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Kevin Kaiser: Unlock Your Purpose
856 Plays2 years ago
Kevin Kaiser—a good friend—joins us on the show to talk about how to unlock, discover, and uncover your purpose. For 25 years, Kevin's worked with some of the world's top-leading perfomers—from New York Times bestselling authors to Grammy award winning musicians—and yet, despite their external success, he realized they all struggle internally. Now, using a blend of psychology, somatic practices, and rites of passage, he helps people deepen their relationship to themselves, and live their truest, most soul-infused lives. You can find him at kevinkaiser.co
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Transcript
Introduction to Kevin Kaiser
00:00:27
Speaker
Welcome to this week's episode of The Art of Authenticity. I'm Laura Coe, your host, and thank you guys so much for tuning in once again. Today we have a friend of mine, Kevin, Kaiser joining. Kevin is somebody that I've recently met and I just adore and you're going to see why soon.
Internal Struggles of Successful Individuals
00:00:44
Speaker
We had such a great time in this interview hearing his whole story from somebody who went through the system advising people from all walks of life, from Silicon Valley, Grammy-winning musicians, New York Times best-selling authors to Fortune 500 executives, Navy Seals, even high school teachers. And what he learned, like many people who have come on the show, is that despite all these people having the success paradigm figured out, they were definitely
Kevin's Personal Journey and Practices
00:01:14
Speaker
struggling internally. This gave Kevin an opportunity to look within himself and think about what he wanted. Over many decades, like many of us, he has worked to unlock, uncover, and discover what it is that's true for him. He is now somebody who is using everything that he has learned from psychology to somatic practices, rites of passage to help them deepen their potential. You can check him out at
00:01:42
Speaker
Kaiser K-E-V-I-N-K-A-I-S-E-R dot C-O, not C-O-M dot C-O. Check them out. If you're trying to figure out how to integrate the soul journey, the process, what you're learning, he is somebody who is so profoundly wise, thoughtful. I use him all the time in my own soul journey. So I am sure you'll enjoy experiencing what he has to offer.
00:02:10
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Kevin's Varied Career Background
00:02:12
Speaker
And as always, if you want to check out what's going on with me, come over to the little soul school, little soul dot school. Well, you'll see my new books, the nature of series, nature of love, nature of boundaries, nature of self-love, or learn how to access the Akashic records on your own, a free course. Check it out. Enjoy today's episode and thank you guys for tuning in.
00:02:35
Speaker
Welcome to this week's episode of The Art of Authenticity. I'm Laura Coe, your host, and I am so excited to have a very, very dear friend of mine, Kevin Keiser on the show. Hey, Kevin. Hey, Laura. It's good to see you and hear you.
00:02:51
Speaker
Yeah.
Worldly Life vs. Soulful Journey
00:02:53
Speaker
I'm so excited to have you come on and to meet the listeners today because we have such a great friendship. And while I think I know your story, I actually don't know all of it. So I'm intrigued and excited to hear the details as we walk the audience through. But for you guys out there, Kevin is an author. He is an investment advisor and he worked in the entertainment business. He is a businessman, an entrepreneur. What don't you do really?
00:03:22
Speaker
I don't juggle. At least I don't juggle well. I've tried. Multi-faceted guy. But what I love so much is your story about how you came into a life that is spiritual, authentic, and also very much in the
Societal Programming and Career Choices
00:03:45
Speaker
world. So I want to share with people like this
00:03:48
Speaker
the struggle, the straddle between living our life and being in the world, attempting to earn a living, have kids, have the family do all these things, and yet travel this authentic soul life, figure out what is a calling and a deep purpose, which today people are thinking about more and more. It's really a topic that people are struggling with and thinking about. Yeah, sure. Well, where would you like me to start? At the beginning?
00:04:18
Speaker
Take us back to Kevin at age one. Yeah, no, tell us your story.
00:04:25
Speaker
You got out of college, you became an investment advisor. How did you make the decision to go that route out of school? And where was your mindset? Can you even remember back then when that was? Yeah, I can. I mean, like everybody, right? I grew up with this story, this programming that someday I could be important.
Investment Management Experience
00:04:50
Speaker
that there's something fundamentally missing in me. I'm not quite my full potential and I need to go achieve things in order to matter. I mean, that's just kind of the story that we're told. And I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do and looked around and literally here was my criteria was what makes a lot of money.
00:05:17
Speaker
and what could make me important. Literally, the first thing I saw was the investment world. Because this was right around the time of the big tech boom. Everybody was making a killing, investing in dotcom stocks. And so I figured, well, I'll go do that. And so I moved to Colorado with a good buddy, had $500 to my name, no job, and just started
00:05:46
Speaker
hunting down different finance companies, different investment firms.
