Delusion or Optimism? | Hal Elrod

Hal Elrod was told he'd never walk again. Years later, doctors gave him a 20 to 30% chance of surviving a rare, aggressive cancer. Both times, he accepted the facts and refused to let the forecast decide his future. So where is the line between optimism and delusion?Hal is the author of The Miracle Morning, a book that has sold millions of copies and been published in dozens of countries. In this conversation he traces the path from a small-town grocery store and a high school detention record, through a head-on collision that stopped his heart for six minutes, to the 2008 crash that gave birth to The Miracle Morning, and the leukemia diagnosis that tested everything he taught.He also opens up about something he rarely talks about: the five years after chemo when the practices that had always worked for him stopped working, and how he found his way back to happiness.We explore the five-minute rule, the difference between surrender and giving up, why he chose chemo after vowing never to do it, what his schedule revealed about his priorities, and a prayer that changed his relationship with God.Read the companion essay, Delusion or Optimism?, at PersonalKosmology.com: [LINK]CHAPTERS0:00 Preview1:15 Welcome to The Personal Kosmology of Hal Elrod2:43 Growing up in a grocery store3:45 Losing his sister, and his mother's pain into purpose6:22 Yo Pal Hal, the teenage DJ10:18 From Catholic certainty to spiritual but not religious14:07 Quitting his dream job for Cutco17:52 Breaking the all-time sales record23:46 The crash26:45 The five-minute rule31:05 "We think he's in denial"35:02 Doctors, prognoses, and the power of belief41:41 Rock bottom in 200843:16 The birth of The Miracle Morning46:43 Three years to write the book49:55 Short by 987,000 copies51:41 Number one in Brazil and South Korea54:35 Workaholism and the family test55:52 A 20 to 30% chance of survival58:05 Chemo or holistic?1:02:29 Applying The Miracle Morning to cancer1:05:18 Learning silence1:08:00 Five hard years after chemo1:12:49 Why he still does it1:14:48 Talking to God, or something else?1:19:31 Writing The Miracle Morning for Teens with his kids1:21:35 The book on the five-minute rule1:22:48 Where to find HalLINKSHal Elrod: https://halelrod.comThe Miracle Morning (books, movie, app): https://miraclemorning.comPersonal Kosmology: https://personalkosmology.comPersonal Kosmology explores science, spirituality, and meaning-making through personal storytelling. Hosted by Devin Martin.

At 12, Garrain Asé, formerly Garrain Jones, lost his father to murder. Minutes before this interview, I watched his last name change on my calendar invite.In the years after his father's death, he was labeled bad, weird and ADD, broke into cars and homes, modeled in Los Angeles, lived in his car for two and a half years, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison abroad. Then he wrote a bestselling book, built a movement around the inner child, and, just before we recorded, changed his last name.Garrain is the author of Change Your Mindset, Change Your Life and the creator of Artist Power, a practice for recovering the expression we learned to suppress as children. We talk about how other people's judgments become our own, why he released a name he traces to a slave owner, the prayer in which he offered up everything he had, and what it means to father yourself.CHAPTERS00:00 Cold open01:25 Every kid is an artist03:21 Church, temple and mosque: a childhood across faiths05:28 Uncle Dwayne, George Michael and learned judgment07:48 A father murdered at 12, and a vow never to drink09:38 ADD, and "He's not bad. He's just bored."12:54 Re-parenting and finding the masculine15:44 The weird kid and the shadow side of entrepreneurship17:56 Crucibles and rites of passage18:27 Rich kids, resilience and voluntary discomfort21:55 Saying it until it happens23:49 The Power of Positive Thinking, read 300 times31:34 Working with the ego32:43 Little Garrain and the hero's journey34:42 How Change Your Mindset, Change Your Life was written41:57 Getting it out: conviction and the body45:27 Why we fear public speaking47:50 On stage, and speaking your audience's language49:44 The birth of Artist Power51:25 Why so many wealthy people are deeply sad53:13 Playing to remember versus playing to avoid55:23 Going to sleep empty, with one question58:24 Body, practice and daily ritual1:02:01 Life's tests, and how you know you've passed1:07:11 The seven-year itch and letting go of everything1:08:40 The body as temple, and fathering himself1:14:04 Why he released the name Jones1:17:11 The diner, Gorée and the name Asé1:19:59 The commercial and the perennial in religion1:23:20 Emptiness, nature and the real self1:26:34 Released from prison, and what comes nextRESOURCES MENTIONEDChange Your Mindset, Change Your Life by Garrain Asé (published as Garrain Jones)The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent PealeCONNECTGarrain Asé on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/garrainase/Read the essay, "Who Named You?": [ESSAY LINK]Personal Kosmology: https://PersonalKosmology.comDevin Martin, executive coaching: https://lifestyleintegrity.comThis episode includes discussion of violence, incarceration, drug use and racism.

