Survive Anger and Suicidal Thoughts | with Benoit Kim

Michael: Benoit Kim is a podcast host of the Discover More Podcast, a veteran and a psychotherapist. Welcome to the show, my friend.

Benoit Kim: Thanks for having me, Michael.

Michael: I'm very excited to have you. You and I just came off the backside of one of the most enthralling conversations I've ever had in my life. And I've been very much looking forward to having you here on the show. As we jump in, I'm curious if you were to describe your childhood in one word. What word would that be?

Benoit Kim: That's a great question, and the world would be angry.

Michael: What does that mean?

Benoit Kim: How I shared briefly when you were on the show earlier I'm a Korean American. That's my ethnicity. And I grew up in a single mother household and she was a tiger mom. For those who are unfamiliar with the terminology, tiger mom, as you can visualize, literally is a mom who has this authoritarian regime perspective. My way or no way, not even the highway it's my weight, that's it full stop. And I just felt a lot of anger because I never understood why mom Was the way she was, she's older now. She's retired her fangs fell off So she's a retired tiger mom as I tell people and we've reconciled through family therapy and so on. But growing up is just a lot of emotional and verbal abuse similar to you I had a few suicide attempts and a lot of suicide ideations. So I just felt a lot of anger, and I know we're in this era of K rage and K culture, K pop, K drama, and so on. One thing that a lot of ethnic men, Hispanic, Asians, Black, or otherwise, we can relate is what I call K rage. This innate, suppressed Korean rage that I had. Because I didn't know how to channel it in a healthy way, since all emotions serve a purpose. But when I think back to my childhood, to answer your question, anger was a predominant theme throughout my life.

Michael: How did anger play out in your childhood?

Benoit Kim: I think I would go against what she, I think, a lot of times parents are just older children, having children for the first time, right? Just like your therapist asked you, have you imagined your mother's childhood? Until I got to the point of grace and forgiveness, it was nice. I didn't understand, so I will go against what my mom would say. I will go against the instilled beliefs and teachings only because. Because I didn't want to. And through that, when you're operating your life in such a black and white, all or nothing framework, you lose out on a lot of the benefits and helpful things that my mom did teach me and did try to instill. And anger was blinding for me for a long time.

Michael: Yeah. Anger is blinding for a lot of young boys, especially growing up in single parent female dominated households. One of the things that I experienced in my life and in my childhood was obviously being raised by women. And then an abusive man and my stepfather, and that makes you angry. It makes you resentful, it makes you callous. It makes you want to burn the world down in a lot of different ways. The opposite of it, which I don't know if this was your experience or not. So, I'm very curious about it. Is it actually feminized me in a lot of ways like I was a young boy who was deeply in feminine energy being raised by a woman even though I was unbelievably angry dude one time I got suspended from elementary school For stabbing a kid with a spork, you know, so I know about anger and violence and those things coming out did you feel like The world was against you. Do you feel like you tried to make meaning of it? What was going through your head at such a young age?

Benoit Kim: I want to answer that question by sharing a concept, external and internal locus of control. It's a psychological term that you might know. All of us are at the grace of life, this force that's larger than we are. Always, almost. And I just felt like I never had a sense of control. I never felt I had an agency of control of my life, whatever my mom said goes. When I defied that, I was under the tyranny of my mom growing up, and that's what that meant for me. Until I realized, hold up, there are things I can control, and there are things I could do. But I think the theme was, I have no control, what's the point? I guess I'll just accept whatever reality my mom creates for me, because I'm under her roof and under her tiger mom regime.

Michael: And in that When you talk about lack of agency, I don't think kids really have a lot of agency to begin with. We're being molded into whatever our parents choose us to be in a lot of ways, which is strange. How would you like looking back at that? Like, how would you define agency at such a young age?

Benoit Kim: I think a lot of these are in retrospective view, right? I've been a personal help junkie since I was 13. The first book I read was the secret. Of course, some of the concepts are outdated, but it still played a role in the development and the growth of personal development worlds. But I share that because I didn't have that level of introspection when I was six, seven or eight. And with our memory recall. We tend to paint our realities rosier than it actually was, right? That's the whole point of confirmation bias, self-selection bias, and so on. But I think the way I thought about agency is. What is my role in this world? What is my role in my household? What is my role in this family that I was born into since none of us choose to be born? That's why I feel like parents have more responsibility than children do. It's a philosophical thing that I hold I don't think we owe, I think our parents owe us more than we owe our parents even as an Asian because I didn't choose to Be born, but I'm very grateful that I was born, but I think agency is for me. What is my role? And what can I do about it?

Michael: I want you to go deep into this and we have time and I think this is a really important conversation. once went pretty viral because, I had said in a video that most of your parents are gaslighting you and they didn't do the best that they could because if they did, you probably wouldn't be watching this video to begin with. And I'm curious I agree as someone who grew up with a very chaotic background, I felt and I still do to some capacity that my parents owed me something I did not choose to be brought into this world. And then, of course, you have the conversation like as eternal beings, maybe we did blah, blah, blah. We could go down there if we need to. But what do you think that our parents owe us?

Benoit Kim: That is a deep cut question. I think our parents owe us the duty and the responsibility by upholding their decision to give birth to us. I think they owe us the responsibility and space because they chose not to, either choose not to give birth or chose to give birth, right? And I think they owe us the space to raise us to become the people they wish they were. And I think that's what instillment is, right? I think a lot of our parents, to your point, it's not my place to comment how many parents tried their best and how many didn't. There’re no stats for that since I am a psychotherapist. But what I can say is, in a lot of our at least Asian culture and ethnic culture, I don't want to speak for everyone, but this is my truth, where a lot of our parents, they want to mold us, using our word, and condition us to become the versions that never were themselves. They give us this instilled beliefs and dreams because they never had an opportunity to achieve it at their own accord. So therefore, they whip us, for me literally, I was beaten growing up, Asian, pretty common in Asian households, because she wasn't able to achieve her dreams because of her circumstances. So, I am the extension of her legacy. So, she must try whatever she possibly could to mold us to the version that she never was. And that's very traumatic in its own sense. Because it wasn't until recently, Michael, that I realized, hold up. What are the beliefs and references that operate by day to day? How many of those are my own voice, my own desire, my own purpose? And how many of that were instilled by my mom, my stepdad, church leaders, thought leaders, and so on? And this process of peeling back the false layers, as I call it. It's like peeling back onions, I love cooking, and onions fucking hurt. I cry every time I peel back onions. But when you get to the core of it that's where the essence is. And a lot of us choose not to go through that process because it's painful.

