David Sorkin: Becoming Who You’re Meant to Be

Ben BeeriDavid Sorkin.

David SorkinExcited to have you on today, man. I'm very happy to be here. I'm also stoked, and I'm sure we're gonna reveal a lot of cool things. Hell, yeah. Let's dive right in. No. As I was as I was driving over here, I was thinking about, you know, what what intention do I wanna set? And I find that on one hand, right, there there's past wisdom that has been revealed even personally. Right? We we learn different philosophies, but then you take your own take on it, and you kinda reveal your own framework and way to articulate it. On the other hand, I want to reveal new revelations in this conversation.

So I'm coming in with it. Would love to share about things that I've talked about with friends over the months, years, weeks that I feel like are beautiful sparks of revelation. On the other hand, there's beauty in in this conversation. We're gonna digress and reveal new thoughts that then we can carry over into conversations with other friends and say, hey. When I was on podcast with Ben, we revealed this idea. And what I what I really enjoy, I think it's something that I'm I'm blessed with, is this idea of taking an idea and and talking through it and going step by step until we unpack it. And once we unpack it, then we really got to the nugget, and we chronologically see, wow. We systemized this, and now it makes total sense. So I'm sure over this podcast, we're gonna take a high level idea

Ben Beeriand go down the layers until we get to the nugget. That's what I'm really excited for. Dude, I am too. Let's do it. Like, what's an idea that's been on your mind that you've really been thinking about lately?

David SorkinWell, I can think back maybe on one hand, maybe a little bit more of like a physical issue when I went to a friend's backyard barbecue, and it was late at night. We got In N Out, and some of the boys were smoking. And we were just talking about worldly issues. Like, what are some of the, quote, unquote, big issues that plague our generation? So one was addiction to phone. One was homelessness. One was masturbation. And, you know, like, these kinda high level things that maybe are impacting people in their twenties like myself.

So for example, we talked about TikTok. So we start high level. Okay. What is going on with this idea of TikTok, and why is it, you know, all social medias have gone through a form of TikTok TikTokification, right, where it's now the for you page on Instagram with Snapchat, even LinkedIn. They're taking the TikTok model. And, you know, first of all, it's very easy to use. Second of all, it's convenient. Third of all, it's tailored towards exactly what you want. So you're not gonna watch something that you wouldn't appreciate.

And the ease of access. Right? So you have a lot of things that are making it very conducive. It's a great business model. Now from the consumer's perspective, you gotta ask, you know, what makes it prone to being addicting. Right? Those four elements. But I sensed, you know, like, okay, how do we fix it? How do we help the world? And I thought of, if you make everybody watch each TikTok all the way through, then you will get somebody to watch a brainwrap video that's forty five seconds, and they can't scroll past it. And they will sit there and say, oh my gosh, what the heck am I watching? And I'm getting off the app.

So the problem or not the problem, but the opportunity is that fast motion of I don't like it for a second. I'm I'm out. That doesn't really apply to any other part of our life of I'm putting in I'm touching my toe, and then I'm out. And then I get out, out, out, out, out. And then what happened even for myself, I wouldn't even I didn't have TikTok for many years. I downloaded it for Lucy Goosey as the business. And still, you catch yourself losing patience. To watch a full forty minute YouTube video or even like an eighty five second clip on Instagram, it's like, oh, already got it fast forward double tap. It's that speed has rewired the dopamine pathways in the brain. So that was kind of idea. High level TikTok.

Ben BeeriWhat's a good solution if the apps mandated it so that every video you have to watch all the way through? Well, I think, I mean, it's kind of like in life. Right? I mean, in life, you don't get to dip your toes and go out. Right? Yeah. Like any situation that comes up in your life, you've got to see it all the way through. Right. Right? Like whatever is going on, like, I mean, okay, you sit at a restaurant, you're having a poor experience, like, conditioning is not working in the restaurant, like, server comes up, he's rude.

Like, you've already ordered your food, your food's taking a while, like, I mean, sure. I suppose you could just get up and leave.

David SorkinRight? You do have that option. Right? I mean, how many times do we actually do that in our lives? Here's how it it would be this impractical. You walk into a restaurant, you look at the waiter. Oh, I don't like her amount. Yeah. You're never even gonna sit down for a meal. Yeah. Because how many times are there opportunities for you not to like something? Yeah. But on TikTok or Yeah. This form of fast gratification, it's the moment one thing you don't like about it, I'm out. You walk into the airport, you don't like the TSA guy. It's like, I'm not flying. So what flying today. That ends up being you're just gonna sit up. Yeah.

Ben BeeriTotally. Totally. And you get to a point where you're used to seeing something and just abort. Abort. Right. Like, get it, like, just get it done. Like, I mean and it's interesting. Right? I mean, you and I are both sports fans. I mean, you watch sports. I mean, imagine watching your team and it's like, hey, opposing team scores the first bucket. It's like, I'm out. Like, I'm not watching this game. And it's like and there's so many things that happen in our lives that don't start off well. Or that start off well, we wanna sit in it for a few minutes, then as soon as it's not going well, you back out. Right? Like, your TikTok can have the perfect hook. Five seconds, you're good. Ten seconds, you're good. After fifteen seconds, you want to be out. You're no longer watching that video. You're swiping to the next.

And then what is it in our lives that we're actually trying to run from Yeah. That we use TikTok to express that we're not willing and able to kind of sit still on a thought and see something all the way through. Right. 100%.

David SorkinThat that's what I was talking to a friend about recently. You know, what what's even at the crux of the issue? And I'll kinda jump to a tangent. So to set kind of the stage for the way that I'm trying to converse nowadays. So, actually, my friend Parker, who were just on the phone with us, we we were talking and we talked maybe a couple times a week about these, you know, high level ideas, but also we bring them down to our lives and we talk through them and push each other to grow. And I started talking to her about, hey. You know, what is the most likely question that somebody's gonna ask you within the first eight seconds of an interaction?

How are you? And typically, the response is good. How are you? Good. So it's like you have this moment of time that maybe is not revealing much energy into the cosmos. It's just kinda like a gap. It's like a it's like a how do I describe it? It's just inserting just a it's like a bubble of nothingness, potentially. And then the conversation continues. And on one hand, somebody said, well, that's just being polite. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. Okay. We kinda got through that point. But on the on the other hand, I wanted as I was talking with Parker, this idea of having intention with every word, you know, being detail oriented, really making sure we're bringing intention and patience and consciousness into all forms of interaction.

So, you know, the first question was, how do I gauge how someone is without asking them how are you? Because let's say, maybe the person I'm speaking with is already prone to answering good immediately because the whole I mean, it's involuntary. Right. I mean, you get asked how are you. Yes. You're gonna respond with good or fine or oh, good. How are you? Like

Ben Beeriand you even change your tone of voice to this, like, automatic rehearsed Right. Involuntary, like, saying, like, you I wouldn't even respond to you, like, oh, I'm good. David, how are you? Like, it's just, how are you? Good. How are you? And it's just so nice and quick. And it's almost like, okay. Just tell me you're good too so we could both get on with our fucking day. Right. Right. It's like, it's just a quick check. Boom boom. But even if I said shitty and you say, oh, okay. Well, yeah, all of a sudden that throws things off. Right? But then if you wanna continue the conversation, right, after you say good, right, then you can start talking about the weather or I can start talking about the weather or trees outside are nice or the sky is blue.

