Latest / The Wisdom Trust Podcast for Gay Men 50+ / His Family Disinherited Him. He Built a Life of Joy.

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His Family Disinherited Him. He Built a Life of Joy. · The Wisdom Trust Podcast for Gay Men 50+

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Wisdom Trust.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm Lauren Crawford.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is for gay men over 50 who sense there's more to this stage of life than we've been taught.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: For connection, meaning, honesty, and possibility.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: Each episode is a conversation with a thoughtful gay man who's navigating the deeper questions that often emerge in the second half of life.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Aging, identity, purpose, belonging, reinvention, community, love, and living consciously.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: These are not conversations about decline, they are conversations about becoming.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you're here.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome again to another episode of The Wisdom Trust.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm here today with Cam Delgado, and we will talk to Cam in just a moment.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Before we do so, I just want to remind you, viewers and listeners, that we're here as gay men at over 50 sharing our stories and maybe a little bit of inspiration, maybe a little bit of insight if you're feeling a little bit stuck or at a loss of what the next stages could be or what the possibilities could be.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: That's what these conversations are all about.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: So today we're going to be speaking with Cam Delgado, and he is a psychotherapist licensed in Georgia and Florida, and he works in private practice as well as an international mental health consultant with the American military overseas.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: So that's amazing.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: So I'd love for you, Cam, welcome, to share a little bit more about who this person, Cam, is.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: So tell us about you.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a huge question.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: I see myself as a being unfolding.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: I've been able to choose a career that I love and choose activities that I love.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: I love to travel.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: I love doing what I do.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: I've been able to jump over hurdles.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: I've been able to experience adversity and turn it into a positive after a while.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: I've been able to pick myself up from challenging situations and look back and say, hey, that was not a bad thing.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: That ended up being a very good thing.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: So when I do my life review and reflect on my own unfolding, I like what I see.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: It has challenges like any human life.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: It has ups and downs like any human life.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: But in my line of work, Lauren, my challenges are a plus.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: My so-called mistakes are a plus because that's how I develop empathy with clients.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: That's how I develop solidarity with clients.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: That's how I can connect more intimately with clients.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: You see.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: So those things that can be perceived, judged as negative in my line of work actually are assets.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Could you tell us a little bit more about where it all started?
3:09
SPEAKER_00: Like where were you born?
3:11
SPEAKER_00: What was your adult life like?
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Like coming into adulthood.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: How did you choose psychotherapy as a career path?
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Like a little bit of your history.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: At the age of five, my father took us to New York.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: He was studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts to become an actor, a New York trained actor.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: He did that for two years.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: He graduated from the AADA.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, I was going to Holy Name of Jesus on 96th in Amsterdam, a little implant of Ireland.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: So I have an Irish inside me.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: There's a shamrock imprinted in my heart.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: We celebrated St.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: Patrick's, so forth and so on.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: At that time, Kennedy was running for president, and we jumped up and down screaming, Kennedy, Kennedy, he's the man.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: Nixon belongs in the garbage can.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: It was an Irish Catholic school.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: What did you expect?
4:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: So Manhattan was imprinted in me, and theater people were my father and my mother entertained New York working actors, no celebrities, just actors and theater people.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: I was very shy.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: I was very tongue-tied.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: I was awkward.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: And the people that came home were people with booming voices and great person.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: And I was this little dumpy, awkward kid, and I would look at them like gods and goddesses.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to be like them.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: I want to be able to put sentences without, you know, without stuttering.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: So little by little, actually, my father helped me overcome my stutter.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: He gave me the ex some of the exercises that he learned in drama school so I could speak fluently without stuttering.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: And he helped me overcome my shyness.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: So that was a good contribution dad made to my life.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: I was a super shy, timid little thing, too.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: And I wish I would have had that dad.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, he he taught he was it was good to be to be his son at that point.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: He taught me a lot of things.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: What happened from there?
5:28
SPEAKER_01: What happened from there?
5:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, I was again at the age of 10, we returned to Puerto Rico.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: My father was acting as a soap opera leading man, so I was always seeing him on TV.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: And I grew up with that image of my father.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: He was daddy, but he was somebody else to other people.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: And that was fine.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: I was very, very, very fine with that.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: And I guess I went to a uh so when I when I was in high school, I went to bed with a woman.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: And I did, I was a sophomore in a junior in high school, and I did we did all the things men and women do sexually.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: Mechanically, it was there.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: But I really, that was a turning point.
6:17
SPEAKER_01: I realized that as mechanically correct as I was in my performance, it wasn't hot.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: I knew I was gay.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: It was not a phase.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: I would read, some boys go through a phase and they play with other boys, then they get over.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: No, this was not a phase, this was an identity.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: So it helped me accept myself as a gay man.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Prior to that, were there you know reflections or fascinations with men, or were you just kind of denying all of that?