Michael: Yeah, and it part of me believes that it's supposed to be painful and the reason that I say that because it's like how in the world do you break free of that if you do not elicit some kind of response that challenges you and I think part of the problem is, there is emotional enmeshment that happens and you end up with a lot of an emotional enmeshment and emotional incest and you end up in this culturally, we are seeing unbelievably damaging shift happening of son husbands in the world, where there are so many young boys who are being groomed by their mothers to be the quote unquote man of the house, to be the leader, to be mommy's good little boy, but and that is so unbelievably detrimental to both masculinity and the male-female dynamic that I think that there's going to be a price to pay that we don't even understand that is (A) is starting to play out right now, but in 25 years is. Possibly going to be a downfall of our civilization as we know it. I realize that's grasping for straws, but I do think about this a lot. Growing up, what was the, ‘cause I think this is really important because obviously you've created a ton of success in your life. You have an amazing podcast, you serve the country, you're a psychotherapist, you've been able to create success, but I also believe that there is a price to success. And that price to success often begins in our childhoods. For me, I went the opposite way. I was like, I know that I will create the life that I want by being a massive contrarian, by going against the grain, by doing the complete opposite that everyone ever tells me to do. And so, I'm wondering with the expectations of a tiger mom, with these cultural expectations, with the, I assume, I'm guessing probably a ton of bullying, especially growing up Asian in LA. What were the pressures that you put on yourself? And then what were the pressures that your mother put on you that defined who you are as a man?

Benoit Kim: I think the concept that answers that is productivity dysmorphia, I work out a lot, right? You're a six, four, 230 pounds. I'm a veteran. As you said, I saw a lot of men. We struggle with modern body dysmorphia, men and women alike, especially for former athlete, especially but what we're not talking about is productivity dysmorphia. Whenever I'm in this in between spaces of not being hyper productive or rest, I know you give yourself the grace of gaming all day once every couple months, right? I don't know how to deal with this in between moments. Some of my most depressive moments are when I'm in a chill stage. When I'm just doing 40 hours a week, since I have a full-time job in a business, I don't know how to embrace the chillness. I don't know how to embrace the rest. Idleness is this demonic word in American culture, but idleness just means inaction. If you think about law of thermodynamics, right? Every action has reaction, but to do that, you have the pauses in the buffering space in between, and I don't know how to do that. This is my growth edge. I can each and work through it. But going back to your question, I think that's the biggest thing my mom instilled in me is if you're not always achieving something, which is my core identity and my core belief, I'm working through it, being an overachiever. If you're not achieving something, you're worthless. If you're not mounting to something that you lack, if you're not doing X, then you don't have the Y, but productivity dysmorphia is something I think a lot of men, especially like you and I can relate to, and I'm sure a lot of the clients you coach.

Michael: Yeah. What has that played in your life? Like when you look at that, what has played out because of that?

Benoit Kim: So many different things. Let me get very relevant in the present sense. I'm getting married in two months, a month and a half. So it's a good stress. Yeah. Not too flex because I know you're single, but I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful that it got to where I am through a lot of emotional training ground, a lot of heartache, but. My biggest struggle with my fiancée, my soon to be wife, is I work for her a lot because I have a business but also, I work at the clinic. She's a physician, so her schedule is a lot more inflexible than mine. It's when she comes home on her early shifts, which is once in a blue moon, I'm in my zone. Because it's easy for me to get focused. And being hyper focused come natural to my personality trait. I have a hint of OCPD, Obsessive Compulsive Obsessive Compulsory Personality Disorder It's not an OCD a lot of high achievers like Steve jobs have OCPD tendencies. I have that it's from my tiger mom, when I'm in a zone and she comes home, I have to literally go through this dance I got I've gotten better and now Is do I want to stop my workflow and say hi and hug her and check in about how her day was? Or do I want to finish whatever task I'm doing and then switch my space. But in the beginning, the first three years we've been together for four and a half, I couldn't do it. I'll prioritize my workflow because I achieved this productivity high. I love in the flow and achieve flow state quite easily through meditation and different practices I have. And then I attended to her needs because the way I think about is I made a commitment to whatever I'm working on, whatever task, whatever executions, but I forget, what about the commitments I made to my girlfriend, to my fiancée, to the other people that I love?

Michael: That hits home for me in such an intense way, because I can point to my last relationships demise being entirely because of what you just said. That is something that almost four years later, I'm still doing the work on where it is. I look at that and it is a constant reminder that being an overachiever and being a productive man. And I love this. I've never heard anyone say productivity dysmorphia ever before in my life. I fell into that trap so deeply that I had to create the discomfort, right? Cause I believe that growth comes in discomfort. I had to create the discomfort of I'm going to game today and allow myself the space to exist in that bubble because it was so uncomfortable and it was the opposite of what I had been doing that it has actually become a lesson for me. And I think that a lot of people. They struggle with that and we live in this hyper productivity focused a country, but world where we see it's like the more work you do, the better your life will be. The more work you do, the better your life will be, and it's actually the polar opposite. There's a fine line though, because on this one hand. It's I'm not a workaholic, I just have a very big dream and my ambitions are big, but on the other hand, it's at what point do you differentiate ambitions versus presence? And so, I'm wondering since you're in this and you're doing this and it's top of mind for you. I think this would be beneficial for people. Like, how do you. How do you differentiate those two? Like, how do you be like, Oh, my fiance's home. This work is still going to be here, but this moment with her might pass.

Benoit Kim: I think the answer is gratitude. I do a lot of thought exercises, just journal to myself, shower thoughts, whatever, walks, and I thought about this the other day, Michael, that gratitude can only happen in the present. When you're living in the past or striving for the future, you're physiologically and psychologically incapable of feeling this emotion that we call gratitude and gratitude is a multitude of things Just like depression is a multitude of symptoms Happiness is not a singular state. It's multitude of states being joy grateful and all that and if you look at the longest longitudinal happiness study by Harvard Medical School One of the core ingredients for longevity and being is not happiness, it's gratitude. But when you're constantly in the chasing to answer a question, the presence versus achievement or ambition. When I'm striving and living on my ambition, I'm not necessarily grateful. It's always the next thing, always the next thing. I'm sure you can remember your first year of podcasting. If only I can amount to 1 million downloads a year. Then if I'll be happy when syndrome or destination happiness, whatever you want to call it. But now when you got that one million, oh, that was cool. Maybe two minutes of gratitude. Maybe you popped open a beer or I don't know, lit up a joint for celebration or a game and then you get back at it. But when you're in the presence, you're capable of receiving this gratitude. And it's the here and now, right? I don't want to use a trope of present is the present keeps on giving, but I think gratitude is the answer. And that's the differentiator for me between ambition and presence.

Michael: Yeah, that's a really great point. And that kind of ties back into assessing what your beliefs are. Because I would have to assume, again I'm assuming because I don't know, I would have to assume that the idea that you could separate yourself in that present moment probably took you a lot of work.

Benoit Kim: Tremendously.

Michael: What did that look like?