And it's like there's all these things that you start talking about that really mean absolutely nothing.

David SorkinSo my point was to her, how do I gauge how someone's doing without asking them, how are you? I started thinking about that, and it was something that stumped us. How do I gauge how how how are you without asking you how are you?

Ben BeeriWhat do you think? How how did you Well, I think at the end of the day, everybody's got body language. Right? So it's like, I mean, are they open? Are open to a conversation? Can you start talking about something different? Are they optimistic? Are they talking about their future plans? Are they talking about things that they're excited about? Are they sitting there? Are they dwelling on the past? Right. Or there some kind of issue they've got going on? Is there somebody that's being blamed for something that they have going on in their life right now? Like, is there a lack of accountability?

Right? Because usually, if you're in a good place in life, there's something that's happened in your life that you're not extremely happy with. Like, there's just a certain level of accountability. Like, hey, this happened. Like, I learned from it. Like, I'm grateful that I got the opportunity to learn from this. Now, I see things clearly and I can move from here to here. This is like where I actually want to go. Right. So I feel like essentially, you've got there's some people that live in the future. There's some people that live in the past.

Ultimately, the best place to be is in the present. Right? Yeah. And it's like, but you'd rather be in the future than in the past because if you're looking in the future, you're hopeful. And if you're looking in the past, then you're really just holding on to something and something that you still need to work through. Right. It needs to be worked through. And it's like, so it's really interesting. So if you can ask somebody, like, we did our event earlier this week. We had people draw three cards. One card was light, one card was love, and one card was life. And we asked each person to reflect on that word. Hey, what does this word mean to you? What does love mean to you? What does life mean to you? What does light mean to you?

Reflect on that and it's like, how has this shaped you? Yeah. How has love shaped you? How has life shaped you? How has light shaped you? And based off of somebody's answers, you can tell it's like, hey, this person is like hopeful for the future. This person's living in the present. It's kinda cool. This person's still working on holding on to something from the past. And I've been there before. I've been holding on to things from the past. It's a very painful place to be. I mean, you've got to go through a slow process of letting go, like accepting it. First, you've got to accept it, but you've got to you've got to release it in a way where you really give your chance yourself a chance to move past it and, like, learn from it and grow from it.

David SorkinYeah. So as I'm talking to Parker about this idea and I posed the question, how do we gauge how someone's doing without asking them? And, you know, we talked about reading between the lines, gauging their body language. You could sense how someone's doing if you're intuitive and can feel their energy. And I said, well, how does God gauge how we're doing if he's not asking how you're doing? Right? He he can he can see in this in this third in this third point of view view. Right? He can gauge based on how you're interacting with yourself in alone time. He can gauge how, you know, you're replaying things in the past or anticipating the future. So it's this kinda looking at all the details and co coalescing into a perspective on how someone's doing. So then I said we we call we spoke the next day, and I could tell that the conversation was about to lead to how are you. She called. She said, hey, David Sorkin. I said, hey, Parker.

And I could gauge it was about to be how are you. And before she said, how are you? I said I said, hey, again, like to interrupt her. And I think she caught that. And I said, well, what if we try to speak for the next however long we're gonna speak without asking questions? Let's try to have a conversation without asking questions. Not to say that questions are worth demeaning. In fact, questions are so vital that in may maybe they are not getting enough appreciation. Because what is a question? It's basically it's a it's a vessel for infinity. It's you could get a billion answers to any one question.

The moment you get an answer, it it kind of fills the cup. And now, right, as we learn in Kabbalah, now there's light and vessel, and that's it. The cyst the the circuit is complete. But a question and my my old teacher, Michael Ocher, always used to say that you should be a question. Live your life as a question without seeking that immediate answer. Because the moment you seek the answer, kind of the vessel has now been filled. So questions are the most powerful. So to really feel that, let's conversate without asking a question, and you'll see, wow, they are so important.

So we can talk about certain things. And also, what does a question do? It changes the dynamic. Right? It brings the energy from one side into the next. So it's constantly light vessel shifting. So if I'm talking and I wanna switch it over to you, I'm gonna ask you a question. And then you're talking, we're gonna switch it back. Now we need to figure out how to have very much attention to our words, to our mind. You inevitably have more pause and silence as you're trying to really think through this, which is very cool too to have silence in conversation.

And now you figure out a way. I mean, is like Chris Voss stuff, right, about learning how to use your speech in an astute way to be convincing. You have to learn how to use your words in a way that can ask a question without asking. So for example, I said, I assume you had a good week. Yeah. I did. I actually really did. So let's ask you. I assume you had a good week, Ben. That's a statement. But in reality, it's phrased as a question because it's gonna invite you to clarify or to push back. Yeah.

So Oh, I had a really shitty week actually, David. No. I'm just playing with it. So let's let's let's go with that. Let's say you you said I had a shitty week. If I wanna ask for more detail, I gotta figure out a way to do it without saying who, what, where, when, why. Yeah.

Ben BeeriSo you get a little bit bolder. You'd make some kind of an assumption. Would say I would say,

David Sorkintell me more. Yeah. That's not a question. That's a say, tell me more. Or you seem down. Tell me more. Yeah. Blah blah blah blah. Yeah. So we don't need to force it. I just thought it was funny. But the reason why I'm bringing this whole thing up was later, I went to a dinner, and I and I spoke about this with another group of friends. And I said, guys, you wanna try this game? It's fun. It's difficult. And one friend who he's a little bit older than me. We have a great relationship. He's like he's like uncle to me. I call him unc, and he's always willing for my sake from a place of love to push back and really make sure I'm growing as a human, and I'm not speaking from a place of ego and or narrative. And he said, why the fuck would we play that game? And I said, well, I I went I think I went if I remember correctly, I went to a whole tangent about humanity.

I said the word we. I said we have a problem at times where we use questions, and we don't actually mean them, and we're asking how are you. So I used this blanket statement of we. And he said, well, how do you know I do that? And I said, that makes sense. You know, like, how do I know with certainty that you do this? Because in reality, right, we learn also in Kabbalah that there's one perspective where it's just you and the creator, and the whole universe was built for you. And everybody else is here to support your you are the center of the universe.

So what's the point of even including the word we in your the way you're talking about people? So for the next three hours to, like, one in the morning, we were he was grilling me, grilling me. What did you mean by that? Why? Is there something more subconscious? What is there what's what's going on here? At the end of it, it really showed me a lot, like, one related to including other people in your point of view. Right? He said, you are David Sorkin. You don't know what Ben Beeri is going through. For sure, you don't. You could pick up on little things, but it may be viewed as one extreme, right, one perspective. And on the other hand, the Kabbalists say, you are here to support the whole world, and you're like an ant, and there's humility there. And, right, you are meant to share and uplift Ben to be the center of his universe.

