Self-Acceptance For High Achievers Who Never Feel Done

If you’ve ever hit a goal and still heard the same old voice whisper “not enough,” you’re not alone and you’re not broken. We’re joined by bestselling author and meditation teacher Lodro Rinzler to talk about a radically practical idea: basic goodness. Not as a slogan, but as a way to stop outsourcing self-worth to achievement, comparison, and constant optimization.

We get honest about the Hollywood myth of meditation and why you don’t need incense, a retreat, or two-hour sits for mindfulness to change your life. Lodro breaks meditation down into a simple skill: being present with what’s happening right now without judgment, then returning when the mind wanders. We also trace where self-doubt starts, from subtle childhood messages to the societal pressure to always do more, and how those stories turn into anxiety, shame, and imposter syndrome.

From there we go deeper: social media “success theater,” ego on both sides of the conversation, and why presence makes you better at relationships and business. We touch on meditation research and brain science, plus the difference between “something bad happened” and “you’re bad,” especially when the world feels divided. The big takeaway is a shift from self-improvement to self-recognition: the moment we stop trying to become enough is the moment we start living.

Subscribe for more conversations like this, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review. What would you do differently this week if you already believed you were enough?

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Transcript

You Are Enough

SPEAKER_03 0:01

I never told no one that my whole life I've been holding back. Everything I look like enough to tell my shoot for the stomach here.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Who do you think you're doing? Alright, everybody, another day, another dollar. Another one of my favorite episodes, my favorite podcast, because I'm biased with it did work. With me, I just want you to know you are good. You are enough. The power of self-acceptance with Lodro Rinsler in the world addicted to achievement in comparison and constant optimization. What is the breakthrough? If it isn't, it just takes more hustle. What if it's realizing you are enough because you are already enough? I'm sitting down. He's a bestseller. He's a meditation teacher. Lodro is gonna explore the powerful message behind his book. Love the title because it speaks what if it did work. Because you are good, you are enough. We're gonna dive into South Worth, identity, ambition, shame, anxiety, meditation, and what it really means to stop to stop outsourcing your value. Because one thing that we do outsource is our value. If you've ever thought, I'll feel good when I'll be enough after. This conversation's for you. And Lord, this is what I'm gonna tell you, brother. You're gonna I will be worthy, I am enough. When that that was always the story of my life. Then people will accept me for who I am. So when I I saw that book and you sent it to me, I was like, holy smokes, where was this book a million years ago?

The Hollywood Myth Of Meditation

SPEAKER_00 2:11

That is extremely kind of you, Omar. Thank you so much. And uh thanks for having me on the show. I'm actually a big fan of the show. I love what you're doing here, and I think it's so aligned because the whole thing is like, what if that voice in your head that says that you're not enough is just simply wrong? That's the whole premise, and it's exactly what you've been talking about here. That like most of us are trying to fix something that was never broken. And I do a lot of stuff here around meditation, but meditation isn't just about becoming calm. It's discovering that you're already okay, you already have enough as you are. And once we realize that, then we can actually take it to the next level for everything that you've been talking about in terms of building businesses, building, you know, stuff that actually helps people, but it comes from that place of maybe I actually have enough, maybe I am enough as I am.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Lodro, why is it though, because I meditate all the time and people look at me like I'm full of crap because I don't have an ashram, I don't, I don't, I don't have the Gregorian monks chanting in the background. Is is it Hollywood or what is this misconception that when it comes to meditation, you you need to be in the lotus position, you need you need to have the incense going, and it it's it's like from a movie. Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Well, you just named it. I mean, that's the thing. We have a Hollywood culture and all these magazines that you see at the end of the aisle at the supermarket that just say, listen, if you're not doing this on a cliff facing the sunrise, what are you even doing? And that's not what meditation is. It's been around for 5,000 years. And you know, I come from a Buddhist tradition. I was born and raised Buddhist. So my parents started practicing before I was even born. I started meditating when I was six. It's always been around for me, but it's this sense of, oh, this is a very ancient tradition that's actually really helpful for us today. And it can be very simple. You don't need the sunset, you don't need the mountaintop. You can meditate wherever you are. And that's the thing. It's not esoteric, it's not uh trying to connect to something higher, it's just learning more about who you are. The Tibet word for meditation is gom, which is G-O-M. It's become familiar with. It's either meditation or familiarization. That's the translation, which equates the two. Meditation is an act of becoming more familiar with all of who you are, and that's all it is.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

That's such a hard thing because people are so lost because they're so lost into their social media, they're so lost in becoming a realtor because it's all about placement. They want people to believe that they are worthy, that they are rock stars, even though at the just of it, when if you find when you finally give in and realize you are worthy, you are enough, you don't really care about the outside noise.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Yeah, that's exactly it. And I tell a story in the book, You Are Good, You're Enough, about the Buddha. Now, this isn't a book for Buddhists, is this a book for anyone, but it has some stories of the Buddha and stuff like that. But the story goes, he's sitting under this tree, he's meditating, and this like the embodiment of obstacles called Mara comes up. And it's like, who do you think you are that you of all people could get meditated, like actually become enlightened? And it said that in that moment, the Buddha touched the earth, and the earth literally shuddered under his touch, which was an actor proclaiming, I am inherently worthy to wake up. I'm inherently worthy to become my best version of myself. That is who I am, and that is who everyone is. And in that moment, like Mara fled, because that's very scary to hear. Like maybe I actually have enough, I am enough as I am. So this book isn't about becoming better or self-optimization, it's about realizing you were never fundamentally broken to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

No, Claude, I get where does that voice, the inner voice, I'm not enough, where does that origin mean?

