Transcript
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altiger Show on the Choose Yourself Network. Today on the James Altiger Show. I had a backpack and I had a 2, $3,000 in my name, and I just lost my job, and I sort of went off on this journey where I climbed in the Himalayas, went to Tibetan monasteries, went to, end up in Spain, and end up walking this pilgrimage in Spain called the Camino de Santiago completely accidentally. This is actually what I learned. So there's only, I think, a couple of fears that are valid. That's like if there's a burning inferno. I think outside of that, if it's fear, like, inner fear about, like, how we may be perceived or what may happen or something negative happened, I actually think we've turned it upside down. I think that's actually a signal to go forward. You're dealing with personal fears. You're in a foreign country. You don't speak the language. You know, people die doing these things. You know, blisters. Some people get so, blisters, they stop. And it's but it's all a matter of step by step by step. It happens. Then all sorts of resolutions just happen. It's funny. When you let go is when we let go is when all things just start to happen, and all the realizations come and just life just starts to work more. Define let go. Use another phrase. Forgiveness, for example, is a letting go. Right? Saying yes to life and not fighting it, not resisting what's happening. I think that's a key theme in this book, and I've learned. What does that mean? Saying yes to life? It's actually something that a monk told me years ago, and I really layered that as core theme in this book, I I remember asking him, I was a bit of a wise ass, I think, but I really meant it. I was like, how do you he just looks so calm and peaceful and so joyful. I was like, how do you find peace? Because his life was not easy. And I'm like, how do you find peace? And he looked at me and he goes, easy question, And I'm like, hey, you know, if I'm gonna ask you a question, that's the question. He said, okay. I'll tell you. He said, I say yes. If all that happens, I say yes. That literally is the secret. Because I think that most so much so much of our pain, it comes from resisting what's happening. It's not giving in and saying, yay, you know, like, okay, let me just but it's like being in the moment, saying yes, and then coming from there, what do I wanna do? That's a place of power. Here we go. Kamal Ravikant, welcome back. You didn't even remember you were on my podcast 2 years ago. How could you forget? I am horrified at times. Experience in your life. You launched me, James. I'm horrified. You have written this excellent book that so many people have loved called Love Yourself. It's got 22100 22100 reviews on Amazon now. How does that make you feel? It's Mostly positive. It's humbling, man. It's humbling. And you launched that book. You wrote a blog post about it. And all I did was hide underneath the table after it come out, and it just took off. Well well, what I wanna say is we're gonna talk about your new book. It's your first novel, Rebirth, but it's very autobiographical, and there's a lot of issues that could be useful to anybody. But people should read the book to to get the full in-depth. But I wanna mention about Love Yourself. What I really wanted to do with that book was steal it from you. So I I remember you told me the story, and I called you up, and I was like, you should let me interview you, and I'll write it up, your story. And you were like, I think I'm gonna write this as a book. I was stalling you. I was terrified. There was no way. Because remember, because I was terrified of what people in Silicon Valley would think of me. You know? I had a because at that time, look. I had my company had blown up. I'd failed. I got so sick, and here I was, like, my look. I love myself, and I got better. You know, and I changed my life around. And I remember telling you that story at the w Hotel when you came to San Francisco, and you're like, oh, I'll do a blog post. And then you said, I'll let you do a guest blog post. That's when I really got terrified. And then I did say to you, tell you what, I'll put it all together, and if you say I should publish it, I will. And so I worked really, really, really hard on it. Insanely hard. I, you know, locked myself in an apartment, grew a beard for like a month, just morning till night, love yourself, working on it, hot you know, then cutting it. And then I sent it to you, and I didn't hear from you for, like, 3 weeks or 4 weeks. And I was like, oh, s**t. He hates it. And and it was just you you were just swamped. And you're like, oh, you I love this. You have to publish it. I'm writing a blog post on it. I was like, ugh. So then I then I published it, and it changed my life. It actually changed my life. It's a great book. I mean, we're again, we're gonna talk about rebirth because there's a lot of things in there that are that's fascinating. And and and rebirth comes out January 3rd. This podcast will probably also come out January 3rd, in to coincide with that. But, there was one thing about Love Yourself, other than the content itself, which is, of course, beautiful, and you've gotten a great response to it. But one thing that I thought about when looking at Love Yourself that was really interesting to me has nothing to do with the book itself, but has to do with the publishing industry Uh-huh. Which is you self published that. Obviously, it was a huge bestseller. I mean, to get 22100 reviews, you had to have sold 100 of thousands of copies of books. But how many pages is the book? It's 8,000 words. So I would say in a in a paperback, probably, like, 40 something pages or 50 pages. So a publisher Never publish it. Would never publish that. Ever. In the history of publishing, no publisher since Gutenberg would publish that book. Unless it was Ben Franklin who did pamphlets. Yeah. Yeah. But he did pamphlets, and he was he he self published. He actually owned his own printing press. So so but but what's interesting to me is that I I it was a realization to myself. A book doesn't have to be 250 pages, which is what a publisher basically requires. You know? And, specifically, 250 pages because, if it's too much, it gets more expensive to print. And it's too little, bookstores don't want it or for whatever reason. So so you showed me that, oh, okay. Anything goes. You can write a 10 page book, and put it on Amazon. You could write a a 5,000 page book and put it on Amazon. I'm just gonna see how many pages Rebirth is. Excuse me for a second. 230 pages. Yeah. So right near the 250 page mark. Okay. Let's talk about Rebirth, your first novel, but also borderline autobiographical. I saw that. Yeah. Publisher, who's mostly a nonfiction publisher, but, he liked the way you took your real experiences and brought out more truth in it by putting it in a fictional format. So this novel is sort of this fictional journey that you went on. Your main character is called Amit. Yeah. And I keep thinking of him as Kamal. I keep picturing you in the thing, and I always wonder if you met all these amazing characters in your real life. But what what what what tell tell describe the book a little bit. Oh, the books are actually based on my life in the sense that when I was in my twenties, mid twenties, and my dad died. And I wasn't close to him. I Why weren't you close to him? My parents were divorced when I was a kid. My mom raised my brother and I, and I never saw him. But I was with him the night he died. Can I can I ask? I'm sorry to interrupt. No, please. I always interrupt. And, so so you never saw him. Did he live, like, across the street, or did he live in another state? Or No. He lived in the same city, but he was actually, it wasn't a good party. And he was in the, you know, he was a troubled, abusive man, which is my my mom left him and took my brother and I, and it was a very hard time. We had no money. My mom raised my brother and I on nothing, like minimum wage. Where did she work? We were in Jamaica, Queens, 