Latest / Typology / Learning to Reconnect: A Path to Self-Acceptance with Carlos Whittaker
Transcript
- 0:02Hey, folks, and welcome to Typology, the
- 0:06show on which we explore the mystery of the human personality and
- 0:10the human adventure all through the lens of the Enneagram.
- 0:15My name is Anthony Skinner, producer and co-host.
- 0:19So happy to have you here, folks. We've got one of my favorite people
- 0:23on the show today. Long time friend. We actually connected
- 0:27forever ago in Nashville, writing
- 0:30a song together. That's right. We were booked. He didn't live in Nashville
- 0:34yet, and we were booked together to write a song that
- 0:37day. Spent the afternoon together. Been friends ever since. Talking
- 0:41about Carlos Whittaker, Enneagram 3. If
- 0:45you remember last time Carlos came onto the show, he
- 0:48thought he was a 9. And we suggested, you may not
- 0:51be nine, and you might want to look at three. That's what we talk about today,
- 0:55as well as we talk about his brand new book, Reconnected,
- 0:59how seven screen-free weeks with monks
- 1:02and Amish farmers helped me recover the lost art of
- 1:06being human. Talking to Carlos Whitaker, he's authored
- 1:09multiple books. You probably know him as Loswit, L-O-S-W-I-T,
- 1:15on Instagram. He's got 300,000 followers there. He
- 1:19is an influencer, and the really exciting thing
- 1:22is, as a three, he shut everything down and
- 1:26went away and spent time with monks and
- 1:30Amish farmers, and more importantly, with himself, without
- 1:33any screens, without any distractions, and found
- 1:37something really beautiful about himself. And we talk about that today. Love,
- 1:41Carlos. Glad he's on the show. Glad you're here on the show. That's it
- 1:45for me, Anthony Skinner. And now, here is the host of
- 1:58Hey, Typology Tribe, Ian Morgan Krohn here, host
- 2:01of the show on which we explore the mystery of the human personality
- 2:06and the human adventure all through the lens of the Enneagram
- 2:10and scintillating conversation between myself, my
- 2:14good friend, Anthony Skinner, and today, our guest,
- 2:19Carlos Whitaker. Now, this is a story. This
- 2:22is a story, people. All right. So
- 2:26Carlos was on the show, I don't know, maybe a year ago, nine months ago, a
- 2:29year ago? A little over a year ago, I think. Okay. Yeah,
- 2:32I'm losing track of time. And when
- 2:36he's on the show, he reports in as a nine. And
- 2:41we were like, OK. Now, sometimes people come
- 2:44on the show. And again, I really do believe don't
- 2:47type other people as a rule. Like, don't do it, right? If
- 2:51the cat thinks he's a nine, well, maybe he's a nine. And I just wouldn't have
- 2:54guessed that. But I can't see your unconscious motivations. So
- 2:58regardless of how you might appear to me, I'm like,
- 3:02OK. Well, we get about 20 minutes into the conversation, and
- 3:05I'm like. The old antennae. And now I'm like,
- 3:09hmm. I don't know.
- 3:14So then we're like, gee, Carlos, dude,
- 3:19I'm not saying you're not a nine, but I wonder what it would be like for you to
- 3:22investigate another type, and particularly maybe checking out
- 3:25Enneagram 3, and then this has begun a bit of a
- 3:32So this is what happened. What happened is, I'll go ahead and let everyone know
- 3:35that before I even, you know, I love Ian, I love Anthony,
- 3:39I love that, but I was not like in any of grammar. Like,
- 3:42I wasn't like, you know, really deeply studying who I was. People
- 3:45had just told me, Carlos, you're nine. People have been like, hey, Carlos,
- 3:49I mean, look at the way you're just keeping the peace, like you're just chill,
- 3:53like you're nine. So I just was like, you know. Okay,
- 3:56I'm a nine. And maybe I'd read a couple things about being a nine. So that's just
- 3:59kind of if I'm ever at dinner conversation in Nashville, Tennessee, 99% of
- 4:03the dinners you go to, people are gonna start talking about Enneagram. And so
- 4:07I just was like, sweet, this is kind of where it went. Well, then I have a
- 4:10conversation with you. both of you, and you
- 4:14just were questioning my 9-ness a little bit more than I thought I
- 4:17was going to be questioned. And I was like, what's going on here? And
- 4:21then you're like, well, have you ever read anything about a 3? And
- 4:25to be fair, I had not. I had not really honestly
- 4:29looked up any other number besides people would accuse me of being a
- 4:327. I say accuse me of being a 7. They would just say I was because I
- 4:36guess whatever reasons they would have to do that. And
- 4:39I was like, no, I'm definitely not a 7. That wears me out. So what
- 4:43I did is I went and I just read your book.
- 4:46And I was like, okay, let me just do this. And I did the audio book. And honestly,
- 4:51when I, when I, cause I think it actually, the book starts, starts
- 4:55with the nine, like the nine is before the three. You're explaining? Yeah.
- 4:59Yeah. It goes eight, nine, one. Yeah, yeah, and so
- 5:03it was like 8, 9, 1, yeah, and then so I just remember getting to the 9 first
- 5:06as I'm listening to the audiobook, and I was like,
- 5:10okay, I could see why I would say that
- 5:14I'm this. But then, Then when
- 5:17it got to the three, it was like somebody gave me an
- 5:20inhaler. If you're an asthmatic, and you'll understand this,
- 5:24it's like I was breathing at like 50% of knowledge of
- 5:28who I was as a nine. I was like, oh. But then when I read
- 5:31the chapter on three, it was like I took a hit of that inhaler. And
- 5:35suddenly I went from breathing at 50% to like 100%. And I was like, oh. Whoa.
- 5:40That's what it felt like. It literally felt like I didn't
- 5:44know I wasn't breathing, I guess was the play there. you
- 5:49know, reading through kind of what it
- 5:52was to be a nine verse a three, everything
- 5:57about the three, like I would say, and again, I don't really know
- 6:00how all the Enneagram stuff completely works, but I would say there's definitely
- 6:03things, nine things that I relate to, but it was like
- 6:11All right, so that actually beautifully describes how I think the journey is
- 6:14for a lot of people, right? So the fact is, Carlos, you
- 6:18are all nine types. You contain all nine types to
- 6:22some degree or another, right?
- 6:26Some percentage of each type to another, right? Yeah. But
- 6:33Yeah. And you have a particular connection to nine because- Yes,
- 6:38Mm. So when threes are
- 6:42under a lot of stress, they begin to
- 6:46act, think, and feel a lot like unhealthy nines. Really?