So I see both perspectives. But really, it goes back to just giving more attention to that. Like, can I have enough presence and concentration to choose? For the next five minutes, I'm gonna operate from the frame of reference of David Sorkin. And then the next five, I'm gonna solely be meditating on Ben, and he's the center of the universe, I'm here to support him. And the last thing, we went to dinner. He took me out for my belated birthday, and he gave me a toast. He said, David, I I bless for this year for any veils to be removed from your eyes related to, you know, your power and your ability to nourish the world and share with the world. And not this grand ego view of I'm the shit. Really to see, like, the power that we all have within each other, this unique, very powerful spark. And again, as we learn in Kabbalah, right, we have the same spark that the divine has. So technically, we have that expansiveness expansiveness as well.

And the last thing he said is, he looked at me and he said, David, I just I blessed for you to be unconditionally David Sorkin. Yeah. And what it what did that feel like for me? The analogy I I like analogy, so the viewers will probably hear me use analogies a lot in this conversation. It felt like when you have a a a clear nose and you go to the beach and you take such a fresh deep breath, you can actually smell the sea salt and you can, like, smell the crispness of the air. That's what it feels like to be unconditionally David Sorkin. On the other hand, when you live from a place of narrative, even us who study spirituality, right, the danger in spirituality, and I've seen it for myself, is you learn these concepts, and now everything has to fit into that paradigm and framework.

Even though it looks like we're talking through spirituality, it's still a little bit robotic because it's, oh, everything has to go back. Oh, why is this my tikkun and this? Why is it my movie? Just go back to having, again, freshness, new light, new revelation, And living through more of like a narrative identity as you talked about, it feels like a nose that has just is clogged with boogers or whatever. And what happens? You sleep worse. Your day just feels more heavy. You can't work out at all. It just feels like there's not that vibrancy.

And then that that got me thinking about identity. Right? And on one hand, you need to be very proud of yourself, and you need to recognize your power and see, hey, look at all the trophies you have in your, you know, your life. Look how many beautiful things you've done. So you kinda walk into any room already knowing your power. I'm like like, I'm like Bill Russell. I got 12 rings on. But what happens is now you come into every room already with sort of a past view of yourself already kinda made. So you're coming in. I'm the guy that has 12 rings, but that's kind of stale. That's in the past.

Where is that renewal? Where is that vibrancy? You need fresh. And I'll I'll throw it back to you in one last second. I was listening to a lecture from a teacher, Marcus Weston, in UK. And yesterday, was talking about, you know, the portion of the Sabbath, and he was saying how the sages would describe two systems. On one hand, there was one Hebrew word he used, I don't remember, and another. One described a man made tank, like like a tank of water that's finite and enclosed. What happens in there? Water starts to pool.

And then what happens? Bacteria grows and you get the moss. So there's no freshness. On the other hand, you get a well that has water coming from underground. There's constant renewal, constant flow, constant movement. So on one hand, we need to be proud and come to every interaction knowing our power. And on one hand, that does include the past. I'm grateful for look at what you've done. You know, you are powerful. On the other hand, you don't want to be stuck within the framework of this box tank. You want freshness.

And that's why when we spoke at the beginning of this podcast, I said, on one hand, I want to bring revelations that I've talked about and things that I feel like you'd find cool and we could talk about, which is this is what's happening in the last twenty minutes. I'm talking about things that have happened in the last week or so, two weeks ago. But on the on the other hand, we need to reveal new light, new revelations, new understandings. So I bring all that to preface. Now we've caught up. I'm now back to the present, and my intention is let's to reveal new light and new revelations, and we can talk go back and talk about different things. But that was a a long setup for now we're here, and I want to talk about freshness and really unpack it. Amazing.

Ben BeeriAnd one thing is that I really admire you for is that quest to be a 100% David Sorkin. Like, how close to a 100% can you actually get to yourself? Like every single person you meet, like how close to a 100% of themselves can they get to? And I was thinking about this a lot lately because we all constantly think about where we are relative to where we want to be. And we often use the word, like, unmet potential. Right? It's like, how close to my potential am I getting? But the thing about potential is potential is limitless.

There is no limit to the amount of potential that one can achieve. So the only thing that we're really missing is expressed authenticity. And the only thing that unmet potential is is unexpressed authenticity. And it's like how close to a 100% of Ben Beeri am I being? That's what matters. And it's like, realistically, it's like we're coming on here. We're doing a podcast. Is there a specific agenda as to what we're talking to? Will this episode be the same as the last one we had with the last guest? Will it be a similar structure?

Here's the thing. It doesn't actually matter. Yeah. Like, what matters is is 100 per as close to 100% of Ben Beeri comes to the table. He's sitting across from as close to a 100% of David Sorkin, and that makes for a different recipe and a different conversation every time. 100%. And in regular life, when we interact with people, sometimes we see somebody as like, oh, I don't wanna be friends with this person. I don't wanna date this person. Uh, this person, I don't know. They did this. This is a red flag. I don't like that about them.

David SorkinBut

Ben Beerimaybe it's not a red flag. Maybe that's just as close to a 100% as they are. And you guys are just not compatible to be around each other. Like, it's not conducive to your mutual growth. And it's like so then it's about who are the people that you can come across and be fully yourself, where those people can be fully themselves as well. And then when you guys come together, you guys put yourselves in an environment of growth.

David SorkinSo yesterday, I was reading a book with another friend of mine, David Salvi, and he he opened to this page and had me start reading it. And it was from a a sage by the name of a rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, which we we've learned some of his of his texts before. And he starts talking about the book's called On World Peace. He's a he was a Kabbalist from about a hundred years ago. And he starts talking about this idea of unique individuality, which is exactly what we're talking about. It was really beautiful. I'm gonna try in my very best to paraphrase what he said.

Unique unique individual individuality. Individuality? How do I say that? Unique individuality.

Ben BeeriSubtitles will catch it. We'll be good.

David SorkinThe unique individuality. That's what authentically yourself means. So he says, we all have this unique spark of divine within. That's the Ben Beeri David Sorkin unconditionally. And this divine spark is the most beautiful thing. Right? This is divine. Now the question is, how can that divine spark of unique individuality, be the cause of all the chaos and destruction in the world? And he says, let's take it back for a second. The cause of all pain, suffering, and death in the world is selfishness.

And that selfishness is predicated upon that unique individuality. I think that I my view is this. My religion is this. My country is this. So let's go fight, and I'm gonna kill you for that. But how is this this divine spark now showing up as the motivation for destruction and death all over the world and just selfishness on the small scale. And he says, well, let's talk through it. There's a there's stages of it. At first, that unique individuality, he called it two sides of a coin. Spectrum a, it always manifests as just selfishness.

And there's we need to remove the con the negative connotation around the word selfishness. It's okay as it's part of the spiritual process, and we can get through that later. Maybe some of the the viewers already know about that idea where we're born into a body of purely desire to receive for the self alone to then have a full one eighty degree transformation of to desire to receive for the sake of sharing, to have that full to become godly of that vibration of sharing so that it's that full expansiveness to transform the bread of shame, which we can talk about later. So it starts off as pure selfishness, which is just I want for myself.