10 locks on her door. She worked, I think, in Bronx or Brooklyn, and she used to commute every day, like, several hours a day. And he wouldn't help at all? No. No. What was he doing? I don't know. He was a troubled man. And, Can I ask I'm just really curious? I'm sorry if it brings because I know you don't wanna mention it in the book, but you just allude to it. In what what do you mean he was troubled and abused? Abusive, physically, emotionally. Like, would he hit you? Would he hit your mom? Both. Yeah. You know, I have a bunch of memories of that. And it's actually which is why I actually when I had a chance to reconnect with him, I chose not to as I was growing up because I carried that anger, that those memories as a kid. And yet when I found out he had cancer and he was dying, I reconnected with him. And I only How did you reconnect with him? I went to see him, and it was really hard. It was very, very hard to come. You know, it's there's something about blood that you can't escape from no matter what. Right? And to face it. And then, when he was in the last night in the hospital, the hospital called me, and I flew out, and I was with him. And I made him a promise. He'd asked me for something, and I'd said I didn't wanna do it. But when he was there dying, I said I would, which was he wanted me to take his ashes to the Ganges, which is a tradition of our ancestors. So the Ganges, just, for anybody listening who who might not know, is this river in India with very spiritual, kind of connotations to it? How would you describe the Ganges? A big river full of a lot of, like, chanting people and bonfires and and yet beauty, flows in from the Himalayas. It's like the most sacred river in India. And I didn't know much about it, honestly. I I just went and showed up there. And I I had a backpack, and I had a 2, $3,000 in my name. And I just lost my job. And what was the job that you lost? I was doing a trauma research in emergency departments, and I Did you lose a job like that? Don't you need people to do trauma research? When you go away for a while. You know, I took, like, they just convert like, they didn't have the like, they needed people in the emergency room every day, and I was gonna go for a few weeks. And once I was gone, I actually came home 8 months later. Mhmm. And I sort of went off on this journey where I climbed in the Himalayas, went to Tibetan monasteries, went to, end up in Spain, ran you know, and end up walking this pilgrimage in Spain called the Camino de Santiago. Completely accidental. So so Camino de Santiago, that's like the path of Saint James or something like that? It is. It's an 11th century pilgrimage, based on where they stood where they thought the tomb of Saint James was. And people I mean, millions of people have walked over the centuries. And it's fascinating because people still come. I think about, like, a 100000 people a year come from all over the world to walk it, and most of them aren't Catholic. Most of them aren't religious. It's the whole thing about walking somewhere in the footprints of 1,000,000 of millions kings to paupers who walked ahead of you for for so many centuries. And you walk in those footsteps every day in a country that's not yours. And it's a it's a journey of personal transformation. And I didn't know that. I was just doing it and because I was just wandering. Why did you decide so you you're you're in Tibet. Yeah. And suddenly you said, okay. I'm gonna go to Spain and go on this No. No. No. It was a long convoluted thing, and then the this is not a novel because the novel is based on the experience, not the experience. But I was in Italy visiting a friend from college, and I was very drunk one night with a beautiful Italian woman, and she brought it up. And to impress her, I said I would. And next morning, I woke up all all sober and thinking, then I just said, look it up. Doomed. I'm like You promised a woman. You've gotta go on the beautiful Italian with, like, this beautiful green cat like eyes. By the way, it's a 550 mile pilgrimage that you have to walk. Well, I didn't know it was that long. I thought it took a week at the time. And I was, like, a week backpacking, and actually I thought, you know, it'd be good to get away in a country where I don't speak the language, just get away from everyone, just think. So so so I wanna really strongly underline how beautiful and rare a thing this is. So so this is a pilgrimage that people would go on, a religious pilgrimage that you could kind of take away the religious aspect now because, like you say, not even Right. Catholics go on it. It's many people go on it to to find some icon at the end or goal at the end, ostensibly. But, really, what's happening is you know, right now, like, if I wanna go to the Maldives and stay in an underwater hotel, I can book a plane, go out there, go snorkeling for a week, come back. It's almost like globalization has made experience too convenient, too commoditized, but you can't do that with a pilgrimage. Like, a pilgrimage is the one thing in the world that's still, the one type of experience in the world that's still original. You have to go through it. And it really is a thing. You can't just take a a vacation to the Camino de Sao Paulo. You can take a plane to the to the end to the end, but But there's no point. There's no personal transformation. Right. And you know what I'm saying? Transformation comes from the originality that the Earth itself has given to us as opposed to kind of the conveniences that modern technology has given to us. It's a journey. You know the classic poem Ithaca? It's not Ithaca when you get there. It's the journey of who you become in getting to Ithaca, which is actually ultimately what a pilgrimage is. It's like you're it's like boot camp for me. It was another pilgrimage I did when I was in Fort Benning, Georgia when I was 18. Right? It's like that you daily the challenge every day, and by the end, when you're when you graduate and you you earn your infantry cord, you're a different person. You're a better version of yourself. You're a person who knows and can handle certain things in life you never thought. With this with this pilgrimage, it was even more interesting because all these kind of the kind of people who come to walk a pilgrimage are obviously different. They're not the average, person. And the conversations you have What what do you mean, like, are they because I can think of several things you might mean. On the one hand, they might be more troubled because they're trying to you know, everybody is sort of at some point at the beginning and, again, correct me if I'm wrong. My guess is the beginning of your journey, yes, you promised a woman, but also there must be some element where you are still troubled by particularly the character in the book is is troubled by his father's death in in various ways that are he doesn't even understand why. He's troubled also by his his ex girlfriend he had left behind. There are many things troubling him, but, also, there's this willingness to surrender to to to seek that personal transformation. So often people are troubled, but they're not willing to surrender on the path of personal transformation. And that's what a pilgrimage what other elements have to am I wrong or what other elements have to happen in life? Pilgrimage, I think, is a great encapsulation for you wanna take lessons you wanna learn life lessons in years and wanna but wanna do it really quickly, go walk a pilgrimage. You get up every day, you have a backpack, and you walk west. And the adventures you have along the way at least in this pilgrimage, you walk west. But I walked for 37 days. But not so quickly. It's, again, not like you could take a plane to the end of the thing and say, oh, I did it. You have to walk it. Yeah. You have to some people bike it. You know, some people ride donkeys. You know? Some people the journey. Yeah. Probably, you know, I'm sure someone's on a unicycle. This it's like probably now in a hoverboard or whatever. Right? But