The Balance of Ego and Passion, Aligning With Your Purpose and Finding Meaning with Raed Khawaja, Co-founder of Open

In today’s episode, I speak with Raed Khawaja, co-founder of LA based meditation studio and app, Open.

In our conversation, we explore the distinction between a healthy and unhealthy expression of ego, disconnection and self-absorption as signs of an unhealthy ego, knowing your purpose and finding meaning in work, and recognizing when you are leaning too far into obsession.

We also discussed being in your head vs. your body and the challenges and sacrifices that come with building something impactful.

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Transcript

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Flynn Skidmore: Hello and welcome to the Flynn Skidmore podcast. My goal is to help you become exactly who you want to be. We are here to help you take your biggest, boldest, most beautiful vision for life and turn that vision into reality. Welcome back to the Flynn Skidmore podcast. Today's desk is Ride Khawaja, the co founder of Open A Meditation Studio in LA.

Flynn Skidmore: Raed is one of those people who's not only proficient, but has depth in so many different areas. And this conversation is this beautiful blend between spirituality, business, culture. And my favorite thing is that we're laughing as we're speaking about it all. I cannot wait for you all to listen. This is a fantastic conversation.

Flynn Skidmore: All right. So. Tell me about what it's been like to be more in your noggin, more in your head than in your body recently. 

Raed Khawaja: Yeah. Uh, what has it been like? Well, I think there's kind of this notion that, , when you adopt these practices or when you really believe in things like meditation and breath work or movement, whatever your access point is.

Raed Khawaja: Um, and you start throwing it out in terms like wellness and well being and, um, health and healthy and, uh, you know, operating a company in that space. I think there's a real misconception around what the practical reality is of what it takes to actually build something from scratch, um, and to work hard at something, to achieve something.

Raed Khawaja: I would offer that, you know, you do need to work hard. You do need to engage with stress and, uh, in doing so you invariably get out of balance at times. And so, um, the practice is not to kind of sustain equilibrium at constant or minutes upon minutes, hours upon hours. Days upon days, weeks upon weeks, months upon months, uh, I, you know, I, I think it's way more approachable than that.

Raed Khawaja: You know, you, you, you work at things, you get in your noggin for a couple of days straight, you realize it, you notice it, and you come back and you engage with the very tools or the things that you know. Get you into balance and you try to sustain that as long as you can. But at some point you're going to have to, you're going to, you're going to get out of balance again.

Raed Khawaja: I think that that's what it's been like a little bit. It's been a topsy turvy ride of, you know, since starting to work on open, which was in 2018. Um, lived in a different city at the time, got out of a long relationship, move into a new city, was working on a company that was going to have both a digital ecosystem as well as an in person one.

Raed Khawaja: We wanted to build these physical studios. We started to endeavor on that part of it specifically. In the beginning of 2020. , and so the pandemic says no, not yet on that one. Just focus on the app. , you know, and just like what's going on in the macro capital environments, you know, we've endured quite a bit to get here.

Raed Khawaja: You just kind of have to embrace the imbalance at times. Do you 

know 

Flynn Skidmore: who, uh, Naval Ravikant is? Yes. He, so he maxim 

Raed Khawaja: extraordinaire. Yeah, dude. Does he just speak in quotes? 

Flynn Skidmore: He's in Yeah, he really does. Dude, everything he drops is a perfect quote. , he, one of the things that he, that I've heard him say in his perfect speaking of quotes is that something like, something like obsession is more valuable than talent.

Flynn Skidmore: And I'm listening to you speak about hard work and, and I a million percent agree with you. And , I've been speaking with my clients about this. I created some content about this recently where it's like, all right, if, if let's say someone were asking me, Flynn, like what's everything you want in life, what are the most beautiful things you want to create?

Flynn Skidmore: What's all the success you want to have? What? Kind of like relationships. Do you want to have all that? And I had two options and I had to pick one. One option was like, trust surrender. And the other option was work my fucking ass off. I'm picking the work one. Luckily, we don't have to pick one, but it, it does seem to be true that in order to build something extraordinary, it requires an immense amount of work.

Flynn Skidmore: And I've been paying attention to that in myself recently. And I. I noticed myself doing something called that we can call working really hard, but it's almost like there's, there's not a choice. It's more like an obsession, a fun obsession, like sometimes a psychotic obsession, but it's more of an obsession than it is like, fuck, I have to wake up and I have to work hard today.

Flynn Skidmore: I'm curious what your experience with working hard is like and if you notice obsessive tendencies in yourself. Uh, 

Raed Khawaja: absolutely. Absolutely. I guess, you know, you need to work hard. We're both saying that. And we, you also mentioned that there's an aspect of surrender as well and trusting and knowing and that we, you know, that paradox is one to be embraced and it's your relationship with the hard work that matters, right?

Raed Khawaja: And so something can be very hard. Something can be extremely strenuous. But are you smiling while doing it? That really is in most ways, not always, but that can over time become a choice, right? And so, yeah, I think there are some obsessive tendencies that come with that. And. , but that that's where meditation and practices that balance your nervous system or bring awareness to your psychological patterns and put these things that put you in a state of observation and build your muscle and your athleticism on realizing when you've fallen into those tendencies.

Raed Khawaja: And when you catch yourself, then the second muscle that you want to have athleticism about is the action, , to correct and, you know, get into, , the stride that you want to get into. But, just to speak personally, and this isn't my prescription. But I try to ride the waves. I've realized over time that, sometimes everything aligns.