Benoit Kim: So, I tell people like I said earlier the proudest thing I've done in my life is not the podcast It's not my four career pivots. I speak four languages fluently and I didn't grow up in la I came to la three years ago to support my fiance's career in physician because they have very inflexible match process So I lived in a lot of places, right? I was born into three different continents four different countries until I was 15. That's when I came to the US, but it's like, you have to think about your gap, where you are now versus where you want to get to. And this requires a lot of introspections and self-awareness that you talked about. And unless I'm aware and willing to acknowledge that there's gap, because all of us have gaps, none of us are perfect, none of us are constantly navigating this life with their idealized versions. And I use the word idealized very intentionally, because most of our perceptions are distorted, and most of our desires are idealized. But then where's the presence? Where's the reality? But going back to your question, the biggest work I had to done, I had to do, is understand that I went from a person with commitment issues because I was raised in a single mom household. There was no reference or evidence of love in my life in LA. I never saw it. I didn't believe in love because my mom failed. But she was so great at so many other things. She checked all the boxes of external metrics of success, she was an entrepreneur, she had a company of 150 employees and so on. But she was miserable, she was lonely, she had no love. So I didn't think I was capable of love. So, I had commitment issues, hopping from relationship to the other, a lot of one-night stands. But you know in your early 20s, you wear that one-night stand like a chip on your shoulder? But in your late twenties and early thirties, you pity them. It's a lonely fucking existence, right? And through my fiance and through our work, she broke up with me, Michael. A quick story to really drive this message home. We've been in LA for three years now, a month after we signed our lease from Philadelphia, where I was a policymaker for six years, where she went to medical school a month after we signed our lease in LA from Philadelphia, a week before we're going to pack everything up and ship and move across the country, me for her, because my career is flexible, hers wasn't. She broke up with me because of my anger. Here's what people think, here's what people don't realize. We think we can avoid and run away from our hidden emotions and hidden baggages of emotions. It's not a thing. They always accumulate and always re manifest and come up somehow. And my rage. I was never violent physically. But similar to you and your ex-girlfriend, I believe, you shared on my podcast, I was verbally emotionally violent. I'm articulate. I know how to package my thoughts in a succinct way to hurt her in the most hurtful way. And that's my strength that she fell in love with. But the coward in me used that as a weapon against her whenever we're fighting. And then she said, it's, I've had it enough, no more. I don't deserve you, I deserve better. She has self-respect for herself. And she broke up with me. I'm 6-foot. Not quite 6’4”. That would be my dream height, right? But 6-foot, I'm 190 pounds, I'm fit, I'm a veteran. I've never been on my knees until that moment. I begged her to take me back, I puked in the toilet. I didn't, I never understood the concept of heartache. What does that mean? I feel like someone's squeezing my heart from inside out, I felt sick, I think I had a panic attack. And I vomited for five minutes. And then here's my lesson to bring this home. She eventually took me back and we're about to get married in two months. Thank the Lord. Thank you universe. That she took me back. I didn't understand the difference between being vulnerable and telling vulnerable stories. You and I, we've talked about our trauma stories. I was sexually assaulted in college, I was healed through psilocybin therapy in 2016. I know you were molested as a child. We were able to tell these stories that were part of us and our authentic experiences, and we were vulnerable in those moments, but we've done the work and we can tell these stories without being triggered. But then she taught me that Benoit, you're so good at telling vulnerable stories. You're so articulate, but have you ever been vulnerable in real life? And not until I begged her on my knees, puked, crying my heart out to beg her to take me back. Because you don't realize what you lose until you lose it. She said, Benoit for the first time in our two years of dating, that you are vulnerable in real life. And that's the reason why she took me back, but that's the work I had to do.

Michael: First, thank you for sharing that that even got me a little emotional hearing you say that, because it is so retrospect, like it is so apropos to the experience for so many boys who grow up like us. Where we have learned that through just the experience of the suffering and pain, that love is not meant for us, that it's a lie, that it's make believe, and our own vulnerability is something that we don't use because of fear. And what I think is really interesting, you talk about one night stands feeling like loneliness. And if I rewind my journey, there's a lot of that I won't get into details. I don't think it's necessary but it was. I look at my life now, and I cannot imagine putting myself through the emotional distress of that. But it's just like any addiction, we chase these things to fill, you talked about the gap, to fill the gap in us. More money, more women, more clothes, more cars, more money, more women, and so on and so forth. And if you're really, truly paying attention, you come to realize those things do not fulfill you. What is so difficult about that is it requires internal vulnerability. It requires you coming to truth with yourself and acknowledging the reality that you've created. And in that moment, I'm actually I'm really happy that you had that moment because only through breakdowns, do we have breakthroughs? What's so fascinating is there's only ever the moments of that kind of growth when you have a relationship, when you have somebody who's right in front of you, who shows you who you are, there's this amazing quote by Neil Strauss, if you don't know Neil Strauss, he wrote a book called The Game in the early two thousands. He was a pickup artist, he wrote another book. That is arguably my favorite book of all time called the truth. And in that book, he wrote a line that has stuck in my head for over a decade. It said, if you don't address your childhood traumas, your relationships will.

Benoit Kim: Yeah, we hurt people, it's a trope, right? But I think the visually, the way I think about what you just said, is if you have an open wound, because some people, maybe not your audience, but certain people have stigma about what trauma means. Trauma is a medical term, trauma literally means an open wound, physically and we're talking about mental health trauma, right? Same concept So think about it visually you have an open cut on your wrist or in your hands on your arm, whatever and let's say you don't heal it. You don't address it. You don't attend to the wounds You're walking around shaking hands hugging people because we're Americans. That's what we do You're fucking splashing and bleeding all over everyone you touch that's why if you don't heal, you will bleed over everyone you touch, and you'll destroy everything. And I learned that through the breakup. The catalyzing moment that, holy shit, I suck at relationships. I look at my chapters, I know every game I used to watch simple pickup, it's a pickup thing. When it used to be like a hype on YouTube, like years ago, I used to watch people like wearing Batman suit and fucking pickup.

27 35 Michael: I'm embarrassed that we have that in common.

Benoit Kim: I was a member too. I had access to archives for I think two years until I lost my login information.

Michael: I might edit this out of the podcast.

Benoit Kim: But I realized that I could gain my way to first date, second date, third date and get laid. But I never could game unto this healthy, sustainable stage of emotionality, openness, intimacy. Men are not afraid of intimacy. That's bullshit, man. We crave and we need, and we love intimacy. It's a biological attachment needs that we all have, but I didn't know how. And I realized, Oh, the game book I've been navigating my life around through incessant, lonely, pity, one night stands for myself and the people. It was sad and I had to do something about it.