still, you gotta make the journey. I'm gonna do it on a segue. You know? I bet you money someone's done it. You know, but you gotta do the journey. And you go through you walk through deserts. You walk through mountains. You walk through cities and villages. There are people still look like they're in the 16th century. And and and, you know, you're thinking. You're out under the stars. I slept in ruined castles and churches and wheat fields. And, you know, I drank a lot of wine, and I met people along the way. And and I met some amazing, unbelievably wise people. So tell me some of the characteristics of someone who begins a pilgrimage. Like like, among the people you met. Among the people I met, if I was to use myself, I was troubled. You know? I was trying to figure a lot of things out, what I want in life, and I didn't even I was escaping from the memories of my father, like, coming to terms with death his death because there's a lot of unresolved issues. You know? It's like when someone dies and you haven't you haven't had the conversations you wish you'd had. You know? Like and so now you gotta have the conversations with yourself. It's hard. You know? And a pilgrimage in that sense is was a great gift I gave to myself without realizing it because I could have those conversations with people I met, people with all you know, people from Brazil, France, Spain, England, all over the world, Japan, with such various life experiences. And we shared with each other, you know, you shared with each other stories of your lives, and you can't help but grow. What do you think were some of the other reasons other people were on, this pilgrimage? I mean, some people are, you know, escaping from their lives. Some people are at that place where they don't know what to do next. That's a great time to go on pilgrimage. It's it's actually You're feeling stuck or in a rut somehow, or maybe something bad happened. And it's a time to it's almost kind of removes yourself from, like I said earlier, like, from the conveniences of modern society, so you can get back to this original state of the traveler, the journeyer. Yeah. The journeyer. And and The wander. It's also it's also your journey intersecting with the journey of other pilgrims. That's what makes a pilgrimage, you know, not just walking alone all the time. And that's where the growth comes from. That's where the transformation comes from. Like, for so, like, for me, it was, you know, like, I met people from all over, some incredibly sane people, some incredibly insane people, but they all, like, like, their lessons have been you know, you can't help but you don't have shallow conversations when you're walking a pilgrimage. You just can't do it. Do you think also, because you've traveled to get there and because you're on essentially a hard journey, like, you have to walk 30 550 miles, do you think it helps you appreciate the conversations more as opposed to someone you just meet randomly, you know, you're trying for coffee or whatever? Yeah. Because you're there for a you you're there for a reason. You didn't just accidentally, unlike myself, but it was sort of, you didn't just actually just wanna wake up when you're on a pilgrimage. You're there for a reason. So that's almost like it's like when you're writing a story, there's a theme, and you stick to the theme writing the story. You sort of have a theme when you go. Either it's you're lost or you're trying to figure things out or you're saying some people walk it to say goodbye to things in their life, to people in their life they've lost. It's it's and it sounds like they're really saying goodbye to a chapter in their life. Yeah. And it's Yeah. It's again, on the surface, it's about someone they lost, but it's about their experience saying goodbye to that experience their personal experience with that person. Yeah. And you can't help but that happen. And what's interesting is when you do a journey like that, and like all things in life, what you set out for to do may not be what you need, but you get what you need. In these kind of journeys, it has it just happens. Because you're open, because you're you're actually physically moving forward, emotionally moving forward, spiritually moving forward, Like, this this novel is ultimately about forgiveness and saying yes to life. But the character doesn't know he needs that in the beginning. Right. Because he's thinking he needs to he's grip he's dealing with the fact that he needs to forgive his father, but he ends up, in a weird way, forgiving himself, which is ultimate forgiveness. Right? He doesn't even know in the beginning he needs to forgive his father. You know? Like, but he has to go through this journey and and and grow through it to to actually reach that space. But I'm I'm still intrigued by the idea of of the journey and and the wandering. Like, the fact that you don't know what you're going to find at the end, and yet you're willing to go there knowing that you don't know what you're going to find at the end is a very interesting thing. And so it becomes not about what you're going to see, but how you're going to see the things along the way. It kind of sharpens like, right now, we wake up. We get in the car. We commute to work. Sometimes, I'll drive or I'll I'll be driven 20 minutes, half hour, and I won't even remember all the things along the way because you do the same thing every day. So you just your mind just goes away. But I imagine when you're on a pilgrimage like this, any pilgrimage, really, it it brings sharply into view all the things, the conversations, the things you see, all along the way. Even though you're aiming for this one goal, the tomb of Saint James, it's not about the tomb of Saint James. About everything you see sharpens into view. You're absolutely right because everything is new, and everything is transient and fleeting, which is life anyway, but we just take it for granted. But there, everything is literally new different language. Every site is new. Every village is new. You know, you one day you're walking on trails left, you know, left by the Romans. You know, walking on cobblestone bridges built by the Romans. You know? And the next day you're walking through, like, this crappy communist style, like, buildings with, like, steel bridges. You know, you just everything is just, you can't help but just take in take it in and be more present because it's all new. So you met a lot of women because there's the there's Rose Angela. There's Do you mind. This is fiction. Cat. This is fiction, but I'm sure that it's based on real characters. And and I won't give anything away on on any of them. No. You can't. No. But I think we'll we'll we'll preserve the sanctity of the novel because I think there's so many issues, interesting issues around the novel. But, like, what, what's the most meaningful and I'm sure that all of your interactions were very meaningful. So describe some of the meaningful interactions you've you've had with these people. Actually, the the character that Kat is based on, she's she's real. And this woman was just amazing who had lived such a life. She was an English nurse who had, like, like, lived in Africa, became, like, became, like, basically, a de facto doctor in Africa and took her kids. I had 3 kids and 1 3 sons and 1 adopted daughter and just rode them across a Land Rover in Africa. I used to get pulled over by soldiers and machine guns, and then and then they used to give them cigarettes to remind them that she was human, and then they would let her go. And, like, and then she worked in the film industry, was very well known as this nurse that just loved people. And I just met her randomly. We walked for a long time together, and she shared me the stories of her life. And they were just I mean, those kind of people. Right? Like, those are the kind of people that end up on a pilgrimage. You know what I mean? I don't think I met anyone who was just, like, not interesting. And, ultimately, everyone's interesting, but it's almost like when you're in that