5-MeO-DMT, Ego Death, and a Medicine Without a Lineage | Joel BrierreJoel Brierre took LSD before school at 13. By 18 he had been through addiction to heroin, crack and crystal, had run with Washington, DC's criminal underworld, and had been in and out of jail. His first experience with 5-MeO-DMT came in a dope house where eleven people shared a two-bedroom apartment. In his words, there was no container.Today Joel is the founder and CEO of Tandava, a 5-MeO-DMT retreat center in Tepoztlán, Mexico, and of the F.I.V.E. Institute, which works on education, harm reduction, practitioner training and research.Devin and Joel trace the path between those two lives. It runs through yoga and meditation, teachers in the Caribbean, India and Mexico, and an ayahuasca ceremony with the Shipibo in which Joel was told the medicine wasn't his to serve, then shown 5-MeO-DMT as "a medicine without a lineage." They explore what makes 5-MeO different from every other psychedelic, why the last thing the mind asks before letting go is whether it's safe to lose control, and why the people who can hold that space have usually been through crucibles of their own.IN THIS EPISODE• Growing up biracial with seeker parents, and why he says lighter skin kept him out of prison• Peyote ceremonies, a Wirrárika fire circle, and a rain ceremony in a drought• How 5-MeO-DMT differs from DMT, and what it means that there is no observer• The invented history of the "ancient" toad ritual• Why low-dose vape pens aren't safe• Raising capital during the psychedelic bubble• What a safe container looks like: screening, preparation, two facilitators, and integration that isn't damage control• Pairing ibogaine and 5-MeO, Eli Lilly's 5-MeO program, and the road to legal access• How to vet a facilitatorCHAPTERS00:00 Cold open01:34 Meet Joel02:34 Seeker parents and a multicultural childhood in DC04:19 Early non-ordinary states and LSD at 1306:04 Addiction, jail and the underworld07:58 Yoga, meditation and a book that "changes lives"11:08 San Pedro in Peru at 1812:04 A ceremony that brought his father back18:34 Peyote, the Wirrárika and the rain ceremony23:00 Moving between cultures, and racial imposter syndrome25:34 Crucibles and holding space30:43 5-MeO-DMT vs DMT33:52 The fabricated toad origin story39:10 A medicine without a lineage44:41 Vape pens and harm reduction45:25 Founding Tandava and the dance of Shiva48:50 Raising capital in the psychedelic bubble54:53 Non-hallucinogenic analogs and brain health58:10 Inside a Tandava program1:10:54 Ibogaine and 5-MeO1:19:42 Why Mexico1:22:03 Eli Lilly, the FDA and the church pathway1:23:59 How to choose a facilitator, and books to readRESOURCES MENTIONED• Tandava: https://tandavaretreats.com/• The F.I.V.E. Institute: https://www.fiveinstitute.com/• The Ego Trip by Kimon de Greef• Tryptamine Palace by James Oroc• The Toad and the Jaguar by Ralph Metzner• Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman• How to Change Your Mind by Michael PollanCONNECT• Personal Kosmology: https://personalkosmology.com• Devin Martin, executive coaching: https://lifestyleintegrity.comThis episode includes discussion of psychedelics and past drug use. It is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. 5-MeO-DMT carries serious medical risks and contraindications, and its legal status varies by country.