Basic Worth And The Mara Story

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Yeah, it's a great question. And I was listening to your episode with um Bill Blankshein. And, you know, he does this work coaching authors who often don't believe in their own story or their ability to tell that story. And it is crazy because I see that all the time too when I work with people in writing. And you had your own story of like, oh, I'm releasing a book in my 40s. There's stories that hold us back from doing the thing that we know we should be doing. And it's like that was what we would call in Buddhism the trap of doubt. And it's not a subtle doubt of like, I look bad in orange. I doubt that I look good in orange. Like, that's a very blatant one. It's something insidious inside us. And to answer your question more directly, I think it's just a societal whisper. Like right now, as we're talking, my wife is putting my toddler to bed. My kid is two and a half years old. She has not realized that anything is broken in her. No one has told her that she's not good enough. Right? That's who we are when we're born. It's so beautiful to watch. And also there are these scary moments where I see her on the playground, she starts to doubt herself, right? Like, what if that kid doesn't want to play with me? And it's starting so early because we, you know, we're trying to do what we can in terms of imbuing this thing of maybe you're good, maybe you're whole as is. Why don't you think about that? But there's a societal whisper of you always need to do more. When we are in grade school, we say you need to get into a good high school. When you're in high school, you need to get into a good college. When you're in high college, you need to get a good job. There's everything around what if I never find the right person for me? What if I never get a house? What if I like there's so many stories that we tell ourselves about, like, what if I'm not enough? What if it doesn't work? Right? And that is this trap of doubt. But it comes in at the societal whisper level of our school, our religious background, sometimes our parents are saying things that are like, well, I'll give you one. When I was a kid, my parents said, you can act in school plays, but you know, you can't be an actor because you're not going to make money. And that's just a very subtle version of, oh, I'll never do this. This will never work for me. And we internalize that. So all of us have a thousand versions of that. We have these stories that we've been told from people throughout our life, and they add up to become this like solid sense of self of, oh, I'll never be able to do that. I'll never be able to dot, dot, dot. And that's why I love what you're doing here, because we all have that. And when we dismantle it, it's like pressing release on a bear trap. It like it pops off the leg. We feel so much freedom when we put down that story of doubt. When we actually say, I don't have to keep telling myself that same old story that's no longer serving me.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

And that's what this book is about. And what's crazy is your parents telling you that they didn't realize the effect. Because to them it was just matter of fact.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Like, yeah, it's so subtle, right? And that's why I tell it, because it's not like, you know, an abusive story. They just casually mentioned it and it landed in the back of my brain, and I held it for you know 30 years or whatever it was, right? So we'd have a thousand versions of that, and we all have them. It's not like unique to me, it's not unique to whoever's listening to this right now. We all have these stories that then feed into this voice of, but what if it doesn't work? You're not good enough. I mean, you know this from releasing a book. I'm feeling it from releasing even my eighth book at this point. There's always going to be that story of like, what if someone hates this? What if people, you know, just don't ever want to buy it and they tell all their friends it's the worst book they ever read? Like, there's always going to be those stories, but I don't buy into it as much as I used to. And that's the beauty of meditation. Not to underplay the beauty of meditation, but it is that. It's like I don't buy into that story anymore.

Where The Not Enough Voice Starts

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Well, and you're gonna laugh. I felt, well, I've done all this business and personal development. I know not nothing, nothing can phase me, nothing can affect me. And while when I was writing my first book, I'll I was dating, I was with a woman that was a childhood friend, and we just started dating. And her issues or her stories started bleeding on to me because I I don't know. Well, it that story. Well, if he he's writing this book and you know, he's better than my ex-husband or whatever story. So she started it started creepy, like, who am I to write a book? And then it was like that that voice, and it wasn't usually something like that. I'm like, oh gosh, she's right, who am I? Because it would always be, it was like during Corona, so I would have it would be through Zoom with the editor. Sure. And it was always like, and then that question, and then it became a catchphrase because I'm like, Who am I? And then for the first time in my life, but it was always like, Oh, but what if she's right? What if the only three people that bought the book were my two daughters and and my mom, and my two daughters were younger at the time, so it was really me, and it was really my mom that would buy the book, and it was always this, and it was always like reading the reviews. Oh, yeah. Well, and then the relationship didn't last, and and an anonymous uh review, which was taken down subtly. Well, I'm sure who knows who. It was a shot at me, and it was like I was gonna die, and then I ranted on videos and whatnot for I can't believe this. And what's funny is it magically disappeared, and then like years later, it was like six, seven months ago, someone and it was all perfect, and it was just a one-star review, and it was like, this is garbage, this is superficial. I threw it in the recycling bin, and my girlfriend's like wanted to know how I felt about it, and I knew this was transformation. I'm like, Well, you know what? Person bought it, good for them, man. Um, the only issue I had, instead of recycling it, give it to a homeless person, give it to someone else, maybe they'd find something useful out of it, and it was that. But before, if that would have happened, I would have never written my second book because oh my gosh, or and it's like at the end of the day, it gets tiring, doesn't it? Trying to could you imagine trying to get everybody to think positive of you or worry?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