- 6:50Yeah. So it's not surprising at all that you would say, gosh, there's
- 6:54a lot of nine that I can see in myself. Yeah. Well, if you think about times
- 6:57when you're really stressed, you probably look, act, and feel a lot like a
- 7:00nine. You're a three, but you will begin to take on
- 7:03a lot of similarities to people
- 7:07in the nine space, right? Absolutely. So
- 7:11again, this is like a very typical thing. When people finally
- 7:15get to their type and they have this sort of epiphanic moment,
- 7:19you described it as like taking a hit off an inhaler, right? And suddenly you're,
- 7:23Like, oh, right? And of course, you don't have to
- 7:27identify with 100% of what we say about threes, just
- 7:35Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think for me, a lot of it came
- 7:40on understanding even my behavior
- 7:44as an entrepreneur and as a kind
- 7:47of business mind. I'm just a lot, I think, a lot more go-getter,
- 7:51goal-driven than I was giving myself credit for
- 7:55when I was just kind of thinking about who I was. And I was like, well, wait a
- 7:58second, I actually When I make my mind up to do something, I
- 8:02actually do it. I'm a salesman, man. I will sell freaking
- 8:05ice to Eskimo or whatever. And then I just started
- 8:09seeing all of these things in three. And I was like, oh, wait
- 8:12a second. And that's when I started really chewing on
- 8:15the fact that the whole unhealthy version of me, because
- 8:18I can get lazy. I can get really lazy. And
- 8:22I think the unhealthy part of me gets into that lazy
- 8:27Yeah, usually when you're under pressure or stress, or when you feel like you don't have
- 8:31a goal, or you don't think the goal is worth charging
- 8:35after, or you're ready for a new goal or something, you
- 8:38can kind of sink into a kind of a, what I kind of sort of say,
- 8:41like this lazy river kind of vibe. But
- 8:45it also feels a little depressed. Yes. And
- 8:48goal lists. If you don't have enough goals, if you don't have enough metrics to
- 8:51determine whether or not you're meeting your goals, then you can
- 8:55fall into unhealthy nine kinds of patterns
- 8:58of thinking, feeling, and behaving. And that's where, you
- 9:02know, if you know the Enneagram, you can begin to say to yourself in
- 9:05those moments, ah, I now have self-awareness, and I see that I am getting depressed
- 9:09and listless, and I'm watching too much TV, and I'm eating too much. I'm
- 9:13not caring enough about my appearance. I'm withdrawing more
- 9:16from people instead of moving out toward people. What do
- 9:20I need to do to get into a healthier place? So those then
- 9:23become flags where you're able to say, ah, I
- 9:26need to do something different. So, you have a new
- 9:30book, it's called Reconnected, and the subtitle is, How
- 9:34Seven Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and Amish Farmers Helped
- 9:38Me Recover the Art of Being Human. Now, this is a very interesting
- 9:42title for a three, so I want to dive more into threeness here
- 9:45with you, and I want to dive into the experience of what
- 9:49this experience was like for a
- 9:52three in particular. Now, just
- 9:55by way of background, and you weigh in as we go, so
- 9:59threes, the achievers, sometimes called the performers, they
- 10:04have a need to succeed, to appear successful, and to avoid failure
- 10:07at all costs. They are more concerned in
- 10:11their average state with seeming than with
- 10:15being. In other words, it's as
- 10:18important to the three that they seem successful, interesting,
- 10:22charismatic, as actually being. Yeah.
- 10:27Right? Now you're really preaching to my soul. All
- 10:30Because in the eyes of others, the three wants to
- 10:35Admired. Yes. Yeah. Now, the big
- 10:38fear of the three is that they're worthless, that they have no
- 10:42value. And that is
- 10:45something they carry very sort of at the deepest level of their person.
- 10:49So let's just start there, because that elicited a response from
- 10:56I didn't necessarily know it was a fear for
- 10:59me until I signed off
- 11:03of Instagram before my seven weeks of
- 11:06not looking at a screen and I hit post. And the second I hit post,
- 11:15Yes, yes. So like I didn't, I gave up everything.
- 11:19I gave up social media. Not only social, I didn't look at
- 11:22a screen. I didn't consume anything from a screen. So when
- 11:26I signed off and said, hey guys, I'm disappearing for a few weeks. I don't know what's going on.
- 11:30And I hit post. Legitimately, I had
- 11:33like, I started sweating. My heart started palpitating. And I was like, what is happening?
- 11:38through therapy after this and a
- 11:42lot of things, I realized very quickly that my identity
- 11:46and my worth was based on my performance on
- 11:50socials. That so much of where
- 11:54I was finding my worth was based on other people's
- 11:58applause, whether that be through likes, whether that be through DMs, whether
- 12:01that be through reposts, whatever it is. And suddenly what I was doing was
- 12:05I was giving that performer piece
- 12:09up, not only was I giving it up, but then I was moving
- 12:12into a monastery and then from there to an
- 12:16Amish community where nobody could give a rat's ass about
- 12:19who I was. Nobody cared about anything. Nobody knew who
- 12:23I was. Nobody knew any of the things that I've succeeded in. So it
- 12:26was like a double whammy. Not only was I taking away my
- 12:30ability to rank my success on a daily basis, but I
- 12:34was entering into communities where
- 12:37they didn't care. So
- 12:40it was like two, it was like a left hook and a right hook all
- 12:44at one time. And so as a three, when I look back at
- 12:47this experiment that I did on myself, it was like
- 12:52going through withdrawals. I mean, like legitimately, like it was
- 12:55physical manifestations of anxiety going through my body for
- 12:59the first few days because I was coming off maybe the drug of
- 13:04performance. And here's the crazy thing, I've
- 13:08not talked about, I've not even looked at this book through the
- 13:11eyes of an Enneagram three or my experience, the
- 13:15seven screen for weeks this way. So anything I'm telling you right now is just vomit
- 13:21Yeah, so we call that narcissistic supply. Yeah,
- 13:24there we go. And everybody, by the way, so it's
- 13:28not saying you're a narcissist. It's just a term. Narcissistic supply
- 13:32has to do with your drug of
- 13:35choice is the admiration, the recognition
- 13:41of other people. And when that's cut off, it's
- 13:52Well, for example, depression, anxiety, but
- 13:56also for a three, a loss of identity. Yeah. Because
- 14:02the three does this thing called identification. And
- 14:05you had over-identified who you are with
- 14:09your public persona. Yes. Now listen, I'm just going
- 14:12to tell you, we could have a really deep conversation right now. Yeah. Let's
- 14:16have it. Yeah. Let's just have a rich conversation. Let's just have it. You,
- 14:20if you were to go deeper into the work, would
- 14:23realize, you probably already have after seven
- 14:27weeks with the Amish farmers, that a lot of your life
- 14:30has been a shtick. It's been about a public
- 14:34persona that actually isn't real. It's a
- 14:38persona, so it's not real. It's not actually you. It's
- 14:41a projection of, it's an image that you project, but
- 14:45it's not real. And
- 14:48when the image comes down and you no longer get
- 14:51supplied with admiration that it gives you, and strokes
- 14:55and money and acclimation, whatever, then
- 15:00you start to spiral. Yeah. You're