What should a scientist do when experience refuses to fit the accepted explanation?Neil Theise has spent his career studying the human body under a microscope. His research helped clarify the interstitium, a body-wide network of fluid-filled spaces within connective tissue, and led him from stem cells into complexity theory.But some of the most important data in Neil’s life arrived outside the laboratory.His mother spoke with dead relatives during hospice, began walking and eating again, and lived for another six years. Afterward, the visitors continued. Neil has also experienced the presence of his dead dog, father, brother, and grandmother.A materialist framework asks us to dismiss these experiences as delusion, dementia, drugs, or deceit. Neil takes a different approach: pay attention to what is happening, hold the experience without forcing an explanation, and remain open to what the evidence may eventually reveal.In this conversation, we trace Neil’s journey from a Jewish family shaped by the Holocaust, through a suicidal crisis in medical school, decades of Zen practice, a career in pathology, and the moment science and spirituality stopped appearing separate.We explore:• Why Neil went to medical school so people would attend his funeral• The suicidal crisis that forced him to confront being gay• How Zen practice changed the way he approached scientific discovery• What complexity theory reveals about bodies, cells, and identity• Why nothing exists independently at every scale of reality• The interstitium as a body-wide connective system• His mother’s deathbed visions and apparent encounters with the dead• Why Neil believes the brain may receive rather than produce consciousness• What science loses when it dismisses anomalous experience• How beginner’s mind makes better science possibleNeil Theise is a pathologist, professor, complexity theorist, Zen practitioner, and author of Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being.Personal Kosmology traces the lives of people willing to question the maps they inherited. By understanding how other people make sense of life, we may better understand how we make sense of our own.Subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of science, spirituality, consciousness, and personal transformation.https://personalkosmology.comCHAPTERS00:00 Cold Open01:36 Welcome to the Personal Kosmology of Neil Theise06:08 A Jewish Childhood Shaped by the Holocaust17:24 Mysticism, Kabbalah, and an Altered State at Fourteen24:38 Why Neil Went to Medical School29:05 Depression, Suicide, and Coming Out32:43 Discovering Zen41:22 From Medicine to Pathology45:35 Complexity Theory Changes Everything48:51 Am I a Body or a Collection of Cells?50:41 A Scientific Experience of Emptiness57:06 Ghosts, Deathbed Visions, and Neil’s Mother01:08:44 Does Consciousness Come First?01:14:39 The Brain as a Receiver01:23:05 When the Dead Have Unfinished Business01:26:24 Bringing His Grandmother Home01:35:37 Can a Scientist Speak Openly About Ghosts?01:41:16 Is Materialism Beginning to Crack?01:49:09 The Interstitium Reaches The New York Times01:51:13 What Being a Scientist Really Means

Every piano you have ever heard is slightly out of tune, on purpose. Alexandre Tannous has spent his life studying what choices like that have cost us, and what sound can give back.Alexandre grew up in Beirut, where civil war broke out when he was nine and lasted fourteen years. The war reached him through sound, and years later sound became his way back. He began meditating at fourteen, earned four degrees in music, walked away from a doctorate at Columbia, and went on to study how people use sound in more than forty countries. Today he leads sound meditations around the world.We talk about how equal temperament traded resonance for convenience, how the music around us shapes our moods without our noticing, why he refuses to call his work "sound healing," and how sound helped him recover memories of a childhood that trauma had erased. We also explore relabeling the past as a rite of passage, why so many high achievers carry unresolved trauma, and why he believes that when we lost tonality, we lost God."The only way to survive and heal is to relabel the past." - Alexandre TannousRead the companion essay, "Tempered," on PersonalKosmology.comLearn more about Alexandre: SoundMeditation.com CHAPTERS00:00 Cold open01:14 Introducing Alexandre Tannous03:12 Growing up in Beirut's civil war06:58 Learning to meditate at 1415:40 Equal temperament and the harmonic series28:59 Relabeling the past as a rite of passage32:37 Episteme and gnosis34:02 Why he rejects the term "sound healing"35:18 Sound and recovered memories37:54 Psychedelics, shamans, and the role of music49:37 Entrainment: films, jingles, and functional music54:54 Overtone singing1:03:44 Alcohol and self-medication1:04:45 Friendly fire: trauma in the body1:06:34 Money, safety, and the dark day1:08:20 High achievers and unresolved trauma1:14:40 Music that keeps us stuck1:16:44 Improvising versus extemporizing1:27:52 We lost tonality, we lost God1:31:05 Why humans alter consciousness