Raed Khawaja: You, you get the perfect sleep and you had the perfect workout, , two days ago and the perfect stretch, , the night before, and you drank just the right amount of water and, , you know, you just wake up and you're feeling like you can do absolutely anything. And I like to lean into that. I like to lean into it and say, okay, tonight I might work a little bit too hard and then that might carry it over into tomorrow.

Raed Khawaja: Um, and so that's where it can get a bit obsessive is when you just, the momentum just starts going and The hours turn into days and the days turn into weeks and you wake up a month or two later and you're like, wow, look at how much ground I covered. , but it's often in those moments too, where I say, I don't think I've talked to my mom in several weeks.

Raed Khawaja: Um, I don't think I've brought home flowers. I don't think I was really nice that morning. So again, 

Raed Khawaja: it's just 

Raed Khawaja: having awareness. , , and I guess the second part, which is not talked about enough in relation to the hard work and kind of the glorifying, which I hope I'm not doing too much here, which is, you know, trying to glorify, working too hard, but.

Raed Khawaja: At the root of it, hopefully, is a deep knowing about what brings you meaning in life and what your purpose is. And to the extent that we're lucky enough to have arrived at something that resembles that, and we get to work on something. , that is in, , in harmony with that. Then, you know, take a bath in it.

Raed Khawaja: Why not ? 

Flynn Skidmore: I love that. I I love the way, I I love that you describe it as a get to, because there's certainly a version of working really hard that's not get to, it's obligatory. It's not this experience of touching your soul and like. Squeezing every ounce of juice you have in every cell to offer value to the world.

Flynn Skidmore: It's, it's just putting in a lot of hours. It's killing you, right? It's it's and I like that you are because because we're speaking about a very specific type of working hard, which is working hard in alignment. What we think is our purpose, what we can at least interpret as our purpose. One of the things that you said.

Flynn Skidmore: Early on, when you, when you're responding, it was like, is, do you have a smile on your face? I heard someone, I don't remember who it was, it was within the last couple of months. Someone asked, it was one of those interviews in New York where someone's like dressed super fly and they go up to them and like, what do you do for a living?

Flynn Skidmore: And they know they're a celebrity and you know what I mean? It's like that kind of thing. And the person, it might've been like Mike Tyson who was like, All I, all, all I am is a smiling heart. I was like, Oh fuck, that's what I want to do. I want to just be a smiling heart while doing something that looks hard, but I'm just being smiling heart energy while I'm doing it.

Flynn Skidmore: I'm kind of hearing that in what you're saying. 

Raed Khawaja: Yeah, definitely. And there's also so many different colors to this human experience. Uh, and so many shades, , so many versions, right. And so, I'm sitting here, I'm speaking to you from. A seat doing something that I love, , working on something that I want to see in the world.

Raed Khawaja: That can feel really distant for folks that actually the thing that they want to spend most of their time doing is, being with their family or, supporting a loved one or, things that don't look like at all, what I'm spending 80 to 90 percent of my time, , currently.

Raed Khawaja: And there's a smiling heart in that as well, and there's purpose and meaning in that as well. And there's hard work in that as well. If you're a homemaker, right. , if you're taking care of a loved one, if you're spending your time in a nonprofit space or volunteer, like there's.

Raed Khawaja: Hopefully whatever it is that you're engaging with, you're engaging with it to an extent where You are growing and it is pushing back off of you. And that is the thing that's kind of giving you the smiling heart tendency about it. Right. So, yeah, yeah, um, yeah, that's really funny. If it was Mike Tyson, that's, that's, if it was Mike Tyson, that's incredible.

Flynn Skidmore: Uh, we, we like, we're hoping that it is, it's the better version of it. If it's the better version, so one of the, one of the things that. I'm thinking about as, as I hear you saying that, so if we've got, if I think that we, I don't really like when people are like, understand your why, because it sets people up to like, make something up that they think is the thing because it sounds good and it like makes them appear like a good person and then they have permission to do it.

Flynn Skidmore: I think that we all have the same why, which is to like. Have a smiling heart and get to spend time doing what we love with the people we love and have energy to do more of what we want to do. Like very simple, basic. And also what seems to be beautiful about being a human is actually is, is the space where that smiling heart purpose energy meets ego.

Flynn Skidmore: Because for some person, to me, ego is just differentiation. Are different and what you are building is in part an expression of your differentiation. It's an expression of your ego. And there's certainly a way of doing it that does not produce smiling heart energy. And there's a way of doing it that does produce smiling heart energy.

Flynn Skidmore: And what I love about what you're saying is like, there's no prescription. Someone is building. open in physical and digital space with like perfect, beautiful aesthetics while another person is doing it, like building a family. If there's no prescription, but there is like this thing that sets your ego on fire and your soul on fire in the best way.

Raed Khawaja: Right. Now you're talking about one of my favorite words. Yeah, I like ego is differentiation. I also think of it as identity at its core, right? I think it's one of the most misunderstood terms. When we're talking about ego, it's really identity. And again, you hear this duality play out where there's this tension.

Raed Khawaja: Well, aren't we just one organism, a part of. a broader organism and you know, we should suppress our ego at all costs and just be in harmony and la la la la la. Let's hold hands and, and, you know, dance around like a Matisse, , painting. And then it's like, wait, but what, what if I want to, what if I want to grow, what if I want to actually get to know, My differentiation, as you put it.

