought I had to rely on somebody else. And in doing this, I pushed my morals and ethics to the side so I can try to get something outside of myself that I wanted. And then you realize, like, oh, shit, when you go outside of yourself, you lose yourself and then you actually go backwards. And not only do you not get what you want, you become somebody that you don't like. And I think this is very normal phenomenon for anybody that goes outside themselves and tries to get something outside is like you become somebody that you don't like and you have to be truly honest with yourself or you go down that path, and all of a sudden you get married, you have kids. I was telling this to my guest, too. Imagine if you have kids.

Phillip [01:03:18]:
Imagine if you're married. You have this whole life together, and then these realizations start to happen. How Grateful should you feel now that you're doing this before all this stuff happens? You're figuring out your purpose, and maybe you can build it together with somebody or do it on your own, and.

Eldar [01:03:33]:
Then all the stuff be on the same page.

Phillip [01:03:34]:
So imagine like now. Say you meet somebody in a couple of years, then you go towards the same goals, and you have somebody you grow with, actually, the right proper way.

Mike [01:03:42]:
That's right.

Phillip [01:03:42]:
I think that's a blessing, right?

Eldar [01:03:43]:
100%.

Phillip [01:03:44]:
So to me, I look at it as a total positive blessing versus, like, oh, my age. That's why I said, if you get caught up on the age and the number and the timeline, I think that I understand why you'd get even maybe in a deeper sadness. But to me, if you're a healthy guy, you take care of yourself, and you have a good life. Why would 37 versus 42, why does that make a big deal? No deal?

Eldar [01:04:06]:
No, not at all.

Phillip [01:04:07]:
That, to me, is irrelevant.

Eldar [01:04:07]:
It's irrelevant. 37 sounds very young to me.

Phillip [01:04:10]:
It does. I don't understand why that would be a difference. Good.

Eldar [01:04:14]:
That's a very healthy way and proper way of looking at it. Yeah, I agree.

Phillip [01:04:17]:
But realistic time frame is years, not days or months, I believe, with this type of stuff, because we're not 15 or 16 years old. This has happened since you've probably been seven or eight. Since you can start to maybe think on your own. So you think 30 year build up with all this, that type of scar tissue and emotional damage is very big.

Mike [01:04:38]:
Yeah. Thank you, Philip.

Eldar [01:04:41]:
Holy shit. That was really good.

Mike [01:04:43]:
Yeah. So where from here, guys?

Eldar [01:04:47]:
For Mike, at least, right, in this.

Mike [01:04:49]:
Endeavor.

Eldar [01:04:52]:
Are you raising your hand?

Katherine [01:04:55]:
There's like a line to a song. All the way up.

Phillip [01:05:00]:
All the way up.

Katherine [01:05:01]:
All the way up. Yeah, I feel like this right here.

Phillip [01:05:07]:
All the way up.

Eldar [01:05:09]:
All right, cool.

Mike [01:05:10]:
All right.

Eldar [01:05:11]:
Going up.

Mike [01:05:12]:
Totally excited for him.

Katherine [01:05:13]:
Very proud.

Anatoliy [01:05:14]:
Yeah, I mean, I think it's just like a continuation of the same things he was doing. Like, I don't view it. There's a huge change that happened.

Mike [01:05:26]:
Why is it like that?

Eldar [01:05:29]:
No, but that also is a phenomenon, right? Totally. Clearly sees there's nothing big happening here. Guys like, carry on. You're over here congratulating Mike. You're clearly viewing it or ranking it, at least for a little bit. Higher than what Tolly's ranking it. And that is interesting out of itself. I think maybe I see where Tolly's coming from but I also feel like it's big but I see where Toley's coming from because I see that the work is not finished.

Mike [01:05:57]:
No, I feel the same way.

Eldar [01:05:58]:
I'm excited about it, but this was super necessary finally.

Mike [01:06:03]:
You know what I mean?

Eldar [01:06:04]:
Yeah. For your own understanding.

Mike [01:06:08]:
I know that the job is not done.

Eldar [01:06:10]:
Oh, yeah.

Mike [01:06:12]:
I'm not in the place that I want to be. Obviously I haven't met the person I want to share my life with. So it's not time to celebrate yet. But I hope it's well, I think you did. I think you did well. Yeah. And myself for sure.