journey, the more interesting parts of them come out. But I wonder if it's, like, there's a transformation that happens on the pilgrimage to a pilgrimage. So note you went through a lot on the way to the pilgrimage. Your father died, and that was very complicated. You went to India to do this ritualistic, like, putting the ashes in the Ganges River. You went to Tibet. You went to Italy. And now you're ready to begin the pilgrimage. It's sort of like you're on a pre pilgrimage. The accidental pilgrim. Yeah. You know, looking back, I think I did that whole trip for 8 months something on $35100 too, which in itself was was a pilgrimage you'd Because people actually associate time with money. Right? Time people there's a phrase, time is money. And so people think, well, I can't leave. I can't do a pilgrimage. It's it'll take me away from this and that and my responsibilities. But the reality is, sometimes you have to do it. You have to go through a sense of surrender, a sense of of, personal discovery. Was it were you scared along the way at all? Scared? No. I was, unfortunately, I've been in the military, so those, like, traveling doesn't scare me. What scares me scared internally? Internally. Yeah. Like, the things about what I'd let what was facing me back home because I'd left everything behind and everything was falling apart back home, and yet I had this feeling that I had to do it. Once I started, I couldn't stop, and I couldn't explain it why. And but I've also learned, you know, looking back in my life, that's where you gotta go. If you have fear, like, that kind of fear, but something isn't propelling you forward, that's a signal. That's, like, the the closest you can get to true north in your compa*s. So how can you I that reminds me of, like, Sheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In. Like, how can you kind of lean what's the technique for leaning into that fear? Because a lot of people have that. Like, I might be afraid to have a difficult conversation with somebody. I might be afraid to ask for a raise. I might be afraid to leave a job. How there's lots of things people are afraid. I might be afraid to write a book. Yeah. How do you lean in? What's the technique for leaning into that fear? That's a great question, and this is actually what I've learned. So there's only, I think, a couple of fears that are valid. It's like if there's a burning inferno and you don't have to pull anyone out, don't go in. I think outside of that, if it's fear, like, interfere about, like, how we may be perceived or what may happen or something negative happened, I actually think we've turned it upside down. I think that's actually a signal to go forward. What we do is I don't know why. We actually use it as a signal to not cross that line. So I started to, like, actually look at that in my life. Like, if I if it scares me, like, that kinda scares me, I have to do it. Well, you figure I mean, there's almost like an evolutionary thing happening where you figure we have this fear left it's the same fear that, like, let's say, reptiles fear. So if they're if they see, like, an animal or even too much sunlight, so they're exposed. They're afraid, and they run away. And we we kinda have those same genes still in our reptilian brain, but now we live in a very complicated society, so most of those years are irrational. So you should actually kind of move forward when that's it's a signal for moving forward as opposed to a lion's about to eat you. Yeah. And, actually, I think it's also connected to the heart. I think it's actually a signal go that's where the magic is. But you gotta cross the line. You gotta step up for life to show it to you. Like, look. Like, writing the book, you know, love yourself, putting it out. I was terrified. I said my friend What did were did any of your fears come true? Did anyone say what the heck is up with Kamal? Couple of people. Some people, but, you know, they were drowned out by all the other people whose whose lives had changed. Yeah. You know? And also but, ultimately, who I became in the process of someone who conquered that not even conquered the fear, just use it as a guide to go forward, and then you start to live that more in your life. You know? I think that's a very it's a very practical way to actually look at things as well. It's like, if I'm afraid and it's not a burning fire, a physical burning fire with no puppies or kids in there I gotta run-in and save, if it's outside of that, that's actually saying go that's where you go. That's Oh, okay. So let's say and and I know this is only peripherally related to your book, but but but also not. Let's say I'm in my cubicle. I'm hearing this guy who went on this beautiful pilgrimage and wrote a novel about it. And it sounds like something appealing to me, but I feel like I can't do it myself. What what maybe small steps can one take to have kind of even a mini pilgrimage or inner pilgrimage? Yeah. I think, ultimately, if you were to boil it down, like I said, I think a pilgrimage is a journey of personal transformation. It's one great vehicle. It's a vehicle that's been around for in human history since forever in so many cultures. Tibetans have their own, which is they, like, bow and process themselves for, like, 100 of miles every step they can get a bow, process themselves. I mean, that's that's some serious failure. Even Jesus had his 40 days in the desert. Yeah. You had your 37 days on the I had my 3 and a half weeks in boot camp. You know, like, I I think but outside of that, any anything that causes us to, first, be challenged in some way, we gotta face fears, And second is to go within, and that's that's a, pilgrimage. I mean, you could go it could be it could be anything, really. It's it's facing fears and and going within. I mean, what would you do in your life for that? I think, for me, a a lot of it might have to do with different types of creativity or also, like, meeting people. And, like like, for you, a big part of this pilgrimage was not just what you saw, but the people who you met. You met people there was there's an otherness to the people you met. They're not the people you went to school with. They're not the people you grew up with. They're not the people in your demographic. They're not the people you're used to. You met the other on this pilgrimage. And the other might be in the form of Loic, who's travelled with you for quite a bit on the pilgrimage or this Rose Angela or a cat or, you know, these many people who you never would have encountered otherwise. Yeah. And these people are some of the most important factors in my personal transformation of my life. It's funny how that works. Right? When you go, when you go out of your ordinary. So I think actually part of a a pilgrimage is going out of your ordinary, out of your safe space, whatever that is. You know, for a fighter pilot flying a plane, not a plane, but going going to a bar where there's and talking to and I I met I met some, like, really impressive baller soldiers, but, like, to go talk to a stranger in a bar. You know, these guys could storm any building with ISIS fighters, but go talk to a girl in a bar, and it's the hardest thing in the world. You know, ultimately, it's personal transformation. It's facing her fears in a consistent way. What do you mean by consistent? Why do you mean by that? It's pilgrimage, you get up every day. You walk a particular direction. You have a path. It's consistent. You don't just do walk one day, then fly back home, then come back a year later, walk another day. The transformation comes from consistency. Let's stop to take a quick break. We'll be right back. So maybe for a person at home, it could be, you know, kind of the equivalent of a morning pages, like, journaling or take some different route to work where you experience something. I don't know. It's it's an exercise worth thinking about. Like, what what are the pilgrimages we can do in in everyday life? I mean, it's also, like it's interesting. You know, all pilgrimages have their own