Raed Khawaja: And what if I want to cultivate the artists within that? What if I want to cultivate something in me? , what if I want to realize this potential that's going to take a little bit of ego, that's going to take a bit of knowing what that identity is, what that genetic makeup is, what that nurture has been, that's going to take a lot of knowing.

Raed Khawaja: And so I think the pressure release valve there is actually not to suppress the ego entirely so that you're so disillusioned that that is the thing that the world needs, but actually to develop a healthy relationship with it. Right. And again, have an awareness of when you are really leaning into your ego and saying, Hey, this is me.

Raed Khawaja: I'm here. , I know this. I have confidence. I have an instinct about this. And I'm going to push this forward because I know my family needs this. My friends need this, the world needs this, whatever it is. Like , I know that I know it's me who's got to be the one who speaks up here or takes action.

Raed Khawaja: And without that, we wouldn't have any of this. You know, if we wouldn't have any of this, I wouldn't be sitting on the 12th floor of a building, , talking to you, , with perfect wifi if, uh, if there wasn't a little bit of ego swarming around, 

Flynn Skidmore: , so. If we're picturing a person who's saying, this is me, this is my identity.

Flynn Skidmore: I feel confident about this. I know this. This is the choice I'm making. We, let's say we have two people saying that exact same thing. One person we can describe as having a healthy relationship with their ego. Another person we might describe as not having a healthy relationship with their ego. What are the, what do you think are the distinctions there?

Flynn Skidmore: Like. You know what I'm getting at? 

Raed Khawaja: I think so. Yeah.

Raed Khawaja: I think that's where, when the ego, when you lean in too far, I think it leads to disconnection basically with that kind of more harmonious picture that I painted for you. I think it leads to, a self absorption and a selfishness that, , when it persists for too long, um, one can become so calloused.

Raed Khawaja: that they're disconnected from, , the impact they're having positive or negative. , and I think, , yeah, at the, at the highest spectrum of this, I think you get sociopaths to just pick a term. I think that's what happens is you just, , you become calloused and it eventually does all become about oneself and in service of one's identity.

Raed Khawaja: And often at the detriment or at the cost of others. So I think that's where it goes too far. 

Flynn Skidmore: And how do you think, like, how would a person know if they're in, if they're expressing a version of ego that we would identify as healthy, and how would a person know if they're expressing a version of ego that we would identify as unhealthy?

Flynn Skidmore: That 

Raed Khawaja: I'm going to probably not answer directly and maybe follow up with you while I opine on that pretty deep question, actually. But I would say that you can develop great ego awareness with these practices, , meditation, , breath work. Anytime you can get your nervous system and your kind of biological system into more balance and closer to equilibrium than you do.

Raed Khawaja: start to see more clearly. And that, that leads to more ego awareness, right? When you get to sit more in that seat of observation, the longer you stay there, then you, you start to notice the 

Flynn Skidmore: patterns more. I like that a lot. It's like, The longer you practice being in the space of observation, the more information you get to see, and there's certainly a version of having more information that's like, Oh my fucking God, this is so complicated and chaotic.

Flynn Skidmore: But then there's like. Like thinking about like the, a solar system being trillions of pieces of information that's organized without anyone having to do any work to organize it. There's like a, an experience of being in the place of the witness or where you're like, Oh fuck, I'm seeing all of this information here.

Flynn Skidmore: And some, some, um, also some of the information that's here is that this information seems to. want to just organize itself on its own. And I can just watch that happen. Right. 

Raed Khawaja: Yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll share a personal practice. A personal practice for me is, , in real life visualization and observation, and then close my eyes visualization off.

Raed Khawaja: And it's really simple. Anytime I just want to take a break from my ego and, uh, being too grossly into myself and my needs, all I have to do is climb something and it doesn't need to be that high. , just enough where you have some heightened perspective and you can see far out and you just see over a horizon, hopefully over to your right of the ocean, maybe you see downtown Los Angeles on the left hand side and some hills out in the distance and.

Raed Khawaja: Um, that visual perspective, aside from kind of what we know about what it hits on your pineal gland and whatnot, but it really does remind you of your scale. And like you said, all of the things that are happening, um, without you doing a damn thing. And, , so I, I find as a personal practice that just visual perspective is always really humbling.

Raed Khawaja: And then the closed eyed version of that is just imagining I'm in space. Looking back down on earth, that kind of Carl Sagan movement, , the NASA moment that people talk about that I hope to get to see with my own eyes, but, uh, you can close your eyes and imagine. How small we are 

Raed Khawaja: in the scheme of things.

Flynn Skidmore: . So what, what I think I'm hearing in that is like, you're, you're looking to, if you get too caught up in the bullshit, you notice it and you want to put yourself in a position where you can be reminded. Of how wonderful this is be in a state of awe be in a state of wonder while also acknowledging the scales at which things exist and you know how people will do the thing where it's like tell me about your problems and then like tick tock video of zooming out to the whole universe and it's like your shit doesn't fucking matter.

Flynn Skidmore: Like what do you think about that? Like, yes, yes. We are an atom on an atom and we're also not so like does the scale mean that our problems don't matter? Like what? What's your take on that? 

Raed Khawaja: Yeah, I think it's both again. Like I loved it. I love that. We keep revisiting these themes of polars, in this conversation, , because I really do think, again, embracing that reality that black implies white life implies death, , shout out Alan Watts, embracing that it.