Eldar [01:06:26]:
I think you got a glimpse as to who you want to be and how you want to be.

Mike [01:06:31]:
Right.

Eldar [01:06:33]:
So the meeting part now whether or not you want to stay with him, with yourself.

Mike [01:06:38]:
Right.

Eldar [01:06:38]:
Is now the journey, now the work? Yeah, no, I think.

Mike [01:06:42]:
Yeah. Where two from here?

Eldar [01:06:45]:
Consistency. More consistency in what you've been doing. And I think you in for a.

Mike [01:06:51]:
Good surprise like this.

Eldar [01:06:53]:
I think that maybe your ego didn't want the surprise and because you're still in and out, out of that you will feel those types of feelings, more confusion, more fear and all this other stuff. But in the grand scheme of things, I think you shooting in the right direction. No, I think two days ago whenever you experienced this was a good testimonial, good testament to all this.

Mike [01:07:16]:
No, I think it's a huge thing that I was finally able to see myself. Yeah, I understand the world.

Eldar [01:07:22]:
We were trying to always see it for you and help you see it.

Mike [01:07:24]:
Right?

Eldar [01:07:25]:
All these discussions and stuff like that. We saw it for you because we care for you, we want the best for you. You know what I'm saying? And now you're finally like, yo, wait a second.

Mike [01:07:34]:
Oh shit.

Eldar [01:07:35]:
This is what it is. This is what they always saw and this is the pitfall that I always allow myself to go under.

Mike [01:07:44]:
Yeah, the thing is, in theory we can talk about it, but until you go into the fire, correct. And you face yourself. I think I did go into the fire. I went to meet with the people I really don't hang out with. This is not your environment, my environment anymore. It's not my life, not your people. I went to do this thing and I was able to come in there, be myself, make the jokes that I make, carry myself the way I carry myself here without caring what people think and slow down enough to see, which is what I try to do when things that I'm not attached to.

Mike [01:08:19]:
That's right.

Mike [01:08:20]:
Which I think I have a good.

Mike [01:08:22]:
Eye when I can see things that.

Mike [01:08:24]:
People are saying, like calling people out on their own shit, but not ever calling myself out on my own shit. But I think this opportunity, I was.

Mike [01:08:35]:
Able to do that.

Eldar [01:08:36]:
Good. See, you did meet yourself. I finally met yourself in the most vulnerable.

Mike [01:08:42]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Eldar [01:08:42]:
Because that was your achilles heel, right place, where you finally were able to be yourself. And that's why I told you, when you find a person who fucks with you, they'll understand that part of you.

Mike [01:08:52]:
And they'll want to fuck with you. And when they do, you're going to be like, holy shit. Yeah.

Eldar [01:08:58]:
That's when I said what I said when I met cat.

Mike [01:09:00]:
I said, she understands me because I.

Eldar [01:09:03]:
Was able to be myself and that's all I needed.

Mike [01:09:05]:
Yeah.

Eldar [01:09:07]:
That gave me the opportunity that I can be myself. I don't have to be around the bush.

Phillip [01:09:11]:
But I think that also says that with that kind of criteria, for you to be happy, for somebody to know yourself, you have to know yourself also.

Eldar [01:09:23]:
She just met himself.

Phillip [01:09:24]:
Yeah, exactly.

Mike [01:09:25]:
But it's funny, I feel like I met him, but I feel like I said bye to him in a way. I'm not trying to be arrogant here. I already figured out, but not that I already saw him, but I finally saw him. And I'm like, you're disgusting. I don't want to be this fuck off by, obviously it didn't just happen like a click, but that's how I feel. Like I was able to remove that.

Mike [01:09:50]:
Veil and see it.

Mike [01:09:55]:
I feel that's huge.

Mike [01:09:58]:
Seeing things for what it is.

Phillip [01:10:01]:
But removing it also, to me, there's removing it, but that doesn't ultimately say, like, oh, now I know who I am. I think you enter that unknown state. So you basically are realizing now I'm not this. I'm not this. But now you're in this kind of dark limbo state. And that's not saying that. Now I know who I am. I think where you're coming from, where you were saying like, oh, cat understands me.

Phillip [01:10:27]:
To me, you're coming from a place of like, you understand who you are because there's no way that that thing would be important to you if you didn't know who you were, what you stood for and what you were about. You were saying, this woman's going to bring me peace and she's going to understand who I am to me. But I think the next step after the darkness.