rituals. There's some, like, preordained, some that people make up along the way. Right? So one of the things I I try to do these days is, like, I have rituals. I have rituals I do in the morning, rituals I do at night. I usually fail at the one at night, but the ones in the morning is actually more important at at least I don't know if it's more important, but it's the one I succeed at more. And that in itself, done consistently, like, improves the quiet quality of my life. Like, what are your what are your morning rituals? Well, I get up, I have my coffee, and I go sit by the couch by the window, and I do my love yourself meditation every day. And then I sit down and I do, I I actually do a small version of of, the morning pages. You know, 3 pages is too much for me. I'll write half a page. But it's, like, it's not writing. It's just getting my thoughts out. It's getting my life experience of yesterday out onto the page and to today, and it gives me almost, like, a record of my life lessons. And, and then sometimes I'll read a poem by Hafiz and and try to think of a way I can, like, make that poem my anchor for the day. That's really interesting. Like, what can you think of a line or 2 from a Hafiz poem? One of my favorites is, when I I wish I could show you no. When you're in loneliness when you're lonely or in darkness, I wish I could show you the astonishing light of your own being. You know? It's just the astonishing light of your own being. And so And so how would you, then take that line, and would you, like, remind yourself of it? Of the astonishing light of my own being during the day. So, like, if you're feeling like like, let's say a car splashes mud on your pants and you're feeling down, you try to remind yourself of that poem? Actually, the irony is when you're feeling down when I'm feeling down, I don't remember any of that. So that's why I make it a practice. Mhmm. You know, that's my consistency. I'll just, like, certain times in the day, if I'm drinking my coffee or if I'm just doing something, like, before I came into the interview, you know, I was late. I took the train the wrong way. It came in. But I kinda, like, ran f**ked up move that was. It it really was, man. I'm amazed you're still talking to me. And and, and but I I do that. Before I walk in, I'll just remind myself that. And it just it's a beaut it's a simple way of centering yourself. And it's it's done these consist consistently done. These are these things do transform our inner selves. You know, it's interesting. I just read a book recently, and I'm I'm having a podcast in a few weeks with the the author of it, so I'll I'll save mentioning the book. But in her book, she says, if you, if you do something, and she's like a brain scientist. If you do something 3 times a day for 6 weeks, then that will become a habit. Now a lot of people have different rules about what becomes a habit in science. So I don't know if this is true or not. But it's just interesting that, like you, she doesn't say just do it when, you're aware of being negative. She says, actually, have a proactive habit of being positive. And then your proactive habit is remembering these, poems and how it affects you. Yeah. I mean, that's just a new thing I've been playing with. Another thing I wanna do is actually start meditating on my death. You know, the whole samurai thing, because actually that's when you really start to appreciate life. And it's interesting in pilgrimages, you see a lot of symbolism of life and death, you know, because, you pass, they're based around religious, themes. And so it's funny. It's it remind you know, so this book has, you know, ultimate is rebirth, but you can't go have rebirth without death, even personal rebirth. Right? Which is, something you've we've talked about before. It's like, you gotta hit when we hit bottom is often when we really truly rise to our greatest self. It's like that becoming that phoenix that that, you know, in God with the Wind, as god is my witness, I will never go hungry again. Do you ever think she'll ever go hungry? No. She's like, she's hit bottom. She's made that inner choice. She's gonna rise. Right? How do how do you think so some people hit bottom, and and a lot of people who are successful say, I hit bottom, and then I then I became a success after that. But but for the lightning out there, we don't hear about hit bottom and just keep going down. There really is no bottom. You can just keep going down. I have a line that the character says, yeah, if there's a bottom, then there's many levels, you know, and I've just discovered a new one. Right. Right? I think there's different kinds of bottoms in our life, and each one all don't have to propel us for we are human beings. By nature of human beings, that that means we make mistakes. I don't think if you look at the word human in the Wikipedia, it says perfect. Right? So but but it's when we actually the ones that when we do hit up and bottom is a personal definition. You know, it could be a hangnail for someone, not me, but, you know, but when but realizing that going into the inner self that I am gonna get out of this, I'm gonna be better, it's who you become. Once again, personal transformation. It's who you become because that person, like you and I know for have known people in fact, that's you who made money, lost money, made money, lost money, and you're making money again, and it's because who you became in the process that you will always make money. Like, my brother, you know, who's obviously, you know, he's very successful in Silicon Valley once said, you know, if somehow I just woke up on Mars one day, I'd just start building hotels on Mars. Like, you develop that mindset, but you but he's had bottoms. I've seen what he's gone through as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, you know, that's led to his success. He I mean, I live with him in doing some of those. So, like, you go through those. It's who you become and then what you build out of that. You don't have to hit go build something great out of every bottom. Right? That's we're human. Right. Like, if you if you hit bottom, you don't have to necessarily go on a 550 mile walk. Yeah. It would help. But you could find it would help. But you could find maybe some smaller pilgrimages, in your life to one day pilgrimages somehow. Just anything that's not a commoditized convenient experience, I think, could be transported to that. Online programs. No, like, coaching. No going to a seminar. Just you, yourself, having an experience that's yourself. That's a really interesting point because, again, I think, with the proliferation of not only self help books, but insta Insta quotes, like Instagram photos with inspirational quotes, it's almost like, the experience of self help has become too so convenient that it's not helpful anymore. It's not. Like, all those quotes on Instagram, like, whose life was suddenly transformed because they read a quote on Instagram? Right. And and and it seems like what I keep getting back to and what I keep thinking about is the a pilgrimage is the original self help. It's like, okay. You have a problem. You're scared. You're troubled. You're in a rut. What you need to figure something out. Start here. Start walking. By step. Yeah. It's such a great metaphor for life, step by step. I remember once I was ready to give up, and the guy this German guy from the Black Forest just said, it's just step by step. Why were you ready to give up? I was just tired. I was scared about where to go home to. I almost had a money. I'm like, I Billy, I left for a plane ticket. When I go back, I'll be homeless. Like, well, he's like, listen, man. I'm like, and what am I going towards? This Santiago is so far. It's still, like, 200 miles. It's, like, just step by step. You know? That's the secret of building a start up. That's the secret to raising a venture fund. That's the secret to anything is just step by step. Writing a novel. Writing oh my god. Writing a novel word by word. Right? How many how long did it take you to write this novel? I wrote the first draft in 1998. 