- 15:04nodding your head a lot. I don't want to talk too much, because you may be telling me you have
- 15:09You're reading, you're literally just reading chapter two of my book, like
- 15:12without even reading it. Like you're expressing what
- 15:15I went through. You're legitimately chapter two
- 15:19of my book. Or maybe, no, chapter one is called Identity, because
- 15:22that was the first thing that I lost. Like when I showed up at
- 15:26this monastery, it was gone. And
- 15:30it was four days, I
- 15:34would say, maybe three and a half days of complete and total agony,
- 15:38terror. I'm using these words that people may think, OK,
- 15:42Carlos, come on, really? But legitimately, when
- 15:46I didn't have the ability to get
- 15:49out of my own head with scrolling Instagram or TikTok or whatever, when I
- 15:52was stuck in my own head, right? I'm just stuck there. Like I can't leave it because
- 15:55I don't have a device to remove me from my own head. And
- 15:59as I'm walking with, because I spent the first two weeks with the monks, right? And
- 16:0323 hours a day of silence. It was
- 16:07legitimately coming off of, I was crashing off
- 16:11of the drug of notoriety, of me projecting
- 16:15this character. I started talking about it in my book as, it
- 16:18was just a character. Lois Witt is a character. That's what people call
- 16:22me on Instagram. That's my tag. That's a character that I literally
- 16:25am writing a script for every day and I get to create the story and
- 16:29put it out there and then people cry or they laugh or whatever it is. It
- 16:32wasn't the true me. And suddenly I
- 16:35was face to face with the true me and
- 16:39everything began to crumble. I mean, you know, it was
- 16:43a few days of It was really bad. It was
- 16:49The feelings were, um, doom, like legit, like
- 16:53doom was, was massive. Like, I just was like, everybody,
- 16:57I realized very quickly, well, nobody cares that
- 17:00I'm not on Instagram anymore. Do you know how many other people are on there
- 17:04filling their time? Nobody's scrolling through going, hmm, I wonder where Carlos is. No,
- 17:09And I'll say this too, because I think this, this sort of does paint a picture, not
- 17:13just the public, but the very first of this chapter
- 17:17one, when I arrived at St. Andrews a few hours earlier, I'd FaceTime my
- 17:20wife and kids one last time before Brian left with the phone. So you
- 17:27No, I did not have a way to even communicate. Yeah,
- 17:32Heather was at home with her best friend. My last communication with them showcased
- 17:37them not really caring about my upcoming reality because they were
- 17:40surrounded by their favorite people in an alternate reality. I love you
- 17:43guys. Please pray. I said, we love you too, dad. The kids replied, you'll
- 17:47be fine. Heather lovingly chimed in. Oh, the difference between their
- 17:52Yeah, you know, and so I felt like
- 17:55even my family had abandoned me, right? Like now I was just abandoned
- 17:59with my thoughts and these monks, these monks that were all
- 18:02walking around in their brown robes and their big leather belts, and
- 18:06they were walking so slowly, and they were probably just talking to
- 18:09God, I didn't know what they were doing. And I just felt like I was like,
- 18:12this is the worst idea I've ever had. in my entire
- 18:16life. Literally, I almost went back home 48 hours later. I
- 18:19was like, okay, I get it. I need to be off my phone more. I can write a
- 18:22book about it. Let me just go home. Luckily, my wife told me, nope, you're not allowed
- 18:25to come home. And there I was. You
- 18:30know, there was, I would say it took three, maybe three
- 18:33or four days until it felt like the elephant stepped off
- 18:37my chest and I could stop performing. I wasn't even trying to perform
- 18:40for the monks at lunch. Like suddenly I was like, well, this is my new, these
- 18:44are my new people. So like, here I am like, hey, this is what I
- 18:47do. And I was trying to, and they didn't care. I was
- 18:51trying to give them all the highlights of who, and they
- 18:56There's something that you said right there, too, that I want to highlight that,
- 19:00to me, rings classic three. You
- 19:03said, OK, I get it. I need to be off my phone more. I can write a book,
- 19:07as opposed to real transformation, like, oh, I get it a little bit. I
- 19:11get a little piece of it. I can write a book now. as opposed to- Oh
- 19:15As opposed to like, let this be for me, right? And
- 19:19we can fast forward to, we can talk a lot, but
- 19:22you know, fast forward to the end of the seven weeks. And I'll tell you, the
- 19:26last person that wanted to turn on the phone was me. I was so at
- 19:30peace. Like the version of who I was, there were tears in
- 19:33my home for my kids and my wife when they knew I had to turn my phone back on because
- 19:36they're like, this version of you is who we've been, you're
- 19:40more present, you're more, you're not
- 19:43performing. I think they were just like, it's so nice to not
- 19:47have a father or a husband that's just performing. There's something
- 19:51in your book, I highlighted it. on
- 19:55the road back to you where, oh yeah, it says right here that the deadly
- 19:58sin of the performer is deceit. And
- 20:02the quote that you have from Nathan Hawthorne after that
- 20:05says, no man for any considerable period can wear one face
- 20:09to himself and another to the multitude without finally
- 20:13getting bewildered as to which may be true. That right
- 20:16there, that quote right there was my experience at the monastery. When
- 20:21I read that, it just felt like
- 20:26that's what I've been doing. Literally, the multitude is my Instagram followers.
- 20:30There's a multitude. And then what's the face that I have here? Well,
- 20:33suddenly, I was able to just have one face. for
- 20:37everybody, whether it was the Amish, whether it was the farmers, whether
- 20:41it was the monks. And it was so refreshing to
- 20:44not have to maybe live in the deceit that I didn't know I
- 20:48was using, that I didn't know I was living in. And
- 20:52deceit may feel like too strong of a word, but I
- 20:55don't know. When you're portraying a caricature of who you are
- 20:59for the world to see, I think that's deceitful. And so, I
- 21:04Well, I think sometimes the three knows that they're doing
- 21:07a shtick. If they're going on a sales call and they're like, okay, man,
- 21:11I got to go turn on this version of myself. I'm
- 21:16hanging out with bros right now, so I got to put my hat on. I got to turn my
- 21:19hat around backwards or put my sunglasses on the
- 21:23brim of my baseball cap and talk
- 21:26about golf or talk about whatever the bros are talking about. You know what
- 21:30I mean? It's a shtick. And it's
- 21:33like to win over the crowd. It's to match the expectations of
- 21:37the crowd. But you said something earlier,
- 21:41and I think sometimes it's a conscious deceit, and I think most of the time it's
- 21:46Yeah, and you're deceiving yourself because what you are actually believing,
- 21:50the shtick, better more than anybody else. Right. Like in
- 21:53the moment, it's like, I really think I am a brother. That's the dangerous part.
- 21:58Yeah. That's the dangerous part. Now, here's the thing though,
- 22:01Carlos, and I'm just going to be totally straight up with you, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like
- 22:04you have an opportunity here and an opportunity easily
- 22:08lost right now. Because you
- 22:12said earlier, low sweat, that's your screen name again.