Mike [01:10:49]:
I think you're right. But I'm going to say how I feel about what you're saying and maybe you agree or not, but because I now have uncovered this about myself, that I have this within me, because obviously for a long time I didn't believe it. If I go and I do this.

Mike [01:11:04]:
Kind of behavior, right?

Mike [01:11:06]:
Because obviously it doesn't just live in this with the girls, it lives in other places. But even if it. Let's talk about the girl stuff. If I go, I will not be able to keep this up because I.

Mike [01:11:15]:
Will always know that he's there.

Mike [01:11:19]:
I will become super sensitive to this. Disgusting.

Eldar [01:11:21]:
Yeah, it's impossible that ick, I think. And what you've actually experienced, it's almost like a shock. It's almost like an antidote to that thing, right?

Mike [01:11:30]:
So, yeah, like he said, if he.

Eldar [01:11:32]:
Continues this, it's going to feel really dirty. No, I'm saying really bad.

Phillip [01:11:37]:
I agree. I don't think you.

Eldar [01:11:40]:
He finally is going to be able to measure himself to himself no longer. Anybody can tell him otherwise, like, hey, you acting this way, you know what I mean? He's no longer going to need me or you, for example, to police him in certain situations because now he has to hold himself accountable because he will know exactly how that feels.

Phillip [01:11:58]:
No, I get it. And that will prevent him from then going back into these arenas that don't make him feel good. But I'm just saying, if those arenas.

Eldar [01:12:05]:
Are stronger than him, yes.

Phillip [01:12:07]:
Yeah, but that other side of the coin is then saying, okay, now by elimination, I'm realizing a woman that's just talking about things. It turns me off. Just going to places that are just about over the top luxury experiences. That doesn't draw me in. Then it's like, okay, what actually does? And then that's, to me, a whole nother conversation. To me, putting yourself in the state to be vulnerable enough to actually do what you truly want, think about how many people, let's say we'll keep it on women. How many guys do you think probably lower their standards and don't think that they can get what they truly want?

Mike [01:12:44]:
Right?

Phillip [01:12:44]:
So I think there's one state to say, like, okay, I don't want this, but then also to have the courage to then say, okay, I'm going to actually figure out what I want and then go after that. To me, that's like a different strength and that's like a different level. It's like there's level of the video games, like Mike was on level three. Now, I think just because you're on level three, I think then there's a whole different skill set that goes into five.

Mike [01:13:07]:
I agree.

Phillip [01:13:07]:
To me, that's the one I'm learning now. It's like taking the courage to then say, like, okay, I want to figure out who I am and I know what I don't want.

Eldar [01:13:15]:
I'm going to be about it all the time, and I'm going to present that to the world and I'm going.

Mike [01:13:19]:
To get what I want.

Phillip [01:13:20]:
And I'm going to get what I want.

Eldar [01:13:21]:
That's right.

Phillip [01:13:21]:
And then in that, I'm not settling. I'm going to figure out who I'm going to become. And then you can have a conversation, like you said, with Kat, where it's like she understands me. I know who I am.

Eldar [01:13:31]:
This is it.

Phillip [01:13:31]:
And you have the courage to accept that love and then build the love, a life with that love. That's right. That's what we're talking about.

Eldar [01:13:38]:
That's exactly what we're talking about. That is the path.

Mike [01:13:40]:
Yeah, but also what he's saying is. I understand what he's saying now. I have, like, a thing where I maybe have to figure out who I am now. I know that that's not who I want to be and that's not who I am. But I think part of the way.

Mike [01:13:54]:
That that night played out, which was interesting, is because I was not just.

Mike [01:13:59]:
Trolling her a little bit and the whole situation that was happening, I was also trolling the people that I was also interacting with. So I was able to bring myself who I am here. I think a troll, a joker person, likes to laugh, not take things seriously, not play this game. I was able to introduce that.

Mike [01:14:19]:
So it reaffirmed in me, like, yo.

Mike [01:14:23]:
Go out there and be yourself. Not to say, and I said this to Phil yesterday, I was like, yo, it's not about going to these places or not going to these places. It's about knowing that I can choose the way that I'm going to engage there.

Eldar [01:14:34]:
And those places have nothing to do.