6:47
SPEAKER_01: No, I I took an interest.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: I like boys, I like looking at them, but I kept reading, I did read, I did give myself the best sexual education I could at the time.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: And they all mentioned a phase that young boys go through and say, Well, I mean I'm in that age range.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: This could be a phase.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: Right.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: And after that experience with that woman, I said, No, I am a gay man.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: Any chance of happiness that I have has to come from accepting that I'm gay.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: My high school had three drama clubs: Spanish drama, English drama, and French drama.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: I was in all three, and the drama clubs were the gay ghetto.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: That was the gay ghetto.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: So I was in high school, I was in three gay ghettos, and I loved it.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, I uh like daddy, I was acting, you know, it was my dad.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: And I I was able to have gay friends in high school.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: That was a wonderful, wonderful thing.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: And at that time, old San Juan was the altern an alternative to wit to uh Fire Island.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: So there were like eight or ten gay bars in old San Juan, all of them owned by New York gays.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: I was 16.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: I got into those bars.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: Don't ask me how, but I did.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: We all did it.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: We all did it.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: And I found a refuge.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: You see, in school, they made fun of me.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: In school I was ridiculed, I was put down.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: But when I walked into a gay bar, nobody was laughing.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: I was part of the group.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: So it was a refuge and a relief.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: And I'm really glad I'd had that experience at an early age.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: So I'm happy with that.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: And I fell in love for the first time, really, really fell in love for the first time one week after turning 20.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: I was almost a teenager, and that was a very good experience.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: I was with that person for four and a half years, and there was a lot of growth.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: Three years of relationship heaven, a year and a half of relationship hell.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: But I walked out, I walked into that relationship a boy, and I walked out a young man.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: Because the growth was huge, huge growth.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: That's wonderful.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that story.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: My experience, which others may relate to as well, was exactly the opposite.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: I had so much internal angst and tension and just a lot of those feelings of not having that identity, not knowing who I was.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And so even going to the gay bars with friends, mostly women, female friends, I didn't feel that connection at all.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: I actually felt terrified in many ways because I couldn't own who I was, right?
9:55
SPEAKER_00: And and I and my my self-esteem was so bad.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's beautiful that you were able to find love at such a ripe young age and explore manhood with that person.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: So what happened next?
10:07
SPEAKER_00: So you you were doing your university and did did psychotherapy, was that the first choice?
10:12
SPEAKER_01: Or no, I I didn't know what I wanted to be.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: So I was an accounting major, then a political science major, then a literature major.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: And they wanted me to go to law school because my grandfather was an attorney and he had this library that somebody had to inherit, and I didn't want to be a lawyer.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: So I went eventually, I was given, I graduated, I did very well grade-wise in my undergraduate.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: And the University of Miami offered me a scholarship, an assistantship for my doctorate in Spanish literature.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: So I went to UM, supposedly temporarily, and I taught class, and I well, I was doing my doctoral studies in literature, not in psychology.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: And I, yeah, so that's what took me to Miami.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: I lived in Miami 46 years.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: What got me there was the assistantship at UM.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: So I was a I didn't finish the doctorate.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: I was too, I had no faith in myself.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: And I was very busy partying.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was very busy, I was young, I was cute, I partied.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: And it's always been a very painful thing that I didn't finish that PhD because I could have retired, I could have, you know, blah, and I loved teaching and I love literature, I love the art.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: So I would have been a relatively happy person, but I ended up being a very well-educated boy who could not pay the rent.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: Very well educated, couldn't pay the rent.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: And at that point, I began to write for the corporate world.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: But I had a period there my parents would have given me anything and they had the position to send me money and so forth.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: But I ended up in those days on unemployment and food stamps.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: I had no shame whatsoever.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: I know unemployment and I know food stamps.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't beg my parents, I mean they would have sent me money, believe me, but I wanted to find who the heck I was, and I went through that period.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: So I went into the corporate world as a writer.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm a very good writer, and I could I had been raised among advertising people, and I wrote for the corporate world.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: And I went up to working as the director of communications for Fortune 500.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: And I had the good, this is very, this is what's pivotal.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: I was doing well.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: I was a mid-level manager in the world headquarters of a Fortune 500.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't happy, and there was a corporate takeover, and 22% of the company was laid off, and I was laid off with a nice juicy parachute to go back to graduate school without having to have a student loan.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: And so having been rejected with by the corporate world opened the door to going back to graduate school and being becoming a psychotherapy psychotherapist.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: How old were you?
13:18
SPEAKER_00: How old were you in that transition?
13:20
SPEAKER_00: I was in my late 30s.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Late 30s, yeah.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: So it is a like an early midlife transition then.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: It yes, exactly.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: I was a precocious midlife midlife midlife worker.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: So that must have been a huge shift in in identity and everything like that, going from the corporate professional communications into working with folks.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: So what was that experience like?