Michael: Yeah, there was a moment. I love your vulnerability. So I'm going to go in there too. There was a moment where I was sitting in a hotel room on my knees, calling my ex-girlfriend and telling her I made the biggest mistake of my life. And I realized in that moment that was my childhood coming back, this was years ago. And I hung up the phone and I sat there on the floor and I cried and I felt a tremendous amount of empathy the child in me. Who grew up with a mother who was absent, who was a drug addict and alcoholic, a stepfather who was abusive, a grandmother who, no matter what I did not love me or did not express it. I should say, and then sabotaging relationship after relationship, and if you look at that, it wasn't just the relationships that were intimate. It was relationships with my brother. It was relationships with my friends. It was a relationship with myself because trust me, I promise you this, I'm going to get fucking canceled for this, I know I am. If you weigh fucking 350 pounds, you can not tell me you love yourself, I refuse to believe it, and here I am 350 pounds. Tell me you love yourself on the reverse of it. I could even argue the counter. If you're jacked with six pack, ripped abs, fucking 365 days a year. I'm going to make the same point. And so it's really about the thing that I think is you said, you don't know, you didn't know intimacy, I didn't either. And it's one of the most unbelievably devastating realities for most men to put yourself in that position and to share this publicly, I think is really beautiful. What did the process look like to gain intimacy, not only with yourself, but with your now fiance?

Benoit Kim: If I may, can I ask you a question and then I'll get back to that answer?

Michael: Why not?

Benoit Kim: I'm curious, just because when this stands what would you say to your younger self now? What would you tell him?

Michael: Ask me that a lot and I wouldn't tell him anything. And the reason why is because I love my life and I wouldn't have listened. I'm like, fuck you old man.

Benoit Kim: That would be my answer too. But can you repeat your question?

Michael: Yeah. I was asking you how you got to intimacy with yourself and with your partner.

Benoit Kim: I think it's when I learned what I shared earlier when you were on my podcast, is if we're incapable of loving ourselves, we can't love other people. But it's like the famous quote, when you're pointing a finger at the moon, a lot of people get caught up looking at the finger. That's true. They don't look at the damn moon. So, I was asking myself, why is my life so chaotic? Why does every relationship I get with get My longest relationship was two months. I think it was like 58 days. Not even two months. Before I met my fiancé. She was the first one I brought home to. She was the first one I said I love you to. She's the first one I made a lifelong pledge. Also, soulmates is a bullshit idea. I don't believe in predestined other half. You're negating your responsibility if you believe in soulmates. You choose someone, obviously there's compatibility, there's a non negotiable list you go through, and you fucking commit. That's what relationship is for me. But until I had to realize what is a common coefficient in my chaotic life at the time. Oh, whoa, it's me. It's not my ex-girlfriend. It's not ex. It's not my mom. It's not my teacher. It was me, the self-sabotage. And that's when I realized, oh, I see. And I did something about it.

Michael: There, I interviewed Leila Hermozi recently, her and her husband Alex have built a pretty massive empire at a very young age and. I was talking to Alex once we were at a topgolf here in Las Vegas and we were talking about relationships and he said, I love my wife, but what I love more is that I choose loyalty over novelty. And I was like, holy shit. Going into that is choosing loyalty for yourself first. As a person who was in this healing journey, looking at your life and assessing reality. Because like you, you talked about this idea that the, if then, and especially in intimacy as men, there is this cultural narrative that destination happiness, right? I love the way that you phrase that. I think that you should, copyright that because it's so powerful. That and I think what happens is people are like, okay, if I have sex with a hundred women, 200, 300, the biggest car, the nicest house, the most money, the most ripped, or from women's perspective, if I get the, because of hypergamy being a thing, they're like, if I get the best class of man and I have all these kids and the perfect life, and I'm the best wife ever, then I will be happy. And it's a fallacy and it's a lie and it's the same pressure that whether you have a tiger mom or you have an absent mom, it's the same presence and the lie and the fallacy that we place on ourself to create a false sense of belief that one day we will love like, really, this all comes down to love and safety and it's like you're lying to yourself. But in this, you mentioned something that I want to go back into because I know the trajectory, having lived it myself, that it takes to be able to even have this conversation, but you don't go from being suicidal to that. And so right now we live in a time where suicide is the number one cause of death for guys our age. Unequivocally is statistical and especially veterans. And thank you for your service. I don't say that in passing. My, many people know my greatest dream as a kid was to be a Marine Corps scout sniper. I come from a military family. My brother was in the military uncle in the Navy cousins in the air force. We were from the hood. It's go to the military or work at McDonald's. And veteran suicides, while the number statistically is 22 men a day, 22 veterans take their life a day, I would argue it's actually much, much higher. Talk to me and talk through that journey. How do you go from suicide attempts and suicidal ideation? We're gonna close a big gap here. How do you go from that to psychotherapist?

Benoit Kim: Oh, boy, how much time do we have?

Michael: We got time.

Benoit Kim: So, this is part of your thesis, right? Incremental progress. That's it. Incremental progress. And our conversation echoes a lot of what we just did earlier, but the thing is you have to first accept where you're at and the reality you navigate by. So, when I was first starting off from suicidality, in addition to I had a near death deployment, that was a true catalyst for my pivot. That's why I left my policymaking career. I was the youngest policymaker at age 26 in my agency's hundred-year career because I went to school at Penn, I had X, Y, and Z. But I left that after the near-death deployment. Cause we, so the term is ontological shock or reality breaking moments. Ontology is a study of reality and observations around it. So ontological shock is the mechanism for PTSD, right? People come back and I promise I'll close the loop. When people come back from a warfare, you're going from civilian to a soldier. You're literally taught to kill people or be killed. But then most veterans, and I agree with you, a lot of homelessness, or a lot of veterans who are homeless are not accounted for that suicide death. I know that as a fact, especially in LA, most people come back. They're unable to reintegrate into society as a functioning member because the government and the military taught that to survive You have to kill people are taught to honor and navigate with anger and aggression So when they come back the reality breaks or clinically we call ontological shock and people who can't heal from that has PTSD so for me The near death deployment was to North Korea. I don't know if you remember the dick measuring contest, excuse my French, between Trump and Kim Jong un in 2017. I have a red button. No, I have a bigger red button. My unit was the unit that were summoned to go to the North and South Korean border. And I was, what, 24 at the time? And the difference is, wait, but Benoit, you say you almost killed yourself. You had suicide ideations, that's a choice. I made a choice have having a thought to kill myself versus this deployment because it was a very high stake high Fertility rate according to the general that told us that wasn't a choice. That wasn't part of my three-to-five-year plan I was supposed to graduate from Penn which I never did because of deployments I was supposed to do this do that be a diplomat because I speak four languages and I'm multicultural the deployment shattered everything right but going back to your question. How did I get from the place of? You No self-worth, low self-esteem, self-hatred, self-anger, to here, helping people is my job, incremental progress. I start to see more hope by incrementally of seeing, oh, wait, when I stand up for myself against my mom, and when I have evidence and rationality behind my defiance, Wait, my mom actually respects that because she's a business owner. She respects people who stand up for themselves. Oh, so that's what I can, what I could do. And based on that, I'm able to do one more thing, two more thing, three more thing. And you flash for 15 years, 15, 17 years. That's how I was able to move through, through the post traumatic growth. I was able to navigate beyond the ontological shock or reality shattering moments of my mom, my suicidality, ideations, and ultimately now, of being as a profession?