Over time, it will become spectrum b, which is on the other side of the coin of I'm sharing without an agenda. But you can't hop overnight. It it everything is process. There's no instantaneous. It's always process. So the question is, this unique individuality, as we start to, in my opinion, get more in touch with it, because I think that's probab also, I'm gonna try to stay away from saying we. As I get more in touch with it, you recognize, number one, where did this unique individuality come from? You realize this is from the creator, the universe, God.

Once you recognize that, you realize by default, that's the most powerful thing and nobody in the world has this. So if we're talking about, right, like scarcity or supply and demand or rare or rarity, that's the most rare thing. Like, I'm one I'm I'm one of One of one? One of one. I'm one of one. So that automatically should bring some I don't know what the word would be, but so recognizing that, realizing who where did this spark come from. And then the question is nourishing that unique individuality and that spark.

And it's okay if it starts from a place of selfishness. So it would be better for me to say, I wanna be most powerful, richest, most well known man in the world. Let's say that could be viewed as vain or selfish. That's okay. Because then what happens is the more you recognize where the spark is coming from, the more you realize, oh, this spark is from the crater, which means that this spark is meant to be one of sharing and expansiveness. So in fact, I should be the most powerful, well known, abundant man in the world because that means I'll be able to I'll share the most and impact the most and help everybody share in this ecosystem.

But it's it has to start from somewhere, even if it's from a place of pride of, like, I wanna be I don't know which NBA athlete. Maybe Kobe had it. I wanna be the best. Eventually, maybe he got to a place of, I wanna be the best so I can inspire all the young kids to be the best. So it's still that unique individuality, but now it's going from spectrum a to the other side of the coin of I'm gonna use this unique individuality to share. And he the rabbi Oshak says once that happens, then the world looks completely different.

Ben BeeriI think the beautiful thing I mean, you talk about a guy like Kobe. Right? He wanted to be the best. He wanted to be the best that he could be. He's not sitting there trying to outcompete somebody else. He wanted to say, hey, I, Kobe Bryant, for the best that I could possibly be at my height, my weight, my speed, my strength, like, I want to put in as much work as I can put in. I'm not gonna shortchange myself on the part of putting work in, and I'm gonna be the best that I can be. Right? And, I mean, we look at, like, the greatest basketball players of all time. Right?

Some people will try to debate it. I don't really think there is much of a debate. It's Michael Jordan. And Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. There is not one player who has performed more successfully in high leverage situations than Michael Jordan. Some people will say that LeBron James is the greatest. I think LeBron James is a great basketball player in his own right. I think that we have never seen the consistency and longevity that LeBron James brings. But to be the best, it's a certain level of performance in a high leverage situation.

And again, different people classify different things as the best. Right? Some people could classify the best as, hey, it's longevity. It's consistency. Right? If that's the case, then you have to give it to LeBron. Now, if you find if you define it as who got to we talked about meeting your potential fully a k a, expressing yourself as authentically as you can and being as close to a 100% as you can get, I believe that Kobe took his path to maximize the God given talents that he had and did the best with what he had and got as far as he could get.

And I feel that extended outside of basketball for him. I mean, he went out. He invested in body armor. He made more money off of his investment in body armor than he made in his entire NBA career. He decided he was gonna be the best girl dad he can be. And he put in all that effort to just make sure that people knew it's like, hey, I'm Kobe. I'm a badass on the court. But it's like, I'm a I'm a be like the softy, the father to my daughters when it comes down to it. How I don't wanna fucking Oscar.

Yeah. And it's like, I mean, which just goes to show that in everything that you do in life, how close to a 100% of yourself can you express? And by expressing a 100% of yourself, I believe that you inspire other people to express a 100% of themselves. And I believe that when two people come together who are fully expressing themselves authentically, then there's no guessing games when it comes to choosing. It's like, hey. Like, I meet you, David. I'm being a 100% of myself. If you don't like me, that's okay. If you love me, that's great. You're being a 100% of yourself. Hey, if I don't like you, that's okay. If but if I love you, that's great. Right? And then all of a sudden, it's like, I see you and I'm like, that guy right there, him and I vibe, we're going to be friends because he's shown me who he is. Yeah. And I accept him for who he is, but not only do I accept him for who he is, I love him for who he is.

And I'm excited for us to be in each other's path of growth Yeah. In each other's journey. And, like, it's gonna be cool to, like, revisit this type of conversation, like, a year from now or two years from now or five years from now, and just sit there and think, where we are in our life paths, like, how far we've come, how long we've known each other, and just how many things within us have transformed while still sticking to as close to a 100% of authenticity as we can be.

David SorkinI love that, man. Yeah. I mean, time is I it's we're growing, and we gotta keep growing. And I think there there's people that grow a whole lifetime in one day, and there's people that grow a whole lifetime, and they don't they don't really grow. So, again, it's just about, you know, every day, and it takes work. Like, it it's not easy. I mean, it's it's it's challenging because the body is the body pulls very strongly, and the body loves comfort, and it it it's the opposite of change. It's homeostasis.

It's we need to stay put. And, you know, it's you know, you gotta find that engine to push through and desire more and more change. But not but just but again, from a place of you of that unique spark, that unconditionalness because I think it's more about peeling back layers than adding more. Right?

Ben BeeriI think when we're born, like, I think you're born your complete self. Yeah. Right? And then you learn all these different things in your childhood that mask you up and you get to build all these walls. Yeah. And as we become adults, sometimes we build more walls to reinforce the walls that we learned when we were kids. Yeah. But the real process is it's like, hey, I see these walls that I built when I was younger. How do I start knocking them down Yeah. And returning to the essence of who I was actually born to be? Yeah.

David SorkinSo what does knocking down walls look like?

Ben BeeriI think it looks like coming to a level of acceptance and understanding why you are where you are in life. And really seeing that, hey, I got here because of a pattern that I learned when I was, say, seven years old. And I continued to build on this pattern. I now acknowledge that that pattern likely was not healthy for me. Can I unlearn this pattern? Because when I was born, I was in the womb. As soon as I was born, I wasn't like this. I wasn't here trying to avoid receiving love or avoid receiving understanding from someone.

I wasn't here running away from somebody that cared about me. I wasn't here avoiding difficult conversations that would help me grow. Now granted, obviously, you're an infant, it's not like you're talking. Right? But it's like we grow the most through conversations that are difficult. Like Yeah. They say the good friends will tell you what you wanna hear, and the great friends will tell you what you don't want to hear.

David SorkinI I recently, I was thinking I was like because I for Lucy Goosey, Ryan, who you know is is my business partner. And the most the most powerful thing if somebody asked, what's been the most memorable part of the business? It's having a partner and working on yourself. Yeah. And if I was to go out and give any advice to any kid my age or even a gentleman older than me, I would say before you get a girlfriend or get married, go start a business with another dude. Go try to go be in a partnership with another man in business and see how egos clash and see how much comes up. Because it's basically like raising a baby with maybe we if if the two men have complementary skill sets and one views this way and one is more of a visionary and one's more and it's constant friction, but they're it's coming from a place of love and both have their own both have a shared view of we need to grow this for other people's sake. And you really have to, at times, take a step back and relinquish control. There's a story that I heard from a teacher.