13:46
SPEAKER_01: Yes, let me backtrack for a few years.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: During this time, AIDS was raging.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: And I volunteered at an AIDS agency in late 84, early 1985.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: In the summer of 1985, I tested HIV negative for the first time.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: I did not expect to be HIV negative.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: But I've been t but being HIV negative gave me the strength to show up in the world of HIV and help others.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: I was in the world of HIV AIDS for 20-some years as a friend to my friends who had the virus as a volunteer.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: Eventually I launched my career as a therapist at the AIDS agency, and I ended up being on the board of directors at the AIDS agency.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: So it it was a big chunk of my life.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: And being HIV negative gave me the strength to help others.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: That's so inspirational.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, I too, it would have been a couple years later, I think, in in my 20s, I was still lost and trying to figure things out.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, the identity thing, I think, was more nailed in at that point, but I wasn't sexually active.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: I was, there were just so many things going on.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: And what I did was decided, well, I'm going to volunteer for the AIDS organization, the HIV AIDS organization where I was living in Edmonton, Alberta.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what compelled me to do that, to be honest, but it was one of the most powerful experiences in my life in terms of me helping to know who I was.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: So many beautiful men doing such, you know, powerful, generous, serving work.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Some of them actually positive, not all.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: And I was just in awe of these men.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: And I think they were a pivoting point for me to kind of start to like myself a little bit.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: It was really powerful.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the work we were doing too.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: I was in the education side of the organization.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: So we were developing outreach campaigns, you know, going into the bars with the condoms and information and that sort of thing.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, what a powerful thing to be involved in those organizations in a period of such despair.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: I also want to say that being a volunteer at Health Crisis Network, I also met someone with whom I was with four and a half years.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: We were, I hate the name, what was called a zero-discordant relationship.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: He was HIV positive, I was HIV negative.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't like the term, but that's the official term.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: And John died under my care.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: He died under my care.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: He was a graduate of Harvard University, a world traveler, had an academic title, sang the chorus for the opera.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: I was a brilliant man, a very humble, brilliant man, a Buddhist, Tibetan Buddhist.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: Very humble and very brilliant.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: And he was a very big influence in my life.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad I met John Frank.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad I was with him for four and a half years.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad he died under my care.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad that was a very painful experience, but a very beautiful one.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know why I thought I would say share that.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: No, that's that's exceptional.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: It changed me.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, I when I think of my experiences in the world of HIV and AIDS, I it it it humanized me.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: I could no longer be the pretty boy giving attitude at a club.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: I became a human being, a full-fledged human being.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: Not a perfect one, but a human being.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, I love that because I was sort of at this end of the spectrum, and you were over here, the pretty, you know, outgoing boy.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: I was this shy and secure thing.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: And and and doing that work, that service, that understanding, that compassion brought us to some place.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: And when I asked myself, why did I do that?
18:01
SPEAKER_01: Why did I go to an AIDS agency?
18:03
SPEAKER_01: Why did I do volunteer work?
18:05
SPEAKER_01: Why why why why did I launch my career as a therapist there?
18:08
SPEAKER_01: Why why was I there so long?
18:10
SPEAKER_01: I have never answered that question for myself.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: Never.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: I just knew I had to do it.
18:17
SPEAKER_01: I had to do it, I had to do it, end of story.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm gonna jump up.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm not being chronological, but No, that's fine.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm following the themes.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: My brother took that experience because I told my parents what I was doing in the world of AIDS, I told them what I was also HIV negative.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: My brother took that and created a narrative that I had to be HIV positive.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: Why else would I be there?
18:50
SPEAKER_01: And he managed to get my parents to to disinherit me.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: Under the guise that I had the virus, which I still don't have, under the guise that I would die younger, to disinherit me made sense.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: Why why would I get money from them to wealth is gonna end up with that money?
19:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, whatever my brother's thinking was.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: So he I was disinherited under the pretext that I had a virus which I still don't have, and that I would die young.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: And he took that to his financial gain.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: So that happened.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: And it's not the money.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: When I think of inheritance, people think, oh, he wanted the money.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: It's the it's the narrative, the kind of ugly narrative that was created, yeah, and fraudulent narrative.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, being being gay, having worked in AIDS for so many years is is was what led to a very painful event of being treated like.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: Oh, what a friend of mine said to me when I told her the story is, oh my goodness, your family buried you alive and left you for dead.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Thank you for giving language.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: I never would have thought of that language.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for giving language through my experience.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: I was buried alive and left for dead, and here I am.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: So when when your brother, you know, manufactured this narrative, that ended communications with your parents, or or no, no.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: It's my mother who told me that.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: My mother said she told me what my brother had created this narrative and so forth and so on.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: So I was living in Miami, they were all in Puerto Rico, uh, I was disconnected, uh, you know, they they did their own thing there.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: Lauren that led to the most painful period of my life to have been buried alive and left for dead.
21:01
SPEAKER_01: And from that unhappiness that lasted several years, I emerged and created a series of workshops called Conversations on Happiness.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: And I've given the conversations on happiness at a number of places.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: And it's a combination of the Dalai Lama, the Course in Miracles, Positive Psychology, all kinds of disciplines.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: It's a mesh of all uh disciplines that have been the most wonderful awakening, spiritual awakening, and project, life project.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's oh yes, that's a beautiful pivot.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: So wonderful.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: And I feel I feel just in you sharing that how powerful it it was for you and heart, again, this heart.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Heart things coming up in this conversation, but you know, genuinely living from that deeper place, right?
22:07
SPEAKER_00: And and I know when I stumbled upon the spiritual work, didn't know what was going to happen.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: I joined a yoga training program and didn't know I'd start this whole spiritual unfoldment.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what's going on here?
22:20
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it was it was so powerful in my healing journey.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: So tell us about that.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: That sounds exceptional.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: I stood in a very negative place for several years.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: And I knew I couldn't go on like that.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: It had, I felt betrayed, betrayed by the people I love the most, and betrayed by a narrative that was so fraudulent.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: So I said, How do I get out of here?
22:45
SPEAKER_01: How do I get out of this negative place?
22:47
SPEAKER_01: And I began to inch myself out.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: I created in my journal something I called the Bliss Report.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: Capital B, capital R, one word, bliss.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: And I began to take inventory of everything that was working in my life, all the good.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: I focused on the good.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: What little good was there, I focused on it, and that good began to grow.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: It created energetic momentum.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: That then books came my way, websites came my way, authors came my way, workshops came my way, cruise ships with uh, you know, intentional workshops in the cruise, all kinds of things came my way.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: And I emerged to realize how powerful emotions are.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: And if we don't work with them, you know, the emotions are like a garden.