Realization of True Strengths
00:05:51
Speaker
I ended up at Tiro Price, which is a big mutual fund company and did that for a few years and then went into private practice at what's called a multifamily office. So multifamily offices, you're essentially chief financial officers for rich families. So we would do investment management, we would pay bills, I mean, you name it.
00:06:14
Speaker
So it was all kind of all in one. These are people that were worth... They were decimillionaires, 10, 20, $50 million net worth, that kind of thing. But truth be told, I wasn't very good at math. I wasn't great at investment management, which thankfully, we had people that were really good at analyzing all that kind of stuff.
00:06:39
Speaker
What I was really good at was sitting across the table from people and hearing where they were lying to themselves about life.
Career Dissatisfaction and Transition
00:06:48
Speaker
And these were people... At this time, I was in my 20s and 30s and I had clients who were in their 40s, 50s, 60s, sometimes in their 70s that we'd go through the portfolio reports and they'd set them aside and then they would spill their guts to me. I have all this stuff. I'm not happy. What is the purpose of life? All the simple questions that everybody asked. And for whatever reason, I just connected with them about that.
00:07:18
Speaker
I did that for maybe it was almost 10 years and did not want to be that when I grew up. So I was miserable. Sorry, but you didn't want to be what when you grew up? You didn't want to be them? Or you didn't want to continue this job? Which part of that did you mean? Yeah, I didn't feel like... So being an investment advisor felt like
00:07:45
Speaker
I was wearing a shirt that was two sizes too small. It just didn't fit me anymore. It just didn't fit. And it was a crossroads where I had to decide, do I want to become a full partner in this firm? And if so, this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm going to be when I grow up. I'm going to do this for the next 40 years. And I just didn't want to do that.
00:08:09
Speaker
And as happens. Yeah. Let me ask you a question about that though. Like, cause so many people are in that position right now, right? Where they're in that shirt that doesn't fit. Yeah. And like hindsight, you're looking back and it's easy to know the difference, but like if you were to describe what the
Entertainment Industry Challenges
00:08:28
Speaker
difference is of a shirt that's two sizes too small to today, where you're feeling like your shirt might fit a little better. Um, what is that?
00:08:38
Speaker
What was that sensation like back then? How did that manifest in your life? I would say a couple of different ways. One is I just wasn't that happy doing what I was doing.
00:08:57
Speaker
It didn't matter what day of the week it was or what exactly I was doing. It was visceral. It was in my body. I just felt disconnected from my own life. I remember this one question coming up over and over and it was, what am I doing? What am I actually doing with my life?
00:09:19
Speaker
And do I want to keep doing this? And so it was, I just felt adrift. And so I just listened to that. I had no idea what to do with it, by the way. I didn't have a next thing. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had no idea because
00:09:38
Speaker
This role that I was in was simply kind of my default role. You know, I stumbled across this and I started doing this. And right around that time, it was actually the first client that I ever, you know, brought into the firm. He was maybe 20 years older than me and we would become really good friends. He took me out to lunch one day and he said, you know what, Kaiser, you need to do something else.
00:10:05
Speaker
you're obviously not happy doing what you're doing." And he actually made me an offer. He said, why don't we find a company that you can run it. I'll help front the capital for it. And right around that same time, I met another individual who was in the entertainment space and was looking for investment money and somebody to start a media fund.
00:10:32
Speaker
to take their properties and exploit them and that kind of thing. And so I said, yeah, why not? Let's do that. And married, had a two-year-old at the time, and we uprooted our family from Colorado and moved to Nashville. And I went from working with rich people to working with rich and famous people in the entertainment management space.
00:10:58
Speaker
So working with authors, Grammy-winning musicians, screenwriters, people in Hollywood, those kinds of folks. The business and creativity intersected. And it was super exciting until it wasn't.
00:11:19
Speaker
There was a lot of narcissism in that world because creators have a God complex. They're creating things.
Societal Influences and Personal Awakening
00:11:28
Speaker
And so I got into entertainment management and I discovered this is just like the investment world. Because on the surface, it's about one thing. It's about making people famous. That's like 20% of the job.
00:11:44
Speaker
you know, for anybody who knows anything about entertainment management, the other 80% is talking people, talking your clients off the ledge. It's, it's helping them, you know, through their neuroses and you know, their insecurities and those kinds of things. So it was the same thing. It was, I was like a life coach without being called a life coach. Twice. Twice. Yeah. Um, did you go into it with the same like,
00:12:11
Speaker
I want to find a way that I matter. How did your mindset shift from the first job where you were like, I just want to matter and make money to this one? What were you thinking on the way into that position? I wasn't aware enough.