Mike [01:14:36]:
And they have nothing to do with it.

Eldar [01:14:37]:
They have nothing to do with affecting you in any type of way.

Mike [01:14:41]:
No.

Eldar [01:14:41]:
But if they do, then you still know. You're going to get that ick, you're going to be vulnerable, you're going to get owned.

Mike [01:14:46]:
You know what I'm saying?

Mike [01:14:48]:
Yeah.

Eldar [01:14:49]:
Ultimately, it's on you.

Mike [01:14:50]:
Yeah. That's how I felt.

Eldar [01:14:52]:
I think that's what he's talking about. He's talking about that power to be yourself at all times.

Mike [01:14:56]:
Yeah, that's how I felt. A lot of it was throughout that night. I was able to. People were trying to even like, the doorman, he's like, we'll see you soon. I'm like, really? You sure? How you know that? This place is a dump, bro. The food is whack. There's nothing special here.

Eldar [01:15:10]:
There you go.

Mike [01:15:11]:
It's overpriced. That's who I am. I'm not going to hold back. You're not going to hit me with this nice line and I'm going to take you seriously. Like, oh, yeah, I'll see you very soon. I was great. Thank you so much. I'm not engaging in that world, and other people, too, throughout the night that I was like, I'm not taking you seriously.

Mike [01:15:29]:
Whatever you're saying, you're not actually saying it. So I think part of, again, introducing.

Eldar [01:15:36]:
You'Reassuring yourself that what you already have, because it's not like you have to here now, develop a new self here. We're not talking about that. You already know how to have fun. We've been talking about it. You know what I mean? It's just a lot of times you had to put that to the side or you were scared to present that to the world for very specific reasons because you were selling out.

Phillip [01:15:56]:
That's the courage that I'm saying.

Eldar [01:15:57]:
That is the courage.

Phillip [01:15:58]:
Happened to that now, day to day.

Eldar [01:16:03]:
And if there are remnants of arrogance, ego, pride or whatever it is around certain topics, then you address those as they come in. You know what I mean?

Mike [01:16:13]:
Yeah.

Eldar [01:16:14]:
And you'll see them, obviously, because you're sensitive enough now to be able to identify what's actually going on.

Mike [01:16:21]:
Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Eldar [01:16:24]:
You know what I mean?

Mike [01:16:26]:
Yeah, that's it.

Eldar [01:16:28]:
And that's where self respect is developed as well. To know what to engage in, what not to engage in, and where you're strong and where you're not strong.

Mike [01:16:39]:
So again, I think, continue to do what you're doing. Go out there, have fun.

Eldar [01:16:44]:
You know what I'm saying?

Mike [01:16:44]:
Put yourself out there.

Eldar [01:16:48]:
Put yourself out there. Now, I think this is your time and I think you're equipped enough to see the difference.

Mike [01:16:56]:
Yeah.

Mike [01:16:58]:
You're going to keep trying to be attentive, pay attention.

Mike [01:17:01]:
Yeah.

Mike [01:17:01]:
Slow down. Enough to see what's being said, what's being done. That's right.

Mike [01:17:05]:
Yeah.

Mike [01:17:06]:
It was like certain moments, I don't know, maybe it was more. But one that just came to mind is that moment when you see the person's behavior. And then you recognize that you behave like this in a different situation. This girl, she needed something. They didn't bring her a plate. And she asked once, but it's like, you ask with a nasty thing, you're entitled. Like, people owe you something. And it made me think about that moment when you called me out about that.

Mike [01:17:36]:
When I went to that place and I was with the car, I was like, yo, my man, you know what kind of car this is?

Mike [01:17:40]:
Yeah.

Mike [01:17:41]:
It made me recollect, like, yo, I.

Mike [01:17:44]:
Behave this way towards you. Yeah.

Mike [01:17:47]:
I have it in me. And I was like, yo, this is disgusting behavior. I get it, bro. Somebody didn't bring you a plate, didn't bring you a fork, okay? It's inconvenience, but it's not that serious. It's not that serious. But because you were like, I'm in this kind of person. I'm in this kind of place. You got to treat me this kind of way.

Mike [01:18:06]:
You're entitled to something. You're above these people. They're just waiters, and they owe you something.

Mike [01:18:16]:
That's crazy.