I can I can imagine it because that was a lot of my like 20s, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Trust me, I'll I'll I'm I was like that, and and then it was like you know, these these you all these things people understand it's from your childhood. Well, I I came from a single my my mom and dad divorced before I was even born. So usually now if someone leaves you, the universe wants someone better in store. You just have to have the faith, you just have to believe, you have to walk into it. But to me, it was always like that story. Oh my god, they're leaving me just like my father left me. And it was just like that bring out the drama llama of I am not enough.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Well, that's the whole thing. And these stories are so embedded in us, and we don't even realize I talk about this in the book as well, the sense of, I mean, we use this term a lot now in the West, of like unconscious bias. But it's not just about race or religion or any number of other things. It's about our like misunderstanding of like, oh, I have a story that if someone, for example, used to bully me in high school, and then I run into someone as an adult that reminds me of them, I have an unconscious thing where I recoil from them. It's just so ingrained in me, right? So we have to look at those things, but the more we look at them, the less power they have on us. We can actually see our way through, but it takes us acknowledging these things and actually saying, like, I'm going to take the time to dive in and come out the other side because that's what we have to do.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

And the one thing everybody with Lodrow's book, what I love about it is it blends the woo-woo, it blends Buddhist wisdom, but it blends psychology. So anybody it it's hard to pick at it because you know, if somebody's like from the you know, oh, I have a degree in psychiatry or psychology, but you know what? You have that in the book, and you do have the woo-woo in the book, and you do have the boot, and and it's a a lot of storytelling because it's personal, it's it's your story, yeah. Right? Because a lot of times you read a book like this, and you're like, oh well, you know, uh usually it's from a celebrity on, oh, you know, their their mindfulness, or uh, you know, I'm into Buddhism now, and it's like, oh, that's so cool because you're a celebrity, but this you you tell the this is this is your story, and and it's actually it's actually fascinating. I I I actually told my my girlfriend Amy that it's a must-read. Because she's she's very sweet, she's way into she she's one of those people that have that that wears something that has to remind people by a sweatshirt or hoodie or a hat that because a lot of times, man, we need that message that you are enough because the whole world, social media is yes, it's a dopamine, but it's people trying to say, Hey, look at me. Do you think I am enough?

Rejection, Reviews, And Old Wounds

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yeah, that's the whole thing, too. And I I talk about this in the book as well. This sort of social media, I call it success theater, right? Like people post the best things in their life. Look at me on this vacation. It doesn't matter that I maxed out my credit card to go there or that I'm there alone. I wish that my ex were still with me. Like, none of that's on social media. It's just look at me looking fabulous on the speech. It's success theater. We're performing success. And I think that's something that's very common and that let leaves everyone else saying, Oh my God, I'll never be that. So we're holding ourselves to these impossible standards that aren't even real. When in fact, people are real. No. Like most people are just trying to put out like the most positive, successful version of themselves. And I mean, this is the thing. I always just at this point in my, you know, quote-unquote career as a Buddhist teacher, I've been teaching meditation for 25 years. It's like I'm just the most human human. Like, I'm not some guru on the mountain. I'm not, I mean, you talked about this earlier. It's not woo-woo. It's just very practical. Like, here's something that can actually help you be less stressed out, sleep better, be more kinder, more present with your family. Like, there's some very practical stuff here. And it doesn't take you being something other than who you are. And that's the message of the book.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Well, well, a lot of times too, people get this oh my gosh, I can't meditate for two hours. Because you know, they they hear from the experts, well, I can, you know, come to my camp and we'll meditate for two to three hours straight. And you're like, holy smokes, I can't even do it for five minutes. And that's the beauty of it, man. Just start 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, and you know, Lodro, been doing it for years. Yes, you have to push up those dots, man. I'm human. I yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll, you know, some random thought will come in. And you know what? That doesn't mean uh I get up and go, hey, you know what? This isn't for me. It's just these guys like Lodro, that this is for Dr. Joe, this is for all those other major people out there that that talk about meditation. I'll I'll just go back and be angry at myself and angry at the world.

unknown 18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Let's let's get into the practicality though, because you just named something which is it can be very short and it can be very simple. It is not transcending anything. It is like coming out of the Buddhist tradition, it is called mindfulness here in the West. Mindfulness is the act of being present to what is occurring right now without judgment. That's all it is. So people can be mindful with their meals, people can be mindful with their conversations. But the way we often train in that is through meditation, where we take an upright and relaxed posture. We connect with the breath, something we're already doing. Like whoever's listening to this right now, you're already breathing. You're doing great. And when we get distracted, we say, Oh, I'm distracted, I'll come back to the breath. It's that simple. It's not something you need to pay$1,000 for. It is not something you need to do two hours in a row. You could start with 10 minutes a day and see a life-changing shift within a couple of weeks. It's actually phenomenal. But here's the thing: most of us think that meditation, and this goes back to what you're saying before in terms of the misrepresentation of it. We think that it should be, I try it once and then I feel as relaxed as if I just got a massage. It's not that. It is like learning a musical instrument or a language. You pick it up a little bit every day, and that's how you get quote unquote better at it. But it becomes more natural to you, is really what I'm saying. It's this sense of like, if I studied Spanish once a week and then I went to Spain, I would absolutely fail. But if I did a little bit of it 10 minutes a day, every day, I would absolutely feel fluent by the time I actually got over there. It has that quality to it. It's just a little bit every day, drop by drop, that allows us to feel grounded, to feel more present in our life, to feel a sense of sanity in an otherwise currently insane world.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Well, it's all about doing it on consistency. It it everybody wants this microwave of success, you know, that you know, you're morbidly obese, and then overnight you've got a six-pack. It's like the people have these unrealistic expectations. Or, you know, they they watch a documentary, uh, the the one on healing and about meditation, and it's like, yeah, like you know, yes, Dr. Joe D was in uh in a hospital bed, he was paralyzed, but yeah, he was paralyzed, he was in a hospital bed and he had all that time. So, yeah, of course, he had all that time to learn how to meditate. Everybody's story is different, but you know, yes, you're you're not gonna be, you're not gonna jump from uh from anger to all of a sudden, you know, everything's then because you know you you just mastered a 90-minute session. That's unrealistic.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