19 90 8. So I wrote and rewrote obsessively this novel from scratch over over a decade, 8 drafts. And I sold this to Hachette last fall, and then I wrote the final draft this year. But I'm you know, I'm so grateful it took that long because I would send it out to get rejections, and I would get depressed. And I would say, okay. I'm gonna become a better writer to make this novel better, And I will actually and then I would spend a year just teaching myself while building startups, you know, reading Hemingway at night and obsessively just learning and rewrite from scratch, send it out again. The reject rejection letters got better and better over time until they were personal phone calls. And I was building this company, and that fell apart. And then I fell apart, and you wrote a blog post, and Love Yourself took off. But Love Yourself exists because of all those rejections I got that made me become a better writer, that allowed me to write that simply, that allowed me to write an 8,008,000 word book. You know, I it's hard to write a small book, you know, with every word matters. That's work. Right. You know, that's craft. Well, and even with this, I remember you had to your biggest challenge, towards the end was not the writing, but the rewriting. You had to take 30% of this book out. You know, one of the wisest things I've had happen for this novel was the editor, Mauro, the Prada at Hachette. So I thought I was gonna get, like, this amazing, like, line by line. We're gonna hold hands and do things together. And he just said, listen, man. I love this story. You got the spine. I want you to go and get rid of 70% of characters and cut at least 40%. You have 3 months. Go. And I remember walking around thinking, I'm gonna give him his money back. And then I sat down and thought, okay. How am I gonna do this? And I actually writing itself became his own pilgrimage because I basically just yeah. You just disappeared. I disappeared. I gave everything this book. And every day, I I was sitting in front of my computer not knowing how to do it, but, like, 10 hours later, 11 hours later, I'd done something. So by, like, a month, month and a half, when I would sit down in front of my computer, I knew I'd be able to do something. And I just worked, and he was so right, so wise in not giving me line by line stuff because he knew that I had to figure out what the right characters or right lessons. And that actually allowed me to take all these other life lessons that I've learned, you know, since since then, like, about loving yourself, hitting bottom, you know, saying yes to life, forgiveness, like, so much. And I was able to layer them in to make this way better book than it ever could have been. So so let's talk about it. You're you're you're on the journey, and I imagine when you're in the middle of something like this, there there must be some kind of almost loss of identity. You're no longer kind of the Yeah. Kamal Ravikant. You get a pilgrimage. You're you're working in the trauma thing. You're you're now this entity on a pilgrimage around people you've never been around before in a place you've never been before on a road you've never go into, something you've never heard of before. So so what's happening as you start to to rebuild after this loss of identity? Who who are you meeting, and what are you learning? You know, ultimately, you realize, you just become one another pilgrim, one of many who's existed under the stars and come and gone, and it's so freeing. It's so freeing. You let go of your personal drama, and you're just another pilgrim making his way out west under the stars. It's like one of the most, you know, it's like realizing just another human being doing what humans do under the stars, and boom, I fire a fly, and I'm gone. It it's just something really freeing about that, and that happens. I don't know I don't think I can point to how to make it happen, like, you know, step 1, step 2. You gotta go through your own inner journey or outer journey, which is a combination inner and outer, to get there. But it does happen. In Pilgrim, this it that happened for me. And that happens to this character who realizes I'm just in a way, it becomes it's a humility that happens, and I think personal transformation also comes from an inner humility. That's where forgiveness comes from. Because forgive otherwise, you know, you can't be holding on to something if you're humble, you know, like a grudge. Humility comes from letting go of realizing your humanness, the people you're holding against, their humanness. Okay. But let me let me, challenge that. So your father was abusive. Let's just say he hit you every day. I don't know the story. How do you ever get enough humility to forgive that? Because, well, in in, in Walking the Pilgrimage, the people I met and what they shared with me, and I realized ultimately it was a human being with his faults. And he did try in his own way. You know, we create stories about everyone in our lives. Right? We can take a but there's certain points we take in our lives, and we just create a story around it. One can always pick other threats and create a story an opposite story around it. You know, statistics, you can take the same data and really have completely different conclusion. Right? So, ultimately, it was realizing his humanness and and loving his humanness, and that's what actually where the forgiveness came from. It's just he was human. You know? He was screwed up. He came from his own thing, and he did try in certain ways. I just didn't see those until he was dead. Right? And and it was sad to realize that after he died, you know, because you missed you missed that connection, but it is it it it does free you. You know, I wish for people that they can do that before they lose a loved one. You know? Like, you've been through it. You know? It's it's hard when you can't you can't say to their face anymore. You know? You can say to the stars, or you can say it to on a journal, or you can say it to them in your mind, but there's something that we miss out on saying looking in the eyes and saying that it's a gift to ourselves, ultimately. All these things that we do, they're a gift to ourselves more than they are to the other person. As as it's true, or it's interesting about it that it's a gift to yourself. On the journey, was there a point you remember where suddenly you're, like, realizing this? You know, the the kind of humanness of your father, the other story of your father, and and and you wish you could've told him that? Yeah. And here's a very interesting thing and and thing that it actually happened. I was in a little church in a little mountaintop town called Ocebrero. It's like a little, little, tiny town in the middle of nowhere. It's like the highest point in the Camino, and there's a beautiful, like, story behind it. And I was there with lighting a candle, and that's when it really all hit me. And now that's where the forgiveness happened. I remember that moment. Right? And a year or 2 later, I was reading, Paulo Coelho's a pilgrimage. He walked the Camino de Santiago. In fact, if you read The Alchemist, the name the main character's name is Santiago. He wrote it after walking the Camino de Santiago. So the pilgrimage, his it's his nonfiction, and his climax where he receives a sword from his teacher happened in the same damn church in the amount of time in Ossoboro. I find out usually I was, like, reading I was, like, what are the odds of that? You know? It's like there's something special here that's that's happening here. Like, my personal climax so, actually, I also make, like, this character's main climax, like, let the forgiveness climax happen in the same exact place. So that was a point. But I don't think, you know, it's like a tipping point. You can't just, like, take a plane and land there. You gotta get there, get there, work towards it, and, you know, do the work, and, eventually, it just tips. And that's where the tipping point happened. And