00:12:29
Speaker
Um, I mean, I, because later what I would call my awakening began where I was able to see my life more clearly. But at that time I was thinking, Oh, this is cool. This is, this could be fun. Um, because it's, I'm a creative individual. At the time I was waking up at like five o'clock in the morning and writing stories, fiction stories, just as a way to blow off steam. And I thought, wouldn't it be cool to be part of that world?
00:12:59
Speaker
and make money basically making stuff up for a living, whether it's stories or helping musicians make stuff up. It just seemed fun. And I really needed that at that point in my life. Because everything to that point was spreadsheets, the market, those kinds of things. They didn't really do anything for me. I mean, the things that I loved about investing were really the people.
00:13:28
Speaker
You know the stories behind what they were trying to accomplish what they wanted to wanted to do with their lives Yeah, so yeah, so you went from I want to I don't know why I'm stuck on this because I think it's funny But I you know I just really want to find something to prove that I matter in the world and it's like yep That's not it. And then I just want to have a good time and this feels fun It's like, you know again, we're put out in the world after we're educated and
00:13:54
Speaker
with so little equipment, tools, understanding of how to navigate life choices, right? And here we are in our twenties. Okay, well, let me do something that matters. Let me do something that makes money. Let me do something that's at least fun. And yet time over time, right? Like these sort of inadequate ways of walking through our lives leave us
00:14:17
Speaker
missing that elusive shirt-too-tight desire to find the shirt that fits perfectly. You already alluded to it, so I'm dying to know. I'm sure everybody else is. You had an awakening. When did this awakening happen? Where was that in your process? Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:39
Speaker
Well, so I'll answer that. But let me, I want to tag on something you just said. Yeah. Because what we're talking about is a, it's a, it's a human thing, but it's, it's definitely an American cultural thing. It's actually written into our Declaration of Independence, right? Like the pursuit of happiness. Yeah. And Chuang Su, you know, he has this, you know, sage from long, long ago. Um,
00:15:04
Speaker
He said essentially something to the effect of happiness is the absence of the pursuit of happiness. It's Buddhism. It's the pursuit of desire that is what's making you miserable. And we have an entire system that is built on perpetuating misery. And the equation is really simple. It's your life sucks. It could be better. All you need is my
00:15:33
Speaker
product, service, whatever it is. And we're socially engineered to hate ourselves. And when I went into entertainment, I realized I actually saw behind the curtain in a totally different way because I'd always suspected it.
00:15:50
Speaker
It's the worst kept secret in the world that cares how marketing actually works. Hate yourself and then buy your way or work your way into happiness. It's really true. This whole marketing industry is built on pushing to people's pain points.
00:16:10
Speaker
until they really feel like, Oh my God, yes, I'm miserable. And then you pitch yourself as the solution. And it's, yeah, it's really templated out there. I mean, it's amazing how people follow that prescriptive model and people don't know that there's that model being used on them and it works. And now we're facing an epidemic of
00:16:32
Speaker
unworthiness, shame, right? I mean, it runs to the very core of who we are. I mean, we've got a, I heard this term last night, I was listening to a podcast, preclinical pathology, which is, and they were talking about this, you know, where we're at as a culture, this guy, Daniel Schmachtenberger, amazing guy.
00:16:55
Speaker
Um, and how we have like this undercurrent of narcissism or depression or, you know, all of these things that they're not quite clinical. Like you wouldn't be diagnosed with it. Um, but it's just simmering beneath the surface and it's because it's basically baked into our entire culture right now.
Identity Crisis and Happiness
00:17:18
Speaker
And you know, I have a 17 year old daughter right now and I see it happening.
00:17:23
Speaker
her entire generation, this feeling of,
00:17:27
Speaker
of shame, which is I'm not good enough. Yeah. And so I need to figure out a way to make myself good enough for other people to like me, right? It's like, because there's who I think I am and then there's who I think you think I am, which is really what drives my life. I'm trying to impress other people and be who I'm supposed to be. Instead of just being like, you talk a lot about authenticity, who am I actually? Right.
00:17:55
Speaker
That's when, and that's a great segue because when I started having a, it wasn't a midlife crisis because I wasn't quite at midlife yet. I'm 46 now. So this was in my, I want to say this was maybe 10 years ago that it started and there was just an overall, it was like a fog had rolled into my life and
00:18:24
Speaker
I had all of the things. I mean, I was a cliche. I had the things. I was making good money, hanging out with people that other people were trying to be around. I was in all of the right conference rooms, in all the big buildings in New York City and all of the meetings with people who actually make things happen in our country and in the world and was just miserable.