I really found this story to be so incredibly powerful. So there's a gentleman by the name of Bijan. Bijan. He's a Persian immigrant. He there's a store on Rodeo Drive called Bijan. It's a world renowned designer bag. They always have like a yellow Ferrari or Bugatti outside. And Bijan went was Bijan, when he moved to America, went into a partnership with another gentleman. I don't know the gentleman's name, but the gentleman was the student of this teacher that shared the story with me. And they spent about one year trying to build this business. Bijan had this the art skill set. He was a designer. He had the creativity.

The other gentleman knew business very well. And for one year, they're I don't know if they spent a million dollars or whatever. They're really building this business up until, right, grand opening day on Rodeo Drive. This was maybe two two decades ago. Two two decades ago. And they're getting they're ready to open. And you would you have a Louis Vuitton there, and, you know, they're going into a saturated market, very expensive luxury bags, shoes. And the gentleman on the grand opening day tells Bijan, we're not gonna don't unlock the door.

And Bijan says, what? And the general says, trust me, we're gonna keep the door locked. And I don't know exactly if it went like that, but figuratively, Bijan must have been outraged. Are you crazy? What's what's gone into you? We just spent a million bucks. We spent a whole year grand opening, and now you're telling me, keep the front door closed. We're not opening. Now what does that awaken in a business partner? Confusion, potential opening of distrust, what's going on? Does this guy not have my best intention in mind? Did I make them so much lack. Right?

But that stems from not trusting the other person's unique individuality. I trust that Ben in is showing up at a 100% and stuff knows, even though if my logical mind doesn't understand, I trust his a 100% spark and uniqueness. What happens? It's a beautiful story. Bijan, the designer store, is the first store on Rodeo Drive that has a sign that says by appointment only. There's no doorman. So all the other stores have a doorman. This one says by appointment only. And they became one of the most successful stores in the whole block and in the whole world.

Presidents, politicians, celebrities are flying in to go meet with Bijan to get a bag, whatever. But in hindsight, it makes total sense by appointment only. It's now the scarcity thing and, oh, I can't get it right now. I have to get an appointment, so I want it more. But in the moment, Bijan must have felt, holy shit.

Ben BeeriThe my whole world is gonna crumble. Like, what's going on? Yeah. I've invested all this money. I just started selling all this product. Like, we gotta go, go, go. What do you mean lock the doors? And it's like

David SorkinYeah. And even if he said, we're gonna lock the doors and do by appointment only, it's still the same because nobody's ever done that. It's the same as just keeping the business closed. So it doesn't make sense. So the teacher said this was over a year and a half ago. I heard this story when Ryan and I were just starting Lucy Goose. He said, gentlemen, the key to growing your business and to being uber abundant is gonna be certainty in each other. We and Ryan and I coined it the Bijan method. When I don't understand, but Ryan has conviction, it's I have certainty in your decision making.

And that's that that shows up in relationships even probably with yourself. Right? Kind of. Bijan method. I don't wanna get out of bed, but I know the soul wants to, even though I don't understand why it wants to get out of bed in this moment and the body's saying no, I'm gonna trust that voice that's quiet. That's how you also develop your intuition. The the soul is very quiet. At times, it's illogical. It's happened for me many times. Many times, I have listened to it, and it opens up a miraculous side quest that's unbelievable.

More times than not, I've decided that's a crazy voice. I'm not gonna listen to it. What are people gonna think? And it's so uncomfortable. So it goes back to constantly this certainty and just the power of certainty. And I love that idea, and we learn it, obviously, in Kabbalah. So backtracking now, how do we get to the Bijan story? We were talking about men trying to get into business with a growth. Right? This is something I like to do, go backtrack to retrack re retrack my steps. How do we get back to how do we get how do we get here?

You started talking about Kobe, girl dad, showing up as yourself, being friends with somebody that's a 100%.

Ben BeeriWas saying that I was that I saw you as being a 100% yourself as a person. Yes. Yes. And that I showed up as a 100 per I I show I try to show up as close to a 100% as myself. And I'm like, I just choose this person. Like, I love this person. This person is great. Like, I know that David in his essence represents Yes. David. Like, there's no like, you're not being anybody else. Like Yeah. We're not gonna have to cut or edit or whatever or anything on this podcast because I know that you're gonna be you and I'm gonna be me.

And if there's something that's said, it's going to be meant to be said. Yeah. And it's really interesting because in every combination of two people in life, that essence of having certainty in each other is huge. I mean, think about the greatest partnerships of all time. Like, Jobs and Wozniak in the early days of Apple. Yeah. Like, Montana and Rice winning Super Bowls on the forty niners in the eighties. I mean, guess what? Jerry Rice had to run his route and get to a certain spot where he knew that the football was going to be so he could catch it, that Montana was gonna throw him, and it was there. Yeah. He knew it. He's not sitting there looking back over his shoulder.

He just knows what's happening. I'm going to be running this route. And at this point, I am going to need to catch a football that is going to be right there.

David SorkinI think it it starts with because I'm I'm putting my myself in the perspective of a listener or even myself who says, I understand. In theory, this is true, and it's a beautiful thing. And somebody say, oh, this is so kumbaya. But, like, practically, it's difficult. Yes. It's challenging. Where does this how do you start? It starts with seeing the spark in somebody and and and trying to look for it. Yeah. And and and the sages and Michael Burke talks a lot about it. Seeing the good in somebody Yeah. Even to a place of delusion where you see someone doing something bad, but because you've so bought into this idea of I'm only gonna see the good in people, I'm gonna justify why they're doing this as a why they're doing this bad act. So I see somebody in the in the alley getting robbed, and it's very easy to just judge and say, oh, this person, one is the aggressor and one is not.

But in that moment, I'm gonna say, you know what? There must be a reason why this is happening. And you can even extend it to the place of, well, if everything comes from God and God has the best reasons, this must be good too. And somebody who said, David, how can you live a life like that? There's clearly good and evil. But that's just from our limited framework, from our eyes that see but don't really understand what's going on. We don't know the bigger picture. No. We don't we don't know we don't know what other people are, like, thinking or their intentions. Back to what I said originally. Right? When my friend said, stop saying we. Yeah. It's just David Sorkin.

Yeah. Get we out of your terminology. It's just you. So in that moment, you see and quantum I love science when it validates or even complements spirituality. Quantum says the observer is playing a determinative role in the experience, how it manifests. Right? You see that's in your vision and plus your certainty determines is it gonna be particle or wave. So if I have enough certainty and I see somebody getting robbed in the alley, and in that moment, I restrict the immediate the immediacy of, holy shit. This this guy is getting robbed. I need to go help him more. Oh, he's bad and he's good.

I inject certainty in that moment. You create a mini big bang. The universe was recreated. And in that moment, I just determined and changed the whole situation. And that's like that's sick. That's like sci fi to the max. Yeah. Totally. But that's the power of this video game that we're in. You you are not only the player, but the producer and the director, and you have, like, overriding powers. Yeah. Because of your consciousness. That's like the most And and it's like, how do you interpret these different things as they're happening in real time? Yeah. You don't you just if we somebody could say this is beyond logic, David, but if you look at it, it is logical. You just got there. You can't even see that far. May you you don't know if one guy's defending himself and pulled out the gun to stop the other guy. Like, how many times do you see somebody?