I will tell you this though. It's we're always the last people to notice the benefits of the meditation. I was meeting with a meditation student the other day after a class. He said, you know, I got stuck flying back to New York City from London and I couldn't make the flight. And I had to call my business partner and say, Hey, I'm not gonna make it back for tomorrow. We got to go over the meetings. And they went line by line, who's gonna do what? Should they reschedule this one? Should the business partner be with them alone? So on and so forth. At the end, he goes, Anything I'm missing. He goes, Yeah, why aren't you freaking out right now? These were big meetings. And the guy goes, I don't know. And the business partner says, Is it because you've been meditating? He goes, I think it's because I've been meditating. It's that we don't even notice sometimes the benefit, but it's so subtle and so life-changing that, oh, I didn't lose my shit because I'm gonna actually like miss these meetings. I can handle it in a non reactive, very sane and skillful way. That's the beauty of meditation.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

And even uh neurologically, it shows it literally there's the that that cheesy saying, the proof is in the pudding.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

It is. You're naming something really important. You talked about the psychology of it before. There's so many like research studies done at this point. You name a university, they've done it on mindfulness. And the whole idea is you do a little bit of every day. After they often do eight-week studies. So they say after we eight weeks, but obviously you could do three weeks and you start to see the benefit. After eight weeks, they say, Oh, there is less activity in the ACC. There's more gray matter in the hippocampus of the brain. And what that means for non-neuroscientists like me is you sleep better, you are less stressed out, you're less, you have better emotional regulation. There's so many benefits as a result of this. It's literally rewires the brain. It's like if you can imagine a mountain and there's a stream running down the mountain, and that's the way it's always run. And then someone puts a rock up and all of a sudden the stream has to divert. It slowly starts to make its way around and new crevices form little by little. And that is exactly how the brain works. We say, Oh, I don't have to chase after this thought. I could be present instead. Oh, that's putting the rock in the crevice. All of a sudden, we're creating new neural pathways and say, I don't have to do that so much.

Mindfulness Made Simple And Practical

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Well, mindfulness too, I mean you see benefits instantaneously. The thing is, is yes, it's slow, but it's it's there. My my well, just doing the shift of being mindful for me, when I started focusing on just the gratitude on the things that I do have, because a lot a lot of times every ah, you know, oh, I'm a high achiever. I didn't, I do know I I push back because it's like what I told you at the very beginning. If then if I do this, and a lot of times it was like, does it I was chasing like my mom's approval because she never said she was proud of me. And uh believe it or not, it was it was the first book. I thought it was maybe the second book. She finally said, because I I went to college second here, oh I'm proud of you. And then I was in com commit sitting there at commencement thinking, oh, I'm proud of you, didn't happen. Got a master's degree, didn't do that, and it was just it was like some silly blog that that said my book was like a must-read, and she said, I'm proud of you, and it hit me. You know, I thought the heavens were gonna open up, I thought, you know, I was gonna have that feel that state of nirvana, and it and then it hit me. It was like, man, that's so tiring, all that.

unknown 24:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

And really, the she didn't even have the tools. A lot of times we expect things from other people that they don't have the tools to do that themselves. How are they gonna do it for you?

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Yeah, I've got I feel like I've got good news, bad news for for people listening to this right now. The good news is listen, you meditate a little bit, all meditation does is tune you into the present moment, what's happening right now. You meditate in the morning and then you go into your morning meeting, you're more present with that person. You're less locked into the stories of what you think needs to happen. You're more able to see clearly what's happening right in front of you, and then you're more skillful as a result. You are more productive. I don't know how this works. It's magic to me. But every time I do like a long meditation, I have unlimited time during the day. When I don't, I always feel busy. It's just the mental state shifts into oh, I can actually be fully present and see the situation enough that I can do the most skillful thing and the most helpful thing for everyone. That's the good news. Now, so that's like my caveat for people who are like, I don't want to lose my productive productivity edge. You won't. You'll make be more productive. The flip side of that is exactly what you talked about, which is we chase after things outside of ourselves, hoping that they will actually make us happy. And don't get me wrong, I've been there. I I founded a network of meditation studios called Mindful. It went from one to three studios in New York City. It was the first meditation studios in New York. And within the first year, we had you name a publication, they were singing our praises. I was in the New York Times six times in six months. It was insane. And I'd always thought, oh, I would love to someday be mentioned in an article in New York Times. There I was being featured. And it didn't change shit. Am I allowed to say?

SPEAKER_01 26:24

You can say whatever you want, brother.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

It was like, oh, I hit that thing and it didn't actually bring me everlasting happiness. It didn't even bring up that much new business to the uh to the studio. So it's one of those things of like that, even that like back of the mind, deeply ingrained story of, well, then you get to be successful, was oh, I hit that marker and it doesn't feel that way. The thing that made me feel successful was when people came in, they would say, Hey, this practice has changed my life. I'm actually like really present with my kids now. I'm actually like was able to heal my relationship with my wife. Stuff like that. You're like, oh, this is life-changing stuff happening on the ground. That's the stuff that's actually important. So we start to notice, oh, maybe the external things I'm chasing don't always match up to what I actually value. And we start to realize what our values are and we start to shift in those directions.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

