We're going to talk about The Office, I

promise. Stick around, folks. Rainn

Wilson Actor, writer, producer you know

as Dwight Schrute, assistant regional

manager. One of the most iconic

characters

in TV history.

HOLD ON, MICHAEL. I AM COMING.

I EXPERIENCED A LOT of pain in my life.

Neglect, abuse, abandoned, and then with

anxiety and depression and addiction, I

remember getting these anxiety attacks

that would leave me shaking on the floor

and sweating, and I thought I was dying.

Waking up at 3:00 in the morning, why

should I keep living? But, this is the

curious thing. I'm grateful for it.

There's a reason why so many comedians

come from painful backgrounds because

comedy shifts your perspective away from

pain and trauma. Here's your choice, do

you kill yourself or do comedy? And that

was my path. It's my greatest dream come

true. You said when I was in The Office,

I spent several years mostly unhappy

because it wasn't enough. I wanted more

opportunities, I wanted more money, and

as long as we want to promote the go

satisfaction, we'll never be happy. We

all have a shadow, and it's always

there. It's self-important and righteous

and entitled, but I'm not going to get

rid of those aspects of myself by

keeping that shadow at arm's length. You

need to embrace and accept and love

one's shadow. Sit the shadow on the lap,

almost like a ventriloquist dummy.

Hello. You, Irene, a CEO. Get a new

T-shirt, idiot.

That's a wrap.

I think this is fascinating. I looked at

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[Music]

Let's start with your contacts. Um

I always think the the earliest years

are the most important. So, could you

take me back to your earliest contacts

and give me the

factors that I need to understand to

understand you? Sure. Uh couple of key

pieces in my background that have made

me who I am and uh led me to lead the

life that I live uh are

my mom uh

took off

when I was a year and a half.

I lived with my with my dad,

and we were members of the Baha'i faith,

uh which in a nutshell is the newest of

the world's religions. Uh there's about

6 million Baha'is around the globe. It's

the second most widespread religion. So,

wherever you go in the world, there's

going to be Baha'is. You know, you go to

Mongolia or Thailand or, you know,

Botswana or whatever, there's going to

be Baha'i communities. And after my dad

had been kind of essentially abandoned

or felt abandoned, they got divorced, uh

we moved to the jungles of Nicaragua

when I was 3 years old.

Here was this abandoned kind of toddler

kid living in the literally the jungle.

Uh

and my dad was an abstract painter and

science fiction writer and Baha'i, and

uh

that's that's how I grew up. And then,

when it was kind of around kindergarten

time, first grade time, we moved back to

Washington state.

And um

those are some key pieces, yeah.

In your 40s, you started to look back at

your childhood um and understand

I heard this in an interview you did, I

think with

Chase Jarvis? Yeah.

On his show. And one of the things you

said is

when I look back at my childhood, it was

filled with depression and anxiety that

you probably didn't It seems like you

didn't realize at the time, but

hindsight's given you that clarity.

Yeah. What were the hallmarks of that?

What were the symptoms of that? And what

Do you Do you have any understanding of

the causes of that at such a young age?

Yes. Uh 22 years of therapy has given me

a lot of insights into the causes of

that. So,

you know, you've got an abandoned

toddler, that that'll that'll [ __ ] you

up. Um I don't know if I can swear on

your podcast. All right. Um

Do uh do Brits swear? Mm.

Yeah. Yeah. The funny ones. Uh and then

um

you know, it was this weird kind of uh

gaslighting mindfuck cuz I just spent 5

minutes describing the Baha'i faith,

right? And this these beautiful ideas

and prayers and meditations and about

world peace and finding love and

connection and service.

And then, in my family, my dad remarried

uh my stepmom, uh who pretty much raised

me, and they lived in a loveless

marriage, a hollow, empty marriage. So,

I come back from the jungles of

Nicaragua at 5 or 6, my dad's remarried,

we're living in suburban Seattle in

Washington state, and we are going to

all these Baha'i meetings, we're

singing, we're doing Kumbaya, we're

holding hands, we're praying, we're

meditating, we're reading holy scripture

from all over the world, and talking

about love, and yet here's this loveless

shell of a house. So, that's what I grew

up in. So, you know, addiction is

something that I've I've struggled with.

I've struggled with depression, I've

struggled with anxiety.

Uh I've uh struggled on a lot of

different uh

levels in my life, a lot of uh

alienation and uh

it's born of this petri dish that I grew

up in. Maybe I was also wired for it,

you know, I have I have alcoholics that

run on both sides of my family for

generations, but uh

that'll that'll mess you up. What have

you learned about the nature of

childhood trauma and how delicate

children are? I've learned so much from

speaking to people on this podcast about

it and how,

you know, it's

if I listen to too many of these

episodes, I might be scared to be a

parent because it's so interesting how

such a small interpretations can leave

really

um lasting impressions on a child about

the nature of the world. I sat with

Gabor Maté, and he's talked about how

children are basically narcissists, and

how they interpret everything as about

them. So, there's an argument over

there, a baby will think it's it's about

the baby. But, what have you learned

about through your years of therapy, but

also your own experiences?

Well, I experienced a lot of pain in my

life

and a lot of suffering uh with anxiety

and depression and addiction, and as I

kind of dove into recovery and to the

therapeutic process, I can pin that

squarely on a lot of, you know, gross

imbalances and trauma that I suffered as

a child. So,

there's that.

Um we all have that to some degree, and

it's important to excavate and honor

uh the pain that we went through and the

and the lies that we were told, the

gaslighting we might have

undergone. Um there's there's religious

trauma that we undergo as well. There's

all kinds of different traumas that we

suffer. And this is the this is the

curious thing.

I'm grateful for it because, you know

what?

If I had had a happy, well-balanced

childhood,

I, you know, I don't know what my career

would have been, but it certainly

wouldn't have been an actor, and it

certainly wouldn't have been a

successful actor. So, these

these confluences of of pain and and

difficulty and and abuse and neglect, um

they caused me a lot of suffering later

on, but at the same time, they caused me

to be driven to try and be the best

version of myself. They set me on a

spiritual path

uh to really deeply explore the world's

uh spiritual traditions and to try and

connect with my higher power and to go

on a journey of self-discovery and then

to take what I've learned and to share

that with others, and they

they made me funny.