00:18:51
Speaker
I want it to be anyone other than me. That's the best way I can put it. I think it's important to specify because
00:19:02
Speaker
I bet people who would see you at that point from the outside would never think that, right? It looks like from the outside you are living the life, right? But internally, am I correct? There's like this internal narrative. It's like an imposter syndrome, right? There's this whole shell that you build around yourself to look a certain way and you sell yourself on it to the most, for the most part, right? And you look a certain way, your life looks a certain way.
00:19:29
Speaker
And then your brain can't comprehend what's happening because everything's exactly the way you were told it's supposed to be. And yet internally, there's this fraudulent imposter
00:19:43
Speaker
sense and a deeper feeling of like, but this can't be it, and there's something really wrong, but I don't know what it is. Every client who calls me, it's like, I don't want to seem ungrateful because nothing's like, quote, wrong when I look at my life.
00:20:03
Speaker
I mean, we're all very blessed in this country, even people are struggling. It's relatively better than a lot of other countries, but it's even without that conversation
00:20:14
Speaker
Um, it's hard to put your finger on what's missing When it's you when it's that authentic self because you don't even know that's the thing you're Um supposed to be looking for and you don't even know what it is anymore, right? Yeah, exactly and it and it and everybody has it because I mean I I was working with and i've been in the room with
00:20:39
Speaker
I mean, if I named names, people listening to this would know every single name. And some of the most successful, quote-unquote, successful people I'd ever been in the room with. I mean, people had sold hundreds of millions of books, those kinds of people, who
00:20:58
Speaker
weren't happy. They were asking the exact same questions. And so it wasn't like, oh, well, once I get to that level, I'm going to find happiness because I was working with those people who were already at that level. And it reminded me of my investment days and talking to people who over the years, I would ask them, when is enough? What is your
00:21:22
Speaker
what is your benchmark for success? And when I sell this business for 10 million, then I'll be a success. And then they get to that 10 million, and then it's not enough. And then it's 25, 50, 100, which seems like a really ludicrous thing to most people. But it's just a matter of scale. It's just a matter of how many zeros are after the number. Because most people really are
00:21:44
Speaker
defining if they're successful or not by our cultural standards, which is what is your net worth? How influential are you? How many people know you? How many followers do you have? All of those kinds of things.
00:21:58
Speaker
Yeah. And also, you know, there's that positive psychology movement that I'm obsessed with, and it talks about
The Goalpost Phenomenon
00:22:05
Speaker
it. I mean, it's a real study, too, that the the gold post phenomenon, right? Like, as soon as you reach your goal, you set a new one, you say to yourself, when I get there, then I will be happy. And then you get there.
00:22:17
Speaker
And then you set another goal and another goal and another goal and you never actually Stop to experience life Because you keep externalizing happiness to the next goal and when you get there it's not it because Happiness is something within us and it's not the happiness that we have been told Exists it's not the Smile on my face walking a puppy happy. It's an internal
00:22:46
Speaker
sense of self. So here you are, you're having this awareness, you recognize that it's not it twice now. And you're looking at world famous people, everything that structurally should signal that things are going well.
00:23:04
Speaker
You're doing something like selling books and they're going well and you're making an impact. Hopefully some of these authors actually enjoy their life and yet here they are one after the next not finding that internal
Spiritual Exploration and Present Moment
00:23:20
Speaker
contentment, right? That internal sensibility. And you find yourself looking at that and having that awareness that that's you too. So how do you, how do you take your steps from there towards the Kevin I know today, who's sort of deep in this process? What was the beginning for you on that journey? Um, so
00:23:48
Speaker
I think it started with a friend of mine. I would consider myself a very spiritual person, not a religious person at all, even though I grew up in a very conservative Christian home, a good Midwestern home. I grew up in Indiana. I went to a Christian college.
00:24:07
Speaker
But I've always known that there was more beyond the boundaries. Here's one lane that I grew up in, but there's a whole world beyond that. And so I've always found exploring spirituality to be a really exciting frontier for me.
00:24:28
Speaker
And I'd kind of forgotten, you know, set it aside for a while, but then when I started going through these really deep, deep questions about, well, okay, who am I? Why am I here? Do I matter? Where do I belong? It was right around that time that a friend of mine gave me The Power of Now, of all things, Eckhart Tolle. And I was like, yeah, this is a new age guy. You know, I'll read it, but
00:24:55
Speaker
It's like, yeah, it's woo woo, it's not really for me. And I read it and, I mean, it really spoke to where I was at. You know, then I was trying to, I was time traveling, so to speak. You know, I was living in the past, regretting my past, and I was anticipating and worried about my future. And I just wasn't present in my own life. I wasn't present to my family. I wasn't present to my work. Hold on though, I'm going to make you slow down on that because that is such an important thing.