- 22:16Yeah. is a character, but not the true
- 22:19me. Now you are out selling a
- 22:23new book about the new you, which
- 22:26itself could become the most Enneagram 3 project
- 22:31in history. I am going to talk about this
- 22:35new persona You see? Like, oh,
- 22:39now I'm the guy who found his true self. And now it's
- 22:42like, oh, no, no, it's just the same game, different
- 22:46approach. And everything about promoting a
- 22:49book or a record or whatever our thing is, is
- 22:53a season of getting out there and selling and
- 22:57wanting people to buy the book and putting on our stick and
- 23:00putting on the game, putting on the ritz, putting on the smile. And
- 23:04it's like, I will say this, social media for threes is
- 23:07like heroin. It is like the worst thing ever for threes. Because
- 23:12the temptation to win the crowd is so intense,
- 23:17the draw to it is so powerful, the
- 23:21experience of feeling seen. But here's the deal. The
- 23:25person you're showing them doesn't exist. Low
- 23:30sweat is a character. That thing does not exist. Therefore,
- 23:34you are not known by anybody. This is true. So
- 23:38when you were away, you're writing this book, Reconnected, seven weeks with
- 23:42monks and doing the thing with Amish farmers. Was
- 23:47there a moment where you caught even a passing glimpse
- 23:56Yeah. I mean, there were. many
- 24:00moments, I think the
- 24:04true me is more conflicted than
- 24:09the portrayal of me that
- 24:13I maybe put out there. Because a lot of times, I
- 24:17am the one people are looking for for an answer or
- 24:21to be definitive about something. And I
- 24:26think I had more There was more moments
- 24:30when I didn't have a screen, and I wasn't consuming, and
- 24:33I wasn't performing, where I was like, I
- 24:37think I said, I don't know, way more than I've ever
- 24:40said it in my entire life. When I was talking to Father
- 24:44Francis, Abbot Francis, and I'm like, well, This
- 24:48whole Christian thing just feels like a big facade seven days into this monastery, because
- 24:52this is crazy. If I start thinking about it, which I
- 24:55never really let my brain go there, and here I am, 23 hours
- 24:59a day of silence alone, and I'm at a monastery, and I'm like, what
- 25:02is that? What's the meaning of life? Everything got really... I
- 25:07don't know. And so when I was with the Amish, there
- 25:10was a lot of, man, I just don't know anymore. For so
- 25:14long, I have been the I know guy. This is how
- 25:17you kill the spider. This is how you break an
- 25:21agreement. This is how you dah, dah, dah. To where when
- 25:24I finally got away from consumption off of screens, It
- 25:28was really refreshing to be able to
- 25:32say a whole lot to strangers I'd meet or my new Miller
- 25:36family. I don't know. Well, Carlos, what do you think about this? I
- 25:39don't know. I guess I tell you that, Ian, because I felt
- 25:43more breath when I was able to say,
- 25:49I think it's because- A lot of your persona was based on having the
- 25:53My persona is, I know. A lot of my is
- 25:57I know, and I feel like I'm trying to figure out
- 26:04Yeah, but my question is, so you've had this glimpse, right? Well,
- 26:08let me back up, because I want to just circle on one other thing, because
- 26:11you still haven't answered this question I want to have an answer to. What
- 26:15uncomfortable feelings, so doom was one, a sense of doom,
- 26:19but what other uncomfortable feelings came up for you?
- 26:24Loneliness. I was lonelier than
- 26:28I've ever been. What's that like? It
- 26:31was suffocating. It was a suffocating loneliness.
- 26:35As funny as I actually wasn't lonely when I finally got lonely, I
- 26:38wasn't lonely for Instagram. I
- 26:42missed my wife, and my kids, and my friends more than I ever
- 26:46have in my entire life. It was, and I'm
- 26:49actually, let me also tell you this too, and I don't know if this is a three thing. I've
- 26:53always been a really bad friend as far as like, I'm
- 26:58not going to text you on your birthday. I'm not going to, you know, all these things. My
- 27:01friends, when I got back from the seven weeks, And I would say, in
- 27:05the last 18 months have said, you've been a better friend to me than
- 27:08you ever were before this happened. And I think it's because I
- 27:12realized the value of who really
- 27:15made me feel like me, which were my friends. So loneliness,
- 27:19I was lonely, made me feel suffocating. But
- 27:23then I did, I would just say at the beginning of
- 27:26this thing, after a week, It
- 27:30was the most, just such peace. Peace
- 27:33was like, I hate the word peace
- 27:37even. I mean, I wonder if I can unpack a feeling a little bit better than peace or
- 27:41explain it a little bit better. But I just, it's
- 27:44like I could breathe. I wasn't trying to impress anybody anymore.
- 27:48I was just working. I was just shearing sheep. I'd just wake up
- 27:51in the morning and help Willis with the chores on the farm. I
- 27:56was just being me. I was just living. We were just having conversations.
- 28:03And it was such respite to not have to perform. I
- 28:08was scared to turn my phone back on because I didn't want to have to
- 28:11perform again. And this was before I knew about an
- 28:15Enneagram 3 being a performer. I had no idea why that
- 28:19was so exhausting to me. But I was exhausted from
- 28:22that. And I started to kind of get filled back up, I think,
- 28:31A lot of shame. A lot of shame in,
- 28:36I think, I felt ashamed of maybe
- 28:40some of the shtick that I
- 28:44had carried for such a long time. I felt
- 28:48ashamed that I'd even started, in the last
- 28:51year before I went on this experiment, I'd
- 28:54started to specifically even like craft
- 28:58my shtick. Like I would even like in my head, like, hey, I'm
- 29:01about to, you know, I'm getting booked to speak a lot more in the corporate space. I've
- 29:05got to act legitimately. I'm like, I got to act a little bit more white.
- 29:09I'm actually going to be Carl Witt is what I called myself instead
- 29:12of Carlos Whitaker. I had like a persona in my head that was
- 29:15like, oh, I'm going to be Carl Witt when I have to go. And so like, I was just like,
- 29:19oh, what's going to make more money when I go speak to the corporate people? Like, and I legitimately,
- 29:23you're talking about the bro conversation, but it was, I had those
- 29:27conversation, you know? And so there was a lot
- 29:30of shame around that when
- 29:35I finally got free, when I finally got free of performing. What was
- 29:38the other word, or the other feeling? Grief. Grief. The
- 29:42grief that I felt actually happened after
- 29:46I came back. There was Maybe
- 29:50it was grief and shame together. When I went back online again,
- 29:54when I went back on Instagram, I didn't know how
- 29:57to be me again, like the version of me before. And
- 30:02so I didn't know how to do it anymore. And there was
- 30:06a lot of shame. There was a lot of embarrassment. There was a lot of, guys,
- 30:09I don't know what I'm doing anymore. It doesn't look the same. I'm
- 30:13not doing the same things I used to. I'm not on Instagram.
- 30:17I'm legitimately on Instagram 70% less than I used to be. And
- 30:21so I think even for my followers
- 30:25or whatever it was, they even really didn't quite know what to do with me.
- 30:28And I would say I'm 18 months in now since then. And
- 30:32the conversations I'm having with people now is like, I
- 30:36still don't know if I'm back to what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm a little lost.