So, there's a really interesting

thing I heard uh Dr. Arthur Brooks from

Harvard University, who you should have

on the show,

uh speak about. Uh and he talked about

how the opposite of pain and trauma is

is humor. He's He was saying, like, for

instance, if you're feeling uh

depressed, let's say,

we all know you fill that with

gratitude. And when you have a gratitude

journal and you share gratitude,

experience gratitude, meditate on

gratitude,

it the other stuff evaporates when you

when you shift your focus and your

perspective to what you're grateful for,

what brings you hope and joy and purpose

and meaning, even if it's a small thing,

like, you know, this delicious cup of

tea right here. So,

the same

uh mechanism works in comedy. That and

there's a reason why so many comedians

come from painful backgrounds because

comedy is what you plug in to shift your

perspective away from pain and trauma.

Just like gratitude takes you away from

from depression. So, you'll see time and

time again these amazing,

you know,

the great comedians of the age, you

know, and how much suffering they

underwent in their lives,

but

comedy became the the necessary

uh thing to plug in to their perspective

in order to carry forward. It's like

uh here's your choice. You kill yourself

or do comedy.

And um

and then they do comedy and and you

know, you think about so many of of the

great ones. Uh Jim Carrey, you think

about Robin Williams. They talk about

mental health and comedy. We did a for

Soul Pancake, we did a documentary um

called Laughing Matters about the

intersection of comedy and mental

health. And so in this sense, too, I'm

grateful for what I went through because

I wouldn't be here today having this

incredible conversation with you had I

not gone through that

those those difficulties, that neglect,

that abuse, and that gaslighting that I

underwent as a kid. When you say the

word abuse, you mean the gaslighting?

Yeah, you know, I don't want to get into

stories. There was, you know, there was

some there was

there was lots of different kinds of

abuse. Yeah. Yeah, so. If I'd if I'd met

you 15, 16 years old, who would I who

would be the man that I met at that

point? When your mother came back into

your life, you said you needed her at

that point. At 15 or 16, I was uh gawky

and self-hating and um

uh

innocent and completely cut off from my

emotions and had my uh dad and stepmom

had zero emotional tools. Uh the only

kind of expression of emotion that I

experienced in my household was rage.

And uh and then either rage or like

again, these spiritual Baha'i gatherings

where we were singing and praying and

meditating. So

it was

um but the idea of

you know

sadness, frustration, disappointment,

uh

all these quote-unquote negative

emotions and how to navigate them. There

were

I had zero tools.

So I'll never forget sitting down with

one of the first meetings with my mom.

And we I was at a Denny's restaurant in

Yakima, Washington.

And uh and she said

Rain, you seem

very tightly wound.

What's what's going on? How is your

heart?

And I just started sobbing. I just

started

bawling. I mean

it was pretty unsightly at the at the

Denny's. Um

uh waiting for the Grand Slam breakfast.

And um

there's a corporate sponsor for you,

potential.

Uh

and just like the the kind of crying of

the

kind of the heaving sobs. And that's

what I'm talking about. That's the kind

of connection that I needed. Like

finally, someone was asking me what was

in my heart, you know?

And

that began a kind of a process of

having conversations about human

emotions

um

that I was so ignorant of. Um that we're

all so ignorant of.

And uh it helped me immensely.

When you said that that the the only

emotion you understood was like rage and

then this real

happiness at the spiritual gatherings

it made sense, the gaslighting, because

it's such a confusing message to send a

young person. It's a this this

juxtaposition between like

and

uh Yeah.

Yeah.

In fact, I remember I remember times

uh and I don't really blame my stepmom

for this because my dad was not a good

husband to her and uh there was a lot

that was out of balance and and he could

be incredibly narcissistic and

um but I remember having we would have a

Baha'i gathering, let's say, at our

house and people were going to come over

and we were going to pray or we were

going to study holy writings or whatever

people do at Baha'i gatherings. And uh

they would have a fight and she would be

raging in the kitchen and slam dishes

down and break the dishes and they would

be fighting and then

ding-dong, people would come over like,

"Hi, I brought flowers and here's a

here's some cookies." And and they would

come in and my stepmom would then march

across the living room gong gong gong

gong gong to the bedroom door and go "So

bam!" and slam the bedroom door and the

people would be there in the doorway and

my dad would go

"Come on in. Thanks so much for coming."

And there was never any kind of

uh

you know

you know, acknowledging what had just

happened. And that was And so for an

8-year-old, 9-year-old, 10-year-old

being in that milieu, you're like "What

the hell is going on? Is this how people

act? Is this how we're supposed to act?

We have all these emotions, but we don't

talk about them and

and then we go and we and we pray

together?" So, you know, this led me to

a very long period of time where I was

completely alienated from my faith in my

in my 20s and um I didn't want anything

to do with religion or spirituality,

certainly not morality. Um cuz I just

saw the hypocrisy in it. And

that's when I really started undergoing

uh

a spiritual crisis, a mental health

crisis. Things started breaking down for

me. And that's when I decided to kind of

re-examine these ideas as a potential

way out, as a potential path forward for

my own transformation, for my personal

healing. And and I was ultimately able

to come back to the religion of my youth

and find great

peace and solace and meaning in it um

after a long journey uh through my 20s

and early 30s.

That trauma and experience from your

youth, how does that play into you

becoming an actor? Because you said you

wouldn't have been you're grateful

because you don't think you would have

been

an actor or the actor that you are

without that experience. What is the wh

I'm trying to figure out where acting

fit into that. You talked about

comedians using comedy as a as kind of

like a life raft away from their pain.

Why was acting the thing that found

Rain?

I don't know and there's the genetic

component as well that my birth mother

was also an actor and interested in

acting. I don't know exactly um even

before I thought like

"Oh, you could be an actor or you could

make a living in an actor or you could

train as an actor." Like I didn't even

know like I wanted to do that, but it's

like whatever that is is magical and

amazing and I was drawn to it like a

magnet. So

I don't know and then, you know, I I

took my first acting class.

Um we had moved to Chicago from Seattle

and I went to a a high school that had a

really good theater program and I took

my very first acting class.

And uh I did uh a scene where uh

you're supposed to pretend that you're

in your bedroom and that no one's

watching, right? So I put on this Elvis

Costello song, Mystery Dance. I brought

in my

my record player from home and I brought

in some stuff from my room and I put on

the record of Mystery Dance by Elvis

Costello and I started just thrashing

around and just being ridiculous and

lip-syncing and jumping around and

flopping on the floor and stuff like

that. And it I was a brand new student.

This was like in the first week at this

new school.

And it brought the house down.

And the the 15, 16-year-old that I said

that was kind of pimply and gangly and

emotionally cut off and self-hating

um

all of a sudden, people were

patting me on the back back and punching

me in the shoulder and saying, "Oh my

god, that was so great." and high-fiving

me and all of these like cute girls from

junior year at in high school were like,

"Oh, where are you from? You're from

Seattle? Amazing. Will you come sit with

us at our lunch table?" And like

and and here I was, this kid from

suburban where I had been on the chess

team and played the bassoon and been on

Model United Nations and I'd barely

talked to a girl.