00:25:28
Speaker
Kevin, what is that when we get into these moments in life where there is no present moment? You're compulsively thinking about where you've been and where you need to go. Here you are reading The Power of Now and having that awareness, which is probably the reason that book really resonated.
Cultural Conditioning and Presence
00:25:53
Speaker
Why do you think we get lost in that paradigm? You call it time traveling, right? I think that's such a cool way of speaking about it, but why do you think we lose ourselves in that experience of obsessing about our futures and regretting past and not being able to step into present? Well, I think it's, um,
00:26:19
Speaker
I think it's fundamental to how we're raised, especially in our culture. And this is where the whole hardware software metaphor I think is really helpful for most people is that as human beings, we're born
00:26:34
Speaker
as I don't agree that we're blank slate. I think we come with preloaded software. The traumas of the past are in our cellular memory, quite literally. But for the most part, we are the product of when, where, and to whom we were born. So I'm born into a family and immediately this operating system begins loading itself into my life.
00:27:02
Speaker
I call them algorithms because that's really what they are. An algorithm is just an if-this-then-that rule. If this happens, then that is the response. Those are all conditioned things in us. One of our deepest bits of conditioning is fear.
00:27:20
Speaker
and not good enough. So I think our obsessive compulsive inability to be present to ourselves and to what actually is, is simply rooted in our fear of not being enough.
Pursuit of Happiness and Dissatisfaction
00:27:37
Speaker
And I need to, I have to do more. I have to get farther. I need to be better. I need to find out where I belong, which even like I've found in my life, working with all these people,
00:27:49
Speaker
even when you get those things, one of two things will happen. You will either decide it's not enough and I got to go get more, or you'll be afraid of losing what you have. Either way, you're screwed because you're not happy. Yeah. Right? So it's like Chuang Tzu said, you know, happiness is the absence of the pursuit of happiness. And I love how like all of the sages, like every religion basically say the same thing that
00:28:18
Speaker
That is your, peace actually is your state of being. You are the sky. And it's these clouds as you're coming through the sky that are your worry, that are your thoughts, that are all of these things that the clouds will come and go. And what's left is actually you, it's your awareness. But that seems so elusive to most people because we are so distracted by everything.
00:28:47
Speaker
Yeah. We've been educated out of that belief for the last hundred years too. I mean, Descartes says, I think therefore I am. We're all like, we are our thoughts. We are the clouds, right? We are not the present awareness behind the clouds. We are the actual clouds. And so we think we are, we think we are the things we think and the things we think are often filled in fear and shame and regret. I mean, the brain has so many thoughts per day.
00:29:16
Speaker
Um, and I read that there's 6,000 conscious thoughts a day, 5,000 are repetition of the day before, you know, but the amount of unconscious thoughts we're having that are, um, affecting our emotional states filled with.
00:29:34
Speaker
I've driven all the way home and not realized I've gotten home because my mind is somewhere else having some long conversation with myself about who knows what. I didn't decide to have that conversation. It's happening.
00:29:48
Speaker
without my conscious awareness to pick it, it just happens. The brain chooses mostly those kinds of concepts. It doesn't just live in autopilot of love and contentment.
Spiritual Practices and Self-Discovery
00:30:03
Speaker
Compassion. Gratitude. It's like a little monster up there. I get the book. I get the power of now. I was just going to say, so you've got the book.
00:30:15
Speaker
So it starts me on this and man, I mean, it was like, it was to me, like a glass of cool water to a guy who was in the middle of the freaking desert. It just, it was, you know, you've had those books and those movies and those songs that come along at the perfect time for you that came along at the perfect time for me. And it just should, it disrupted my process enough that I could
00:30:41
Speaker
think like get out of it. And I started a practice of, you know, uh, meditation is where I started. I wasn't very good at it. Um, but over time I did begin to find, I did begin to kind of clear the space and man, I mean that one book led me to
00:31:05
Speaker
many years of trying everything. I mean, studying every possible spiritual path that you could study, it led me to yoga, breath work, you know, shamanic breath work, energy healers, crystals. I mean, you name it, if it was on the list, it's like, yes, let's do that. Sweat lodges, you know, desert retreats, mountain retreats, silent retreats.
00:31:34
Speaker
And then I got into, um, you know, had a friend who was a shaman in the Amazon jungle. Uh, his name is Hamilton and I started getting Hamilton south or he's an amazing guy. He was on the podcast. If anybody wants to check him out, he came on a couple of years ago. Yeah. His story is incredible. Um, but, um, and I started getting really interested in, um, you know, non-ordinary states of consciousness and, and,
00:32:05
Speaker
And that was a really pivotal moment for me. All of these things were, there wasn't really any one thing that was an earth shattering revelation for me.