23:31
SPEAKER_01: You have to let the weeds starve and fertilize the flowers and water the flowers.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: If you want flowers in the garden of your mind and soul, you have to develop those flowers.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: So uh all kinds of disciplines came my way: epigenetics, quantum theory, positive psychology.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: The Dalai Lama was a huge influence.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: The Course in Miracles was a huge influence.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: And it all came together, and it I emerged to live probably the best years of my life.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: So I think that that's exceptional as well.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: And it's a recurring theme in a lot of these conversations.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: Like we get to this point in our lives where it's kind of like and then when we start to envision, feel, sense, you know, a shift, a growth, then then the doors start to open.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: And and you know, what I say to people all of the time is don't get too narrowly focused on any one thing because the universe can be dropping gems in your pathway every single day.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: And if you're too, you know, or this is what it's got to look like, you miss some of that, right?
24:41
SPEAKER_00: And and and wow, so that's wonderful.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: I absolutely love hearing that.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: And the bliss report that you worked with, that would be akin to what I now look at as gratitude journaling, right?
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Like, what are the things that I'm grateful for?
24:55
SPEAKER_00: And you know, when we have those sorts of practices, it's it, you know, neurologically, it it helps us to create new neural pathways so we can get out of our old ways of doing thinking and being.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: And like I think sometimes, especially as men, we can be so left-brain-centered and analytical and rational and thinking, and we think we can think our way through things.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: And it's like you actually need some practices along the way that help you to get to those next places, too.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the Bliss report is a gratitude list, and I by dwelling on it, and dwelling on it, it builds that energy momentum, and it and before you know it, your life is beginning to change, and then there you are.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: You've changed your energy, you've changed your life.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: It's all energy, it's all it's all about how are you managing your energy.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: I want to say another thing about the influences in my life.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: I've always been drawn, since the Course in Miracles, onto material that I don't like the word, but I'll say it, that is channeled.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: I like people who receive from higher intelligence, higher realms of intelligence, and bring it to us.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: I think there's great value, great beauty, and I've been uplifted, uplifted and re-energized, and uplifted and re-energized by material that comes through the chest that way.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: That's super powerful.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: So that's why this exists.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: So my sister clued me into Lee Harris last year.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know who this guy was.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: And she said, he's your doppelganger.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, we both have bald heads.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: How does that make that's a anyway?
26:32
SPEAKER_00: So I started listening to him, for those that don't know, British fellow, lives in California now, but and he channels these entities called the Z.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: So I ended up following him, just you know, plugged into his little program.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: And then he had this what he called next level healer kind of little program.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: And then there was a little coaching program that aligned with that.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, I'm gonna try that because I'm coaching.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Long and short is I manifested being on the spotlight with him in one of these sessions.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: And when I spoke to him about what I was doing and the coaching and all that stuff, and and then I said, my ultimate goal isn't just this coaching, like I love the service and working with men in midlife and their challenges, but I my ultimate goal is creating these co-living environments for aging gay men.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Like, like that's something that's in my heart.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how it's gonna manifest.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Well, why aren't you doing that now?
27:25
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, What?
27:26
SPEAKER_00: And then and then he said, You start with conversations and and he said, do a podcast, start having having conversations with men, build the community now.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: That other thing will come.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: And when we were talking, guess what dropped into my head?
27:41
SPEAKER_00: The wisdom trust.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, Well, there's the name.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I just got the name.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: And so the other thing to your point about channeling, if anyone journals, like because people are always asking him, how do you learn to channel?
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we open up that connection with the bigger thing, you know, all of those different dimensions and feels.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: And and he said, Well, essentially, if you're journaling, you're you're in some way channeling.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: So, what I do now and have been doing for at least a half a year is after my morning meditation, I journal slash channel.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: I just let come in whatever comes through.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: And it's super powerful.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: So I love the fact that you brought that up.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I also like to say that any we have all received from a higher intelligence, but we tend to dismiss it.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: No, pay attention.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: Listen, channels, channeling is not a woo-woo thing for the special people.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: Everyone, it's a birthright.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: You have the birthright to channel.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: Pay attention, listen, journal, write it, honor it, and more will come your way.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: You could argue that prayer is a form of channeling, you know, in terms of you're connecting with something higher.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, sometimes it's just the language gets in our way, right?
28:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the or the words we use to describe these things.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: So you you move forward.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: This is just a little, maybe a little reiteration, but when you shifted here and you went through these painful things, pain of a loss of a beautiful man at a very young, you know, at a younger age, and then pain of loss of family, or in the sense of, you know, that sort of birth order inheritance, that stuff that hurts.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: That's that's a that's a that's a huge loss, right?
29:27
SPEAKER_00: And then you find yourself in this whole new world of channel uh bringing in information, stuff is coming to you, you're creating uh beautiful programs to help people move along.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: What did that liberate you from?
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Like what were you able to sort of just let go of and move move on?
29:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, I I it it comes up.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh I have been when I have done my conversation on happiness, it comes up.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: People ask me, but have you forgiven your family?
29:53
SPEAKER_01: Have you forgiven them?