But Lord said something that you said something that to me this is a drop dropping a major bomb, but a positivity. So you're telling me I'll be able to connect better. Well, the art of connection means you can sell more because you can understand the other person because you are fully in that moment, you are listening to their needs, you are understanding their world, you're not too busy thinking life is all about you. You don't want to throw up on the person because this is something else that we all do, especially when we own a business or whatnot. Let me show them how qualified I am, let me let me tell them how much I know about the product. Let me this is my TEDx stage. Let me wow them. No, man. People want to feel like they matter, and when you connect, especially so you can connect in a personal relationship. Wow, you can connect with your children. Wow, because so many people have this disconnect, and they use the excuse, well, they're they're a teenager, or my kid's an asshole, or my kid. No, it's because you're not making an effort and you're coming from a place of judgment, which means when you connect with people, you can't judge them. They're like, Why is this episode so great? Could you imagine oh load roll meditation's bullshit? And you know, because so many people, you know, the alpha male, let's let me play this role. Because you know, so many times what what your parents never told you is a a lot of time the world is the stage and we are all all actors trying to play a part because God forbid Lodro. How about if somebody saw who I was? Amazing, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:24

There's a chapter in You Are Good, You're Enough, which is about um Briare, who compiled this poignant list in her book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. It was based on her experience of a nurse. And these five regrets are one, I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. And that's exactly what you were just getting on. Two, I wish I hadn't worked so hard, which I know we all love our work and we want to do, but like to take time for other things too. Three, I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings, and that gets to the connection, that part that we were just talking about. Four, I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. And five, I wish I had let myself be happier. I break them out line by line in terms of in this book, and it is a phenomenal lesson in just coming home to who we are and what we value. Because we don't want to live, like get to the time where we're lying on the deathbed and saying, shit, I made some real mistakes here. If we want to live a life of meaning, we actually have to come to that point of I'm fully here, I'm fully present, I'm making the connections that I want to make. I'm enjoying the people right ahead of me, as opposed to lost in what's going on in my email inbox.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Crazy, right?

unknown 30:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

And that's why a lot of times what what's insane is it's common sense, but the world does not have common sense. Connecting is that is easy. Being present is easy, you know? Be being we we the roadblocks a lot of times we create. Oh, look at these two assholes. They're talking about how easy it is to meditate. It's it's very it's it's very easy, man. We we we it it Lodra, how many times in life do people wait? Like they're waiting for Moses to come down from the tablets, they're waiting for right, they're they're waiting for a new oh I'm I'm waiting for John Gray, Dr. John Gray to write a a book on how to connect with with my loved one, with with my well. So you need not only is there like a thousand books on how to connect with someone, how to have a better relationship, but you're waiting for a new answer, which is really just you you are already. We are all programmed for greatness, we are all programmed to love. We we are programmed to connect. We you and I are talking, having a conversation, like we we went to the same high school.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Yeah, a hundred percent. And it just comes from the fact that we've trained our mind to actually be present to the person ahead of us, right? That it does it doesn't take much. In fact, it's not even like something we add on to ourselves, it's a letting-go process, it's a letting go of the stories. If I showed up here and I was like, oh my god, what if Omar doesn't like me? What if I put my foot in my mouth? Then I would be lost in my head and I would not be here with you, I would be somewhere else mentally. Oh, of course, it's that so it's like learning to set aside the story long enough to be present. That's all it is. We have to let go of the story.

Success Without Outsourcing Your Value

SPEAKER_01 32:39

But Lodro, that's that's who I was for so many years because I was so concerned about being loved by people, and it's like, well, I've never met Lodro, he he's got I only have two books, man. How about this this M Effer has more? This is the but but he's he's well, he's like more advanced. This guy's this guy runs circles around me, but what if I say something stupid? What if what if he thinks I'm a dick? What if he he does he's a no-show? Oh, that that's another thing. You're you're you're gonna laugh. I I realize and things happen random. But uh this was like a couple of months ago, it it crept in because two consecutive guests didn't show up, and I'm like, and that voice came back because people don't realize yes, all that doubt, all that inner voice, it's always there. You just have to be louder. The second at the second one, I'm like, oh my gosh, maybe people just don't want to be on my show. Yep, all of a sudden it's about you, yes, and then it was bam! It's like, oh my gosh, maybe maybe they they they wanted to be on someone else's show, maybe they heard a couple episodes, maybe they they saw who I was, maybe it was the TED talk, maybe it was this, maybe it was that, maybe I should just quit. And then I'm like, and then I had to take a step back because Lodro and I can do that because when you do the work on yourself, yes, we're human, we can't walk on water, we're human. I'm like, oh my gosh, is that my little bitch voice again? Is is is is is that the self-doubt? Is that the self-hating, Omar? Is that the the little version of me that that is that the reason why I was such an introvert all that time? Was because maybe I have nothing positive to say. Maybe, maybe I say something and they leave. Well, if they leave because I said something, then good riddance, man. You know, it's like it and it was like and it it it comes up because you you're like last week, CEO of a company. The publicist said, This person wants to be on your show badly and needs to do this immediately. So like, yeah, fine, I'll do that person the favor. Person's energy right off the bat. He's like, you you can tell ego, you uh and simple question. I'm like, so what would you like to discuss? What are we gonna what would you like to promote? I I now I did research, like it could have gone whichever way. He's like, I don't know. Okay, who's your audience? What's this show about? And I'm like, so I did all my research on you, but you did none for the show. He's like, well, just tell me what's this what's this show about? I'm like, so and guys ego driven. So your publicist didn't tell you what the show's about. You don't know a thing about me. This could be a show on gay men and how to attract the lover that you really want, and you still want to be on this show? He's like, I've had enough. Oh, really? He's like, interview is not gonna happen. This isn't happening. All right. Now the old man, I'm like, oh, you know, I'm like hey, it's like, well, we we couldn't connect. You, you, you came, you you had to wear this mask that you know, you're the CEO of a company. Who cares, man? You know, and I and like I said, I did all this research on you. I want you to have the best experience. I'm serving you. What is it that you want to promote? You know, don't try to belittle me, don't try to show me I'm little by who am I? Who am everybody? Somebody, brother. How do you know I still wanted to do the episode? And and but that's that's someone that's that's like ego, man. And and yes, the old me would have been like crushed and have been like, brother, dude, you you're doing me a favor because I have an hour now for myself.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Yeah, I mean, they're both ego. It's the ego of oh my god, this person didn't show. It must be about me. That's ego. Yes, and also the ego of like, who do you think you are? Like both of these are are ego, right? So it's you know, we Buddhists love to talk about ego, but this is all trap of doubt stuff. It's the stories that we say, oh my god, someone didn't return an email, they must hate me, right? Is that sort of thing? When I'm caught in the trap of doubt, one prompt that helps me, and maybe it'll help people too, is to ask, what is happening right now? Right? Right now I'm washing the dishes. I can tune into washing the dishes and not keep telling myself the stories I know are locking me in pain. Is that sort of like very practical stuff that's in this book? We just say, what is happening right now? Right now I'm driving, my hands are on the steering wheel, my body is breathing, my foot is pressing on the gas or the brake, a song is on the radio. That's what's actually happening right now, not the story about why this person didn't reply to my email or why they didn't show up on the show. It's coming back to the present moment in this way. It's like hitting release on the trap of doubt. It cuts.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