Unraveling Self-Identity
00:32:16
Speaker
It was all of these things together that were just sort of moving me in a new direction and in a new way. And I would say that it was, essentially what was happening was it was an unraveling of the ideas that I had about myself.
00:32:35
Speaker
And I realized that, okay, I have this operating system. It's running algorithms. If this, then that, you know, this dictating how I think, feel, act, respond in life. And, um, and I began to see that, Oh, well I, I'm an algorithm too. Like my idea, my idea of myself, like I think of identity as idea entity.
00:33:03
Speaker
Just as a human isn't a thing. We are a process. Your body is a process. It's ever-changing. In the same way, my identity is a process. I began to see, wow, I have as many identities as I have relationships in my life.
00:33:23
Speaker
Cause I would notice I would feel like a different person in a conference room. You know, I'd feel very confident. And then when I would get into another situation with somebody that I felt like I'm inferior to, I felt like a different person. And I was like, wow, if this is like, who am I? If, if I'm not the same static person, you know, all the time. And, um, you know, I really just devoted myself to, um,
00:33:52
Speaker
just finding out who am I and asking those questions and seeking out the answers in all of those different modalities, in all of those different places. All right. So I'm going to put you on the spot because I know you well, and we've had such beautiful conversations over the time we've known each other.
00:34:12
Speaker
So this is a podcast about authenticity, right? Um, the people have come on, have talked about it. And, and so as you've gone through this decade long journey and you asked this question, who am I? What have you come up with? Who are you? Um, it's a good question. The answer that I've come, the answer that I have today. Yeah.
00:34:38
Speaker
My understanding today is that Sri Nisargadatta, he says, I am, and you are, I am, and anything you say after that is just a qualifier. It doesn't even matter, which is like what every other teacher says too. I've come to experience myself as
Oneness and Non-Duality
00:35:04
Speaker
like pure, this is going to sound really weird, but pure being, just awareness. It is not the thoughts. It's that which recognizes, oh, look, there are thoughts. And the interesting thing to me about in my life right now is how the pendulum tends to swing in any kind of
00:35:34
Speaker
awakening journey, right? Where, especially with people who took some of the paths that I took, you know, this seemed very extreme, like, you know, sacred, like plant medicines, where you have these blowout experiences where you have an actual experience of, Oh, wow, I am not a body. You know, I am, I'm a,
00:35:58
Speaker
spiritual, like to quote Pierre Tayard, he says, we're not human beings having spiritual experiences, we're spiritual beings having human experiences. And
00:36:11
Speaker
But then you swing all the way to the, you know, you start thinking, I'm just a body, I'm just a person to, I'm a spirit, but I'm not really a body. That's an illusion to somewhere in the middle where it's no, you're both. You are, because there's only whatever this energetic infrastructure is that is everything. There's nothing that is outside of that. And that includes me. And that includes my body. That includes my work. That includes everything that I do.
00:36:40
Speaker
But I'm the one who knows what those things are and will continue to know when this costume called Kevin isn't needed anymore. Beautiful, beautiful. I love that. And I love this idea of like everything is, we were talking about
00:37:01
Speaker
know, the present moment, the power of now, the acceptance of what is, right? And so all of it, um, human manifestation of Kevin, the spiritual Kevin, the work, the job, everything is, and all of it is true. And, and the being that is aware of it is the sense of self, right? Yeah. And to like, you know, I know that there's a real tendency and I went through this, I had this phase where
00:37:30
Speaker
especially with things like non-dual spiritual teaching, where they're like, everything is an illusion. Can you just back up for people who don't know what non-dualism is just to give a little framework? So non-duality is basically a spiritual path or spiritual teaching that says that there is only one, that
00:37:54
Speaker
So duality is that there's a this and there's a that. So I'm a person separate from Laura, looking at Laura, talking to Laura, but non-duality would say, yeah, that's an illusion, but it doesn't mean it's not real. An illusion is just not what it appears to be, that we are actually of the same energetic structure. If you imagine a rug made up of a billion threads,
Life's Meaning and Purpose
00:38:24
Speaker
I'm a thread, you're a thread, everybody's a thread, but it's one rug. It's all the same stuff. Just expressing itself in different ways. That's non-duality. But where I went off the deep end with it is where most people go off the deep end with it, which is, oh my gosh, everything's an illusion. Nothing is real. This is all just a virtual simulation. Whether or not that's true, I actually don't care anymore.