29:55
SPEAKER_01: And there's nothing to forgive.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: It all worked out.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing to forgiveness, is not the next step.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing to thank you for the shit.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: I turned it into fertilizer.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the mud.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: Look at my lotuses.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: No mud, no lotus.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: I have pretty lotuses going on in my life.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: Jimmy just put out one word, alchemy.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: When we take something negative and we turn it into something positive, there's nothing to forgive.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: You, you, you're an alchemist.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: And what I'm hearing there too is sometimes we dwell too much in the past, right?
30:31
SPEAKER_00: About the the wounds and the scars.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: And I and I think we can have too much identity around some of that stuff.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: And how do we move forward and let it go?
30:40
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the things where people like you who are providing amazing tools, inspiration, and just modeling living in such a way, it's like move forward, embrace what's available to you.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Find the wisdom trust on school, school.com slash the dash wisdom dash trust slash about.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Website is wisdomtrust50.com.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Find us on Substack, the WisdomTrust.substack.com.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not watching this on YouTube, youtube.com slash at the Wisdom Trust 50.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: See you on those platforms.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of the freedom too.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: So we we let go of that stuff in the past, and then you you become like a beacon of light, right?
31:33
SPEAKER_00: And how has that played out in your life?
31:40
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm not speaking because I don't see myself as a beacon of light.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: I think that one of the things that I've learned by studying the work of the mythologist Joseph Campbell is that when you're living, he says a vital person vitalizes.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: Whatever you're living, you're emanating it.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: You don't even have to speak it.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: Your energy field is influencing other people.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: Whether you like it or not, know it or not.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: So by following my passions, by making my dreams come true, by following my own bliss and my own bliss report, it's there.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: It extends to other people.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: And my work as a psychotherapist has a lot to do with uplifting people, inspiring people, and having people find their own inner guidance, not guidance from me as a psychotherapist, guidance from their own inner intelligence, heart intelligence.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: The heart is the center of intelligence.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: And that's where the best answers come from.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: That's the way I work, and that's the way I try to live as best as I can.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: There are distractions.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: You know, I always have to come to my quiet place and leave their distractions aside and stop scrolling.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I have to think.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're human, we're human, right?
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: So for some of the guys listening here who maybe, you know, I think a lot of us have so much armor, like I had so much armor around my heart for so long, into my 30s.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I didn't do that yoga training until I was 38.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: And then that's what sort of slowly started me on this journey of awakening, which is an ongoing process, right?
33:27
SPEAKER_00: But for guys who might be listening or watching who are feeling they know on some level there's a there's a disconnect in their heart.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: What are some tools or some maybe give this a little try for someone who's really struggling?
33:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, I like what you said.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: Give this a little try.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: I would say to someone don't quit your job and start little by little.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: Own your free time.
33:51
SPEAKER_01: How are you using your free time?
33:53
SPEAKER_01: And start building this energy momentum of what are you passionate about?
33:58
SPEAKER_01: What makes you happy?
34:00
SPEAKER_01: What makes you feel alive?
34:02
SPEAKER_01: What makes you feel happy to be embodied and living in this world?
34:05
SPEAKER_01: And start making a list of that and feed that and feed that.
34:10
SPEAKER_01: It may lead to a job change.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: The whole thing of people wanting all the, you know, they want to climb the mountain without walking up to the mountain.
34:18
SPEAKER_01: No.
34:19
SPEAKER_01: Walk up to the mountain step by step, rest along the way, and keep climbing.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: And then you get to the mountaintop.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: It's gradual, it's incremental, it's one step at a time.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: It's not a revolution, it's an evolution.
34:36
SPEAKER_01: That's how I did it, that's how I think it works best.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: It's a journey.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: So I would that's that's I would work with them and seeing how that translates into their own individual path.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: What is the next step forward?
34:52
SPEAKER_01: So forth and so on.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: And and it is that ultimately, it's like one foot in front of the other.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: I was listening to a training last night around developing the school platform, uh as it were.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: And and the fellow that created that, whose name escapes me, was saying that, you know, one of the things that he's learned over the years, and it's very metaphorical, is that, you know, when people are trying to climb Everest or reach any summit, the rule is not to look at the summit.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: The rule is to look at your feet.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: It's one step at a time.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: Because if you look at the summit, that's what makes people die.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: Because then the air the, you know, the the the exhaustion sets in, the panic sets in, what is it's one step at a time.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Like that's such a beautiful metaphor for life, right?
35:42
SPEAKER_00: Like it is just one step at a time.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Every day is an opportunity for growth, for shifting, for our evolution, or staying stuck in the past.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and if you look at the mountaintop, you're in the valley, you look at the mountaintop, it can overwhelm you and paralyze you.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: I'll never make it.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: But just, you know, you will make it if you just look at what's the next step forward.
36:06
SPEAKER_01: What's your next step forward?
36:09
SPEAKER_01: So I was once, I had climbed the Waina Picchu, which is the mountain behind the Machu Picchu, and I was on my way down, and I turned around to see the most beautiful Andean mountainscape, and I felt panic.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: I felt the surging of a panic attack.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: And I had to focus on the rock in front of me and just say, where is my right foot going, left foot, right?
36:37
SPEAKER_01: I just had to micro, my, my micro focus on, or else I would have died, on inching my way down the wine of peach to a safe level.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: And I did.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: Because all I didn't worry about anything other than where is my where is my right foot going, my left foot, my right foot, my left foot.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: That's and that's how you do the big goals.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: You break them down into little incremental tidbits, and then you move forward.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: And that's been a hard lesson for me, being, you know, I'm a positive intelligence um coach, and we look at these saboteurs within us.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: And one of the ones that's really big in me is the hyperachiever, right?