And also, also, though, it we are not our title.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

That's what we identify with.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

And there was a moment when I was at a conference years ago, um, when I was looking, I I excused myself. It was like a very high-falten conference that I was very lucky to be invited to. And I went to the bathroom and there's something on the bathroom stall saying, This is your life, and it's ending moment by moment. I thought that's very poetic. And right below it, someone wrote, This is not your life. This is a bathroom stall. And I love that because so many of us are like, This is who I am. This is my solid thing. This is, I'm the CEO of this company, I am this sort of author, whatever it is. And actually, that's not who we are. That's not what's happening right now. Right now is you're a person in a conversation with another person. That's what's going on. And that's, I mean, I'm sorry to hear that story that that happened to you because it is exactly that's knowing you to the extent I do, that is who you are. You're like, I just meet me as a person. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Exactly. And and I I would come across before, well, do you know who I it doesn't matter who I am. I just want to have a conversation with you. Lodro and I are just two beings of energy. Well, now you're being the woo-woo one. I said, dude, you're gonna laugh. I'm I'm the first person that people don't know how to take me because yes, I've I've got woo-woo. You'll go there. I've got the personal development, I've got the business development, I got the spirituality. And when somebody wants to put me in a box, no, brother, uh, I am I am me. There is no box to put me in. Because a lot of times we want to put ourselves in a box, like you know, a publicist. I'm sure. Well, be on the show. What's it about? Well, it's he's what if it did work? Because honestly, what are they gonna say? The book is spiritual, the show's spiritual, spiritual, yes, there's been plenty of guests, but there's not there's not that. Because a lot of times, yes, we wanna we want the cookie cutter, and I live my life like that, and it it it's it that's the way America wants to run is like who did you vote for? Does it matter who I voted for? That's not who defines me.

Ego, Presence, And Real Connection

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Yeah, and I also get into that, not to keep kicking the the horse on this book, but like that level of division where we start to other ourselves from other people, and then we start to say, Well, that person's wrong. What and then we start to say, well, that person isn't actually basically good. That person's basically bad. So when people hear, oh, I talk about like everyone's basically good. They're inherently whole, complete, good as they are. They immediately think, What about criminals? What about politicians I don't like? I address that in chapters like, what about this world-threatening politician or the danger of villainization where society isn't fucked up? Because seeing goodness here in people doesn't mean excusing what we perceive as harm. It means responding from clarity instead of hatred. It means seeing past individuals' confusion to see what's underneath the pain and aggression that separates them from their true nature. There's this wonderful quote I'm not gonna be able to do it justice. But um actually, you know what? I might be able to do it justice. Representative John Lewis, before he passed away, he was on uh Krista Tippett's on being and she asked him about what it was like when he was in the early civil rights era. And he said, We from time to time would discuss if you see someone attacking you, beating you, spitting on you, you have to think of that person years ago. That person was an innocent child, innocent little baby. And so what happened? Something go wrong? Did the environment, did someone teach that person to hate, to abuse others? So you try to appeal to the goodness of every human being, and you don't give up. You never give up on anyone. I love that. That's amazing. That's powerful. Yeah. Because we do. We say, oh, that person's on the other side of the aisle. They're wrong, they're bad. And we start to create this division that is primarily painful to ourselves. We're the people who actually suffer from that division, from that aggression. To look at someone and say, That person is what I they're doing something that I perceive is wrong. Here, he's talking about attacking someone, apparently beating them. Well, that person was an innocent child. Someone taught them how to hate, someone taught them to do this. That's not inherently who they are. Could I connect to who they inherently are? Could I actually reach them? That's a really powerful message. I mean, it's more powerful coming from him than me, but I I think I'm just so inspired by that example.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Well, it's more powerful from him because it's his voice. It's like it's like me giving the cliff notes on your book and saying, hey, these are the reasons I can do the bullet point. But it's it's my interpretation. Yeah. What makes your book exceptional? I can say it all all I want and can say, yes, I read it. I told my girlfriend to read it. So but coming in your voice and you saying what it is. It hits deeper. And because it's your message. It's your story. It's not coming from a third person. It's not coming from another person's point of view. This this is literally what happened to you. This is your there is no interpretation because it's coming from the source. It's coming from the source of energy. This is what you want to relay. This is the message. This is what you want to tell people. You know, this is the reflection. This isn't me showing a picture. It's like if you and I went to a mus, we see a book of the statue of David. It's a nice statue. It's a lovely statue. It's a lovely statue. But to actually see it in person with our eyes, that's something that no book, no photo, no description can take, unless you actually get to witness it.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