00:38:54
Speaker
My life is very real. I fell out of a tree once gravity is very real. Um, you know, jump off your roof. No, but it's really important that you're saying this. I mean, that's hilarious, but it's also really important. You're saying it because full circle to the beginning of the conversation. Um, I wanted to find something that helped me understand that I matter. Right. And then you kind of come through this whole process and there's that,
00:39:19
Speaker
phase of spirituality, which I went through as well, where you start to say, oh, wait, nothing matters, in fact. But that's just as difficult and depressing, if not more. I mean, I went through that too. Then the, I want to matter. And so I'm going to fill myself up with these external ideas. And, you know, nothing matters. It's like, well, then what am I doing here? Then nothing has purpose. And it's kind of
00:39:46
Speaker
two sides of the same coin to me, right? And I think that's a really, there's a really important distinction there where, because I did get to a point where I thought, well, gosh, life is meaningless. And one of the big questions everybody's asking forever is what is the meaning of life? And I have come to see that life is meaningless.
00:40:13
Speaker
which means you give it all of the meaning that it has for you. Meaning is simply the story that we place on what is, right? This is good, this is bad. It all depends on who you are, where you are, versus what is the, that's different than what is the purpose of life. So the meaning of life is whatever you want it to be. The purpose of life
00:40:41
Speaker
is kind of like asking, well, what does a tree mean? Well, a tree is, its purpose is to tree, you know? It's, so stop thinking of yourself as a noun, think of yourself as a verb, right? Again, you're not a thing, you're a process, you're an ever evolving expression of
00:41:09
Speaker
a mind-boggling, amazing universe that we all think we know what's going on, but it's like trying to catch Niagara Falls in a thimble,
Contentment and Self-Discovery
00:41:25
Speaker
right? You can't do it. I mean, the universe is amazing and that is you and you're part of it. And we just get so locked into our little thimbles of, like, here's exactly what life is.
00:41:41
Speaker
I lost track of where we were. No, you didn't. I just go so excited. It's beautiful. I mean, that's right. Well, purpose, right? Everybody is asking this question right now. What is my purpose? Why am I here? There has to be more. I do these Akashic record readings and I think nine out of 10 people.
00:41:59
Speaker
say, what is my sole purpose? What is my purpose? Why am I here? It's different from meaning and it's different from the story. What wants to express through me is how I think of it and what you're saying. It's life force expressing through into the physical form, which we can then apply meaning to. The tree is the life force that expresses into this tree and the tree grows.
00:42:28
Speaker
and perhaps spares fruit, but it's a very different way of thinking about our experience, particularly back to what you were saying earlier, this pursuit of happiness as the end-all be-all goal of why we're here because that in and of itself
00:42:51
Speaker
um, won't ever answer this question of purpose, right? It won't answer the question of what it is that is uniquely, um, connected for me and why I feel, uh, engaged in my own experience, which is, I think what people are searching for. Kevin today. Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, let me mention this one thing. There's a, so my wife and I, we've done a lot of, um, we've done addiction recovery,
00:43:21
Speaker
coaching and like mentoring with people. And I spaced his name at the moment, but he's an addiction recovery expert. And he says, it's impossible to get enough of something that almost works. And that perfectly describes the pursuit of happiness.
Pandemic and Identity Crisis
00:43:42
Speaker
It's like we're addicts. It's addiction recovery.
00:43:47
Speaker
because none of these things, they almost work, right? Like anything that is ever outside of yourself, whether it's relationships, money, like I've sought fulfillment in doing things, like what is my purpose, my soul's purpose, thinking that it's something that I do, only to find that it almost works. And it just makes me sick for more and more things.
00:44:09
Speaker
Right. Right. And we are, you know, it's a whole nother conversation, which I'll table for now, but this idea of addiction, you know, that the addiction is connected to a couple ideas in our culture, but we're very addicted to our thoughts. We're very addicted to these patterns of beliefs and these ideas of outcomes. And we, we chase after them relentlessly. Uh, and that anxiety that builds and we're never getting what we're
00:44:37
Speaker
elusive thing that we're chasing. And meanwhile, as all the books say, it's right here. It's sitting right here and it's just this willingness to accept that this ever-present awareness of self just wants to express through you on an hour by hour, minute by minute basis. Yeah. Yeah. And I've come to
00:45:00
Speaker
And this has just been in the past couple of years where I really come to an answer for myself on what is the purpose of life? What is the purpose of my life? And it's very simply to know myself. And the way I would spell that is M-Y space capital S-E-L-F. So my self capital S.
00:45:28
Speaker
If you know yourself, then you know what reality is. Because there are two questions that have the same answer. Like if you're asking, who am I? You're also asking is, what is reality? And I would also say that you're asking, what is God? Those three questions, it's all the same answer. And so we're all really seeking to know ourself.