37:20
SPEAKER_00: It's like doing, doing more and more.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, for after that yoga thing, I ended up running a yoga program and then I had a career.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: So I was doing like these two parallel careers at once, like, who does that, right?
37:31
SPEAKER_00: And and so, yes, for me, learning how to, it's not about the ultimate endpoint.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: It is, you know, it's not the destination, it's the journey in each one of those steps.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: And and and giving ourselves license, if if people are like me that way, to celebrate the little wins, you know, that's something I never did.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: And I was never that was never demonstrated to me.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have role models around what that should look like.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: But we need to honor just the little, the little wins every single day, you know, how we show up for ourselves, you know, and and that also, just like the Bliss report, the the gratitude journaling, all of that, that those are the little things that start to shift us, change us, grow us, evolve us.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: And they're so easy to dismiss.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: And that is a big mistake.
38:24
SPEAKER_01: I made it many times until I finally got it.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: That no big mosaic mural is made up of tiny little tiles.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: So start assembling the tiles.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: Forget about the mural.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: And eventually you'll have a bigger and bigger and bigger mural.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: That has helped me so much.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: So much, so much.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: So you've gone through this journey, and and this is a little segment called leveling, right?
38:50
SPEAKER_00: So you did refer to, I'm not sure the language you use.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: I refer to it as like our vibration, our energy.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Like when we start to come more fully into ourselves, say we're vibrating at this level, and all and we start to open ourselves up to these new things, our vibratory quality starts to shift necessarily.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: And I know that may sound woo-woo or whatever to some people, but it is this is what quantum physics is all talking about now.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: Like this is science.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: This isn't woo-woo.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, check it out if you're if you're unsure.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: So, this leveling up business, tell us about what that looks like and feels like in your life right now.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: Like you're a beautiful man, you've got this radiant energy.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: What what do you do to continue in this in this path?
39:40
SPEAKER_01: It's really first of all, I I am in many ways a very simple man.
39:46
SPEAKER_01: And in that simplicity, I can pick up little glimpses of intuition, little glimpses of high-level, little little glimpses of high-level thinking.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: And I j I have to journal.
40:01
SPEAKER_01: I have to write it down to honor it.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: And then from that, I can pick up on threads.
40:07
SPEAKER_01: So it is a little by little process.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: Right now, when I finish this assignment that I'm on in September, I'm already journaling about possibilities, possibilities for when I return to Atlanta, Georgia, where I live.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm already, you know, I could do this.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm contemplating potentialities and possibilities, writing it down to give it, to honor it.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: And that's how I create.
40:37
SPEAKER_01: That's how I create.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: Now, when I write, when I journal something, I don't have to do it.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: It's a possible, I may do it.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: I may do it.
40:43
SPEAKER_01: It is an option, it is a possibility.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm not forced to do it.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes I have a number of ideas down, and when the time comes, I'll make a choice.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: But I do have a vision, a living, breathing vision of where I want to go, and it has to feel good, it has to feel uh genuine to me.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: There are challenges along the way, but you know, the Olympian that gets a gold medal is a person who's put a lot of some sweat huffing and puffing into getting that gold medal.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: So I I don't want to paint a Pollyanage picture, but I do have a sense of my passions.
41:20
SPEAKER_01: I do have a sense of where I feel the most alive and where I feel the most me.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: But I the basis of that is that I can be a very simple man and in my simplicity, I listen better.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: In my simplicity, I tune into my heart better.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: In my simplicity, I can block out, put out, not even block, just ignore the noise around me and the influences around me.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: Do you think do you attribute some of that to just the wisdom of aging and and not needing to be, you know, I shouldn't presume that you need it to be anything, but some of us I think are are very much externally driven.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: Like we need that external stimulation.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: We need to be with crowds of people to feel connected and all of that stuff.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: But it seems to me as we age, there is a little bit more of the kind of simplicity is there's power in simplicity, right?
42:15
SPEAKER_00: There's beauty in in less, right?
42:17
SPEAKER_00: It's not always more, more, more.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: I I think that for me, I had to read the book of my life.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: I had to go through chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four.
42:27
SPEAKER_01: I had to read all of these chapters.
42:30
SPEAKER_01: But once I finish reading a chapter and I study it and I learned it, I want to move on to another chapter and another chapter and another chapter.
42:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to stagnate.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know about the wisdom of old age.
42:42
SPEAKER_01: Young people can be very wise also.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: Some people wither with age, some people wilt, wither, and diminish with age.
42:50
SPEAKER_01: Some people thrive, flourish, and expand with age.
42:57
SPEAKER_01: And I've lived enough to know that I could have withered and wilted, but I made other choices.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: I allowed myself to gravitate to what nurtured me, what energized me, what fed me.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: And in making those choices, I took a path of reaching the age of 74 and living very, very, very fully.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm in Guantanamo.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: Most people think I'm crazy.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: What are you doing?
43:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean I'm an adventurer.
43:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a naval base helping the the militar, American military.
43:29
SPEAKER_01: That's who I am.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: But don't you see the news?
43:32
SPEAKER_01: What's going on?
43:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know what's going on.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: So, but here I am.
43:38
SPEAKER_01: Proud to be an adventurer.
43:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: And I think the curiosity that we can maintain or or or revisit if we lost it a little bit along the way, like that's a wonderful thing about this stage in life that maybe there's there's a little bit of license to to be curious again, to to be willing to explore.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: And and you don't need to do anything carelessly, but why not think outside of the box?
44:06
SPEAKER_00: Like the box is what keeps us small and keeps us on that hamster wheel of the daily churn.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: I think as we age, we have an opportunity to just keep expanding and make this the, I think, the most beautiful part of our life because a lot of the things that we had to do that we were pushing through back then to get to wherever we thought we needed to be, we don't need that pushing anymore, most of us.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: And and now it can be a little bit more of this kind of like a gentle pulling towards, you know, like the things that light you up.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know what those are, like you said, spend some time reflecting and writing and and and remembering and dreaming.
44:49
SPEAKER_01: Remembering and dreaming and making dreams come true is a wonderful way, one wonderful thing to do in life.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: And then you that's the energy you bring to the world, and that's how you influence the world around you.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: There will always, this is something that I find is a hidden was a hidden gift for me.
45:05
SPEAKER_01: When I was younger, there were prophets of doom.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: Oh dream killing people, prophets of doom, dream killing, and I got so I just one day I said, I'm not gonna pay attention to these people.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: There will always be people telling me you're gonna fail.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: There will always be prophets of doom.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna listen to something else.
45:25
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna listen to myself.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: And that was a big liberation for me.
45:30
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, there are prophets of doom.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: They have the power I choose to give them.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly it.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: That's such a beautiful framing for the prophets of doom.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: And I think the biggest one is the news.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, and there's such, we're in, you know, and this particular juncture, depending on when you're listening to this, because these can be our, you know, on online for years.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: But at this point in time in May of 2026, the political economy of North America and the broader world is pretty, pretty negative, right?
46:03
SPEAKER_00: And we can we can buy into that narrative, we can, you know, let that impact us and make us feel fear, fear-based and tight and contracted, or we can choose not to, and we can do the the work of ourselves as individual autonomous beings to find the things that uplift us, that motivate us, that inspire us.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: And by way of doing that, we elevate.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: I think my thinking of my feeling around all of this stuff is if we do the the change work that we want, and Gandhi said it best, you know, become the change that you want to see in the world, rather than, oh, those people out there, they have to fix it.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: And and if we elect someone to office, that person's gonna fix it.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, fixing comes from individuals collectively coming together and affecting change, right?
46:54
SPEAKER_00: Politics follows.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: I think we sometimes forget that, right?
46:57
SPEAKER_00: Like social change happens at the at the individual grassroots level.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, why do you think like to our earlier conversation, the HIV and AIDS conversation shifted so much?
47:09
SPEAKER_00: It's because people like you and me and others were in the trenches helping to move that narrative forward in a positive, healing kind of way.
47:18
SPEAKER_01: And positive things come from negative things.
47:21
SPEAKER_01: Lotus flowers come from the mud.
47:23
SPEAKER_01: And I think that the whole thing of same-sex marriage started in during the AIDS era when we realized people wanted us to die and they were letting us die.
47:35
SPEAKER_01: It was genocide by omission, genocide by turning my back on people.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: We had to come together and we had to come very, we had to become very politically sophisticated and come together as a community, and then that evolved, evolved, it led to gay marriage.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: Something I never thought would ever happen, but it did lead to that.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: I think we're going through an era that is dark, but it will lead to light.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: One extreme, you know, one extreme boom, catapults it to the opposite end of the spectrum, like a pendular swing.
48:12
SPEAKER_01: So we're here in this era, and it will boom swing.
48:17
SPEAKER_01: It I wish it did swing soon enough.
48:19
SPEAKER_01: But when I look back in history, that's what I see.
48:22
SPEAKER_01: There's an ebb and a flow, a swinging back and forth.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: And I just hope that from the mud of the era we're living in, we will see some beautiful lotuses emerge soon.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree a hundred percent.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: And I just think in terms of the whole cycle of birth, living, and and death destruction, that the this goes through on the social, you know, the social evolution, the ecological evolution, it's it's all in cycles, right?
48:52
SPEAKER_00: And and we just happen to be in a bit of a messy period right now, but that too will change.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: And individuals who are stepping up to do that work individually and collectively, like that's where it's going to come from, I believe.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: So tell us a little bit about how you now at this stage in your life have fun.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: Like what is it that that you do that brings a levity and joy?
49:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think fun shifts a lot, you know, when we're in midlife and beyond.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe in our earlier days, it may have been the bar kid who was getting all the all the all the accolade accolades, right?
49:30
SPEAKER_00: Um what what does fun look and feel like for you at this stage?
49:34
SPEAKER_01: Well, I when I was in first grade, the nun complained to my mother multiple times because I was clowning around in the classroom.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: So it started in first grade.
49:47
SPEAKER_01: I was I had that humor thing in me, and it the teachers didn't like it.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: But for for whatever adversities I have faced and navigated past, I fun comes easy to me, and it can come in very simple ways.
50:03
SPEAKER_01: I chuckle at myself a lot.
50:05
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, there I go again.
50:06
SPEAKER_01: And I chuckle.
50:07
SPEAKER_01: I don't, I don't, you know, a lot.
50:09
SPEAKER_01: And I have friends that we bounce back and forth, like a brilliant, frankly, comedy team, which is and and I have friends that that I do that with.
50:20
SPEAKER_01: So we have those games of wit.
50:24
SPEAKER_01: I think fulfillment is a more important word for me.