And then I was like, "All right, I'm in.

Whatever this is, I want this I'm good.

This is it.

Forget all that other stuff. Screw the

bassoon. Screw the chess team. I'm in

with the drama geeks. And uh and that

was my path. So so part of it is not so

noble. Part of it is um

I went where there was acceptance, where

there was love, where I had some skill.

I could make people laugh.

And where I got attention from the

opposite sex.

Hello.

Tends to be the case

most of us. Um 20 years old, you

graduate with a degree in drama.

Uh

20 23. 23. Close. And then you speak of

1991 when you're 25 25 years old, that's

really when you had your, as you say,

your spiritual crisis. Mhm.

Was was there a catalyst for that? Seems

to it seems that at that point in your

life is when you started experiencing

anxiety attacks in a really

debilitating way.

Was there a catalyst for that? Was there

anything in your life that was was

absent or was it just Do you think it

was just things catching up on you from

your earliest years?

Um

well I don't know about a catalyst, but

I will paint the picture that I'm out of

drama school. I'm getting a few little

acting jobs here and there, but they're

not paying anything. I'm living with a

friend and in an abandoned beer brewery

in Brooklyn.

Uh essentially kind of

legally squatting, but we didn't have

heat, we didn't have a shower. There

were rats scuttling around.

And

I was working in this bar

where I'd get off work at 4:00 a.m.

And uh I had a roommate and we were

living out there and

I was really directionless. I started

really experimenting with a lot of drugs

and alcohol and

I was pretty rudderless and um

uh and I started getting hit with really

crippling anxiety attacks. So, I wasn't

in the most healthy living environment,

right? So, but at the same time, I

remember getting these anxiety attacks

that would leave me literally shaking on

the floor and sweating and I would

thought I was dying and I was like about

to call 911 like five different times.

And

heart palpitations, sweating

and um I I talked to a doctor at at at

NYU about them and they said, "Oh, these

are just anxiety attacks." So, I knew

that that's what they were, but I didn't

really know anything about them and uh I

started getting really depressed and um

so, there wasn't really like an event,

but

circumstances provided the perfect

environment for kind of a mental health

breakdown of someone who's 25 years old.

And how long did that chapter that

period of your life last where you were

having anxiety attacks and you were

rudderless?

Um I would say five or six years.

Yeah.

There were some things got better. I

started working a little bit more.

Uh I had a relationship with my

girlfriend who's now my wife. We've been

together for 32 years.

Um and that was great. But even that

even a better apartment and a nice

relationship couldn't save me from

some of what was going on. And we didn't

In the '90s, we didn't really have words

for a mental health

breakdown or mental health issues or

crisis, you know, it was

and people didn't really go to therapy.

You didn't really you couldn't really

afford it. It was that was like for rich

people like Woody Allen or something. Um

so

uh

it it stayed things got nominally

better, but I still uh was

uh

pretty uh depressed and and frustrated

and overwhelmed and

just generally alienated. The kind of

waking up at 3:00 in the morning with

just wide awake staring at the ceiling

going like

what the [ __ ]

does life mean? Why am I here? What you

know, why should I keep living? What's

How do I find meaning and

um

just that that that just anguish and

disconnection

uh at a really core level.

You asked yourself that question, what

why should I keep living?

Yeah. Mhm.

And it wasn't at that point I've and

I've had some suicidal ideation over the

years. That wasn't a time when I was

actively thinking about ending it, but

it really was kind of again one of these

life's big questions, life's deep

questions that I've been kind of poking

at in my various books of like why

should we keep living? What what is the

purpose? Is it Because one of the odd

things, Stephen, was that I was in

certain regards living a life beyond my

wildest dreams. Here was that kind of

abused and gaslit kid with low

self-esteem from suburban Seattle

um who kind of hated himself and and

really had trouble fitting in socially

in any way, shape or form. Here I am

living in New York City.

Beautiful girlfriend, working as an

actor in the theater, not making much

money and it was only fitfully, but

still

that's a big leap to go from where I was

and and yet I wasn't happy. So, there

was this odd disconnect because I think

societally we're taught like, "Hey, you

find the thing you love to do.

You go study it. You put in your time.

You work at it and you you're going to

start working and yeah, you're going to

start slow, but it's going to build and

then you're going to find incredible joy

and purpose and meaning in your work."

And I was doing that work in the theater

and I was getting to be an actor and I

was getting paychecks as an actor, which

is an incredible uh experience.

Um but I was still chronically

dissatisfied and it didn't make any

sense because society had been telling

me this thing for a decade or two and

I um

I sh- I felt like I shouldn't be this uh

uh chronically dissatisfied,

but I am.

When did that reach its peak?

Um

the it's hard to say. It it it came in

waves throughout my

mid-20s and and early 30s.

And it that's what prompted me

and this is why pain can be such a

valuable teacher. And in fact, Arthur

Brooks just had a column today out in

the Atlantic where he was talking about

pain and anxiety and depression does not

mean that you have a mental health

issue. Those are

those are

normal, standard

uh

uh aspects of being a human being.

So, but my pain prompted me to go on a

spiritual quest and I'm really grateful

for that. Like I said,

To go on a spiritual quest.

Depression and pain and anxiety and

those things were signals telling you

something. Something's out of balance.

How are you going to bring yourself into

balance? How are you going to make sense

of all this?

And at the time there weren't podcasts

on positive psychology and there weren't

I mean, I guess there were some

self-help books, but I didn't really

know about them. Because of my uh

background, because of my childhood,

I thought, "Well, perhaps because I've

abandoned anything and everything to do

with God and spirituality and religion,

m- maybe that's where I have lost my way

and maybe I need to re-explore

those avenues and maybe I can find

personal meaning

and serenity

uh by exploring spiritual ideas." So, it

was a long process. It was a good

eight or 10-year process, but I'm I'm

grateful that my pain

took me along that path.

One of the things that I think brings

spirituality and some of these big

questions into focus is

death.

Mhm. Something you talk about in your

new book Soul Boom.

And something you've spoken about

previously as well. Something that I've

often pondered about. Um I think it's

one of the things that really made me

go in search of answers, deep questions

at a at a very young age. Um you talk I

think it's in chapter three of your

book, but I listened on the audio book,

so it's

chapter six on the audio book um about

the passing of your father. Mhm. How did

how did that bring into focus

spirituality, meaning and some of these

big questions of life?

Well, I think if you're going to look at

spirituality, one of the top three uh

big questions is what happens when we

die.

And of course, we don't know.

But just because we don't know or will

never know,

um does that mean that we shouldn't

explore that question?