When your life falls apart, how do you know whether you’re breaking down or breaking through?Tom Morgan went from Eton and Oxford to a successful career on Wall Street. Then an experience of overwhelming, unconditional love opened into a crisis that left him questioning his sanity, his identity, and everything he thought he knew.Spiritual teachers saw awakening. Psychiatrists saw mental illness. Tom had to find his way through the experience and its aftermath.Tom first came to me as a coaching client and became a close friend. In this conversation, we explore the hero’s journey as an operating manual for transformation, including the difficult work of returning to ordinary life after something extraordinary has happened.We discuss:• Spiritual awakening, psychological breakdown, and the overlap between them• The cost of becoming good at living by other people’s values• Curiosity as a guide when achievement stops providing direction• Why leaving an old identity doesn’t mean discarding everything it taught you• The role of community in helping us navigate profound changeTom is the founder of The Leading Edge, a community exploring curiosity, consciousness, and human development.Follow Personal Kosmology wherever you listen for conversations that bring science, spirituality, and personal experience into dialogue.Watch episodes and explore more: https://personalkosmology.comPersonal Kosmology with Devin MartinSeason 1, Episode 9 | Tom MorganSeeking Stories that Unite.

Kelly Gores made the documentary HEAL to explore a radical idea: our beliefs, emotions, relationships, and inner lives can shape what happens in the body.Then her own life broke open.While navigating the end of her marriage, profound grief, motherhood, and the Palisades fire that destroyed her home, Kelly discovered a gap between understanding healing and having the emotional capacity to live it.Trying to help her daughter through a difficult emotion, she had a devastating realization: “I don’t even know how to name your feelings. I can’t name mine.”This conversation explores the distance between insight and embodiment. Kelly shares how childhood people-pleasing shaped her identity, why acting forced her to confront the performance of self, and how rejection and depression opened the door to meditation, intuition, and a radically different understanding of consciousness.We also explore:• How unprocessed emotions can remain trapped in the body  • Why emotions are real without always being reality  • The difference between intuition, conditioning, and fear  • Manifestation, resonance, and trusting what the body knows  • Why psychedelics can reveal the work but cannot do it for you  • The danger of collecting peak experiences without integration  • How technology and AI might help return us to our bodies  • Why Kelly’s next film, FEEL, requires her to become part of the storyHEAL offered a message of agency: we have more influence over our health than we have been taught to believe.FEEL asks the harder question: Can we actually embody what we know when life overwhelms the nervous system?Subscribe to Personal Kosmology for conversations about consciousness, transformation, science, spirituality, and the stories shaping what humanity may become.

Brett Hurt began programming at seven and eventually founded Coremetrics, co-founded Bazaarvoice, took it public, and founded data.world. He made the money, bought the Lamborghini, and achieved the freedom he had imagined since childhood.Then he tried retirement.“It was so empty,” he says. “It was so empty.”Success forced Brett to confront a question failure had allowed him to postpone: What is all this capability for?His search led inward through mystical experiences, psychedelics, meditation, and the writing of Love Conquers Fear. It also changed how he understood the responsibilities of technologists as artificial intelligence expands humanity’s power.In this conversation, we explore success and emptiness, the uneven development of powerful people, love as an expansion of who counts, the structural dangers surrounding AI, and why inner work matters even though it cannot replace regulation, accountability, or distributed ownership.We have moved from “revenge of the nerds” to “responsibility of the nerds.”The AI alignment problem begins within.