50:29
SPEAKER_01: I gravitate towards things that make me have a sense of fullness here, that absolutely put me in a wonderful place mentally.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: I have intentionally created playlists on YouTube and podcasts and things, intention for years that I can, you know, when I'm a little off, I can lean into those resources and I I come back.
50:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm resilient when I have off moments, and I do.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: I come back with a fair amount of resilience.
50:59
SPEAKER_01: And but that's intentional.
51:00
SPEAKER_01: I've created that world, I've created those resources.
51:03
SPEAKER_01: Right here in my laptop is a treasure chest of resources that that I have.
51:09
SPEAKER_01: Uh the way I've programmed my Instagram and pointing at my cell phone, the way the way I've it's all intentional.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: So I can very quickly have easy access to things that are upbeat and uplifting for me.
51:22
SPEAKER_01: So I I manage my moods, I manage my energy.
51:25
SPEAKER_01: It's really this is all about managing my energy, having a sense of responsibility for my energy.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: And when I take a dip, I, you know, I I guess I have like a thermostat that says, hey, hey, it's time to move up a little bit or something.
51:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: I love that because it sounds like fun and fulfillment come from a little bit of editing, right?
51:47
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a good lesson because so again, we can get into just patterns, right?
51:53
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes if we edit out certain things, like if if the I'll come back to the news example.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: If if the CNN is broadcasting and you're in the background, maybe just don't have it broadcasting in the background, maybe have some gentle, soothing music or something that uplifts you because that's gonna affect your energy, right?
52:12
SPEAKER_00: Than hearing another human gloom thing.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, beautiful.
52:15
SPEAKER_00: Focus.
52:16
SPEAKER_01: It's what am I choosing to focus on?
52:18
SPEAKER_01: What am I choosing to focus on?
52:21
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes my focus, again, I don't want to come across, I'm not a perfect person.
52:25
SPEAKER_01: No, there's no such thing as perfection, but sometimes my focus is a little off, and I notice, oh, I'm off.
52:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm the only one who can improve that.
52:34
SPEAKER_01: I cannot wait for an external source to improve.
52:37
SPEAKER_01: I have to own my focus and do whatever it is I need to do.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: But I have created resources for many years intentionally.
52:47
SPEAKER_01: I use them regularly, I respond to music very well.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: And these are the habits of thought.
52:54
SPEAKER_01: We're always creating habits of thought, whether we're aware of it or not.
52:58
SPEAKER_01: And these are the habits of thought that work for me.
53:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, beautiful, wonderful.
53:04
SPEAKER_00: So last segment here before we wrap is the big kind of the wisdom discussion.
53:13
SPEAKER_00: So is there a little nugget or two of wisdom that you would like to share with the with the folks who are listening or watching?
53:23
SPEAKER_01: I have inside me a collection of people who went through terrible adversities and came out with a legacy of joy to leave with us.
53:34
SPEAKER_01: Martin Luther King could have ended up a bitter, miserable man.
53:38
SPEAKER_01: Look at the richness of his legacy.
53:41
SPEAKER_01: Certain concentration camp survivors could have ended up bitter, mis look and they have made contributions to the world.
53:47
SPEAKER_01: People who have faced hardcore adversity and could have become bitter, cantankerous, but they chose a different way of seeing things and they left this legacy.
53:58
SPEAKER_01: Focus on those people, these are the great masters.
54:03
SPEAKER_01: Focus on people who have overcome adversity and left those beautiful legacies.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: I I the Dalai Lama is one of my favorites.
54:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, beautiful.
54:13
SPEAKER_00: But when you say every time you say his name, I just that smile, that smile.
54:16
SPEAKER_00: And you you you emanate a beautiful smile as well.
54:19
SPEAKER_00: So that's very, very powerful, very powerful.
54:23
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
54:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to thank you for being with us today, Cam, and uh sharing a bit of your journey.
54:31
SPEAKER_00: And I know there will be many reflections for those from those who are listening or watching.
54:37
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Lauren.
54:38
SPEAKER_01: I hope that we we I hope that we've begun a wonderful friendship because I love talking to you, whether there's a camera or not.
54:46
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, absolutely.
54:48
SPEAKER_00: And some of the resources that you've talked about, I'm like, Jack, Jack, Jack.
54:52
SPEAKER_00: So it's really, really great.
54:54
SPEAKER_00: Love it.
54:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, thank you again.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
54:57
SPEAKER_01: It's been a real pleasure.
54:58
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
54:59
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
55:02
SPEAKER_00: Thank you to our guests today, and thank you for listening.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: If what you heard landed with you, if you felt seen, heard, inspired to make a shift, want to hear about it.
55:15
SPEAKER_00: Get back to me on one of our platforms or where you're listening to or seeing this.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: And if you know another man over 50 who you think would benefit from hearing this, share it with them, please.
55:27
SPEAKER_00: This community grows when we show up for each other.
55:30
SPEAKER_00: You can find more essays on these topics, reflections, and such at our Substack account.
55:37
SPEAKER_00: Watch for other content on our YouTube channel, and stay connected to us through our school platform.
55:44
SPEAKER_00: This is where we engage and are building our community.
55:49
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the second half of life isn't the beginning of the end.
55:54
SPEAKER_00: For many of us, it's the moment life finally begins to open up.
55:59
SPEAKER_00: You're not alone in this, we're in it together.
56:03
SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next time on the Wisdom Time.