Uh

hint, no.

So,

uh it's something

it's a topic and a theme and a question

I had thought about a lot. I had spoken

about, I'd researched um

and pondered deeply, but obviously and I

had had, you know, some people that I

knew that had died along the way, of

course, but

when my father died about three years

ago, um

that made a profound impact and really

prompted me to write the book Soul Boom

because I had one of these key kind of

transcendent experiences, spiritual

experiences,

which was

in

uh

we my dad died of heart disease.

Uh he was getting a quadruple bypass

surgery and he just couldn't make it. He

didn't they didn't have

any way to repair the damage in his

heart and anyways, it was

we thought he was going to get through

the surgery and he died. So, it was and

we knew it was risky, but it was

it was it was not a predicted death.

And uh

my

his current wife, his widow and myself

were in the hospital with him and

we had to essentially unplug him and

um it was devastating and

terrifying and oddly enough

strangely cliché at the same time. And I

couldn't help but uh and maybe this is

is that that trauma-based comedic kind

of

uh aspect of my

of my uh

of myself that I I just kept witnessing

myself in the situation where my father

was dying and there's a heart machine

going beep beep beep beep and there's a

little oxygen machine going

and there's doctors and nurses walking

around with their squeaky shoes and the

linoleum floors and I was like, "Wow,

this is just like one of those hospital

shows." I just kept thinking like I this

is just like ER, Grey's Anatomy. Like,

"Wow." Um I was like, "It's so cliché."

But

we had to unplug him. Um he was going to

be dead within an hour.

And uh we were sobbing and I looked at

his gray

body there on the table

and you know, I saw all these aspects of

my dad that I loved, you know, the one

eyebrow hair kind of poking out and you

know, the mole on his arm and the way

his hands are and uh his hair kind of

messy and

uh it was filled with such love and such

heartbreak and at the same time

at seeing his lifeless body I was like

um

this isn't him. This isn't my dad.

This

is the vessel that carried my dad.

Robert Wilson and his beautiful heart

and spirit and his dynamism and his

creativity, his light as it were is no

longer here, but that's his reality.

This body is just a shell. It's a

vessel. It's an avatar. And

and I also didn't experience it as oh

he has uh it's been snuffed out like a

candle. It just seemed very clear like

oh it has passed on.

It's somewhere else now.

And here is is his body and

that was such a profound spiritual

experience that I knew

intellectually from my study but it's

one of those learnings that kind of has

to hit you in the gut

to make you really understand it and go

oh and I remember that amazing quote

that I often pull out from uh Father

Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest who

said famously we are not human beings

having a spiritual experience. We are

spiritual beings having a human

experience.

And that quote, which I've always loved,

I saw

just evidenced with my father. Oh he's a

spiritual being. He had a human

experience for 79 years in this body.

And now his spiritual reality has passed

and moved on. And

this is one of the essential messages of

SoulBoom is that we are spiritual

beings. We're having this incredible

human experience. Look at us having this

incredible dialogue right now. And then

I'm going to go get an Uber and then

I've got to go do some voice-overs and

I'm going to go play tennis with a

friend and I'm having this you know I'm

having a relationship with my wife and

with my son. I'm learning. I'm growing.

I'm being challenged and uh it's

magnificent. And here's my my fleshy

somewhat corpulent 57-year-old body that

has

done I've done pretty well by. It's

ridiculous enough so I get to take my

shirt off occasionally as Dwight and

people can laugh at my absurdly pale and

oblong torso and I'm fine with it. It's

all for comedy, right? And parts of my

body are starting to break down. I've

got like half hearing in my in my left

ear and I've got mild sleep apnea and I

have to wear a mouth appliance

that juts my jaw forward and I wake up

in the morning and I go

and I place it on the side of the bed

and here I am this spiritual being

having a human experience as Rain

Dietrich Wilson.

It's this is fabulous, but this is part

of what we need to recognize and this

could help people. This can help people

with their mental health struggles is an

understanding that we're we're radiant,

luminescent, precious shards of the

divine inhabiting these these fleshy

meat suits for hopefully 80, 90, or 100

years and struggle and suffering and

anxiety is just comes with the game,

baby. It's just part of the game.

You talk about a friend called Dave.

Yeah.

David or Dave who also passed quite

suddenly.

Um and his handling of that in

particular um surprised you in many

ways.

Uh Dave uh one of my best friends um

David Von Ancken who was a television

director, film director. Brilliant guy

uh

wonderful human being. And he just got

diagnosed out of out of nowhere with

stage four stomach cancer. I mean just

like out of nowhere.

Mid-50s and uh essentially a death

sentence.

So I got to spend a lot of time with him

in his last year and a half after that

diagnosis and we did weekly beach walks

and he said to me

several times and he would just grab my

arm and he would say

Rain

it's just static. It's all just static.

You've got to get the static out of your

life.

The emails, the meetings, the the

career, the the appointments, the the

driving, the traffic, the phone calls,

the Zooms. It's all just static. It's

all noise.

And

that really resonated with me and I know

a lot of people have mentioned that in

the book because we do experience our

life as this kind of like buzz of like

appointments and shoppings and and Zooms

and appoint and and bills to pay and and

whatnot. And

uh

that was profoundly impactful. Um and I

would always encourage David to

it would it's a tricky situation, you

know, when someone's dying I don't want

to like

God forbid lecture him on on death or

thinking about it, but I would always

just turn it a little bit toward a more

profound discussion about

you know, the soul and the journey of

the soul and the

and the movement of of the spirit, you

know, beyond our this corporal 3D

uh surround sound experience of being a

human being to the realms beyond um

But he like many people um

he he he got a little stuck in a way

that made me sad because he

really just focused on fighting the

cancer, which is super super important,

right? So he devoted all of his waking

time and energy to to research and

treatment and diet and everything to

fight the cancer, which is super

important and I don't blame him, but um

it was pretty terrifying for him to

consider mortality and the implications

thereof. He had a daughter and

um

but I'll never forget him talking about

static in that way and

uh I find that very to be also very

clarifying, you know, in my daily

meditation practice like

how can I

again, the Buddha uses the image a lot

of the lotus flower, you know, it's

floating on top of the swamp, you know,

these beautiful lotuses. And there's the

swamp and the mire and the bugs and the

dirt and the and and this beautiful uh

flower rising above and

how can we in our own little way be a

lotus flower and the rest of the swamp

is is our daily static.

The rest of the swamp, the alternative

way of living to everything you've just

described. What is the alternative way

of living? So you know, you've got the

the

the realization that everything is

static and the understanding that we are

spiritual beings having a human

experience.