Michael: One of the things that I thought about is, you went from anger being the framework for childhood to anger being the framework for adulthood. And it's you are just trapped in that. And my heart goes out to you because that is such a dark place to be. When anger is the modality, it's often like a secondary response because of fear. And that response that fear has that leads to anger is actually the root of the lack of safety. And you think about how often as children, then we turn into adults, the very thing that we. We're trapped by that created the lack of safety becomes our emotional home. That then we seek an adulthood. It's if you really step back and you look at it, you go, that's fucking crazy. Why would you join the military? Or people were like, that's crazy. Why would you go and put yourself in debt? All of these things, like in my scenario, and it's not until, you said something, man, you're just dropping bombs today. I love this rationality and defiance is such a beautiful way to phrase boundaries. It's such a beautiful way to phrase standing up for your mother. But I also think it's a really powerful way to look at your life. Can you be rationally defiant of your own life to go and create the thing that you want? And I think that's such a scary thought for people. We are so emotional, we're so driven by anger, we're so driven by lack, we're so driven by the idea of whatever has been implanted and embedded in our head from childhood. And yet you're just a singular decision away from things being different. As a psychotherapist, this as well as I do as a coach, while we exist in two very different realms, we both see people have one thing in common, they have no ability to create a rational self identity and in that, and because of that, the thing that happens is they step into codependence. One-night stands, unfulfilling careers, poor health, too much, like whatever that thing is being rational. In the age that we live in is almost irrational. And so I'm curious where do you start, right? So you talked about a big part of your journey was actually in the healing and doing the work. Obviously, you mentioned psilocybin. We can go down that path if you think it's necessary, but if you were at. Step one, going and rewinding and looking at 24 old you, life is chaotic, suicidiation, looking at life through anger, all of the things that now have become really the catapult to where you are today. What's step one?

Benoit Kim: that's a great question. I think step one for me was recognizing and reconciling with the fact that being angry feels damn fucking good. I had to accept that angry feels fucking amazing. ‘Cause it's a, you're grasping for control, you said it. When you're angry, and usually this is a general blanket statement, most people who lack agency and inner locus of control in their lives, they're the angry people. I will bet a million dollars on fucking LA, the city of traffic and palm trees. Crazy drivers every day, right? Insane drivers. It's crazy. I literally saw another car coming through one way with facing 40 different cars. Anyway, when I see road rage behaviors, I think to myself, Ah, they lack agency in their life. So being angry on the road by being petty is how they exert their little sense of control externally. Because what's in the internal always manifests externally, period. So, step one for me was, damn, I don't want to admit it, because my fragile ego at the time, being angry feels good, lashing out feels good. Because in those moments of lashing out, I feel powerful. I feel like I'm in control. Even though you're hoping to God that you can redeem the burning house, the burning marriage, the burning relationships, the burning business. But that was step one.

Michael: It's fascinating to me how chaos is something that people want to escape. And yet is the very thing that people put the most energy into.

Benoit Kim: That's all they know. If you're grew up in chaos and addictions, and if you grew up with this chaotic dynamic, family or interpersonally, that's all you know. And we just like things that we know. Even if we know that rationally, the chaos is bad. But once again, we talked about this. Emotions, when you're in an emotional responsive state, there is no logic. There is no neural cortex. So you're not really thinking about thinking. There is no metacognition, right? There is no critical thinking. So if chaos is all you know, and if the pattern that you see and feel is surrounded by chaos, you're gonna go for that. Even though when you put it on paper, you're like, whoa, what? That doesn't make sense. That's the point. It doesn't make sense because it's chaotic.

Michael: Yeah, which is the same way you end up ruining another relationship, right? Which is the same way you end up in debt, which is the same way you end up 350 pounds, right? And what's so difficult about that? And you said it is what is internal manifest externally. A lot of people feel like they deserve it. I really, genuinely felt like God hated me, the universe was out to get me, that somehow I deserve suffering, that it was manifest destiny that I would be a loser, and it wasn't until I made a decision to shift that, that I was actually going to have a different life. But that required a shift in beliefs, and a shift in standards and a shift in not only where I lived physically, but where I lived emotionally. When we look at this, I want to go into beliefs a little bit deeper because you started there. And I think it's very important. What did you, I'm going to ask you this way. What belief did you have to let go of to become the person you are today?

Benoit Kim: I think the belief that to let go was that life was inherently meaningful. I'm going to say that again, because that sounds tricky. We're all meaning making beings, our ability and our capacity to create and interpret meetings out of seemingly ordained or random events. That's what makes us humans. It's a unique capacity that only humans have. Homo sapiens. I had to let go of the fact that, wait, life is inherently meaningless. Just like your thesis, we're not all jack shit, life is not supposed to be fair, no one ever said life is fair, it's not. ‘Cause, growing up as a Christian, I still am, but I think my current faith is more vetted. It's been stress tested, by life. And I choose to believe, versus before it was instilled, it's very different. That's why most Christians or religious folks, once they leave their home, turn 18, go to college, they let go of their religion. Because their childhood faith cannot withstand the test of life. They don't survive stress testing. I stress test in mine, it's a conscientious decision. But going back to your question, I used to believe that life had inherent meaning, because we're born. I do believe that life is inherently sacred, but I have a very open perspective on suicide with my clients and my patients. Especially as a veteran, suicide has a very close place in my heart. I lost three best friends to suicide during the pandemic. There are white folks and just, it's sad and I lost a lot of my battles to suicide as well. But at the same time it's not my place to impose my philosophy that life has inherited meaning. And life is sacred. Why am I to impose my perspective on your life? I don't fucking know what you go through day to day. Maybe for you, suicide is the way. I know that sounds very extreme, but I truly believe that it's not my place before me. I realized, hold up. If life is inherently meaningless, what does that mean for me? For me personally and philosophically, Oh, I get to create and fill in the gap of meaninglessness with the meeting that I feel joy, that I feel purposeful, that I feel intentional about. And that's what I'm doing. And that's what healing for me is creating a meaning in my life based on the larger circumstances that happen to us. And that orients and design my life as such. So, it's meaningful, ever since I quit drinking as a recovering alcoholic four years ago, I don't have any superficial friends in my life. Superficiality is non-existent in my life. I don't hang out with people just because I felt the need. Because there's alcohol as a lubricant factor. If I want to hang out with you, if it's not a fuck yes, it's a no. If I want to do a podcast, if it's not a fuck yes, it's a no. Because that's the meaning, and my life is by design. But that's what comes to my mind.