so it's almost like like and I love, there's definitely kind of a a literary, connection between this and Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, which is also obviously a very beautiful book and one of the most famous books of all time. And, I love, though, the idea that there's an alchemy to it, that it's it's like you say, you can't just land there. It's a combination of realizing, you know, being at the beginning of a a journey, which means you're at the end of something else. It's the people you're around. It's the the sharp focus everything around you starts to have on a pilgrimage. What else is in this in this alchemy that leads to these these tipping points? What else is in the alchemy? And it's obviously facing fears. You know? Got it? Like, you're dealing with personal fears. You're in a foreign country. You don't speak the language. You know? You have the grunting point to get your food. You could be robbed. You could be, like, waylaid. You know? You're in a foreign place. You don't know. You're you could fall and break your leg. You know, people die doing these things. You know, blisters. Some people get so by blisters, they stop. And it's but it's all a matter of step by step by step. It happens. That is that is the key. And when you got to the so for so past the tipping point, what happens at what I mean, people could read the book, but to you personally, what happened at the end? Then all sorts of resolutions just happen. It's funny. When you let go is when we let go is when all things just start to happen, and all the realizations come, and just life just starts to work more. Define let go. Use another phrase. Forgiveness, for example, is a letting go. Right? Saying yes to life and not fighting it, not resisting what's happening. I think that's a key theme in this book, and I've learned What does that mean, saying yes to life? It's actually something that a monk told me years ago, and I really learned that as a core theme in this book. I I remember asking him, I was a bit of a wise ass, I think, but I really meant it. I was like, how do you he just looked so calm and peaceful and so joyful. I was like, how do you find peace? Because his life was not easy. And I was like, how do you find peace? And he looked at me and goes, easy question, And I'm like, you know, if I'm gonna ask you a question, that's the question. He said, okay. I'll tell you. He said, I say yes to all that happens, I say yes. And that literally is the secret, because I think a more so much so much of our pain, comes from resisting what's happening. Mhmm. It's not giving in and saying, yay, you know, like, okay. Let me just but it's, like, being in the moment, saying yes, and then coming from there, what do I wanna do? That's a place of power. It's interesting because I guess the other reflex to what's happening is to let's say if it's a bad thing happening, is to to either be angry about it, be regretful, or to blame others, or to complain about it. All of these things Saying no. All all of these things actually do the same purpose of relieving the stress of the situation. If I can blame others, it relieves the stress of the situation. So if I'm upset about a car hitting me Uh-huh. I can say that guy's broke the law. I'm gonna sue him. And then if somehow it makes you feel a little better about the situation. But if you say, yes, this happened, it allows you to actually just move past it and continue on your life. You can still sue him. You if you want. Yeah. But it's it's ultimately But you don't get bogged down in the regret and the pain. Bingo. It's your inner self. Let's say, you know, you have an accident and and, you know, you you could sit there lying. That's another thing I talk about in the book is, like, so why this? Why that? Why me? Why now? What? Versus now what? This has happened. There's nothing I can do. Nothing I can do to change it. This has happened. Now what do I do? Now who do I become? That's where the freedom is. So so past the events of the novel, you come back home to the US. Did you feel like a changed person? I was, and it was so hard to reconnect with people when I came back. Because I you you just you go from these you come back, and you lived a life in this short, encapsulate period of time. Like, you lived a whole life, like, a whole hero's journey. I mean, ultimate pilgrimage is a hero's journey. It's a classic hero's journey. You lived your own personal hero's journey. You come back. It's like when I came back from boot camp, and I was trying to, like, connect with my high school friends. I just I couldn't connect with them. You're like you're you've lived through something. You know, guys who go to war come back, they have a hard time connecting with with people who haven't. You know? You've it's, you're changed. Fundamentally, you're changed. Like, what was an experience after you came back from this pilgrimage that someone you were out with, let's say, an old friend, and he or she did something that that you, like, no longer could connect with over the last year? I had less patience with small talk, just just complaining and all this other stuff. You know? Just it's like you you're just like, why why? You know? This is a waste of my life. You know? So Do you did you keep that feeling, or does it start to wear off? You know, all these things, I think then I was, not smart enough to try to hang on to it, but what I was smart enough to do was try to write it down. We started my my writing journey, which is what led to Love Yourself, which led to all of it, was actually walking that pilgrimage and trying to capture it so I could share it. Actually, I started to write down because I wanted to share the experience with friends so they could understand. That's why I first started. Right? But I think all these if I kept a practice, if I created a practice, like a daily practice where I actually encapsulated some of the core principles and did them, I I would've kept it. I've had to learn that later on, like, with loving yourself, you know, when I was, like, literally it was a desperate attempt to save my own life or just get or or be gone. Right? But I created a practice, and that practice saved my life. You know? And I still do it. And when I do it, you know, half assed, my life is half assed. When I do it full on, my life is full on. It's really that simple. When we create these lessons, these personal transformation lessons, and we create our own ritual, our own practice, our own consistency, that's when life sinks. Do you think it has to be, like, very personal? Like, your practice is yours and then somebody else I mean, we can look at look at others and copy and see what works for us. Mhmm. You know, like, your daily practice still is the very best thing I've ever I've ever come across. It really, really is. And I still tell people the Internet was designed so you could write that one blog post, that one particular blog post you wrote about that your first thought about the daily practice. What was it? How to be the luckiest guy alive? Yeah. Yeah. Right? That's why the Internet was created. That practice, anyone can take anyone can take it, and it's broad enough, and apply it to their life, create their own rituals, and it will transform their life. And I've seen it done for for you. You know, you've gone through impulsive bottoms, and you keep doing it. You keep doing it, and you rise. You always do, and you bounce back faster and faster. I think that's the key is that failure happens, and it's the almost the speed of bounce back as you know of this practice. And and it gets more and more incorporated into who you are as opposed to something you do. And then I'm also noticing you you have this almost faith in the practice because you've experienced the bouncing back enough times that you know no matter what happens, you will just go into the continue the practice Right. And things will turn around really fast. I mean, I have seen it happen with you in front of my eyes. Yeah. No. It's been, we've been through a lot of roller