Yeah. What is the opposite of that that

you see when you walk the streets or you

observe people? What is the opposite way

of living to that? And why is it causing

suffering?

Thoreau talked about the unexamined life

is not worth living. Why did he say

that? And what did he mean

by that? Well, it's been a long time

since I read Walden Pond um

and the night Thoreau spent in jail, but

I loved the transcendentalists

because that is really kind of the first

authentic uh American spiritual

movement. And

uh this idea that uh we're seeking uh

transcendence that were that was kind of

the first movement that really

acknowledged like we're spiritual

beings. So I think you know, it's the

unexamined life. I think um

living in the static and living in the

swamp is not taking the time to

uh honor

the sacred divinity of aspects of our

life.

And

you know, I I have a

When you study meditation and you and

you participate in meditation

there's this strange thing that happens

where you realize that you

the reality of you

is the watcher, the observer. When you

meditate

your thoughts are still bouncing around,

you know, the Buddhists call it the

monkey mind, right? So your bound your

thoughts are bouncing around. You might

have some anxiety and worry like oh is

that person going to accept my offer on

this or is this thing going to work out

or oh is my wife still mad at me or

whatever. So you have this emotional

dissonance and you have this kind of

intellectual

uh dissonance. And then in the

meditative state you're just witnessing

that. It's almost like you're floating

above it and looking down. And then you

realize like oh my reality is not my

thoughts.

My reality is not my feelings. My

reality is not even just my body and the

sensations that my body takes in. There

is some kind of aspect of the I

that is the witnesser.

And

it's getting in touch with that

that allows us to get above the static.

So meditation is very important to me.

The next step of meditation for me is

connecting with

the ultimate divine. You can do it in

prayer. I have a chapter in the book

called the the notorious G O D.

Um getting into God. So

um

yeah, that that's one way to rise above

the noise and the static and the swamp

is in that practice. And then

I mentioned at the very beginning like

recognizing the sacred and the divine um

and we can do this and it's it's

certainly easy to do in the beauty of

nature. Mhm. It's also when you have

children and you're and you're raising a

kid, you kind of see that

the beauty in the in the kids' natural

curiosity and wonder and

openheartedness.

And then you experience it in in human

interaction, you know? I think I view

this conversation as sacred. This is a

This is a sacred conversation. We're

seeking to understand each other. Um

you're you're being a service to your

incredible audience. They want to learn

about how to make themselves better

people, how to start a business, how to

maximize their health, how to go on a on

a spiritual journey as a human being.

They want to learn all this and you're

providing the the way into them. So, we

get to have this conversation. People

may not agree with what I'm saying, but

it might spark something. And you know,

gratitude

uh and witnessing the sacred and that

meditative practice of kind of rising

above our thoughts and feelings. Um

that those are those are tools that we

can use to make our lives better and and

richer. If someone is on the the

outsides of this conversation and they

they don't really understand what

spirituality is and they've not really

gone on the journey that you've been on,

what are what kind of questions would

you pose to them

to help them open their mind?

So, if someone's listening to this, they

they find the word spiritual to be kind

of hippie stuff and they they're not

really, you know, they managed to get

this far in the conversation, but they

they don't really understand

spirituality, what it means. They

managed to get this far. Don't turn off

the podcast yet. There's more good stuff

coming. We're going to talk about The

Office. I promise.

Stick around, folks. Way too many

cameras here. Is it I think there's nine

or something.

We should do

Um what would you say to those people?

That I just think of a guy driving his

like lorry up the country. He's put the

podcast on and he's he doesn't really

know what spirituality is, doesn't

really understand it, doesn't understand

why he he would therefore need it in his

life.

Yeah.

That's a great question. I don't know

that I have an answer for that. I mean,

I guess, you know, the dictionary

definition of of spirituality that I use

is uh a focus on the non-material

aspects of life.

So,

that's our heart, that's our our our

soul, it's our connection.

It's the light that we bring.

It's

kind of a a connection to what I would

call the divine qualities that we all

carry

uh to some degree or another.

Um spiritual virtues, you could call

them. Uh

you know, love, compassion, honesty,

humility.

These are qualities that don't

necessarily serve us as human animals.

So, there there's something

uh

they're not about the quest for power,

they're not about the quest for status

and comfort. They um allow us to kind of

rise above

uh our kind of humdrum human experience.

So, that's what I would That's how I

would define spirituality, something in

that realm. But, I would say that um

listen, we all want more love in our

life, right? And love is the most

precious and beautiful resource.

And I would say maybe you don't believe

in spirituality, but or maybe you don't

believe in God, but you can focus on

love. And we can all focus on love.

That's something we all have an

experience of.

And so, we want to increase love in our

life, that's that's increasing

spirituality, it's the same thing. Like

uh

I had a profound experience of love

um

when my son was born. He almost died. It

was very traumatic birth.

An ER room with blood in the middle of

the night and a

in a really

piss-poor

Van Nuys, California, you know, county

hospital in a hallway. Um

emergency C-section. And when I held my

son, like I I again I had one of those

handful of truly transcendent

experiences, one of those cosmic

experiences of

looking into my son's eyes and uh they

were bright, bright blue and he'd just

been ripped from the womb of his mother

and I felt such profound love for him

and it was just like waves after waves

of of love. And just almost I had tears,

but it was almost just beyond tears. It

was like this transcendent like love

orgasm that was minutes long as I as I

held him just with such gratitude and um

and

you know, for a lot of materialists,

they could say, "Well, that's just

neurons and biochemicals in your brain

that are causing that." And that's true.

There are neurons firing and there's

biochemicals, but it's so much more than

that. You're never going to tell me that

that's all it is and that it's just some

biological imperative to you know, have

the species move forward and that's why

parents love their children. Like what I

experienced, I'm sorry, it's just it's

beyond that. You can call me deluded,

but that's what spirituality is, is just

increasing that love connection. That I

think that was a dating show in the

'90s, Love Connection. But, we want to

increase

that love connection and that is what a

spiritual journey is about. And we can

increase that with ourselves, with

nature, with with time, with beauty, um

and with our with our fellow human

beings. How did the birth of your son

change your life?

Well,

having kids uh is a paradigm shift

uh because you have a creature that's in

your care and is dependent on you. And

uh and it was actually really profound

when my son was a year and a half,

uh the same age that I was when my mom

left to have the affair. That was a

really profound time in my life. It

brought up a lot for me emotionally

because I saw this toddler kid

and he would go out and explore the

world and be like, "Oh, here's a cup."

And

play with some blocks and he'd "Oh, a

tree." And he'd had some words going and

stuff like that. And then immediately

you'd see this look on his face, like,

"Oh, I'm out too far." Like, "Oh, I'm

I've swam out too far." And then he'd

run back to the shallow end

to his mom and cling to his mom and

like, "Ah." And mom was home base,

right?