Michael: I believe that to be true as well. And for me, I'm nihilistic, and what I mean by that, for those who don't know, is I believe that at the end of the day, everything we do doesn't actually matter. However, because I have been able to create this juxtaposition in my own mind, that every single thing I do matters. In this moment that has given me the space to design a life that is fulfilling and like you, what I have reconciled is that there are seasons of life. There are people who belong in those seasons, and when you recognize that you control the weather, you'll understand that every single season is going to be what you choose it to be. And what's so difficult about that is that you have to let go of the fear that you're allowed to control your life. If you grow up in chaos, if you grow up with a tiger mom, if you grow up in a society that tells you who you should be, the idea of becoming you is so foreign that you will fight it tooth and nail. There's a part of you and me as human beings that is so inherent to have our needs met to have community and contribution and love and connection and to know that what we're doing matters. And yet you have to recognize that you've been brainwashed to believe that there is a framework for that existence being able to take place. The truth is that you have to brainwash yourself to understand that you deserve it because you exist. However, this is the hard part that people don't rationalize. You talked about being a rational thinker and being rational in this life. People think that just because they exist, that they deserve everything that everyone else has. That's not what I'm saying here. What I'm saying is you deserve love, you deserve community, you deserve human connection, you deserve growth. You deserve them. The basically the six human needs tied in with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You deserve those because you are, but you don't get an inch more than that. Every single bit beyond that is something that you have to go and take, that you have to go and build. You want a relationship when you're on the ground, vomiting, crying, begging, that is fulfilling, that leads to an engagement and the future that you want to create? Motherfucker, you better go earn it. And I think that's, what's so hard in this conversation. When I sit across from a guy like you and I go, he's got the credentials, he's fucking psychotherapist, he served the country. He speaks four languages, he's this unbelievably intelligent person. I go whenever I'm across from someone that I feel like I mirror in terms of intelligence. My first thought is he's a train wreck because the smartest people in the world, the smartest people in the world are the most difficult people in the world. With themselves, with others, because we know I don't know if this is true. I'm going to close the loop on a very long statement here, but I believe that the people who are the most self aware struggle the most in this healing journey. Does that hit home for you in any capacity?

Benoit Kim: Self-deception is no more. Self-deception is this ability that all humans wield, cognitive dissonance, right? This sentence is our ability to uphold seemingly conflicting ideas at the same time, or we can call it flexible ethics, whatever language you want to use. But when you're self-aware and I love you brought up the fact that most, the most intellectual people are the most miserable. There is a lot of ounces of truth in that because we're unable to give herself grace and others and so on, right? Your achievers are not, but it's. We struggle in this healing journey and the keyword is a journey. The journey implies process. Process means there's room for growth. And detouring going backwards, backtracking, that's all part of the process, it's a dance. Life is nonlinear, full stop. Because I'm self-aware, I can't lie to myself. When I review the archive of my behaviors and patterns, because words are cheap, but behavior patterns do not lie. I work with sociopathic individuals. I work with murderers. I don't talk about that because people don't understand why you work with criminals? Just like people are like, Oh, homelessness are just lazy people who are immoral. You'd be fucking shocked if you hear some of my patients and what they did before they got homeless. I promise you it's not a willpower or moral issues. It's not. But I bring that in because When you're self-aware and you, when you review and constantly self-evaluate, you and I, we both do this, there's not a lot of blind spots. The ignorance of bliss is not an option for us. And it's a chosen path. In the military, we're instilled with this number one principle in combat intelligence. Seek out the path of least resistance. Obviously, you don't want to go into the reign of fire. But in life, I think the opposite is true. You want to seek out the path of high resistance. Because there's opportunity. But that's why I think software individuals are difficult or experience increased difficulty in healing. But the trade-off is profound because if you can confront and move past that, the benefits and the healing, that's also equally profound on the other side, the less software people don't get to experience.

Michael: I want to walk down a path that I think is interesting that we don't have to go down, but I have to, for the context of thought and a thought experiment, I, for the longest time, thought experiment. I was a sociopath. Now, what do I mean by that? It was literally beaten out of me to be an emotional human being. The more that I was emotional, the more that I was myself, the more that I seeked or sought after my wants, needs, and interests and boundaries being met, the more pain I endured. And I was one of those guys growing up that not only did I play sports, but I had this super abusive stepfather who would say, if you cry, I'll hit you harder. And so I literally learned how to turn off and for 15 years, I didn't shed a tear. And I witnessed the death of my mother, my grandmother, my three childhood, best friends got murdered. A friend committed suicide, going through massive debt, breakup, the whole-body change that I went through. Not a tear. And the healing journey had come, would come to discover that the most difficult aspect for me was that I could learn how to cry and. It wasn't in the learning that I believe that I healed, but it was in the allowing. Dude, I fought it so hard. The idea that I would cry in that 15-year window felt so weak, I would rather die. Which is probably why I put a fucking gun in my mouth. Cause I needed to explore my emotional capacity more than anything in the world. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because so many people self-diagnose, they self-label, the word narcissist gets thrown around I can't even believe you don't, you probably don't know a narcissist, alright? We gotta settle down with this shit. I'm wondering though, if you could create some context as an expert in this field around what are the traits and characteristics of someone who is a sociopath, because my fear is that there are a lot of people who kind of label themselves where it's really actually, what you need to do is actually understand words at a definition. So, you understand that the power that they have over your life. So, would you mind defining that for us?

Benoit Kim: Yeah, this is an interesting detour taking, but I'm all about it. So, if I may, let me geek out a little bit, because I love this, right? If you look at DSM 5, Diagnostic Statistical Manual 5, that's our bread and butter, that's what you use for manual to diagnose people. And I want to echo your point, being a narcissist, it is very possible, but even for us experts with years of schooling and training to diagnose someone with any disorder, it takes at least 8 hours. And this is an expert perspective 8 hours, not your colloquial layman 8 hours. So I just want to echo that real quick. So according to the DSM 5, clinically, to be a sociopath, and sociopathy is what people talk about, psychopath, sociopath, people use them very interchangeably. A sociopath are better at disguising their nature than psychopath do. So that's a very nuanced difference, but they're very interchangeable the way we use it. So, to get sociopathic disorder, before that the prerequisite is APD, Antisocial Personality Disorder. Antisocial Personality Disorder means there's criterias of lack of ability with empathy, difficulty with remorse, you exhibit antisocial tendencies such as you don't care about conformity. You say shit in a very brazen way, disregard people's feelings, you don't think social norms apply to you, and, but here's the interesting thing, right? Even within all this, there are societal and social and psychological benefits to sociopathic tendencies. Remember what I said, there is tendencies, which is traits of personality, and there is a full-blown disorder, which is a sociopath we talk about. And about 1 percent of human population is to hold sociopathic. What does that mean? There is evolutionary benefits to being a sociopath. Think about war zones and back in the medieval times. You don't want compassion people be on the door defending your country. You want fucking bloody killers like Navy SEAL or top tier one operators. They're sociopaths, they are, except they fight for our countries or terrorists who fight for the other countries, right? But before antisocial personality disorder, to even get diagnosed for that, the eligibility, you have to have oppositional disorder. And what that means is just in your, in I special ed in high school, middle school. You're going to a lot of conduct disorder troubles, you're defiant against teachers, authorities, you got arrested a lot of interactions with the system, right? So you have to have oppositional disorder on your record, like juvenile systems, whatever. And then you can get diagnosed with n type social personal disorders. And if you have that based on other behaviors and characteristics, then you can be a sociopath. But there is 1%. And that's very rare, but they do exist.