Yeah. There's this story I tell in this book, which I'm happy to just mention that there was a uh professor of neuropsychology at London University, Jules Davidoff. And he became interested in the Himba tribe of uh Namibia. And a decade ago, he sat down with a large number of the Himba tribe and he showed them 12 colored squares. And the squares were identical green, except for one that was blue. And he asked them, which one is different? The Himba, it turns out, didn't have a word for blue. In fact, when they looked at the squares, they didn't see the one that stood out. To them, all the squares looked the same. So Davidoff hypothesized that the reason you and I could see blue, clear as day, and the himba universally could not, is that we'd been introduced to blue as a color. At some point, someone took you aside and said, see that sky up there, it's blue. I did this with my daughter early on, right? I know this. And then once we had a category called blue, we started to see it everywhere: our clothes, our furniture, on walls, everywhere. But before we had a word for it, blue wasn't as visible to us. Someone had to point it out. So the point of this book, you are good, you're enough, is the concept of basic goodness, it was introduced to me when I was quite young. And I'm very fortunate in that way. My parents, they didn't come up with it, nor did their spiritual teachers, or even the Buddha. Like the color blue, this experience of our inherent goodness, our wholeness, our ex our completeness, it's existed for as long as there have been people. But the fact that someone pointed it out to me meant that I've had the good fortune of then starting to recognize it in myself and others for the last several decades. So that's the thing. It is starting to say, oh, now that it's been pointed out, the whole point of the book is let me just point this thing out so you can start to see it in yourself and cultivate it and then start to live through that lens, a lens that's actually more grounded and more open.

SPEAKER_02 46:59

What I got out of it too is who are you without your achievements?

SPEAKER_00 47:05

Who are you without those stories? The good and the bad and the ugly. Because there's the stories of your achievements, and there's also the stories of that shitty thing you did 12 years ago or whatever it is. You know, and I I often have both, you have both, we all do. We have these stories both of puffing ourselves up or tearing ourselves down. Who are we without those stories?

SPEAKER_01 47:29

And that that though that requires work. That that actually because we are conditioned to be so surface level 100%, man. To actually be open, to actually be vulnerable. That's that's scary, man.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

It is. And there's real strength to it too. In Buddhism, we call it bodhicitta. Bodhi is a Sanskrit word, open or awake. Chitta is heart or mind. There's not a lot of distinction in this translation. So living from a place of like an open, awake heart mind, but it has a sense of real strength to it. It's not like us weepy heart. It's a heart that can see the suffering of the world, can see what's going on with us, and still remain strong and open. And that's what meditation gives us.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

It gives us that sense of bodhicitta. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

If someone finally, if they finally stopped and they started believing that they were enough, what would change in them?

Basic Goodness In A Divided World

SPEAKER_00 48:38

That's a brilliant question. I mean, the short answer would be everything, right? Because uh the number one thing that holds us back from success in all of the ways our relationships, our work, etc. It's us. It's our own lack of confidence in our vision in who we are. Everything changes. I feel very lucky to have been introduced to basic goodness so young, but I've seen I was teaching a meditation retreat a couple years ago, and I was talking in the opening talk, there's like you know, 7,500 people there, and I just mentioned basic goodness, and I say what it is. And someone in the front row, this guy starts weeping. He starts crying and crying, and we talk to him after he goes, no one has ever told me that I'm not messed up, that there's nothing wrong with me, that I'm actually underneath all those things that have happened, I'm basically good. It just was still moving. I have another friend who um, same thing, only he, you know, he is uh queer and he grew up in a culture that said that that is a mark against you, essentially. And you know, I think it's it mercifully the culture's shifted a lot since then, but it really got internalized in him. So the idea that there was actually never anything wrong, even though he sort of internalized the messages from his school, from his religious background, etc. Actually, you are inherently whole complete, good as is, as you are. Just blew his mind and then started shifting how he started to relate to all of his other relationships, not just romantic, but everyone. So it really it's like it shifts the whole game when we actually realize maybe there's nothing wrong with me. Maybe the times that something has gone wrong is because I was confused, not I was confused about my basic state. And something got, you know, went wrong. These things go wrong all the time in life. It's different than I guess the distinction is something bad happened versus you're bad. That is a huge line in the sand. And this book is talking about that view of you're good. Sometimes things happen, you act out of confusion, but you're still good. That idea is absolutely life-changing. So I'm I'm just gonna shorten it to say everything. Yeah, I'll I'll go back to that.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Just imagine what society would look like if people just stopped just to outsource their self-worth.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

I think you know, a lot of industries, self-help, fitness, makeup, they would just crumble into the ocean, right? Because it's so radical. Like, what if you didn't need to change who you are? What if there's nothing broken about you? Meditation is about discovering that you're already okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