- 30:41And so it messed me up a little longer than I thought it
- 30:49This is why I was so eager to have this conversation when I learned about the
- 30:52title of the book and what you had done. Because you
- 30:57unconsciously, and I don't even know what motivated this decision to
- 31:01undertake this experiment, right? The
- 31:05unconscious is a powerful thing, you know, incredibly powerful.
- 31:10And maybe part of you realized that this
- 31:13life you were leading was unworthy
- 31:18of the fullness of your true self and
- 31:22that you needed to do something. The danger is,
- 31:25and I feel this, that you don't create
- 31:29a new persona. Yes. around the
- 31:32new version of you that now gets to
- 31:35be, you see where I'm going? The deceit
- 31:40in the three is really, really powerful. The
- 31:43shame, I think, is a necessary passage
- 31:49for twos, threes, and fours as they do their work. I
- 31:52think sadness about what was
- 31:56it about me? I grieve for the
- 31:59real me, the true me that I have buried underneath these
- 32:04images and projections for so long. Why
- 32:08did I betray that person? by
- 32:13hiding them, believing that who I was wasn't,
- 32:17because two threes and fours, they have this one thing in common, Carlos. None
- 32:22of them believe they can be loved for who they are, so they all create
- 32:25false images and project them, images
- 32:29that they hope will win them the love, appreciation, and
- 32:33approval, and acceptance of
- 32:37others. But you have to
- 32:40hide your true self, actually even maybe even
- 32:44disdain it. So who is your
- 32:48true self? What have you learned about the true self that is
- 32:52I've learned that the true self of who Carlos
- 32:56is, I think, sits with
- 33:01a lot more. Again, I've talked about this a
- 33:04little bit. I don't feel comfortable
- 33:08being the expert in a lot of areas that
- 33:11I felt comfortable being the expert in before. And
- 33:15I think that's okay. So I
- 33:18ask myself, questions all the time. It's like, what
- 33:21is my, like, right now, like, what's the assignment, I
- 33:25think, that maybe I had wrong before? Like,
- 33:28what was my assignment before? What's my assignment now? When I say assignment,
- 33:32I'm not talking about something super spiritual. I'm just talking about what am
- 33:35I supposed to be doing? Like, what am I doing? What am I supposed
- 33:39to be doing? And, you know, I think looking back at
- 33:43Some of the gifts that I have, I
- 33:47do feel comfortable continuing to be somebody that is
- 33:51inspirational in, not myself, but
- 33:54in telling, like I'm a good storyteller, right? That
- 33:58is a gift that I have. And so I love writing, I
- 34:02love speaking, but I also, I think
- 34:06one thing, oh, this is good, I haven't gotten here yet, even in the book when
- 34:09I wrote it, I hadn't gotten here, but one thing that I, that maybe
- 34:13was a part of my identity that I
- 34:17maybe need to unpack a little bit more is, you know, I
- 34:20was the person that people would watch so
- 34:24that they could see. People would be like, I just follow
- 34:27you because you're real. It's so funny after these conversations that I'm
- 34:31having with you, Ian, it's just like, it's
- 34:35almost like I was being able to perform this
- 34:40realness, this authentic-ness. And I'm like,
- 34:43well, maybe there's a lot less of me that I
- 34:47need to be sharing in general, because Maybe
- 34:50I was sharing more than I even needed to share in order for
- 34:53people to be like, oh, Carlos is just, man, he's just so real. I can just relate
- 34:58I call that vulnerability. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
- 35:01yeah. It's a false vulnerability. It
- 35:06looks like, oh, if I just say vulnerable things, but
- 35:10that creates another persona, right? Sure.
- 35:16How old are you? 50, just turn 50. Man, you do not look
- 35:1950. Sweet. I'd have pegged you at
- 35:2341 or two, so you're doing all right. But this is around the
- 35:26time that a lot of times, like, you're actually really fortunate.
- 35:31Lots of threes don't start to do this work until they have a big,
- 35:34massive, they just take a, I won't use bad language, but you'll know what I'm
- 35:38saying, when they take a massive crap publicly
- 35:42in their lives, right? Like they just hit
- 35:45a wall, They get busted for having an
- 35:49affair or for having an addiction, they get a DUI, they're
- 35:53a Christian, they're this thing, the next thing, right? And
- 35:57suddenly the mask comes down, everybody sees through the shtick,
- 36:01and the three is exposed, and in those moments,
- 36:05threes tend to think, my life is over. And what I tell them is, hallelujah,
- 36:10your life is about to begin. Yeah. Because now we
- 36:13have blown up all of the images. Yep. And
- 36:17now your true self has space to
- 36:20now, like green shoots, start to come up out of the earth.
- 36:24But it's going to take a minute. You can craft an image in
- 36:28a second. Sure. But a true self is going to take a second
- 36:31to reveal itself to you. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And as
- 36:35it's been said, spiritual transformation is the slowest of
- 36:39all human movements. So it
- 36:43takes a second for us to have it. Now, the problem is
- 36:46with our personality types is they are so embedded and so
- 36:50reflexive that you are going to have
- 36:53to burn a lot of calories and actually enlist
- 36:56the help of some other people to help you not lose
- 37:00the ground you've gained by going backwards and
- 37:05just doing what you know. Remember,
- 37:08there's a little kid inside of you that is saying, I
- 37:12can't be loved apart from my accomplishments, my achievements, my
- 37:15apparent success, my seeming success. Like
- 37:19you actually said, you were struggling with the question, like, what am I supposed
- 37:22to do? And I would add a question to that. And I'd actually, in
- 37:25the hierarchy of things, place it above that question, which is like, what am
- 37:29I supposed to be now? Not what am I supposed to do? Like,
- 37:33what am I supposed to be now? if I'm not
- 37:37going to be Los Whitaker on Instagram doing my
- 37:40shtick and giving people simplistic answers to complicated life
- 37:43problems that they, and all you're doing is giving a
- 37:47mob what it wants. You're just throwing, I mean, honestly, I'm just being a little cynical
- 37:50here, but what the hell, we're all together. When people
- 37:54like you or I in the public space do that stuff, we're just throwing red
- 37:57meat. That's all we're doing. We're just saying, hey, here's three
- 38:00simple things you can do when you're having a problem. It's like, it's a little
- 38:04bit more complicated than that. Right. And we
- 38:07should be more humble and agnostic, meaning
- 38:11not knowing about things that, because
- 38:15we actually are misleading people to think that life has simple
- 38:19answers. Right. When by 50, you are now realized,
- 38:22right? I'm 63, right? But it's like, you're realizing, like, oh, guess
- 38:26what? It's a hell of a lot more complicated than that. Yep.