Mike [01:18:17]:
And she was not shy about it at all, which helped me to even more see the highlighted behavior and then to connect it to myself in the moment, I was like, oh, man, she.

Eldar [01:18:30]:
Really thought she was a hot shot.

Mike [01:18:31]:
She really thought she was all that. But it made me see how I behaved in that type of way in treating people in a certain moment of, like, you know, wanting to be treated a certain way.

Mike [01:18:43]:
Of course. Yeah.

Eldar [01:18:44]:
Because you took yourself too seriously.

Mike [01:18:46]:
Yeah.

Mike [01:18:47]:
You wanted to make yourself to be out, to be something that you're not, or not that you don't even need to be that.

Mike [01:18:54]:
No.

Eldar [01:18:57]:
But somewhere down the line, she also.

Mike [01:18:59]:
Bought in into know. So.

Eldar [01:19:03]:
All right, what are the final thoughts?

Mike [01:19:04]:
Mike?

Eldar [01:19:05]:
Hit us with it.

Mike [01:19:06]:
My final thoughts.

Mike [01:19:11]:
I mean, I'm excited now to bridging.

Mike [01:19:15]:
Another gap as a part know my.

Mike [01:19:18]:
Yeah.

Mike [01:19:19]:
And to seeing what kind of fun things, interesting things are going to happen. Good stuff, bad stuff, new stuff, interesting stuff.

Mike [01:19:27]:
Right. Yeah. So I'm excited because I feel like.

Mike [01:19:32]:
There'S something clicking in this sphere is fear that I've had always long time issue with. And finally that, I guess, the path.

Mike [01:19:41]:
Was shown to me, the wrong path.

Mike [01:19:44]:
That I finally saw. And now I'm looking forward to discovering the right path. I don't even know if it's discovering but continuing the path, because I don't have to do anything. I just got to be myself.

Mike [01:19:55]:
That's right.

Mike [01:19:56]:
Just be who I am. Have fun joke around troll. People help people who ask for help. This is what I do.

Eldar [01:20:02]:
This is what you like to do?

Mike [01:20:03]:
Yeah, that's what I love to do. And I do it. So now I just got to go everywhere and do it.

Mike [01:20:08]:
Yeah.

Mike [01:20:10]:
To impress somebody or not impress somebody. It's just like, this is what the.

Mike [01:20:13]:
Fuck I want to do. You like it. All your shit, like, your shit, like, your shit.

Eldar [01:20:19]:
Nobody can tell you.

Mike [01:20:21]:
I think now you hitting it.

Eldar [01:20:23]:
Hitting it.

Mike [01:20:23]:
Yeah.

Eldar [01:20:23]:
Remember before you weren't, you're like, yo, I'm still not confident here.

Mike [01:20:27]:
Yeah.

Eldar [01:20:28]:
I don't know.

Mike [01:20:28]:
It.

Eldar [01:20:29]:
I can't.

Mike [01:20:29]:
Like, I think it's because I cracked it in the area that I had the biggest attachment.

Mike [01:20:33]:
Yeah.

Mike [01:20:33]:
So now the other stuff, I'm like, will it be challenging? Maybe, but it's not even that serious. It's not that serious because I know I could fix it. I could figure it out. If I have a block, it's not a problem. If I was able to really finally see this huge fucking, I don't know, ego within me about this other stuff is minute, minute.

Mike [01:20:57]:
Yeah.

Phillip [01:20:59]:
Final thoughts.

Mike [01:21:00]:
Don't say that, Phil. Don't say that.

Eldar [01:21:02]:
Thousand donuts.

Phillip [01:21:05]:
Yeah, I would say that. I think now you'll be able to, I guess, see this in other areas, and I said it before, too, is.

Mike [01:21:19]:
That Mike's in a position where I.

Phillip [01:21:23]:
Think 90% or probably more is in this philosophy bubble and does this on a day to day basis, this thing that's holding him back, or was. I look at it as like a temporary block, like a roadblock, and it was preventing him from being the full picture. I think, like I said, once you become this full picture, then you can then actually build up the strength and the courage to then go after what you want and figure out what it is that you actually want. So I think that's the next step. So I think the next step is definitely just like you said, be himself. Now you can be fully yourself 100% instead of being 90% yourself and then, like, 10%. Like, you have to hide and be this secretive guy and do these kind of things. You're going to get called out on.