I mean, you you read it countless. Somebody has a firearm, and this is why training is so important if you wanna carry a firearm, and they hear shooting going on, and they go over and they shoot somebody not realizing

Ben Beeriit was somebody defending themselves. Well, you saw you saw it a week or so ago, um, when the news that came out that Mark Sanchez was stabbed. Right? We get the news flash. It's like Mark Sanchez was stabbed. He's in the hospital. It's like the next day, the full story comes out. It's like, hey, like, Mark Sanchez has been arrested. The guy was defending himself, so he stabbed Mark Sanchez.

David SorkinAnd it's like, so We just jumped to the conclusion immediately. We jumped to conclusions too quickly. Yeah. I Yeah. May I'm gonna start saying maybe. That's another thing that Parker and I and and some and my other friend, Nima, we like to inject the word maybe into every sentence. We or I?

Ben BeeriNo. Actually,

David SorkinI do. I know they like to as well. So Yeah. We like to use this terminology. And I don't know if you picked it up when Parker was hanging up. You inject maybe into a sentence, not from a place of not uncertainty. A lot of people say maybe from a place of, right, ambiguity. We're injecting it saying we don't know. Yeah. So it's, hey, I'll talk to you later. Maybe. Because I don't know, maybe something else will come up, and I don't wanna open a vessel that then is not gonna be filled. Yeah. So it's and it's trusting that King David says this, you have eyes, but you don't see, and you have ears, but you don't hear.

Knowing that, oh, that's bad. Maybe. Yeah. Right? It's that one story of that old fable of of, you know, the neighbor and I I I don't wanna it's it's the neighbor and the other neighbor and something bad happens. And the neighbor comes over and says, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry for your tragedy. And the guy says, maybe. And then I think something happened to the to the son. The son broke his leg. And then the next day, the military comes in looking for drafting, and the son bypasses getting drafted. And she says, oh my gosh. You're so lucky. That's amazing. And he says, maybe.

Because then the next day, he's working on with the cattle, and the cattle steps on him and kills him or something. He says, oh my gosh. Even worse with joy, he says, maybe. And just we we just don't know. You don't know. At least we know in the present moment. But even in the present moment, the eyes are deceiving us. The five senses.

Ben BeeriYeah. Even in the present moment, there are certain things that I mean, again, can you have certainty beyond logic that's what what's meant to happen is going to happen? Like, this was a really interesting thing. I was actually kind of reminiscing with my brother about something that happened a few years ago. Um, so I used to go out and collect autographs when I was younger. Uh, I used to try to get autographs from, like, Warriors basketball players. It's like a few years ago. Warriors was good. I would be standing, um, there was this like street corner in like the middle of Downtown Oakland.

Probably not the safest area to stand and wait if you really sit there and think about it, but I didn't even think about that back then. I just wanted to get some autographs. And there was a homeless guy that would come by pretty frequently. He'd ask for money. He'd ask for food. He'd ask for lunch. And there were times where, like, I would end up buying the guy's lunch pretty often. I used to go there a few days a week, and it's like, I got to know this guy by name. He had just gotten out of jail.

He'd just been homeless for a little bit. And one day, we're kinda standing there. He comes up, and he's just kinda sitting there chilling with us. He's he's got this big, like, stick. It looks like almost like bamboo or so. It's like this sugar cane, this big sugar cane thing. And I'm standing there with my brother, and the guy pulls out a knife. And my brother kinda backs up a little bit. And, again, I've kind of talked to this guy before. Like, had lunch a few times. Like, there was one day that, like, even he's like, hey, Ben, like, I'm hungry. Like, I wanna go get a burrito for this place. And I gave the guy money. I'm like, hey, can you get me one too? Came back, gave me a burrito.

In that moment, like, guy pulls out a knife. I'm like, let's see what's going to happen here because I don't think he's pulling out a knife to hurt me. Right? My brother's not familiar with the situation. Yeah. Right? It's like, we're on some street corner in some unsafe neighborhood, guy pulls out a knife Yeah. Back up and run type of thing. Yeah. And the guy starts slashing at the sugarcane. He's like, hey, you guys want some sugarcane? And and I was kinda telling my brother, it's like, yo, like, the guy was being kind. He was offering us sugarcane, whatever.

And he's like he's like, bro, we're in the middle of Downtown Oakland and a guy pulls out a knife. I'm playing the percentages here. Yeah. And it's like, I see all sides of it. Yeah. For sure. But I guess the point of the story is is unless you actually know what somebody's intentions are, you don't actually know what's coming up next. So how much trust can you have in the situation that what's meant to play out will. Yeah. Right? And again, it's like here you have a guy who is being well intentioned and expressing gratitude and giving to the maximum of his capacity. Right? You have you have a guy, he's homeless. He came across a sugar cane. Yeah. Right? It's like, we've become kind of friends at this point. Yeah. I've given to him in certain situations.

Right? And he's like and he may not have much, but he's got a sugar cane. He's got a way to cut it, and he's offering me what he has. Right? And it's like and sometimes as people, we offer to the maximum capacity of what we can offer. Yeah. And then can somebody on the other side accept what that is? We see it so often in different people having needs and, like, love. Yeah. And it's like somebody will come and offer you love, but that may not be up to the capacity of what you're needing or what you're wanting.

So then you reject that love Right. And then the person now feels unsafe to give you love any further. You don't really foster a field where that love can grow or that love can expand. Right? But if you actually understood that it's like, hey, this may not be meeting my needs right now, but this person genuinely is trying to give me love. Let me accept this Yeah. So that person knows that it's safe to give so that love can grow. And I'm not saying it'll ever get to a point where it's meeting needs, but now you've opened up a channel where you can both give and receive love with a person.

And it just now things can flow mutually. And here you have a situation where it's like, hey, there's a guy who I was giving in my capacity to. It's like, hey, let me make sure this guy has some food. He's got some stuff to eat. We see each other. We talk from time to time. Yeah. And for him, he's like, wow. Ben's showing me love. How can I show him love? And for him, when he comes across his sugar cane, he's like, I now have an opportunity to show Ben love. I love that. And it's like and I'm just like,

David SorkinI get it. It's that's the epitome of you just you don't you we don't see the bigger picture. As you were saying it, was thinking about, like, you said you said you said, he's I'm gonna play the percentages. Your brother said that. Where's where's that stem from? That stems from, like, behavioral psychology, right, and, like, evolutionary science, right, and fight or flight and stuff. But as as we let let's let's marinate with that. Animals, right, have fight or flight. But what what else do they have? They don't have they don't have selfishness.

They just procreate and survive. They don't have, I'm gonna be selfish at somebody else's expense. They don't have that. So their fight or flight intuition is divinely powered. They know exactly when to move left or right. It's almost robotic from what I've learned about the animal state. We, on the other hand, there's so much smoke and mirrors about everything. I and maybe others humans do too. Smoke and mirrors. Right? And so many identities and paradigms and labels and just we don't see what's going on, but the animal knows.