coaster a few years. But it's it's so inspiring because you actually you know, it's it's the consistently, it's doing it. That's all it is. And there's days, and the days you don't wanna do is the days where you must. Right. That's the thing. Because this when you're down is not when you wanna be focusing on the good things, but that's when you must. So so so tell me, like, now, you wrote this novel. Mhmm. This is the first obviously, it's a big goal. Is this is this, like, was this, like, on your bucket list, write a novel? And No. It wasn't a bucket list. I had a story, a very important story to tell that I know look, I could have written these lessons in nonfiction. Right. But but something like this, I know that if you tell a story and you share these lessons, they get layered in into a into the reader, and the reader is better for it. What do you mean by layered? Because look, subconsciously, like, how did how did human beings transform, like, transmit knowledge from generation to generation? It was through storytelling, through being a before the written word. Right? So so so in other words, like, you by telling this story, some of the lessons happen while we're watching this character as opposed to this character just simply lecturing us. Yeah. No. No. I mean, exposition is the worst thing in fiction. Right? You you want you want to be layered. And as you exposition is the worst thing in fiction. Right? You you want you want to be layered in, and as he's growing and the same lessons weaving in from other characters in other ways and to the back, you know, to different story arcs, you can't help but have those woven inside you by the time you're done reading this book. That was my that was my core key goal for writing this book, this way of fiction, because I could've taken this because I've had success in nonfiction, taken the lessons of reading a nonfiction book. Your Personal Pilgrimage by Kamal Ravikat or whatever. You know? But I think this story serves that way better, serves the reader way better. I I agree with you. And, you know, the very interesting thing you just said when you when you just gave a title of the nonfiction version of this, the title was in the second person. Right? You used you. Your your per your whatever you say. This book is written, of course, in the first person. So we're along with you. We're the I Yeah. In the book. We're having personal struggles, and we're on the journey, and we experience what you're experiencing as opposed to someone saying to me, you. You're you do this. You do that, which I I find to be very annoying in the, kind of literature of self help that it's all written in the second person, and you never know who the I is. And, it that's also fear based writing, honestly. You you gotta open yourself up fully if you do the I, because the reader will sense it if you don't. So that's real writing. You do that very well. Well and you and you do it very well in this book. But, I mean, again, this is this is a great book. I really enjoyed. I've read it read it twice now. Wow. And, actually, two and a half times because I read well, you initially sent me a link years ago to a much earlier Yeah. Draft. And I just think this is a beautiful book. I think it's the right, you know, the right stories. The characters are all fascinating. It's like each character is iconic of some other lesson that you have to Yes. To learn. And I just highly recommend this. I think I'm gonna predict right now this is gonna be a best selling book. Thank you, James. So Rebirth by Kamal Ravikant. I wanna read some of the quotes actually on the book because they're great. It's a great quote from you, actually, on back of the book. There is a great quote from me. This book transport this book transported me into an adventure I hope I never leave, which is true. I think the idea of a pilgrimage is so exciting to me. It's it's Luke Skywalker going to the Death Star and back. You know? So it's it's Harry Potter going onto the train to Hogwarts for the first time. So and then there's, there's Ryan Holiday, who's a good friend of ours. There he says, there's a line in this book. If you're on the road, you're a pilgrim. This is a beautiful beautiful book for anyone who ever has or ever will make a journey inward or outward, which is a good distinction he he made. Then Robin Sharma, who who wrote the book, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, he wrote a profoundly valuable book that will help you rewire your deepest self so you lead your greatest life. And I think that word rewire is very important with rebirth. Yeah. Because you go on this pilgrimage, and you strip your identity down to its basics as you begin this. And you do get rewired by all the things you see and the people you meet and the thing and the experiences you have with them and the things you say to each other. And it does become transforming, that rewiring. Personal transformation. And Cheryl Richardson also gave a beautiful quote. You know, she's I mean, we both are big fans of hers, and she loves this book, which, you know, it's it's amazing. Like, people like, you know, you, Cheryl, people I so love and admire when they're then that they when you see my work and you love my work, it's like the best thing in the world. You know, when you give your all to something, and then people you respect actually, like, love it. It's the best thing. Well, I think this this I mean, Love Yourself was a great first of all, that was a great book. It's still a bestseller. What is it? 4 years later? Yeah. So it's still a bestseller on Amazon. People it's obviously changing people's lives. I think this book will do the same, rebirth. And, well, congratulations on on writing this novel. Thanks, James. You know, I think this will this will do really well. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Thank you. I love you. Thank you for having me. 2nd time. 2nd time. Next time on The James Altiger Show. I talk about, Primo Levi in the book. I talk about how he describes when he relief and trauma and excitement that he's going back to his hometown. So the train pulls into the station and his townspeople, who he hasn't seen for years, go to him and see him and his emaciated fellow travelers. And they say to Levi, what has happened to you? What happened to you? And Levi talks about how he starts to tell people of his experience. His words come tumbling out. And as he starts to tell people of his experience, they turn and walk away, unable to metabolize, unable to see, unable to hear what he has gone through. And he describes how, in many ways, this experience was even more traumatic than some of the experiences that he has in the death camp. Because our human need to be seen is so fundamental. And what he was experiencing in that moment was the opposite. So in emotional agility, and this comes to the writing, I talk about not only the need for others to see us, but for us to see ourselves. And maybe that's the first step. Correct. It's absolutely the first step. We so often live our lives in our heads, and we keep a safe distance from ourselves, from our hearts, from our needs, from our desires, from our emotions. We get up, we go to work each day, we put in a smile, we do our project. And what's really interesting is that keeping a safe distance doesn't keep us safe. Keeping a safe distance actually undermines our capacity to be resilient. When did you get interested in this? Where along the way did you experience setbacks that drove you to this study? Hey. Thanks for listening. Listen. I have a big favor to ask you, and it will only take 30 seconds or less, and it would mean a huge amount to me. If you like this podcast, please let me know. Please let the team I work with know. Please let my guests know, and you can do this easily by subscribing to the podcast. It's probably the biggest favor you could do for me right now, and it's really simple. Just go to Itunes, search for the James Altucher Show, and click subscribe. 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