- 38:32Yeah. Can I ask a question for you? Yeah, go ahead. One
- 38:35of the things I wanted to hit on, because you said lonely, and we sort
- 38:39of passed over that. And lonely is
- 38:42only gratified through intimacy. And
- 38:46I was thinking about when you were talking about Instagram, and it's
- 38:51a substitute for true connection. When you were
- 38:54talking about putting this out there, and people were like, oh, he's so real, right? It's
- 38:57an attempt to connect, which the
- 39:01gift of loneliness is connection. I think sometimes it's extra
- 39:05hard for the threes because you have all the masks. So how
- 39:08do you push through the mask or bring down the mask so you
- 39:11can connect? So what steps are
- 39:14you taking now in your life to experience that
- 39:23I think, you know, this is going to sound so
- 39:27simplistic, but the greatest compliment I've
- 39:30gotten since this whole thing has finished hasn't been for my friends, it's been
- 39:33for my wife. She's just like, you're intentional in
- 39:37wanting to ask me questions. You never asked me questions before. She
- 39:41would always be the question asker where we'd go on a date and then the conversation started.
- 39:45I feel like some of my cure for loneliness has been my intentionality
- 39:49with the ones that actually cure my loneliness, which
- 39:53are going to be my wife and kids. Now, one of my kids has gotten married since
- 39:57this has happened. The other one's moved out and we're down to one in
- 40:00the house. But I do feel like one
- 40:04of the things also that it's not curing my loneliness is
- 40:08social media anymore. I used to say all
- 40:12the time, I love being alone. I
- 40:16love traveling. When I travel, I love
- 40:20just being on airplanes and not sitting next to people I know. Well, the
- 40:23whole thing is I would say that, but I'd be on my phone with 300,000 people typing
- 40:27back and forth. So was I truly alone ever? And I
- 40:31got to experience true loneliness and also solitude,
- 40:35which isn't loneliness, but it's something that I'd not had anymore.
- 40:39So one of the other things is I purposely built
- 40:42solitude back into my life. We're the first generation to
- 40:47not have access to solitude. And so that's
- 40:50something else that I learned that from the monks when I was with them. They
- 40:53really helped me understand the beauty of solitude. Yeah, I'll
- 40:57spend an entire day not listening to podcasts or
- 41:01when I travel, not listening to whatever, just being in solitude, whatever
- 41:05that is. I've implemented a couple of things, Anthony,
- 41:09into my life, but mostly it's just been really with my wife. She's
- 41:19So, you mentioned earlier that you're not a very good friend. And what
- 41:22it reminded me of is that, you know, threes are
- 41:26such doers. And they're always on the move. Relationships
- 41:31are messy and they take time. And they're slow. They're
- 41:35slow, right? So, what they are, what they represent to
- 41:38the three is a big inefficiency. You
- 41:43know, and you're so concerned with effectiveness,
- 41:47hitting goals, nailing, you
- 41:51know, getting through a to do list of things that you got to get done. The
- 41:54other thing is threes have more feelings than probably any
- 41:57other type. And they're the type that is most out of touch with their own feelings. Their
- 42:01feelings are very repressed. Yeah. they
- 42:04have trouble naming their feelings. And they're also, like I said, repressed.
- 42:08And, you know, relationships are time-consuming, and
- 42:13oftentimes a three is very utilitarian around relationships. So, in
- 42:16other words, it's like, can this person help me get ahead? If it's a person who I
- 42:20just like, but they can't help me get ahead or get more followers or
- 42:23sell more books, then I don't have time for this conversation. You know what I mean?
- 42:27This is an unhealthy three I'm describing, not you. I'm just saying an unhealthy, not
- 42:31very self-aware three. So, do you have a plan
- 42:34for doing the work, like you have cracked open something in
- 42:38you, right, in the last 18 months. You
- 42:41now have even more information based on Enneagram stuff, right? Yeah.
- 42:45Do you have a plan for how
- 42:49you are going to protect and deepen and
- 42:53further and mostly protect the work that
- 42:57has already been accomplished in you to avoid backsliding
- 43:02into the game of the three, into the trance, because
- 43:05it's a trance of the three, and
- 43:10becoming more intimate, deeper, a person who
- 43:13actually believes he can be loved for who he is, not for what he
- 43:20I don't have one. I
- 43:24did the work. I have my
- 43:28things that I'm doing every day, the things that I'm applying in
- 43:32my life from screen time, for instance, like Instagram
- 43:35time, all the buffers that I've put in place that
- 43:39have kept me here. But as I hear you say that, I'm like,
- 43:42well, I mean, I don't know. You could,
- 43:46in a year and a half, Ian scroll on Instagram and sees Carlos is selling a
- 43:50course on- How to be your true self. How to be
- 43:54your true self. I did not have a plan. The
- 44:01more I'm deeper into this conversation, the more I think, okay,
- 44:05I've muscled 18 months of staying pretty healthy here,
- 44:09but if I'm not careful, this book's going to come out. The book's not out
- 44:13yet. I don't know when this podcast is coming out, but the book's not out yet. When it comes out, already
- 44:17publicity-wise, as far as this has been the most sought-after title
- 44:22of anything I've released from as far as like the media and people want to talk about,
- 44:25oh my gosh, this guy's with the Amish and with monks and he didn't look
- 44:28at a screen and he got his brain scanned. There's just a lot more
- 44:33eyeballs looking at this work than any of my other work. So
- 44:37it's like, oh man, that's dangerous. Like, you know, if
- 44:40I'm not careful, if I don't have a plan, then, you
- 44:43know, I could very quickly slide back into unhealthy performer.
- 44:49Yeah. Well, first of all, I think I'm really glad you said you don't have one,
- 44:55But I will say you need one. Yeah. You have some practices right now,
- 45:02Right. So you're in therapy, right? Yep. You
- 45:05like your therapist? Love my therapist. OK. You shared all this
- 45:08with your therapist? Oh, yeah. And
- 45:12more. Okay, and more. Yeah, that's important. I
- 45:15think you would do really well to not just read my book.
- 45:19I can give you some titles of other books on the Enneagram, but learning about threes
- 45:23as part of your self-discovery curriculum. I
- 45:28would say you're in discovery mode. Still, yes. All
- 45:32right, let's try and unearth what's really
- 45:35going on with me. right? Let's
- 45:39see what the challenges are. So that would be a first. We're in self-discovery
- 45:43mode. You got a therapist. That's great. You're going to need some other people
- 45:46in your life that are a
- 45:50support team to help you as
- 45:53you undergo a path of transformation
- 45:58from the typical path of
- 46:01the three to moving from deceit to
- 46:06what Parker Palmer, who by the way is an Enneagram 3, you'll be
- 46:09happy to know, is to authentic selfhood. Again,
- 46:13a lot of the journey, Carlos, here is I can be loved for who I am. And
- 46:18I don't need to keep creating images and projected characters
- 46:24that I think are going to match the expectations and the demands of the
- 46:27crowd. Because right now, they tyrannize you. You
- 46:32are tyrannized by 300,000 people. And
- 46:36all you can think about is, how do I keep them happy with me? How
- 46:40do I keep them liking me? Which, by the way, will mean
- 46:43that you'll never actually ever tell them the whole truth
- 46:47out of fear that you might go down to 120,000 followers
- 46:51in a week. You know what I mean? Like, what if you get canceled? That's like
- 46:54the worst thing in the world that could possibly happen, right? Or whatever could
- 46:58happen. So you need a plan. You
- 47:01need a people to be around you to help you stay
- 47:04the course of personal transformation. I would strongly
- 47:09recommend even finding, and I can recommend one to
- 47:12you offline, an Enneagram coach that
- 47:16can come alongside you who is either a three or really understands threes
- 47:19well. Because,
- 47:25look, I meet so many threes on this podcast
- 47:29because guess who writes books? Threes, sevens, and eights. A
- 47:34ton of them write books, and they're really good at self-promotion. Self-sales
- 47:39is their thing, and they make it look like it's not self-sale. Sometimes
- 47:42it comes through, but they think they're doing a good job of
- 47:45hiding it, but it's a lot of self-selling. Yeah. But it's
- 47:49the selling of the persona that, you know, and how can I monetize this?