And I was like, "Oh, that home base was

stripped from me. Was taken away from me

when I was that same age." It was pretty

profound.

But,

this idea that our um we're responsible

we brought a life into the world and

we're responsible for that life, not

just for

5 or 10 years, not just for the first 18

years, but for eternity, it's um

it's profound. I can't really say

intellectually what that means, but

um it shifts the way you are alive in

the world. That example you gave of your

your son at 1 and 1/2 years old being

able to return to home base, in that you

can also see what what might have

happened to his development and his

perspective if when he'd gone out too

far and turned around, there was no

mother there. Yeah.

Who he might have become. And the and if

there was no mother there, and then

if if I and but then he had he had the

father, which is a close second, right?

But, then my dad, who was so traumatized

by being abandoned by his wife and was

so already emotionally shut down and he

couldn't really access emotions in the

best of scenarios. He had been

colossally abused as a kid and his mom

died and his dad was abusive and beat

him and left him and his sister alone in

the house for weeks at a time. It was

very Charles Dickens. Um so, this

you know, my dad's case, he was he was

the worst possible person to to have to

bond to, you know, or to need to bond

to. So,

you know, if little Walter if my wife

Holiday had left or or died for some

reason and Walter had to turn to me,

like

it would have been okay, but there's

there's nothing that fulfills that um

uh that that primal human

uh

connectionness

than

a child and the mom. One of the things

that really surprised me um was when I

was reading about your time at The

Office, which by the way, I have to say

is my favorite show of all time.

Should probably say that. I'm sure it's

that's the case for a lot of people.

Wait, are you saying right now that the

US Office is better than the UK Office?

Yes. Wow.

Yes, I'm I know. Do you hear that? It is

maybe because there was more of them.

There's a hell of a lot more of them.

So, I've watched I watched honestly,

when I was going through a difficult

part in my life and I was trying to I

was building my businesses, I was

shoplifting food cuz I was just I was so

broke at this chap in chapter of my

life. It was the I had this beat-up

laptop where I had to like solder the

charger cuz I couldn't afford the 10

pounds to buy a new one. It was the only

thing I watched and I watched it for

about 2 years. So, obviously I I just

kept going back and back and back. It

was, you know, you're talking in chapter

10 about the seven pillars of spiritual

revolution and one of them being about

spreading joy. It spread a whole lot of

joy in my life, a whole lot of joy. And

I don't watch TV, to be honest. I don't

watch TV, movies, don't really watch any

of it. These guys will know. But, The

Office

I watched. I don't think there's

anything else that I have that I have

watched. Um

but when I when I read about your your

experience on the show, there was a real

sense of unfulfillment,

especially in the early years when you

were making the show.

Um you just talked about that a little

bit on Bill's podcast, as well.

When I was in the office, I spent

several years really mostly unhappy

because it wasn't enough. Mhm. Yeah.

Well, first of all, I'm so glad that you

enjoyed The Office, and I just need to

speak to how deeply gratified I am and

all of us are

that The Office has brought so much

uh serenity and peace and love and uh

upliftment and inspiration to people.

I mean, getting on a TV show is one of

the hardest things in the world, and

then getting on one that lasts is a

really hard one. And then getting on one

that lasts and is good, and then one

that lasts and is good and still has a

cultural impact 10 years after it has

ended

is

I mean, talk about hitting the lottery.

I mean, we had no idea. We knew we were

onto something really special and and

funny and magical, and of course Steve

Carell is one of the great comedic

actors that will ever live. Um,

but uh we had no idea it would have this

kind of impact and we're so

deeply grateful and gratified um

around that.

And I going back to the English Office,

it's always like it's so funny to me uh

in The Bassoon King, the other book

there I talk a a little bit about that

that competition is so absurd. Like

the the anger and vitriol that you Brits

brought to the fact that that Americans

were going to make remake the beloved

Office. It was so staggering. I mean, it

was so enraged

and vitriolic, and it was like, Guys,

guys, the English Office isn't going

anywhere. You can watch it over and over

again. We're not going to take all the

copies and burn them. You know what I

mean? We're going to take a brilliant

idea by you know, by Ricky and Stephen

and the BBC, and God bless them. Um,

you know, it's

a astonishingly brilliant, and we're

going to kind of run with it. Instead of

12 episodes, we're going to make 200

episodes. How's that? If you don't like

it, you don't have to watch it. But uh

that was an interesting

uh

time frame. But yeah, so it's

interesting that you bring this up

because

I was very frustrated cuz I was on Bill

Maher and I was on one other podcast,

and I was talking about how

there were times on The Office that I

really struggled because I really wasn't

happy.

Um,

because it wasn't enough. Here I was on

the greatest job that I could ever

imagine, beyond my wildest dreams of

that geeky, chess-playing,

bassoon-playing kid from suburban

Seattle that, you know, walked around

like a pimply serial killer, um that I

would be part of one of the great TV

shows of all time. I mean, give me a

break. And here I was getting paid like

millions of dollars and playing one of

the most memorable characters, and I'm

getting nominated for awards, and I'm

working with the most beautiful family

of of actors and writers imaginable, and

yet I was like,

"How come I can't get more movies? And

why did my movie I did bomb? And why

won't they make a deal with me? And I I

just I want to have this, and I want an

office on Warner Brothers. And why can't

I get a you know,

and I spent a lot of time

uh unnecessary time and angst and

anguish um in that anxious discontent um

at a time when I should have just been

like,

"This, it doesn't get better than this.

Just enjoy it. Drink it in, and be a

part of this incredible artistic, cuz it

was artistic, experience." So, but I

think the reason I've been bringing that

up in some interviews

is I think it's important for people to

understand that,

you know, here's someone who,

you know, 15 years into their acting

career, 20 years into their acting

career, cuz I was I started playing

Dwight when I was 38 years old,

um

is

uh has a officially made it, Yeah. and

they're still unhappy. And that is so

human. It's so quintessentially human.

And to think that, oh, if I hit this end

result, then I am going to be happy?