00:45:58
Speaker
We're just seeking to find it where it can't be found, right? And we're seeking it in jobs and money and all these kinds of things, which I think is what has really become a revelation to a lot of people during this pandemic, because all of the things that undergirded their life and they look to to tell them who they were simply went away. And they're like, well, who the hell am I then?
00:46:22
Speaker
if I'm not my job, it's my money and all of these
Transition to Writing and 'The Rewilded Soul'
00:46:25
Speaker
things. And I've met people who have no idea. They are in a deep, deep identity crisis, which is exactly where we need to be. You know, because those things need to fall away because it's true on an individual level and it's also true on a collective level. Like we're at war with each other because we're at war with ourselves. You know, we don't know each other deeply and intimately because we don't know ourselves. And so that's the key to it. Know yourself.
00:46:52
Speaker
Yeah. Right. As soon as we believe the story we tell of who I am, then who I am is different from you. And then we battle out these stories of self as opposed to the Niagara Falls image you gave, right? That there were just this body of water flowing. Um, so today you've moved from, from investor entertainer into writing.
00:47:18
Speaker
Um, you're, you're working on a book. I've seen some of your writing. It's beautiful. Uh, do you want to share with the audience a little bit about what this, um, current shift has been for you and why, um, you've chosen a life of the arts? Sure. Well, because it's fun. Um, so I went from, there actually is another step in between there. So I went into entertainment management. I left that.
00:47:46
Speaker
and then went into basically consulting and coaching. Because I've worked with high achievers all my life and have been the guy that knows how to communicate and kind of guide them through.
00:48:01
Speaker
big questions. So I've done a lot of coaching over the past few years. And especially for people who have had these sort of transcendent experiences, particularly through psychedelics and plant medicines, who had no context for who they thought they were.
00:48:20
Speaker
and these experiences and then integrating those experiences on the backside. But my wife and I have had a real pleasure of working with some amazing people. She's done work with Special Forces soldiers that healed from PTSD.
00:48:38
Speaker
I've worked with executives all the way down to high school teachers. So it's been amazing. I just love that work. But now I'm taking everything that I've learned over the past few years and putting it into a book called The Rewilded Soul. And it's all based on this idea that we have become disconnected from nature, both our inner nature, who we think we are,
00:49:06
Speaker
And then that our own relationship with ourself gets reflected out into the natural world in our relationship with nature, environment, other people, other countries, the people in our life. And we really live asleep. We've been domesticated as really the premise of the book. And the way to live awake, aware, and free is essentially to rewild your soul, to live a soul-infused life.
00:49:37
Speaker
And I steal the word rewilding from the conservation world, right? So like whenever you have a wilderness that has been domesticated by human involvement or it's been decimated, right? Like it's way out of whack. The way you get nature back in balance is to reintroduce back into it. You rewild it by reintroducing the animals and the plants that just know how to thrive if you just get out of the way.
00:50:07
Speaker
And so we can do that with ourselves. We can rewild our soul. We can invite, you know, like our, I call it our prime identity, our true identity, our essence, you know, to come in and just sort of rewild our life. And I've come to find, I used to think this was strictly a spiritual kind of concept. I don't think it is anymore because
00:50:31
Speaker
that the distance between what we would call faith and science is growing thinner and thinner by the day. As we learn more about consciousness, as we learn about awareness, what is the body, quantum mechanics, the things that were once called magic now fit in our pocket as a phone. I've just begun to see that
00:51:00
Speaker
to really become free in your life, in all of your relationships and in your work. If you really want to have a deep sense of well-being and peace and joy in your life, the path to that is rewilding your life, rewilding your soul, remembering who you really are. And then an interesting thing happens when you remember who you are.
00:51:27
Speaker
you discover that everybody else is the same as you. When you understand yourself, you begin to understand what other people are and that they are just living out of their programming. And then you have compassion for them and then you treat them differently and then you can introduce them to themselves again. So that's all I'm doing. I'm just like a guide helping people on the journey back to themselves. That's it. That's just that small little thing you're doing. That's it. That's it.
00:51:57
Speaker
Dude, I love you. I could talk to you for hours. Thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing all of your philosophical wisdom with us. It's just fun to have this conversation with you. If somebody wants to, and you should reach out to Kevin to do some coaching, some integration work, they're interested in plant medicine or anything you're discussed on the show, how do they find you?
00:52:23
Speaker
You can just find me at KevinKaiser.co. So K-E-V-I-N-K-A-I-S-E-R.CO. Make sure it's .co and not .com because .com is owned by some Canadian dude. He won't know you. He doesn't know what he's talking about. All right. Well, thank you, Kevin. And I really, I appreciate you coming on and sharing your time with us. Oh, thanks for having me. I loved it.