Raed Khawaja: You can hold these two things and it can be true. , in fact, not, it can be true. You need both of these things in order for there to be truth in both of these existing. That is actually the pressure release valve of life. Right? And so when you're sitting in these moments and you're feeling like, Oh man, like I feel guilty for, being bummed about my, tiny human existence.

Raed Khawaja: No, that's okay. That's, that is your, that is your capacity and that is to be dealt with. And then separately the world's problems and everything that feels macro that too, can be, can be set with. So, uh, no, it's both. It's absolutely both. I think again, increasing your awareness, having a steady mind, having steady eye.

Raed Khawaja: allows you to have more perspective and balance to maybe not be so upset about things that are actually trivial. I scratched my, I scratched my new shoes the other day. Which shoes? , they're black on black on black. Doc Martens, if you must know, they've got a little 

Flynn Skidmore: height scratch those. Yeah. Yeah. Got a little extra

Raed Khawaja: And, , and I was, , really feeling bad for myself, but I think that's an example of who cares. If I'm having a, a tough time with a friend that, , I've been friends with for several years and I just don't see it anymore. I'm feeling bummed about that. That's a human thing.

Raed Khawaja: That's to be sat with, that that's an emotion to sit with until it's released, , and then practice. A healthy distance from it. So no, I think it's both. It's definitely both. Yeah. 

Flynn Skidmore: The thing, one of the things that's standing out about this is your capacity to hold, hold two things that hold two things.

Flynn Skidmore: at once in your awareness and recognize that there's, there's a truth to each of those things, but those truths don't necessarily need to compete. They can coexist. And it may not make sense logically to be like two truths, two objective truths exist at once, which means there's no such thing as objective truth, but those things are objectively true for each thing.

Flynn Skidmore: Like it's, Really, if you try to be there logically, it's not very enjoyable. It's not enjoyable. , right? And it's like, it's the o like it's the only way that I've found to, to be able to do that is to be like, what do I want to feel in my body when I consider this idea? And who am I when I am allowing for this thing to exist?

Flynn Skidmore: in a particular way without needing to control it or to be a particular way. And do I like that version of myself? And if I do like that version of myself, then I'm going to like, continue to practice seeing things like that. I don't, I don't get myself into a space where I'm like, well, that's true. That's the truth of reality.

Flynn Skidmore: I don't know what the truth of reality is. I just know that I like myself better when I'm practicing seeing it like that. Totally. 

Raed Khawaja: Yeah, I kind of, I love, I think we've lost the art of saying, I don't know. I think the information age has hit us over the head with all the answers to everything and multiple answers to everything.

Raed Khawaja: And, uh, it's funny. I was really young when I was reading a transliteration of a spiritual text. And there was this term that I didn't understand at the time. And it was the word unfathomable. And I had to go, I remember I had to go to my dad and ask him, like, what does this mean? This, and how do I pronounce it?

Raed Khawaja: And as soon as he explained it, I said, wow, oh, you're, okay, great. There's just things that I can't fathom. Awesome. Like, oh, done. Okay. So that's kind of how I feel about it. That when, when there's these two things and I can't quite reconcile it, I don't need to sit in the dissonance of it. I can just say, huh.

Raed Khawaja: Okay. 

Flynn Skidmore: All right. Like, like have a fun experience with it. Yeah. 

Raed Khawaja: Huh. Like literally, huh. It kind of tracks back to kind of what we were talking about and just being so small and, but then we have these egos and we have this determination and we have this way of being and knowing that there's so much possible too.

Raed Khawaja: And I think in balancing that we try to. Yeah, we just try to give words to everything. We try to, , intellectualize everything. We try to substantiate everything. We try to put logic to everything, but some things are just, 

Flynn Skidmore: I, I really like that a lot. Like, like getting to live the rest of life with, huh?

Flynn Skidmore: As a tool available, , without like the pressure of control to know something or to be able to explain the relationship with something, but just be like, oh, that's fucking crazy. Like 

Raed Khawaja: it's play too, right? It's about play. You can play with it and you don't have to sit in the tension of it. You can play with these ideas, , that are stumping you.

Raed Khawaja: And it reminds me of just a creative process in general. I've been. Really been thinking a lot more about sitting back and observing my own creative process and giving it words because there's definitely a rhythm there. , but I haven't quite written it down and then I started reading about others and I was like, Oh, okay, yeah, those are, that's good scaffolding.

Raed Khawaja: What's interesting about the creative process is there are these, uh, moments or, you know, there's these questions about, you know, how do you get things started and when is it done? And how often should you be engaging with it? Because it feels so abstract, there's, there's a temptation to like put it down, sit it down and make it a practice.

Raed Khawaja: But, you know, often I've, I've found it with my Personal practice, it's the, huh, I could be done right now. I can come back to this, you know? I can come back. Huh. I don't know. And I just let my subconscious play with it. And then, , a day or two later, or maybe later that day, , the hunt turns into, Oh, you know what?

Raed Khawaja: I think I have an idea here. I think I have a way that I can reconcile this for myself. And it actually was stepping away from it. That gave it that space and kind of relax your consciousness to be able to perceive it in that way. 

Flynn Skidmore: That thing that you're speaking about has come up a few times in the episodes that I've done, which we might be on like 20 now.