And, uh, you know, like, the human kingdom is we've we have a different operating system than the animal kingdom. Right? Because there's now this free will to choose good or selfishness, which is fun and it's great and it's what allows the human experience to be as fulfilling as it as it is and then to have even dominion over all the other kingdoms just with the power of the mind. I think it's as Adam had control over the whole world because of his consciousness. All the animals came would serve him.

But that's really the place we're meant to get to. But, you know, it's process and, you know, it's it's there's that that that's what makes having pets and dogs so fulfilling because they're showing up in a way that's not calculated without an agenda. And even I think the way dogs per perceived time. I think there was one study that showed that dogs don't have a certain perception of time. So for them, when they're in a cage for more than five minutes, five hours feels like five minutes, which is amazing. That's a great, cool quality to have.

So, like, maybe there's things not maybe, for sure. There's qualities about the animal kingdom that we can pluck away and say, I wanna embody more of the nature of the arachnids or the caterpillars or just something like because even the caterpillar, right, or the centipede, I remember hearing an analogy. The centipede has like 400 legs. Can you imagine if the centipede in its brain said, okay, I need to move this one. I need to move leg one, then 18, then 46, then 392. It just moves all 400. It doesn't think about the next step. It just me and maybe other people at times are thinking, oh, I know the next step is this, but even that, I'm doubting. Yeah. Just

Ben BeeriWell, I think there's all these artificial, like, barriers that we place in our lives. Like, we all have, like, these different, like Yeah. Agendas and things that we're trying to get to and things that we're trying to do. Goes back to the that unique spark and unconditionalness,

David Sorkinyou know? And, you know, even your point about a woman is trying to show up and give love in her own capacity and maybe it's not reaching what you need. But I would push back and say, you wouldn't even need that love if you were purely in love with yourself and with the divine. So it's then like you're a bill imagine you're a billionaire, and and then you are you're not gonna you're not you don't care about you don't rely on somebody's $10 debt to you. It's just you're already whole. It's like a drop in an ocean. The ocean is already so vast.

So if our love for ourselves is so vast and our recognition of our own spark is so to the level it needs to be, then now you're coming from you're walking into everywhere you already are, everything. So now there is no there is no, I'm not getting enough from you. I am enough. I'm gonna be either for your sake, I don't think that I'm showing up for you the best I could. Maybe you want somebody that wants I I don't know. We don't know exactly how everybody needs to interact with everybody else, but just it it it kinda goes back to just self responsibility.

But then it takes, you know, gotta look you gotta look at the garbage. And I'll take it back to another revelation I had with Parker a couple weeks back, this idea of self expression and self love and why is it so difficult and and being vulnerable. Right? It now we've we've realized, okay. We wanna get to a place of realizing the self expression and the unconditionality and the self individuality. Now, like, what's step one? We talked about the walls and breaking the walls. But I think step one is being comfortable to first look at the walls.

So that's probably maybe step one. Step one, let let's be comfortable to see that, wow. There's actually walls here. Then once you see the walls, then it's, okay, how do I get the strength to break them down? And then it's, let's start breaking them down. But first, have to become you have to feel okay to see it, which is, right, being merciful with yourself, realizing everything had to happen the way it did. So I'm talking with Park and I'm saying, you know, why is it difficult to be vulnerable with yourself?

And would it be easier to be vulnerable with somebody else? Actually, I remember now. It was talking about friendship, where true friendship is being, right, so unconditional yourself that you're totally fine to even express the baggage, and you're fine to share your walls to this guy. Yeah. And I remember now why is that difficult at times? Because, we're uncomfortable, maybe I'm uncomfortable and maybe somebody else is uncomfortable with the walls themselves. So the question was, how I get comfortable with the walls?

And that prompted the thinking of, okay, is it easier to share our insecurities with God or ourselves first? And then we started probing into the idea of I said, I think it's easier to be vulnerable with God than it is to be with ourselves. Why? Because God is or the universe, whatever somebody likes to call it, is doesn't have an agenda. No judgment is merciful and all encompassing and loving. So it's the ultimate backboard to, you know, bounce things off of. Once somebody's comfortable with that, now they realize that actually God is showing up in Ben. So I since I'm already comfortable being vulnerable with God, I'm so comfortable being vulnerable with Ben because God is showing up in Ben. So that practically what does that look like? That could be a evening journal prompt, which I haven't started doing yet. It's evening journal prompt is, I'm uncomfortable admitting blank, blank, blank to the and and it's being in reference to the divine.

And once we start doing that, then we can start recognizing the walls. And then now you recognize the walls and say, Okay, everybody has walls. But mean, Okay, great. I love that I have walls because it means I'm getting closer to that pearl, the diamond breaking down the walls. So now that I'm comfortable with the walls, then it's right. It goes back to our question, what does it look like to break down the walls? Now we realize, okay. First, it's being comfortable. So maybe that could be aimed at being vulnerable with the divine, whatever that looks like. Probably easier than opening up to a parent or a friend because the parent and friend also has walls, maybe they have their own agenda and judgment.

Once we see that, then the question is, Realizing that these even these walls are from the divine. So even this is good. Not even going to another level of we're no longer labeling this is a weakness of mine and this is a strength because that's the world of tree of knowledge, good and evil. We wanna get to the place of tree of life consciousness where everything is good. So there's no more, oh, I need to work on this or I have this addiction. One time, actually, I asked David Guillaume. It was, like, over a little session and seminar we had with some other college kids, and we were talking about addiction.

And he said, you know what's the the way to solve addiction? You need to start walking around with a badge that says, I'm addicted to meth and be proud of it. And everybody was like, what are you what are you talking about? He said, you need to realize the gift you have in this moment. He was talking about himself. He's not addicted to meth. So he doesn't have the opportunity to transform that addiction into miracles. The meth addict does. Realize you have something that even this guy doesn't. This guy who is a spiritual teacher and has been studying Kabbalah and teaching for decades or whoever, you have something they don't have.

So why not walk around with that saying, yo, I got something rare here. So that's kind of step one. Not even looking at your negativity as something that's low vibrational, but that that's real consciousness. And and then I'll give it back to you. There was a sage who said, you know, we know the story about, you know, in the in the Old Testament and leaving Egypt and going to Mount Sinai and the revelation of Mount Sinai and then the golden calf. There was one teacher, I think maybe rabbi Akiva, he was talking to his students. He said, I teach my students not even believe that the golden calf happened.

The idea that there was a reintroduction of death and fragmentation. Because before the golden calf, right, it says that there was heaven on earth for a brief period of time. Then we all bought into the idea that golden calf happened. He says he teaches his students there is no ego. That's a high level. Right? First, you recognize there is ego. Then you wanna get to a place where there is no ego because it's all the divine. And as we know, right, theoretically, and we can learn that the ego was the creator's most powerful angel who volunteered to wear the cloak of I'm gonna be the opposition because I love God so much, which means I love his creation so much. I'm gonna volunteer, and I'm gonna be, like, the gym trainer.