And that's why I I I brought it back to

that unhappiness that I experienced in

my 20s. Like

I was an actor. I was from suburban

Seattle. Here I was. I had an apartment

in New York. I was doing acting, and yet

I was really unhappy and miserable, and

it didn't make any sense cuz society had

always told me like

there's this if-then proposition. Like

if you achieve X, Y, and Z, if you make

a certain amount of money, if you get a

certain position, if you're in a certain

kind of relationship, if you have a

house at a certain level, if you're a

member of a certain club, or whatever,

then you will be happy. Once I achieve

this, then I will be happy. That's

[ __ ] It's absolute and total crock

of [ __ ] Now,

certainly

I'm not meaning to demean anyone that's

struggling to pay bills, and they're

going like, you know, [ __ ] you,

Hollywood elitist. You got millions of

dollars in the bank, and uh you don't

have to worry about, you know, paying

the bills. I was there, you know, I was

I was having to worry about, you know,

paying the bills, and it was it was a

struggle for the, you know, first 15

years of my career. So, I've been there.

I know what that's like, and I honor

that. So, you certainly want to make

enough money to

it does take an incredible pressure off

your shoulders once you have achieved

that. But to think that then you're

going to be happy? I mean, you've

interviewed a lot of millionaires and a

lot of successful people. Like how how

many of them are really

fulfilled uh deeply fulfilled and happy?

What would I have to have done to have

gotten Rain at the height and the peak

of that success, even when it was going,

to be in the moment and to enjoy it for

what it was? Because it's not just you.

It's it's all the people that are

listening now that are in jobs. They

just got that promotion.

And now they're thinking about becoming

a director or a CEO. They they too are

deferring their happiness off to the

future behind some goal.

What can we do in the moment to just

like

enjoy

life today? Bring our happiness into the

into the now.

Um,

if you always think your happiness is

somewhere in the future, it always will

be.

Um,

what would I have to have said to you to

to get you to snap out of that?

Um,

that that's a great question.

I don't know that there's anything that

you could have said to me in a couple of

sentences or a couple of paragraphs, but

I think if you could have encouraged me

to go back onto my spiritual journey,

back into my spiritual journey, because

you're absolutely right. All we have is

now. All we have is this next breath.

It's this breath that we're currently

experiencing.

And

this is where the joy is. And if we're

waiting for the joy to be

375 breaths from now, or 3,000 breaths

from now, or 300 breaths from now,

um we're missing out 100%. And

I think gratitude has a great deal cuz

one of the cures for chronic

dissatisfaction,

the cure for dukkha, is

is gratitude. And I would have been to

Rain, one of the things that would have

been really helpful is like, Rain, you

need to start every day with 10 things

you're grateful for. It's like, I'm

grateful for Jenna Fischer and John

Krasinski and Steve Carell, and I'm

grateful for a nice paycheck and a and a

healthy son and a beautiful wife, and

I'm I'm grateful for,

you know, the fans of The Office and the

fact that I get to,

you know, I've trained as an actor my

whole life, and I get to use those

skills and tell wonderful stories and

make people laugh. Like if I could have

been stayed hooked into that, and I did

get hooked back into that. Those This

was a I'm describing a period of like

3 years, 3 to 4 years where I was really

struggling with that, and then and then

I I came around.

Um, Does it rub you of your ambition,

though? This is a question I always used

to wrestle with myself, because that

that Rain that wanted more

versus the Rain that goes, "I'm grateful

for what I have." Is one more or less

ambitious than the other?

Yeah, that's a that's a great question.

I and I don't know the answer to that

because there is

um

did my chronic dissatisfaction fueled my

spiritual drive, it also fueled my

career drive and my ambition

um because I was so chronically dis-

dis- disenchanted and disaffected uh

that I I wanted uh

uh I wanted more. I wanted more

opportunities. I wanted more money. I

wanted more knowledge. I wanted more

wisdom.

Um,

there is there's a drive there that can

be healthy, and a drive that's there's

an unhealthy aspect to it. So, I don't

really know the answer to that. I think

for now, when I look in my life, like I

still have great ambition. Like I still

want SoulPancake as a brand. I'm just

kind of starting to think about like how

to expand that as a brand.

Um, I still want to act in movies. You

know, I want to direct. I want to

maybe create companies. You know, I

created SoulPancake, maybe create

another company or something like that.

And there there's a lot I want to do.

Um,

but I'm hoping to bring the best aspects

of myself towards that ambition. And for

me, that has to do with service and um

and God

and um

and utilizing myself, my God-given

talents uh and faculties, and maximizing

those

um

and living in God's will. I'm sorry to

get all

hippie-dippie religious now, but to me,

that's what's driving me now, but it's

uh as long as we're in the battle of the

ego. And that's the most ancient right

human spiritual struggle. It's the

battle of the ego. And psychologists

talk about it, and prophets talk about

it, and gurus talk about it, right? So,

as long as we want to promote the self

and the self-will and ego satisfaction,

we will never be happy.

Are you happy?

I am.

Yeah. Happy's the wrong word, but

whatever it is you mean by happy, I have

that thing.

What is that thing?

Um I don't know what the word is, and I

I I ponder this a lot. Like, what's the

perfect word? You know, social

scientists talk about well-being. So,

I like that one a lot. Mhm. That works.

Uh it's partially contentment, uh but

it's also partially

um meaning and purpose and vision.

And when I'm in alignment with meaning

and purpose and vision, um then I feel

like I'm vibrating

on the right frequency.

I discovered a product which has changed

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Quick one. You guys know that for years

now, my office has quite literally been

everywhere. On a plane, in the back of

my car, in a terminal in an airport, or

on a train. You name it, I've probably

worked there. Ever since I started my

first business at 19 years old, I've

been working on the move. All I need is

Wi-Fi, a desk, and my headphones, and

I'm set. And one of the places that has

always had my back when I'm struggling

to find an office is WeWork. I've been

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What are the things that you you you

still struggle with? Because sometimes

when we we read the books and stuff, and

I've written a book myself, it can

sometimes

exude the illusion of fi- fixed or

figured it all out. I'm done.

Right. What So, what do you still

struggle with on a on a ongoing basis?

Yeah, uh

I think that uh

I can be a better husband, um and I

think I can be a a kinder

uh father and uh more compassionate

friend.

Um there's still some really basics of

human interaction that I haven't quite

gotten figured out. Really? And well,

because I wasn't really I didn't learn

these things from my parents, right? I

didn't learn

um

you know, connection and compassion in

the household that I grew up in. So,

I've had to, you know, a parent my adult

self in that in that direction.

And you know, to really I I struggle

with um

uh making sure that I'm uh again, using

the tools that God has given me to try

and make the world a better place. I

think there's a lot more that I could be

doing to

uh try and make the world better and to

help

uh

heal people that are disenfranchised and

bring more joy to people's lives and um

and try and bring spiritual tools to a

young generation that I think will make

their lives better. There's there's more

I could be doing to that end.

And I still have a big ego. You know,

I'm still narcissistic, and I still,

you know, want ego satisfaction, and

it's always there, you know, it's

it's uh

it's uh

you know, they always say an addiction

that your addict is in the basement

doing push-ups, you know, even when But

I would say the same thing about the

ego, you know. It's there in the in the

basement doing push-ups, just getting

ready to come in and take the reins.