Flynn Skidmore: Um, just a few times. Thank you. Thanks so much. Like, that's what, um, that's what Salvador Dali used to do, or that's what like Einstein used to do that. And maybe you may or may not know that, but the exact thing that you're speaking about, the way that Carl Young described it. Okay, so Carl Jung, maybe you know this, like was a crazy ass dude and went to the depths of the human psyche, maybe even like transcended human psyche to tap into an awareness that I don't, I don't even know.

Flynn Skidmore: And he, the way that he speaks sounds like he's convinced that this is real. I'm not really all that interested in what's real and what's not. I just think it's amazing. But Carl Jungwood described it like there are grim, there are like underworld gremlins that work on problems. And that all we have to do is direct our problems or our questions, direct good questions to the underground Kremlins, and they work on the solutions for us.

Flynn Skidmore: And then when the solution is ready, maybe like you're saying a day later, maybe years later, the solution appears in our awareness. And then we have to take aligned action to bring that solution into three dimensional reality. That to me is my favorite thing ever. And whether or not the gremlins exist, I really like at least pretending the gremlins exist.

Raed Khawaja: Yeah, I love that. I love that. First of all, amazing articulation of that. Uh, I would not. Uh, have been able to recite that so eloquently, but yeah, I think it's, uh, it's like your field of awareness, your attention, where you, you know, and that's where the practice comes in, right? You, you take your laser beams of attention and you, you, you practice putting it at something and you do, and you put it at it and you, you know, you put it at it for minutes or hours or whatever it is.

Raed Khawaja: And then oftentimes it's, yeah. When you're, you're away from it, that the gremlins are helping and helping it come through, come to reality. But, um, but you know, it's just interesting to go a layer or two deeper, I guess, with this and hopefully your listeners are, are still along for the ride here, but cause this might be a deep cut, but you know, we're talking about creativity, we're talking about ego, we're talking about being a part of this, like all of these things, these are just like little vignettes.

Raed Khawaja: Of this conscious experience that we call life, and we're trying to sort out which parts of it we need to engage with or how, you know, how do I do this right? Or, you know, which parts of it are for me? aNd trying to balancing being and doing is really what it all. I feel like that's a central theme to what we've been talking about.

Raed Khawaja: Should I just be being, should I be under a tree and just enjoying all of this and watching all of it? Yeah. Or should I be engaging with it? Should I be trying to poke a hole in it and seeing if something comes out on the other end? Um, and hopefully a theme that we've also done a good job of sitting with this whole time.

Raed Khawaja: Yes, it's both. And it's for you to figure out, you know, what's, what's in your logos, what's in your pathos, what's in your ethos, um, and how you want to live your life and how you want to engage with it and, and it's all right. As long as you're not harming anyone else and you're leading with love in your heart.

Raed Khawaja: Shout out Mike Tyson. Yeah. Right. But I would offer though that it is fascinating, you know, ultimately we are this, this little speck of dust, but ultimately someone, some people came along and, you know, they made electricity possible in a scaled way. Um, some people came along and, you know, Man had wings and some people came along and, you know, all of a sudden we can travel from city to city.

Raed Khawaja: We had roads to travel on, you know, some people came up, came along and we interconnected knowledge and information and at the speed of light, you know, that's. You know, that took a lot of doing. 

Raed Khawaja: Yeah, I guess, I hope people are all just trying to find their way and not being too anxious along the process, not stress that they haven't figured out the answers, but to rather just engage with it, to play with it. A really dear friend of mine , uh, passed away recently. And so I'd love to quote him.

Raed Khawaja: And he said, remember, it's supposed to be fun. Um, and so that's kind of my ultimate 

Flynn Skidmore: reminder.

Flynn Skidmore: What's funny about the, what's fun about the being or doing thing, because you're describing, am I supposed to, like, am I supposed to be under a tree and just witness and be, or am I supposed to be doing and, and building something and contributing to making electric electricity even more scalable. Okay.

Flynn Skidmore: What I think, I think there's actually a problem with logic, which is that people think that being. means just being under a tree. But when you're under a tree, you're doing something when you're napping, you're doing something, you know what I'm saying? It's like, and I think people get caught up in this trap of like, what, like this distinction between being and doing.

Flynn Skidmore: We're always doing something doing is, is always happening. I think the question is like, is, am I creating a marriage between being and doing that's producing the experience that I want? Am I enjoying this marriage of being and doing, or am I being and doing in a way that's not producing an experience I want?

Raed Khawaja: And just remember, it's supposed to be fun.

Flynn Skidmore: And I like the perspective. Like, Personally, I don't know what it's supposed to be. I just know what I like. And if I like fun, then it gets to be fun. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm super interested in, in hearing and learning more about this. We've spoken about like, kind of like the merging of ego and passion and purpose.

Flynn Skidmore: So when I consider you and the business you're building, I see open and I see super fly aesthetics. I see you and there are black on black on black docs. You have like perfect mustache to stubble ratio and you're like super aware of and committed to spiritual concepts and practices. And what's really fun and enjoyable to me is like probably when you and I were coming up.

Flynn Skidmore: When were you born? 1987. November 10th. Okay. 1987. November 10th. I was born in 1990. There, there wasn't like in the world of spirituality, um, in the world of like, let's think things oriented towards Eastern practices, like I didn't see very many models or examples of someone or a business that was taking super fly aesthetics and merging them with spiritual concepts and packaging that together in a particular way.

Flynn Skidmore: And I think I became aware of open during the pandemic. And when I saw it, I'm like, Fuck. They beat me to it. Like, it's really good. It's really good. And I'm curious for you if that was like, if you were aware of that in the process and, and, and your awareness of it now. And I'm just curious to learn more.