Phillip [01:22:04]:
Now, if we call it out on you, I think his response time is going to be a lot quicker. It's like, oh, shit. Now he can probably laugh at it versus maybe being defensive. And I think now it's going to be easier for us and easier for us as a group to then grow together because it's definitely more fun to grow together when one person definitely has one thing that we're pointing out that he's struggling with, it makes it difficult for the group, I think, also to be cohesive and be on the same page. So I think this is going to help the strength of the group. I think it's going to help, obviously, Mike's confidence moving forward, and I think it's just going to make everything more fun.

Eldar [01:22:39]:
That's very well said again, Phil. And one thing you kept using is courage. I think that should definitely be maybe our topic next. Courage is huge, and I'm going to tie it in with the next thing.

Mike [01:22:49]:
Mike, also, my final thoughts is that.

Eldar [01:22:52]:
Finding the courage to also, when you start, like Philip said, you're going to start seeing this in the world more and more in different areas, not just the areas where you had a problem with. You're going to see injustice or you're going to see certain things and stuff like that.

Mike [01:23:07]:
Right. Especially when you get into a relationship.

Eldar [01:23:12]:
With someone, a very intimate one, a close one, if that person struggles with the same thing, you have to find the courage to also be able to shed this light and be able to.

Mike [01:23:21]:
Stand behind your truth.

Eldar [01:23:26]:
Yes, that's next, right. Where you can advocate for goodness, advocate for doing the right thing.

Mike [01:23:34]:
And that does take courage. That does take courage, sensitivity, a lot of different things that's going know, shed.

Eldar [01:23:48]:
Light to the other person on this.

Mike [01:23:49]:
Matter, because I think a lot of.

Eldar [01:23:51]:
People do struggle with this specific thing.

Mike [01:23:53]:
Right.

Eldar [01:23:53]:
And I think in combination, like Philip said, humor, right. Courage and seeing things for what they.

Mike [01:24:01]:
Are will allow you to not only.

Eldar [01:24:05]:
Help this with yourself, but now help others. And that's definitely the next step. And I think that's an awesome journey, because now you're taking a new set of eyes almost into the world, and if you're really paying attention, you're going.

Mike [01:24:17]:
To be like, oh, wow.

Eldar [01:24:20]:
What you can do and how you can influence the world.

Mike [01:24:23]:
And that's awesome. I think. You know what I mean just now.

Eldar [01:24:26]:
Again, courage, I think, is a very important topic, which maybe we can discuss how and what we need to do in order to really hone in on it to really get where we're trying to get to. I would like that topic. It's a good topic. Yeah, it's a good topic. And, yeah, the more the merrier, like Philip said, you know what I mean? Because if when you're growing together and you're seeing that everyone's improving on their own little battlefields, because we have our own little battlefields that we're fighting, and I can share my recent one too. Maybe for next one. Catherine sprung on me. She's like, hey, how come we're trying to get pregnant? We haven't been able to get pregnant in a while, right? And she sprung it on me.

Eldar [01:25:07]:
She's like, hey, how come you're not entertaining IVF, what is it called? But that thing where they inseminate the woman with the scientific.

Phillip [01:25:18]:
In vitro or something.

Mike [01:25:19]:
Yeah, in vitro fertilization.

Eldar [01:25:21]:
Yeah, there you go. Yeah, in vitro and fertilization.

Mike [01:25:23]:
So IVF or whatever.

Eldar [01:25:25]:
And I have my reasons and stuff, but the way she talked about it and stuff, we clash heads for just a moment. We had a little moment. We have our own little battlefields. Like I said, that's where I'm at right now with that stuff.

Phillip [01:25:41]:
A new babish. A new babish.

Mike [01:25:44]:
A new babish.

Eldar [01:25:45]:
What's going on? I'm still trying to get Mr. Orange to what's his name to transform into a human.

Phillip [01:25:51]:
Wow.

Mike [01:25:52]:
You know what I mean? He's waiting.

Eldar [01:25:54]:
I can.

Phillip [01:25:54]:
A rocking chair with, like, a pipe, right?

Mike [01:25:57]:
Yeah, he's mad wise. You know how much he heard, how much wisdom he heard.

Phillip [01:26:01]:
So I was asking, like, dude, how many podcasts has he been a part of since he was a dude?