Does it speak to you sometimes,

the the the guy in the basement?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, Young

talks about the shadow side, and it's so

important and part of the therapeutic

process is to get to know one's shadow,

because

and to know and embrace and accept and

love one's shadow. And I have a sh- I

have a dark shadow, you know, it's an

addict shadow, and it's a miserable

shadow, and it's

self-important and righteous and

entitled and

this is this is part of who Rainn Wilson

is, you know? And

I'm not going to get rid of those

aspects of myself by keeping that shadow

at at arm's length or locked in a closet

or something like that. I have to,

you know, keep your keep your enemies

closer, you know? Keep that Keep that

shadow. There you are, buddy. There you

are. Huh. Goon goon goon goon Right in

the belly. Goon goon goon goon goon.

Yeah, you little you little mean little

addict, you know? You little

narcissistic entitled [ __ ]

I love you. I love you. You're right

here with me. You're part of me. Let's

go on this We're in this together. I got

you right where I want you. Everyone's

got a shadow. Um a lot of people are

trying to fight their shadow.

I mean, a lot of the prevailing

narratives are that you can therapy your

way out of the shadow. Yeah. No, it's

it's sitting the

You got to sh- sit the shadow on the

lap, almost like a ventriloquist dummy,

you know? It's That's why I love

ventriloqu- ventriloquist

stories and horror films of like the

dummies that come to life and attack,

you know? Mhm. Because that's that's

your shadow is is that. Hello. How are

you? [ __ ] you, Steven. Diary of a

[ __ ] CEO. Get a new t-shirt, idiot.

That's going to be the trailer.

Um

the 12-step program, you and Russell

have both spoken to me about this, but

Michael Mosley talked to me about it as

well. And what I've since the

conversation with Russell, I've I've

spent a lot of time talking to other

people about um really like what makes

us change.

So, the 12-step program is has some

principles which I think are applicable

for all of our lives about how to how to

create change.

Um

if someone's going through something in

their lives now, and they're they're

they're struggling to change it, how how

does that 12-step program help us to go

to change? What what what is it about

that program that causes that change in

people? Do you know? I love the 12-step

program. That's such a great question.

There's going to be people that are way

more um

knowledgeable than I,

but I will say there are some essential

components of the 12-step program that

you're right are applicable to everyone

and could make everyone's lives better.

Uh I think society as a whole could

benefit from

uh a lot of the way that the 12 steps

work. Um

I think it's the most profound spiritual

movement of the last several hundred

years. Uh it has transformed millions of

people's lives.

First of all, there's the idea that

there's this wonderful dichotomy at the

center of the 12 steps,

which is if I surrender,

if I admit defeat, if I admit

powerlessness,

I find great strength.

So, there's a there's a beautiful

spiritual koan at the center of that.

Mhm. I give up. I throw up the white

flag. I can't do this on my own.

I need the support of a community.

I need to get vulnerable.

I need the support of a higher power.

And then I find great strength. There's

something just so beautiful about that.

And the community of the 12 steps is

amazing, too. Like,

sharing with like-minded alcoholics,

um

and getting the support of that

community, the fact that there's servant

leaders, that there's elections, that

it's it's run It's the inmates running

the asylum, you know? Uh there aren't

these kind of

leaders. In fact,

there if there's someone who kind of

presents as like a leader in 12 steps,

you should be immediately

wary of them and that they have any kind

of answer at all. The surrender point

really is the thing that's compelled me,

in fact. It's when Russell was talking

about this idea of

um I think the kind of what he said was

like,

he broke it down into three kind of

processes. Awareness of whatever it is,

the belief that you can change the

thing, and then this third step, this

principle of kind of surrendering to it.

And in and in an individualistic

society, materialistic society, where

we're becoming more and more

isolated and individualistic in our

approach to life, we are living in four

white walls alone more than ever before.

You know, we we think we can do it

ourselves, right? This idea of surrender

and admitting that you need the

collective and help with something and

that you might not have the answers I

think is so powerful.

So so important as well. I think we all

need to surrender in many ways. I think

I need to surrender. Mhm. In terms of my

ego, I think I need to surrender um

in terms of even spirituality. I told

you a second ago about my my partner who

is very

whatever anyone might call spiritual and

surrendering to her way of living has

brought me so much value Mhm. in my

life. So this idea of surrender being

the solution to

um

the resistance we're encountering by the

ways that we're living, I think it's

something that everyone can consider.

Like if you're feeling a deep sense of

dissatisfaction in your life,

surrendering and saying

I need help. I don't know the answer.

Um

Can Can you help me? Yeah. brings in

everything you're It's probably that the

medicine that you're seeking. Mhm. But

surrender feels like an interesting

word. It feels like powerlessness.

Right. But again, there's great power in

that powerlessness. And what do you

surrender to? And that's why there's a

higher power as well. And

uh boy, there's so many things I wanted

to say there.

Um

but

uh

there's a humility in the process that

is missing in contemporary society,

right? I'd say we're the least humble

that humans have been

uh

in in our history, all 8 billion of us

sharing this planet.

So um

And I think God or a higher power

requires a certain humility. Like

there's a power greater than myself. The

ego

is the opposite of surrender. The ego

wants to control outcomes. The ego wants

to control other people, right? As long

as we're trying to control other people

and control outcomes, we're going to be

unhappy. So there's something about

surrendering like

you know, your your partner's

you know, journey, you you surrender to

that.

You don't know what she's going to go

live on a commune or worship a mushroom

or something like that. Okay, you're on

your journey. She already does, babe.

Babe.

You know. So it's it's again that

central spiritual struggle is is the is

the is the ego, is the primacy, the

primacy, the primalcy

of I, the self, as being separate from

everything else. And the essential

spiritual teaching at the center of

every faith tradition is that we're all

connected. We're all united. We're all

one. This is an illusion of self.

So surrender

eliminates that illusion of self. But

there's so many other nuggets in 12

steps. Like one of them, just in the

middle of the steps, is when we are

wrong, promptly admit it.

Like

that's just a really good piece of

advice. And you know what? We could all

benefit. Politicians could benefit. CEOs

could benefit. Um people in

relationships, parents with their

children, people in in partnership could

benefit. Like when we're wrong, promptly

admit it. Promptly being the word. Not

eventually.

You know.

Um As soon as you know. Say you're sorry

and do it faster, you know, and do it

better. And uh the world would be a much

better place if everyone around said,

"When I'm wrong, I'm going to promptly

admit it." That's just one little gem.