John W. Price signed his record deal in blood. Then he became a single father with a crib beside his bed and no idea who to be.How do you grow up, make a living, and become someone others can depend on without losing what makes you alive?John’s path took him from touring musician to Jungian psychotherapist through unexpected fatherhood, sobriety, meditation, and a psychology class that moved him to tears. A student who had scraped by suddenly found himself earning straight A’s. He eventually earned a doctorate in Jungian psychology.But the fire never went away.In this episode of Personal Kosmology, we explore what happens when a life built around freedom and intensity meets the demands of caring for someone else. We talk about the people who helped John find his way, the therapist whose 90-day challenge became five years without alcohol, and the fear that becoming quieter might cost us our spark.We also get into the difference between growing older and growing wiser, and what happens when we lack role models or rites of passage to guide us. Adulthood asks us to find our place within society. Elderhood asks us to go further: to challenge society and help it evolve. That takes discernment, responsibility, and enough of our original fire to question the world we have learned to inhabit.IN THIS CONVERSATION• Music, belonging, and the freedom to be yourself• Unexpected single fatherhood and the end of an imagined future• Sobriety and the power of someone who can challenge you• Meditation, ambition, and the fear of losing your edge• Discovering psychology after years of struggling in school• Jung, spirituality, and the limits of certainty• Therapy, authentic connection, and what it means to care• Maturity, mentorship, and tending your fireWhat part of yourself have you worked hardest to keep alive as you’ve grown up?ABOUT JOHNJohn W. Price, PhD, LPC, is a depth psychotherapist, musician, and host of The Sacred Speaks. He co-founded The Center for the Healing Arts and Sciences.CONNECT WITH JOHNWebsite: https://www.drjohnwprice.com/The Sacred Speaks: https://www.youtube.com/c/thesacredspeaksThe Center for the Healing Arts and Sciences: https://www.thecenterforhas.com/PERSONAL KOSMOLOGYI’m Devin Martin, an executive life coach collecting the origin stories of seekers. By understanding how extraordinary people make sense of life, you’ll better understand how you make sense of your own.Explore the show: https://personalkosmology.com/Follow on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033NFLUJZEpM757VPosS9HSubscribe for more conversations about how we become who we are, and who we might become next.Personal Kosmology: Long-form conversations about the stories we live inside, one life at a time.

“You don’t really learn much when you learn about a person’s genetics.”That is a surprising claim from Linea Avey (formerly Linda Avey), co-founder of 23andMe. But it captures the journey that followed her breakthrough in personal genomics: the more we learn to measure about a human being, the clearer it becomes that no measurement tells the whole story.Linea traces her path from Lutheran minister’s daughter and committed atheist to biotech entrepreneur, health-systems builder, and spiritual explorer. She recounts spitting into an early saliva DNA kit, discovering that her genome was sitting on a company server, and realizing that the science existed before anyone knew how to put it into people’s hands. That insight led to an early meeting at Google, a partnership with Anne Wojcicki, and the creation of 23andMe.But genetics was only the beginning. Linea explains why genes need phenotype and lived context, why individuals should own their health data, and why prevention cannot thrive inside a system financially organized around treating sickness. From patient-led research and wearable technology to AI and the Lifespan Project, her work has become a search for a more complete model of human health.Then the conversation moves beyond what science currently knows how to measure. Linea reflects on materialism, consciousness, non-human intelligence, an unexplained light in the sky, and the breathwork session that led her to change her name from Linda to Linea.We also explore:The saliva test that helped inspire 23andMeMeeting Anne Wojcicki and becoming an unexpected entrepreneurWhy genetic information is nearly meaningless without contextParticipatory research, chronic illness, and wearable dataBuilding a prevention-first alternative to the sick-care systemPersonal ownership of health dataScience, spirituality, UAP, and the limits of certaintyThe meaning behind her new nameThis is a conversation about genetics, health, identity, consciousness, and what happens when curiosity becomes stronger than certainty.Personal Kosmology - Long-form conversations about the stories we live inside — one life at a time. - PersonalKosmology.com