Eldar [01:26:04]:
He doesn't even want to leave anymore.

Mike [01:26:05]:
You see?

Eldar [01:26:06]:
He's hungry as shit. He has not eaten all day. He's like, no, I'm staying.

Mike [01:26:11]:
Let's see. I missed this. Look at this. Yeah.

Eldar [01:26:14]:
So the more the merrier. Because everybody sees each other's progress, help each other, and able to challenge one another, right? At times it's hard. At times, it's fun. At times, it's tough. But nonetheless, I think it's super important, and it's cool.

Phillip [01:26:29]:
You know what's cool about these?

Eldar [01:26:30]:
Now we're sharing the shit with the world.

Phillip [01:26:33]:
I was telling Mike, it takes a village. I was telling Mike these conversations. I remember we had this conversation two weeks ago, and then we were going back and forth, maybe butting heads on certain things. Know, he was calling out and me of not communicating it properly. And then maybe Mike, remind me this.

Eldar [01:26:51]:
Okay, I'm sorry.

Mike [01:26:51]:
Philip Dennis rocks the Forever podcast. Well, that's nice. Go ahead.

Phillip [01:26:57]:
I like. So I remember with. We were going back and forth on. We're going back and forth on. Oh, I had it.

Eldar [01:27:13]:
I'm sorry.

Phillip [01:27:14]:
No, I'll get back to it.

Eldar [01:27:16]:
You were having these conversations.

Phillip [01:27:18]:
We were having these conversations.

Mike [01:27:19]:
You were bumping heads.

Phillip [01:27:20]:
We were bumping heads a little bit.

Mike [01:27:22]:
About me and you bumping heads.

Phillip [01:27:23]:
Yeah, we were talking about.

Mike [01:27:25]:
About the punishment thing.

Mike [01:27:26]:
Yeah, we're talking about the punishment thing.

Phillip [01:27:29]:
I had it.

Mike [01:27:29]:
It was something. It will come to me.

Mike [01:27:33]:
I was calling you out or you were calling me out.

Mike [01:27:36]:
No. Yeah.

Phillip [01:27:36]:
We were going back and forth on it and I was going to say, like, there was some kind of, like, the good thing is you said silver lining. Or, like, good thing about.

Eldar [01:27:43]:
The good thing about having these conversations.

Phillip [01:27:45]:
The good thing about having these conversations. So the good thing about having these conversations is.

Mike [01:27:53]:
I thought I had it. Right. I'm going to get it. Hold on.

Phillip [01:27:59]:
The good thing about having these conversations.

Mike [01:28:01]:
It's crazy.

Phillip [01:28:02]:
So we had this conversation, like two weeks prior. Right? Okay, now I got it.

Mike [01:28:06]:
There you go.

Phillip [01:28:06]:
So we had it two weeks prior, and then I think it's cool for me. I trust in the process, too, and I trust in this, where it just kind of, like, fizzled out a little bit and then when it came back up, it came back up naturally based off of life, actually presenting the example, opportunities, the opportunity, I think realizing that you don't have to force things, I think when you trust in this and you say, like, hey, I'm able to have these conversations. I'm able to speak freely if you don't get it. And I'm trying my hardest to communicate this. Yeah, maybe you can always improve on your skills and you can prove on taking in the information, vice versa. But I think at some point you just say, okay, I don't get it. I truly don't know. And again, that's the power of saying I don't know.

Phillip [01:28:57]:
And then you get to then have an experience. You get to go out and do this into the field unexpectedly, like not knowing what's going to happen or when it's going to happen, you're probably going for.

Eldar [01:29:04]:
It's a completely different experience.

Phillip [01:29:06]:
Yeah. He didn't know that this was going to happen.

Mike [01:29:08]:
Yeah.

Phillip [01:29:08]:
Right. So then now the conversation is reopening. Now we're able to have a great conversation, a productive conversation, take all the things that we were talking about from the last couple of weeks, bring them back in, and now life goes on. That's, to me, the beauty of the whole process is that once you say something, it's like planting that seed. And sometimes it's going to happen in a couple of days, hours, weeks, or like maybe months, years, whatever. But this one took maybe a couple of weeks, and now we're having a conversation on it. So I just thought it was cool to see the conversation and how it happened and how you can butt heads a little bit, how you can go back and forth and not truly, maybe understand each other, like 100%, but then life is saying, okay, I'm going to take over for a little bit, and then I'm going to give him a situation, and then you can reopen the conversation again. And now we're beautifully understanding each other.