Flynn Skidmore: Yeah, 

Raed Khawaja: I appreciate that. And by the way, I, I love those moments. I'm sure you've had them more than once where you come upon something and you're like, Ooh, that's it. 

Flynn Skidmore: Yes. Yes. You guys have created that. 

Raed Khawaja: You have done it. And it's like, cool. I will move on. Um, I got, this is such a shout out.

Raed Khawaja: Bjorn corn. Have you had this? It's like nutritional yeast 

Flynn Skidmore: popcorn. Yes. Yes. 

Raed Khawaja: Okay. Anyway, here's a free ad for them, but I mean, it's so good. The branding's amazing. The, the product's amazing. And as soon as I saw it, I had this moment where I was like, Oh, wow. Like, did I want to start a popcorn company at once?

Raed Khawaja: Because like, this is it. And simultaneously, uh, I kind of had this moment, but no, I'm like, Oh, I'm so glad someone's doing it. So thanks for that. I really appreciate that. Yeah, I was aware of it. I, it's, um, and it maybe we unpack a little bit, but 

Raed Khawaja: I grew up Practicing Islam. No longer practicing. Um, my family still does. And I grew up really curious about that space, but also curious about other spaces, that, you know, had a similar context. And so grew up in that suburban, neighborhood of Chicago. And was going to other spiritual spaces at a pretty young age, going to temples, going to synagogues, going to churches, going to kind of more secular environments as well.

Raed Khawaja: And what I kept observing was just a lot of really well meaning people that, and maybe I even expand that well meaning communities and ideologies and belief systems. Just really powerful spaces where, you know, like people are really spreading goodness, there's like someone at the head of that room on a weekly basis.

Raed Khawaja: imploring people to live the good life and giving them principles and values to live the good life and be good to others and lead with that, you know, their love in their heart and, um, not explicitly mentioning Mike Tyson, but probably thinking about him. But I also noticed as I hopped around that every one of them had some antiquity, some sort of kind of like, uh, some lack of Modernity in almost like a, you know, how your grandma or grandpa kind of say something and it's like, Ooh, that wasn't good.

Raed Khawaja: It's like racist or my 

Flynn Skidmore: grandfather would refer to Asian people as orientals, but yes, 

Raed Khawaja: it's, I had that. I was experiencing that in pretty much every one of the spaces I'd go to in some way, they would say something that was either. Um, you know, yeah, just some grandma, grandpa gaffes. And so I was just witnessing a lack of modernity to the conversation, in some ways, which kind of leads to some of those themes of kind of tastes and aesthetic and.

Raed Khawaja: I think that's what all of that really is about. It's the art of, like, ultimately the decisions we make at the company that come across as aesthetic are decisions that are born out of conveying consideration and, uh, adherence to quality to ultimately earn your trust. That this space that you're going to enter, be it digitally or physically is a place that you can feel safe.

Raed Khawaja: Where people here are passionate about putting on an experience that is crafted and we're deeply aware that the journeys people are going on have the potential to be consciousness shifting, healing, rehabilitating, opening, and we take that very seriously. And so that's where the, the by product is actually the aesthetic.

Raed Khawaja: But yeah, so just kind of tracking back though, to what I was mentioning and the practices that I'd seen play out where, you know, communities were gathering over and over again and engaging with the experience of life and having these texts that they had to go off of. , this wisdom that they shared,, a belief in and ultimately, I think, you know, if you look at the themes of open and what we're trying to latch on to is to, you know, secularize that conversation so that it can feel like it can be for anyone.

Raed Khawaja: And our goal is for it to be accessible. Our goal is that people from any one of those churches that I mentioned would feel welcome and. Someone who didn't feel welcome in any one of those would also feel welcome, right. And to come into one of those spaces. And, uh, you know, if they ran into one of the founders that hopefully that they had a perfectly manicured mustache, beard to mustache ratio while doing it.

Raed Khawaja: And hopefully he earns your trust in the process. So that's kind of the background, 

Flynn Skidmore: dude, something, something was different. As you were describing that, like when you were speaking about opens, uh, opens, what's the word? Conveyance. Is that? Yeah. Yeah. I think conveyance of consideration and the intention to build trust.

Flynn Skidmore: Like when I'm seeing the brand, when I'm seeing the brand, when I see the aesthetics of seeing the quality, what's being communicated is consideration, which your intention there is to let me know that like my body is safe in this space. Like this has been considered. I was mesmerized listening to you speak about that just now.

Flynn Skidmore: Like, truly, there's something different. And it's so cool to feel the resonance of you speaking about that because it's obviously true as fuck for you. 

Raed Khawaja: Thank you. Thank you. And there's a lot of people on the team that feel the same way. And so, um, yeah, thank you. I'm excited that it's resonating with people, you know, I, um, Sir Johnny Ive has this line that I should memorize by now because I reference it a lot, but the essence of it is something like people innately feel.

Raed Khawaja: They care and the consideration that goes into something there's an energetic quality there. That is not woo. It's just, it's felt and so if you put love into something, um, yeah, there's a lot of confidence that and we've gotten some of the affirmation that people are actually visiting the spaces, uh, that it will be felt, but ultimately every single time it is felt individually and we hear the feedback.

Raed Khawaja: It puts a huge smile on my face, my hair even rises every now and then we have a slack channel called why we do this, where we post testimonials from people that are shared, you know, either directly or. Out in the public. And it's a great reminder of how lucky we are at open to kind of work on what we get to work on.