- 47:52And how can I, how can I spin this in just the right way so
- 47:56I look good? And, you know, you have an opportunity like
- 47:59right now, I feel like this is what's on my heart as you're talking. Like, I'm
- 48:03seeing like such low hanging ripe fruit on your tree right
- 48:07now. Yeah. For personal growth and transformation, but
- 48:11they will not stay there Like, the pull of
- 48:14our old proclivities is so strong that unless you
- 48:18get help and have a plan, you will
- 48:21not remain on the journey of transformation. Or
- 48:26you'll slow to a crawl on it, or you'll have too many detours, off,
- 48:29back on, off, back on. And I think for threes,
- 48:33the good news is, is that having a plan is super important. Like,
- 48:37okay, well, what's my goal? What's my plan? That's what I want to go for. I want to become
- 48:41like, I want to become the healthiest, truest expression of myself. Yeah.
- 48:44And if that's the case, then for sure, glad you have a therapist. However,
- 48:48can I ask you a really honest question? Yeah. Have you sticked the,
- 48:52like, like, here's the thing. Yeah. Threes, threes walk in the therapist's
- 48:56office all the time. Uh-huh. And by the end, the therapist
- 48:59is so impressed they want to do therapy with the three. It's
- 49:03like, because you've done such a good job of telling them what they want to
- 49:09Yeah, yeah, yeah. I definitely have not sticked my
- 49:13this therapist. Okay, good. I've sticked a therapist before. And
- 49:16the reason why I know that, what you just said, I've had a therapist look
- 49:20at me and go, I just love doing work with you because you're so good at
- 49:23expressing yourself, you know, and I was like, Oh my gosh, look, I've sticked the
- 49:27Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like sometimes with
- 49:30threes, it drives them crazy. Like I've had three coaching
- 49:34clients, right. And, and stuff, patience too,
- 49:37when I had to practice. And they would say stuff that I know that they were
- 49:41saying specifically to win me over, and I just stared at
- 49:44them. And I just blink. I don't smile.
- 49:48I don't register anything on my face. They're looking. And
- 49:51they look at me, and then after a second, it turns to panic. And
- 49:55then it turns to rage. I've seen it turn
- 49:58to rage too, where it's like, wait a minute. What are you staring at,
- 50:02bro? No, it's more like, What? It's like all of a sudden,
- 50:06they realized I was looking at the mask and not the person. And
- 50:14Well, can I ask you a question? Yeah. How would you describe
- 50:18a healthy three that
- 50:25has the job that you and I have? Right? So,
- 50:28so it's like, you know, I think
- 50:31what, where I could, where my brain could go when we end this conversation
- 50:35is, oh, crap. Like if I'm a three, I can't do what I'm doing. I've
- 50:38got to go figure out some, another job to have, because this is, I'm
- 50:42literally just going to be living in self-promotion in as
- 50:45I do. But like, is there a way for a three to do what
- 50:52Yes. And it's going to take a minute. Yeah. I
- 50:57would say that a couple of growth things. Yeah. One
- 51:00is, for threes, learning to connect with your emotions, particularly
- 51:05the tender aspects of yourself. Releasing
- 51:09your need for control. Threes can be very controlling. We
- 51:13think of ones as being controlling or eights being controlling, but threes can be very controlling. What
- 51:17they like to control is the narrative. Yeah. Let's control the narrative,
- 51:20like make sure that the narrative is saying good things about me. Yeah.
- 51:25Differentiating between your real feelings and your image-driven ones.
- 51:30Learning to be more introspective and self-reflective. you've
- 51:34got some practices, but learning just to be, not
- 51:37doing, right? Like your first instinct might be to
- 51:40go, you know, oh, I'm gonna go get John Mark Comer's new book and go
- 51:43do a rule of life, which is a good thing, but maybe not the best thing for a three. It's
- 51:47like, oh, it's just doing, it's more doing. So
- 51:51practices like meditation would be huge for a three, like
- 51:54learning just to sit and to be, like centering prayer. I
- 51:58think checking your motives, Why am I
- 52:01doing this? Am I doing this to win people's approval and appreciation or their respect
- 52:05or their admiration? It's really more about admiration. It's
- 52:09like the three wants people to go, damn, that guy is unbelievable. Like,
- 52:13whoa, is he successful? Wow, I've never met anyone like,
- 52:17right? But to really notice your motives, like,
- 52:21why am I doing the things that I'm doing? Why am I saying this right now?
- 52:24Am I coming from a place of authenticity, or
- 52:27am I coming from a place where I'm just image
- 52:32generation? I'm just generating image. I
- 52:35think healthy sixes, for example,
- 52:40they start to look a lot like Healthy sixes. Healthy
- 52:44threes start to look like healthy sixes. Oh, really? Yeah. So
- 52:48they become more community-minded. They
- 52:52are less concerned about their own success and more concerned
- 52:55about the success of helping others become successes. Here's
- 53:00the thing you could do, just as a spiritual thing. Start to give away
- 53:03money or time to things anonymously. Yeah.
- 53:07Just start doing stuff anonymously. without wanting anything in return. What
- 53:12you're doing is what Ignatius called the contrary Jerry, right?
- 53:15Like a Jerry Contra. It's like, I'm just going to do the opposite of the things that I used
- 53:18to do that really don't, really, to
- 53:23unwind the momentum of the unhealthy behaviors of my
- 53:26priors. Oh, that's good. Right. And then, um,
- 53:31I would say, like, cause I remember when the, when the road, I never
- 53:34told the story to anybody, but I remember when the road back to you
- 53:37came out and started to take off. Right. So it had been out
- 53:40for about a year and then it, it did well, but then
- 53:43it really started to do well. Okay. I remember exactly
- 53:47where I was. I was on Franklin road in Brentwood and
- 53:51I called my friend Josh graves, you know, Josh, Josh. Okay.
- 53:55So I called Josh. And I said, Josh, I have
- 53:58a feeling that this book is about to take off.
- 54:01You could just feel it in the air. And
- 54:05I said, and I'm going to need some help, because I don't know
- 54:09if I'm ready. I was uncertain if I was ready for that.