Phillip [01:29:55]:
There's no barrier to entry. What was the difference? Mike was open, had an opportunity for an experience. Got it. Had to maybe deal with some uncomfortable emotions and feelings.

Mike [01:30:06]:
Right.

Phillip [01:30:06]:
But that, to me, is part of the game.

Mike [01:30:09]:
Yeah.

Eldar [01:30:10]:
Brought it back, shared. And now we all on the same page.

Phillip [01:30:12]:
Yeah. If you're willing to have the attachment and go down the shit route and be a pisser, you're going to have to be able to expect some pain and some depression and sadness. I think that, to me, is like a very small price to pay for then having the ability to pursue. Yeah, I just remember talking to Mike about that and then how the conversation just kind of fizzled over the last couple of weeks, and then it just kind of reopened.

Mike [01:30:43]:
When I was sick.

Mike [01:30:44]:
Yeah.

Mike [01:30:44]:
I was like, yeah, that kind of thing.

Phillip [01:30:46]:
Kind of like, it lingered.

Mike [01:30:47]:
But, I mean, I was sick for almost all week last week.

Phillip [01:30:49]:
But just think of how everything played out, though, from that conversation to then. You stay home for a couple of days and you were getting better, and then that opportunity presented itself to me. That's not like a coincidence.

Eldar [01:31:01]:
No, I don't think it was a coincidence at all. And I think as you get good at what's his name, those things you.

Mike [01:31:07]:
Can almost predict in the future. Yeah, I agree.

Eldar [01:31:11]:
You could anticipate almost.

Phillip [01:31:12]:
But you got to give Mike credit, too, because I think deep down, as much as he was maybe kind of joking about it, deep down, I think we did strike a nerve and he did care. I think that part opened up something even though he wasn't fully hearing it. I think something emotionally opened up. And I think it's hard to measure when something inside, like a block opens up, because again, it's like maybe we made that example of stress, of how it's easy to say I can put a number on weight and pounds, but what about stress? What does that factor in? What about when you talk to somebody? Emotional blockage inside your actual. How you take in information and energy. How does that look in your body and how do you factor that in? You can't see this invisible, but it's a variable. But it is a variable.

Eldar [01:31:59]:
It is a variable.

Phillip [01:32:00]:
So I think that we did something.

Eldar [01:32:03]:
Think about all the studies that they do, medical studies and all this other psychological studies and all this other stuff, right? You know what I'm saying? When you understanding now that these blockages that are present, how do you measure this? How do you measure this? When they take 1000 people, right? And they say, oh, okay, yeah, he's 65, he's 62. He weighs this much, let's give him this candy or this placebo or let's give him this medicine. You know what I mean? They don't evaluate for the stress, right?

Phillip [01:32:25]:
Yeah.

Eldar [01:32:26]:
What do you do and how do you live your life? Do you meditate? Do you not?

Mike [01:32:28]:
Right.

Eldar [01:32:29]:
There's a lot of questions that go behind what's going on. And so they give you this data. They finally present this data to you to say, okay, cool, the placebo did this and then non placebo did this. This is the effectiveness or not. But for someone who's actually thinking about what's actually going on, there might be other variables that might play why this was affected this way and this was affected that way. You know what I mean? Why did fucking placebo work?

Mike [01:32:54]:
Yeah.

Phillip [01:32:55]:
To me, we put in like a dart, like a tranquilizer dart. And to me, it had a two week initiation period.

Mike [01:33:06]:
Yeah.

Phillip [01:33:06]:
It was marinating and then all of a sudden it kicked in. So you're telling me that words have that much power and what effect does it have on the body when you're trying to resist? It's still there. Like, how powerful is the truth versus the ego?

Eldar [01:33:20]:
Oh, for.

Phillip [01:33:20]:
So that's. That's pretty cool to think.

Eldar [01:33:23]:
Definitely. Definitely.

Mike [01:33:25]:
Yeah. All right, well, thanks, Mike. Rock and roll. Yeah.

Eldar [01:33:30]:
For sharing.

Mike [01:33:31]:
Yeah, for sure.