Raed Khawaja: Cause if we're successful, um, at what we do, then we spread that goodness. 

Flynn Skidmore: And in terms of building external environments, the animal that is, is, uh, in second place to human beings is a, is a beaver. Yeah. Like building a dam, you know, like, like, so, okay. So you're building open Elon Musk has built Tesla and we'll build civilization on Mars potentially.

Flynn Skidmore: Right. Like, so the human capacity to. Influence an external environment is what it is. The second, the animal in second place is a beaver who builds a dam. Right. Which is a dam is pretty beautiful and remarkable, but like, you know, and, and what, what I, what I, uh, like what I'm hearing in what you're saying.

Flynn Skidmore: is when we are building something external, when we're building a system, when we're building a business, I mean, we're building an organism, it, it is an organism. And in that organism is a, we infuse it with a particular energy. And we can either hold ours, we can be clear on the energy that we want to infuse this into this organism and this system, and hold, hold ourselves accountable to actually doing it.

Flynn Skidmore: Uh, or we can be totally unconscious of it and just want to make money and build and build and infuse it with maybe like chaos or fear or whatever it is, or, or maybe someone gets lucky and they build it with love, even though they didn't choose to build it with love, you know, you're saying that your intention is to build this thing with like love, care, consideration, and then you're designing these systems and building this organization with the intention to amplify Bye.

Flynn Skidmore: Love. And then you have your, why we do this chat and you get this feedback. You're like, Oh fuck, it's actually working. We're actually building an external environment outside of ourselves that is successfully harnessing this particular energy. And because it's an external environment has more capacity to give more or to, I guess, to give more people this particular energy.

Flynn Skidmore: It 

Raed Khawaja: creates abundance. It creates abundance. And that's, that's that tension of, you know, I used to get these. I'll just say it crafts questions around, um, Oh, you know, are you, it's a business, but it's meditation. Like, how do you reconcile that? I'm like, capitalism is physics as far as I'm concerned. I'm not trying to bend capitalism out here.

Raed Khawaja: These are the rules of the game. And if we want to vend something within the system, um, then, you know, these are the, these are kind of the, you're playing cards. Um, You know, maybe in another life, I'll try to work on an advent of a different way that we exchange value and services, but that's not what we're trying to recreate.

Raed Khawaja: We're playing within the constraints of capitalism and within the constraints of capitalism, the more we are successful at, you know, creating something that people are willing to pay for and they're assigning value. And saying, Hey, this is meaningful for me. Thank you. There is a sincere value exchange here.

Raed Khawaja: Here is my paper money. Take it. Here's my digital numbers. Take it. Um, that the virtuous cycle and the system that we live in is that we get to do a lot more of that. The more compelling that value proposition is. And so, uh, we don't have any qualms about that system here. We're, we're very embracing of that.

Raed Khawaja: And we were just playing within those constraints and trying to create as much value as possible. 

Flynn Skidmore: I Love that. , I listened to grimes speak on the Lex Friedman podcast, you know, Grimes is the artist. Oh yeah, 

Raed Khawaja: I just want to run you through some of the shout outs we've had so far. Oh my god.

Raed Khawaja: Elon Musk, Mike Tyson, Beavers, Bjorn Kors, 

Flynn Skidmore: Yeah.

Flynn Skidmore: Dude, really good references, ratioed mustaches and docs like really good references. Um, was it Grimes who had, who's, who was married to Elon Musk? Is that the right person? Yeah. Okay. So on the Lex Fridman podcast, she said something about like there, you know, we can certainly complain about the things that we don't like.

Flynn Skidmore: Or we can build something that is so exponentially better that it makes the old thing obsolete. And that's like the energy that I hear you speaking about here, one of the things that you've referred to is like the scaling of energy and the internet, which as far as I understand, happens as a result of trade of trades and goods of goods and services.

Flynn Skidmore: Like that's the thing that makes that happen. Gives us the opportunity to build these things that are better to take what we don't like and to make them better. I, I totally understand people's position of like capitalism makes people operate at a pace that's not sustainable and is not aligned with, uh, a pre modern pace of life.

Flynn Skidmore: And maybe that pre modern pace is more aligned with what our physiology and biology prefers, and it might create a more satisfying life. I agree with that. Also, prior to capitalism, the likelihood that you are murdered by like having your skull crushed with a rock was like 20%. You know what I'm saying?

Flynn Skidmore: Like, and what you get to do in your life, like what you are doing, literally you is, is like using this thing to then build a life where you get to operate at a pre modern pace and enjoy things and experience all while having a super low likelihood that you're going to be murdered via rock. Yes. 

Raed Khawaja: Yes. You know,

Raed Khawaja: people get confused on mission. And again, living in privilege here in that I get to work on a purpose oriented initiative or project like open, it's mission oriented purpose, purpose oriented, um, but really whatever you're endeavoring on, whether it's a company that you work for or whatever it is, there's, you have to get really clear about what the mission of that thing is.

Raed Khawaja: And that's important to get clear on because it's really easy to be critical and try to, you know, complain essentially about multiple things. And try to address multiple things, um, and fail that that is, that is totally an option for you. But when you have clarity of mission on what it is that you're endeavoring on, then you don't get distracted by things that, that aren't, constructive or productive.