Oh, 100%. That's why the it it it felt Lodra, like when I I got to that moment, like I was carrying around like a barbell full of waves, just trying to do a back press because it was the weight on my shoulders, and it got to the point I never thought I'd be like, if well, your ep people are gonna be like, Whoa, that episode with Lodra, that was amazing. Okay, thank you. And that's it. Not oh you know, oh my god, bye. It made me if I'm like, hey, you know, you two you two fucked hards are assholes. Hey man, you know what? Yeah, that's your way. Thank you. Okay, Lodro and I will still be able to sleep at night. Yeah, and that that's that's so powerful because everything is so driven by that, by trying the try the the journey of being enough when you know you are enough, and people are just shocked when I say all your tools, everything you need's already programmed here. You don't need the guru, you don't you don't need the attaboys, you don't need permission to be, just be, just do. And when you it when you realize that, to me, you're uh you're unstoppable. And think about that, you and I thought X something external. Well, if I if I get printed, and now you realize, man, you could be printed in every magazine. Who cares? As long as you know you are a rock star, and I I can write the third, the fourth, the fifth book. Who's it for? Doesn't matter who's it for, as long as I'm happy with it. And if my goal is just to change one person and one person was happy with that book, then it's an accomplishment. I'm my my life now isn't about wanting to be on Oprah's couch to discuss it or to be on someone's private jet to have him say, You're amazing. I'm amazing because I am. I am energy, right?

Learning Goodness Like Learning Blue

SPEAKER_00 54:00

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's it. It's like this revolution isn't about self-improvement, it's about self-recognition, it's recognizing you're already whole, complete, and good as is. And the moment we stop trying to become enough is the moment we start living.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

No, I man, we we can now. Everybody, once again, we connect. Just a simple conversation. I didn't give him questions in advance. All I did was read his book and listened. And that's once you can do that, and once you realize you are you, and that's all that there is, you're unstoppable. Now, Lodro, I know where to find the book. Heck, I I got a digital copy. I know how to find you. Uh, in fact, we follow each other on Instagram. How do people buy the book? How do people buy your other books? And more importantly, how do they follow you, man? Because I love your material. And I'm lazy just because I don't hit the like, man. I tell that to people all the time. I cy you're one of the few that I cyber stalk. I'm just one of those lazy people that for stars I know, you already know you're a rock star. Just one more like isn't gonna make your day.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

Yeah. Also, social media at this point is like it it's uh not the best place to hang out. So, you know, I don't blame anyone for not doing it. People can find me online at Lodra Runsler, so that's L-O-D-R-O-R-I-N-Z-L-E-R. At Instagram is probably where I'm most active. Facebook, you can find me there. And um, to some extent, like X or Blue Sky. But, you know, it is really uh it's a lot of like is you're gonna see a lot of stuff from the book coming out on that, if you want to check it out, uh, including a lot of guided meditations, and you can find those guided meditations over at loadworensler.com. So that's you know the home base for everything, including my online community, which is called the Basic Goodness Collective, which is you know, meditators from around the world. It's a large community, people practicing together every week, studying stuff like this every week. Some people are invited to go to loaderinsler.com if they're curious. And then books are just wherever you get books, man. You can go to bookshop.org. I should probably send people there instead of Amazon or Barnes and Noble. You can go to Barnes and Noble and still get the books. And you know, I think they're in Target to some degree. So, you know, like you can get them wherever you get books. Yeah, audible. And audible, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

I I ordered it, it's coming soon. Uh it's and it's read by you. Just listen just so you know.

SPEAKER_00 56:43

I just got the heads up today that the audio that the audio is acceptable, which is all you want from having the you know, if you my burn if my voice sounds burnt out, it's because I recently recorded the audio for you know 12 hours or something. But it is um, yeah, it's me reading it, and I felt that was important just because it's like you know, it's a direct transmission. This is this is my heart's work.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

If I didn't think it was an amazing book, I wouldn't have downloaded it on Audible. So I can't wait to listen because I'm one of those, I'm not like one of those, yes, I was addicted to the woo-woo, addicted to the gurus and all that. Oh, I read this 50 books.

SPEAKER_02 57:22

If you like something, listen to it, take notes, read it, and more important, you're only a junkie un until you implement.

What Changes When You Feel Enough

SPEAKER_01 57:37

Because I can say, oh yeah, this is amazing, man. I learned a lot about meditation. I learned about just being myself. Well, did you start?

SPEAKER_02 57:48

And did you finally realize you are enough? Brother, where were you all these years?

SPEAKER_01 57:58

But you see, life happens. It's a much better conversation knowing and being and working at that every single day than coming from a place of astonishment or fanboying. I'm I'm sure you will, oh wow, this is great.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

But yeah, thank you. And also, I'll go so far as to say, like, I couldn't have written this book 10, 12 years ago, right? Like, I just uh it took me a long time to realize that this is a really important lesson of we discover that we are basically good as we are, and then we can cultivate a real relationship to that. And once we do that, we can see the whole world through it, and that's exactly revolutionary.

SPEAKER_01 58:38

Yeah, well, people always ask me, you know, why now? Well, I don't think anybody wanted to read. I think the guy that was in his late 40s knew a lot more about life than writing the self-help book in my 20s. Yeah, always like, oh, I drink all the time. Ha ha.

SPEAKER_00 58:59

Yeah. Buy my book. My first book was called The Buddha Walks into a Bar, right? And it was written in my late 20s. And I am glad people still pick it up and they find some use of it. You know, they enjoy it. But also, I'm like, wow, it's not what I'm writing right now. And that's it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 59:17

It's a journey, though. To get to here, you had to start from there, brother.

SPEAKER_00 59:22

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 59:23

Thank you for your time. Hey, thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

I'm not blowing smoke that I really do love what you're doing here, and I'm so appreciative to be here.

Where To Get The Book

SPEAKER_01 59:32

Lodro, once I got a copy, once I read it, and I'm obsessive, compulsive. If it's good, yes. I five, six, seven hours or whatever. Yes. I read that, I followed you on social media, and I downloaded that that's the Trinity right there. Right there, my favorite, that shows you you are my son, brother.