Michael: So the reason that I brought this up is because you laid out a few of these characteristics that people may have if they had sociopathic tendency, right? Or if you look at the anti-personality disorder anti-social personality disorder, what are some of those things? Lack of empathy, right? They don't care about feelings. They balk at social norms. And you look at this as the human experience that people like us go through, as I'm labeling you and I, cause we're in the context of this conversation. And you look at the people who may be listening to this and they're like I am not always empathetic and I balk at social norms and this and that. And then you realize that, wait a second. There's a conversation to be had here about nature versus nurture, and I think that when we live in this society and we have people who have gone through such traumatic experiences, sometimes the reality of what they actually need. Isn't necessarily a diagnosis, but maybe it's a hug, maybe it's vulnerability. Maybe it's the willingness to sit across from someone and pour their heart out. And when I think about guys like you and I, we probably check a lot of those boxes. I'm not even saying I'm not sociopathic. I probably am like, just, I'm going to call it what it is, but what I do believe in my heart. And what I know to be more true than anything is that when I connected to other human beings, a big part of this is being antisocial. And I really want to go into this. I felt like I was undeserving. I felt like I didn't matter. I felt like my feelings weren't valid. And I felt like unless I performed, I would never get love. And when you reverse that, we talked about this rational thinking, when you have rationality and defiance of this idea, idealization of the person you think you are, and you go and seek your needs being met, it's unbelievable the transformation that you would have. Would you agree with that?

Benoit Kim: Yes. And to even drive this deeper sociopathic tendency by nature is not good or bad. It's not just like anger, independent of actions is not good or bad. If you're lashing out of anger, that's bad verbal, physical, whatever abuses, that we went through, but anger just by itself is not a good or bad. It just is all emotions have functionality. Every emotions, Paul Ekman, he's a psychologist who defines six primary emotions that humans have. We have more. There's immutable emotions at 150 plus. In different cultures, like Japanese have words that describe certain emotions, like longing and love and belonging, that we have to use three different words for. But to bring this home, sociopathic tendency is not good or bad. Just like anger or sadness is not good or bad. They just are. But what are you doing about it? And how are you channeling the said emotion or the said tendencies? So, let's make this very relevant to you and I'm not a, I'm very empathetic just by nature and I think, but I also have the, I told you OCPD obsessive compulsory personality disorder. I have traits of that I shared when you're on my podcast earlier. What that means is I'm very good at hyper focused. I'm very good at blocking out distractions and noises. Meditation helps, but I have the innate characteristics in my heart, that's DNA. Shout out to my mom because she was a tiger mom, right? So, it's how we channel it that matters. So, for me, because I have certain traits, I'm able to have trauma therapy with my sociopathic clients and patients. When I look at their core report, it's fucking grotesque. It's gory details. There's no need to share that openly. But I don't carry that home. When I go to bed, I don't have nightmares. I don't lose sleep over what my patients did because I just don't. And that's a part of, you can argue sociopathic tendencies that served me really well as a psychotherapist in a forensic core mandate setting if I'm an empath, even though I don't even know what that fucking means. If our air quote empath, according to TikTok definition, I cannot do what I do. You cannot do what you do with the type of experience you've had and the clients you help. If you lose sleep over every traumatic stories your clients tells you, we'll be fucking dead. We'll be burnt out. So, the question, using your words earlier, it's not good or bad. Let's destroy the dichotomy. Rather reframe it as, does it serve us or does it no longer serve us at this moment.

Michael: Yeah, and the real thank you for all of this. By the way, the reason I wanted to go down the side tangent is actually because it was just like a path through the other woods. I wanted to walk by the lake a little bit and to come back to a very important question, we started this conversation about anger. Anger in your childhood, anger as a teen, anger in your 20s. How did you discover the other emotions and what was your process into allowing those other emotions to exist that have led you to where you are?

Benoit Kim: That's a great question. Yeah. I think for me is realizing and trying to validate the hidden underlying emotions that are beneath the shadow of anger. What do I mean by that? We only get angry at people or things or events when we care. That's it. If we're truly indifferent, we don't get disappointed. You don't get resentful. You don't get angry. Why was I angry at my mom? Because I cared about her. I cared about the dynamic of her family. That she was my mom and she did love me. She does love me. So, I think for me, I have to go beyond the surface problem. This is very common for relationship or couple therapy. People are, oh, I don't like him because he didn't do laundry or dishes. That's not the fucking reason why you're about to get divorced. It's not the dishes. It's not because he didn't throw out trash for the last two months, that's not it. What's underneath that? Go deeper. I went deeper beyond the surface of anger and I realized, oh, I care. I care about my being, I care about my wellness, I care about my recovery, and once I understood that it's about caring, I realized, oh wait, so it's not the anger then, it's not the behaviors, it's that I just want to feel belonged, I just want to be loved, I want to be seen. And three core ingredients that every human needs for wellness is the need to be seen, be heard, and be accepted. And that starts from a very young age of primary attachment that you know about, right? And I know you talked about a study, Adverse Childhood Experience on quite a few of podcast appearances. It was, you know this, but I just want to bring this home really briefly, if you ever to add on. It was a study that was found, established in 1995 to 1997. It just means that every single one of us have experiences that were adversarial to our grow up divorce, poverty, zip code, abuse, and so on. And you brought up genetics, nature versus nurture. The study shows that 60 percent of our materials biologically is epigenetics. That's our, it's the expressions of your DNA genomes based on environmental feedback. That's what nurture is. Nature is the DNA chromosomes underneath that. We're 60 percent nurturing and 40 percent genetics. This is confirmed, right? So, what does that mean? Wow. If you have adverse childhood experiences and you're continuing to unaddress them, you haven't attended to the trauma or the wounds, the open cuts we talked about with trauma earlier. They're not going anywhere, and the studies and evidence shows that people with adverse childhood experiences per age, it's a rating as right? If you have them unaddressed, your future health index fucking dips. Heart disease, depression, anxiety your longevity your health index drops based on your childhood trauma, right? But I want to really focus on nature and nurture, but that's what that means, right? You have to accept both. It's always both.