Raed Khawaja: Right? And so that's where I'm coming back to this thing where it's like. You know, we are not endeavoring to change the way that we exchange values and services, like that's not what we're setting out to do. Um, we think that our highest leverage on society is to put. To empower people to be alive, have the feeling of becoming alive, right?

Raed Khawaja: That's, that's our deep and nurtured purpose. And so everything we do is with that in mind, everything else is a constraint, essentially a design constraint that we operate within when, so. Yeah. Trying to tackle all the world's issues or like trying to find a way that's more sustainable. And by the way, I don't think it's sustainable.

Raed Khawaja: I do want to, I do want to call that out. Like my, my adrenals or my nervous system get wrecked pretty much like, uh, if not on a weekly basis, I'm not, 

Flynn Skidmore: again, I'm not, it is not sustainable. Yeah. It's not 

Raed Khawaja: sustainable. What's going on here? Absolutely not. And that's why, you know, the, my relationship with it for what it's worth is that.

Raed Khawaja: I do these things to build resilience in myself to be able to handle it. Um, and, but ultimately not everyone needs to sign up for this much. You know, there are companies out there that are way further along. Um, where, you know. That offer great wages and, um, you know, can provide a great bill, provide a great living for people and provide meaningful value and service to the world.

Raed Khawaja: And you can operate within that. And there are sustainable versions of this. So, um, but if you want to play, um, on the top of the game of, of creating impact, and if you're trying to create colonies beyond our atmosphere, or if you're trying to make energy free, For everyone, or if you want, or if you think that it's absolutely absurd that in 2023, everyone on planet Earth does not have clean water, or if you think it's absurd that a nation as rich as the United States We have, a problem with food deserts or that you walk into the average grocery store in the United States of America and it's nutritionally vapid, like if you find that absurd and you want to make an impact on that, an outsized impact on that in your lifetime, then do not lie to yourself, do not lie to yourself and think that you're going to do that without losing some hair.

Raed Khawaja: And that's okay because you can engage with it if you do it with eyes wide open and that is something that you want to engage with, then you can smile while doing it. You can dance on your way to work. Um, and if that's not for you, that's okay to look up. There are thousands. I don't know what the actual number is, but there are millions of.

Raed Khawaja: Mini missions that are going on all over the world that are not as grandiose and they're not as ambitious, you know, the craft of the sandwich shop that I've been getting sandwiches from lately, as an example, I love, I haven't met any of them. Cause I'm always getting a delivery because it's on the other side of town.

Raed Khawaja: But they're the most amazing sandwiches I've had in a very long time. And whoever works there, I love them so much for what it's worth. And they have a mission. I am tasting their mission loud and clear. And that is to make the best damn sandwiches I've had in Los Angeles since I moved here two years ago.

Raed Khawaja: Um, and that's honorable. And I respect the hell out of everyone who's over there. It's just understanding what mission you want to align yourself with. 

Flynn Skidmore: Like every cell in my body is lighting up here and you say this I agree. I'm like agreeing more than it's possible to even agree.

Flynn Skidmore: And you're saying it like is so eloquently, um, and what you're speaking to, to me, it goes back to what we're saying in this beautiful. Uh, marriage or this, this merging between ego and passion, like some people, , their differentiation, their identity, like you refer to, like might be compelled to operate at the scale of clean water for everyone.

Flynn Skidmore: Another people's identity might be compelled to operate at the scale at making the greatest sandwich that exists in Los Angeles. 

Flynn Skidmore: And it's like, like, like what you're saying is just like, find the thing that lights your identity and your soul on fire and then offer that thing. You don't have to do that. You're going to lose some hairs if you like want to create something that beautiful. Right. And also it might be a worthwhile endeavor to work on something like that.

Raed Khawaja: Absolutely. Fire. Absolutely. Fire. Fire. 

Flynn Skidmore: Any, any last thoughts that feel fun to share before we wrap up?

Raed Khawaja: Yeah, I guess maybe just to say, huh, I really enjoyed this conversation , and it lit me up as well. And I really appreciate spaces like this where we can have. oPen ended conversation. Um, you know, sit outside of the, you know, three seconds need to grab your attention, social media and talk about things in nuanced ways.

Raed Khawaja: Times like these, they're reminders that nuance and longer conversations and, know, holding paradoxes and, Things that seem in opposition, um, holding truths in that it's, you know, really never been more alive. And so just appreciate the space and appreciate the conversation that you have and you're on your 20th episode.

Raed Khawaja: Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, you've got definitely got a gift in making people, getting to talk about what they really want to talk about. So I appreciate that. 

Flynn Skidmore: Thank you. Thank you so much for that. I've had so much fun. The most fun thing for me is like getting to. feel the thing that's the thing that lights the person up and then just go in that direction.

Flynn Skidmore: I appreciate you, you acknowledging that and reflecting it back. Uh, and, and this was, this was amazing for me. Thank you so much for being on here. My favorite people in the world are people like Raed. People who have so many different. Interests are competent and informed in so many different areas. And rather than investing energy into defining themselves as one of those things and hiding the other parts away, they instead allow themselves to be all of the things that they are.

Flynn Skidmore: And then they create from that place and the things that they create are really about like owning the truth of who they are and what they find interesting. And I, I just love that that exists. I love Ray that you're an example of that. Thank you so much for building what you're building, for being on the podcast, shedding light into your process, your creative process.

Flynn Skidmore: It was amazing. Thank you all for listening and for 

Flynn Skidmore: being here.