- 54:13So having a spiritual director or someone that
- 54:17is intimately acquainted with your journey of
- 54:23learning and wanting to become the best
- 54:27expression of who you are, the truest expression of
- 54:31who you are. And by the way, I cannot guarantee that
- 54:35it won't screw up your business life. Sure. So, and
- 54:38that's true for any type, right? Yeah. And by the way, you're going
- 54:41to have a lot of people, including all those people on Instagram who
- 54:45are going to want you. Okay. So this is family systems. You
- 54:48know what I'm, you know, I know you know what it is, but let me explain it to people out there
- 54:51who don't. It's called a Calder mobile. So you know that
- 54:54a Calder mobile is one of those art things from the fifties, mid century, it
- 54:58hangs from the ceiling on a wire and it has little off things. And it,
- 55:02you know, if it, if there's a breeze in the room, they all kind of move. You know
- 55:05what I'm talking about? You can look it up. The way
- 55:08that works is, if you touch one
- 55:12of the tiles on the end of the wires, the whole system
- 55:15jumps. The whole mobile jumps up and
- 55:18down and starts to move around. The
- 55:25forces of physics want to move that mobile toward homeostasis,
- 55:29going back to stillness. And so all
- 55:32the other tiles on the system will begin to
- 55:36assert pressure on the one that moved and
- 55:40changed the script in the system to go back
- 55:43to what it was. Because we knew how to be
- 55:46in the world when Los Whitaker was Los Whitaker. Now,
- 55:50if you start to change, you're going to feel pressure in your social group,
- 55:53in your platform, and elsewhere. What happened to the old you?
- 55:56We liked the old you. Yeah. And
- 56:00you're going to feel pressure to go back. It's not going to just come from inside
- 56:03you. It's going to come from outside you too. People are going to want
- 56:07you to go back to the way it was at
- 56:10some level. There's going to be some unconscious resentment
- 56:14that you're changing. This happens in family systems. It's
- 56:18like when someone gets sober in a family, Yeah. Right?
- 56:21In a family system, someone has a drinking problem, they get sober, they start to
- 56:24change. Everybody's happy and also conflicted. Yeah. It's
- 56:30Right. This is actually already happening. Tell
- 56:33me how that's happening. This is happening on, you know, where
- 56:37I was before this experiment,
- 56:41I really was out there at the front of every single kind
- 56:46of socio-political issue that came out, people came
- 56:49straight to me to speak on it. And because I was like,
- 56:54I could wordsmith together a very nuanced
- 56:57way of making people feel like, oh my gosh, This
- 57:02is exactly the words I was looking for, Carlos, thank you so much. And so like
- 57:05every single thing, literally every single thing that would happen, I'd go on Twitter every day, and
- 57:08I'd look for the trending topic. And I was like, oh, this is dividing people. Bam,
- 57:12Carlos is going to come in and connect people. And so what happened?
- 57:16Well, I came back from this thing, and I was like, suddenly I just didn't feel like I
- 57:20wanted to do that anymore. And so
- 57:23literally, one global conflict would happen. People
- 57:28would wait maybe four days, and then my DMs would flip. Hey, man, when are you
- 57:31going to say something? Well, I
- 57:35don't know if I really have the capacity, this is what I would say, to
- 57:38do that right now. Like, I'm sorry, maybe later. And then it
- 57:42got louder and louder and louder to where people were like, you
- 57:45just don't care anymore. What happened to you? You used to be the
- 57:49guy that would come and that would speak to these things. And now you're
- 57:52not speaking up for injustices anymore. And now you're not. And Ian, next
- 57:55thing you know, people Like, bro, the
- 57:59messages people would leave me before they would leave was just like, you're
- 58:03not who you used to be. So I'm literally telling you that what
- 58:06you're explaining is happening. And there's been
- 58:09moments where I'm like, OK, and I'll write a big, long post about the next thing that came
- 58:14Yeah, good. So good. But all I'm saying
- 58:17is, I want you to know that that's a good sign. Yeah. If
- 58:21I were your spiritual director, I would be like, that's going to feel like
- 58:25shit, and it's a really good sign. Because
- 58:29what it is indicating is that there's a shift happening in
- 58:32you. The system is exerting pressure
- 58:36on you. to go back to the way things were. And
- 58:40since this is a journey toward authenticity and toward becoming
- 58:44your true self, whatever that means, that's a very debated topic.
- 58:49But that said, the fact that people are responding
- 58:52to you differently, and this will happen in your family, it will happen elsewhere. When
- 58:57you feel despair, just remember that's a good sign. Yeah,
- 59:02okay. But that's why you need some other
- 59:05people in your life and some other inputs in your life to
- 59:09help you, because you're in a really, really great position.
- 59:15And all I can feel in my heart is, bro, keep going. Don't lose
- 59:18this. Whatever you do, don't lose these
- 59:22gains. And capitalize them on and actually double
- 59:25down on the journey. Yeah. Like of spiritual transformation
- 59:32and intimacy with God and with others and
- 59:41I mean, this has been like, I love this conversation, man. And I love,
- 59:45I really do love where you are. Like, I'm like, Man, good
- 59:54And it's been good for me, too, because I am
- 59:57healthier because of what I did. I really am healthier than
- 1:00:01I've been in a long, long time. But to look and especially
- 1:00:04the whole plan part, because I'm like, you know, there really isn't
- 1:00:07a plan besides like, man, look at me now. Like, I feel so
- 1:00:11healthy. Everyone around me is like, Dad, you're so healthy. But
- 1:00:18So when we're done, let's have a conversation. I
- 1:00:21got a couple of names for you. And they're just resources. Whether
- 1:00:25you reach out to them or not, that's up to you. But I can give you some resources of
- 1:00:30people who can help you maybe put together a plan and
- 1:00:33give you some thoughts about how not to do this
- 1:00:37alone. Because actually, none of us can do this work alone.
- 1:00:40Like as my friend Suzanne used to say, something she
- 1:00:44says in the effect of, it's about doing the work we
- 1:00:47do, we do alone, but we do it together alone. That's good.
- 1:00:53That's good. I think there's some real truth in that. Hey, everybody. I'm talking to
- 1:00:56our friend Carlos Whitaker about his new
- 1:00:59book, but actually about his new life, for crying out loud. Yeah. Come on, man. It's
- 1:01:03titled Reconnected, How Seven Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and
- 1:01:06Amish Farmers Helped Me Recover the Art of Being Human. This
- 1:01:10is available right now on Amazon for pre-order,
- 1:01:13so we want you to go out and get it. I have a copy of it. I am only
- 1:01:17about a quarter of the way through it, but I know the journey he's describing really,
- 1:01:21really well as something really exciting for a
- 1:01:25three and dangerous. This is like J.R.R.
- 1:01:29Tolkien-level journey into the big
- 1:01:37Obviously, people can learn about you more on all the socials at
- 1:01:40Lowe's Whittaker, or Lowe's Whitt, I should say. Yeah. Anthony, could
- 1:01:46I'm excited for you. For real. I feel bad for
- 1:01:49our next interview in 45 minutes because
- 1:01:53I got nothing left. I'm all tapped. That's
- 1:02:02I know your address. We'll send a super bill.
- 1:02:06Hey, everybody. Don't forget. May you have love. May you have
- 1:02:10joy. May you have peace. May you have healing. And