Michael: Yeah, there, if I were to look at the path that I was on, and the road that changed everything for me, it was actually discovering the ACE survey. I was 29. I was 30. I was 30 and I was sitting in my bedroom and I was on YouTube and I found this really weird video by this guy named Dr. Filetti. And it was like him just going through this Keynote and He brought up the ACE survey and he was ultimately the initially the one who launched the project. And that project was founded on obesity. He was treating people who had obesity, trying to understand what caused it. And what happened is a woman happened to mention that she was around her uncle. She had lost like 40 pounds, gained the 40 pounds in a month, dude, gain 40 pounds back because she had been, she had an exposure. To the uncle that had molested her in childhood. And because of that, her autonomic response to that stressor was to go and put on this weight to in her brain, make herself unattractive so that she would be safe. And I remember sitting there watching that. And I was like, everything about my life is different. That's why I talk about that all the time, because it's such a pivotal understanding that I have that is framework, my ability to go down this healing journey. And I think that it is ultimately education because it's the truth will set you free. And I think it's ultimately education that will heal you. And it is the willingness to be a part of these kinds of conversations to talk about. The most difficult things that we experience in life and to ultimately be able to sit in vulnerability as not only men, but as a human being, as women, as however it is that you choose to identify in the world, wherever, and it's to, just to recognize that even though you may have started off in whatever environment you come from, you can build, create, and shape your life into the environment that you want it to be. But you have to face your fear, you need to have help and I want to get closer to the end here because I know we're running out of time. But there's one question that I think is really important that probably not enough people talk about. And I'm curious for you, as you've gone through this entire journey, sobriety and healing and dealing with chaos and death and suicide and just so much pressure of the world. What is it that keeps you going?

Benoit Kim: I think it's answering the calling of my purpose and my just my place in this world, right? We talked about that. A lot of us think about carrying the burden of trauma and suffering. That is true. But what is equally true is carrying the burden of our calling is I'm the same way. I think we have very similar hardwares and I think you approach your coaching similar to how I approach therapy with, of course, different nuances and techniques. I say that because I realized. Because, for example, some of my friends from college since we're in different places, different chapters in life, and I'm only 30. And also don't subscribe to anything I say, what do I know about this world? I'm just speaking…

Michael: I say that all the time.

Benoit Kim: Speaking of truth seeking, alright? Cause I wanna upgrade my beliefs over time. So hopefully I can dispute and rebuke whatever I said four years ago, cause that's evolution. And evolution implies changes. My friends were asking me, Benoit, you work six days a week. You record every Saturday, SEO, business, hiring, firing, whatever. Why? I feel like you're doing pretty well in life. You could be a trophy husband with your fiancée being a physician because she's GI, so she'd be making bank. My goal in life is to be the most ambitious trophy husband. That's my life's motto. I'm getting there. My biggest long term investment. I'm about to invest that in a couple years. But jokes aside, I tell them, no, it's not because I'm conforming or I'm, I feel called to meet whatever societal expectations of what success means. That's not that. That was in my early 20s. I unlearned, deconditioned, and everything I'm doing now is by design. Period. It is I know that I'm born into this world and bring our philosophical discussion from earlier. We are simultaneously nothing in this world. Infinite flowing stardust in the constellation of skies. Wow, we're everything in this world because we are here. Descartes, I think, therefore I am. We matter because we exist, period. But also, we don't matter. Like you said, nihilistic beliefs are otherwise. And that's why I keep doing what I do, is I know my truth. And also, a lot of people says truth seeking, independent thinking, critical thinking, whatever buzzword. I learned in my life, I don't know if you feel the same way, but a lot of people say they want the truth. No, they don't. They want the conformity of truth. That's comfortable to their reality. They don't want the absolute real truth. They want the comfortable version of truth. But for me, I know my truth and I know my calling. My podcast is just an extension of my servant leadership. You're the exact same way. I volunteer at church every Sunday. That's the avenue I'm giving back to the world, whatever, because I do feel very grateful that I'm still alive, given whatever I've gone through in my life. But I know my truth. Not the conformity of truth, but my real truth. And I know that I owe it to myself to live up to the potential of my calling, whatever that means. And that's what keeps me going.

Michael: I love that. Because your truth is actually the only truth that matters. And, I said it before and I'll say it many times. The truth will set you free, but it's only your truth that will set you free because the world will look at a guy like me versus a guy like you and the world will tell me, Oh, this guy is six foot four covered in tattoo. Gold nose ring and says fuck all the time. What does he know about helping people? And the world may look at you in this very different light and go, Oh, he's educated and he served the country and he speaks four languages like he's the guy. The But either of us could be really great at our life or shit. And both of us have been both. And that's what I think is so fascinating. The one thing that you and I have in common that I believe that the people who really changed their lives have in common is their truth. That's what this has always been about. Think unbroken for me is always been about that. Can you get your ass in a position where you can go and look in the mirror and be okay with your reality? That's the game. That's what changes everything. That's how you become the hero of your own story. But while this has been amazing conversation, brother, thank you for this. Before I ask you my last question, please tell us where we can find you and learn more.

Benoit Kim: I don't have an awesome, best selling book like Michael yet, but maybe in the future because I subscribe to the long game perspective. But if you resonate, took away anything insightful from our conversations, remember this is my truth. I'm only 30. What do I know about this world? We have a YouTube channel Discover More Podcast, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and the whole nine.

Michael: And guys, please go to think I'm broken podcast. com for this and more, which we will put in the show notes. My last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Benoit Kim: As I shared earlier, I'll bring it back. I want to share, I know you have affinity for Japanese and samurai games. So I will, I'll play along even though Japanese are the colonizers of Korean. I don't really care. I don't really care beyond my generation. But I think unbroken for me means wabi sabi. It's a term I learned last week. It means the art of impermanence. I think that's what unbroken is simultaneously accepting that we are all broken in some way, because we are the grace of the sequence of life. At the same time, all pain, all suffering, just like success and failures are impermanent. We are impermanent and the absolute nature of life is also impermanence. So, what can we do within the space of impermanence? I think that's up to us.

Michael: Brilliantly said. I love that. And I believe that an impermanence is recognizing that also the worst thing that ever happened to you doesn't have to be the thing that defines you. So I, that hits very home for me. Thank you for that. Thank you for being here. Benoit unbroken nation. Thank you for listening guys. Please remember when you share this podcast, you're helping other people turn their breakdowns to breakthroughs, transform their trauma to triumph and to become the hero of their own story.

And Until Next Time,

My Friends Be Unbroken.

I'll See You.