That the most beautiful thing about that is this ego that eventually the whole world is gonna demonize, right, and say that's our opposition. It's not you and me. It's our selfishness is the opposition. We'll get to a place where we transform it, right, and heaven on earth will be reinstated. And we'll still all walk around knowing like the ego was the bad guy. And he will know that got no recognition. He'll go back to the creator saying, I did the work, and nobody will ever recognize and give flowers to the ego, that powerful angel that was so powerful that I'm willing to just be the scapegoat.

And that's unbelievable. If we could take that quality of the ego, the the ego volunteered to be the scapegoat, which right now is not showing up, you know, as I'm talking about. But eventually, will, where it's like everybody will just be like, fuck the ego. We all beat them. Yeah. And you'll know him and the creator will be like, that's why I did it. So, I mean, that's, you know, I think where are we at now? We're we're we're talking about individuality. We're talking about the walls. First, it's being comfortable looking at the walls, which we said requires being vulnerable with the divine. Then it's now how do I break the walls? Then it's coming to a place of, actually, these walls aren't bad.

They don't need to be broken. They just need to be looked at from a different light. So then it's realizing the method of walking around with the meth addict badge. And once you have that, now these walls are have the the spark of light within them has been revealed. And now you're that much closer. I'm that much closer to that a 100% ourselves.

Ben BeeriYeah. And the thing about the ego is I believe the ego is kind of just an armor. Like, it's like, it it's external. Yeah. It's not internal. And it's essentially just, in a way, shielding you or protecting you from the things that you may not be, like, certain about with yourself. For. We're not ready to receive this light. And and so you sit there and you put on this armor. Right? You're getting ready. You're going to battle. And you're like, hey, whatever's get like, whatever hits I'm gonna take, it's like my ego is gonna do that. So I'm gonna work on Yeah. Building my ego to the point where Yeah. I could take these hits. Like, hey, like, I'm going to battle. It's like, sword's yeah. Gonna hit The sword's gonna hit my armor. And right? And and it's like, I've strengthened my armor. Like, my ego is big. Like, it is strong. Like, it is going to take a while to take my ego down. But then battle is over.

You are not in the heat of the fight anymore. At what point do you take your armor off I like that. And start building yourself?

David SorkinI I like that analogy because so let's say, right, we wanna build up our ego. Because I think from what we've learned is the worst ego is the small desire ego. Like, maybe the the the small the small desire is it's kinda not conducive to even this divine creation. You want to be a cocreator with God. So we were trying to make shit happen. So Elon Musk, if he has a huge ego, at least, you know, he's he's he's making shit happen. Right? And maybe that is akin to, I'm going to battle with an Iron Man suit, with this laser and this like, we've seen Ironman.

But at some point, gotta go back and take off the suit. Yeah. So you gotta get the Ironman suit like the what was it? The Mark 42 that became it was you know, what did it start at? When he was in the cave in the Middle East till the final one when he was fighting Thanos and put on the infinity stones or something, then gotta take it back off. So it's this process. And then maybe, you know, there's myself probably and maybe others. There's this fear of I don't even wanna have that powerful of an Iron Man suit.

You know? But you want maybe that's the goal. Maybe not everybody has to be Iron Man, but in your own world, build up the Iron Man suit. Eventually, one of your homies that loves you so much will will point that out and say, yo, it's time to take off the suit. Then you'll take it off. And what's the byproduct? You just defeated all the negative like, Thanos was defeated because of that suit. So the whole world elevated. There was a brief second that you felt pain when the ego was bruised when your homie said take off the suit and then you take it off.

Ben BeeriI like that analogy. And then you realize once you take it off that it wasn't actually the suit doing the work. It was you all along. You were the one that was

David SorkinIron Man was the one fighting Thanos. It was just the skeleton around. So yeah. Yeah. No. And then more self love is built upon that. And then it goes back to the other point of then. Now Bill Russell right? Remember what I was saying about now you walk into every room with 12 rings. Bill Russell's got 11. Oh, sorry. 11. He's got 11. Are you sure it's 11? He's he's got 11. Okay. So now you're walking in with 11 rings.

Ben BeeriSee, that's my ego speaking right there. I'm like, I know that. Like, I know that sports fan.

David SorkinI knew he had one on the toe, like, 10 and plus one. Yeah. Ten ten ten plus one. Yeah. So now you walk into every room, right, saying I got 11 ring. Imagine Ironman walks into a room with, I just defeated Thanos. Yeah. But then you gotta go back to the other point is maybe you gotta do more than that. Yeah. There's more to do. Sure. More to reveal, more to nourish, more to share. So on one hand, imagine Iron Man's ego after he did that. Yeah. I mean, that would be a pretty But then it's a gosh darn hard ego to break.

But then, right, it goes back. That's that's the beauty of, We we all have our Thanos in our life.

Ben BeeriAnd then usually, the Thanos is within us. And it's like, so how do you Yeah. Defeat Thanos and then take off your suit and then reveal yourself to the world? Yeah.

David SorkinYeah. That's

Ben Beerithat's beautiful. And then that gives you gets you that much closer to what we were talking about earlier, which is a 100% authentic expression. Right. It's close to it. Nobody really ever gets to a 100% of anything in life. But Yeah. A 100% authentic expression. And once you take that suit off, like, you are you. And you get to live with all that you've built while you are wearing the suit or not. And you just have to acknowledge and again, return to kind of like we were talking about earlier that form of yourself when you were born. When you were born, there was like nothing but love. Like, all you did was love. You were at peace.

Like, and you vibrated at at high of a level as you can. And then as life continued to Thanks, bro. As life continued to kind of go on, you started learning all these things.

David SorkinI'm reading here in one of my notebooks. It says so we're getting somewhere. Now we're realizing to show up as a 100 for yourself. But I don't maybe that's not the end goal. Or, I mean, maybe there it's still part of the process. I'm reading here from a Marcus Weston seminar. It says, when you give all of yourself to something, magic happens. But you can't give all of yourself until you even realize all of yourself. So once you realize your unconditional self, then you can give. And what does that sound like? That sounds like what the divine does with us.

Gives unconditionally of everything, even if the other even if we are limited in what we want. That sounds to me like we have now recreated creation itself. First, realizing we are as expansive as the divine. Then let's show up in the world as as sharing as the divine itself, which is pure expansiveness. And then that is that's there's even one more step after that because then we can reunify with the divine knowing that then it's like there's an element of sympathy. We know what the divine does, and we do it ourselves too. And now that's just the most magical reunification in marriage of the light and the vessel after the vessel did its whole process that we just talked about. I think we really went through it very well.

And then that's just that's that's love. Can you imagine that? Where two souls or in this case, all the souls and the divine are now operating from both are purely expansive and both are giving to each other completely. And in this final scenario, right, we don't need to give to the creator because the creator is not gonna receive anything. We're gonna receive to give the creator pleasure. Right? That's what we learn in Kabbalah. The final stage is we're gonna receive for the sake of sharing. Ben wants to give me so much.

I'm gonna say, I want it all, baby. To give you the pleasure and I get pleasure.

Ben BeeriAnd then it's just one big pleasure pool party, bro. Well, how do you get to a spot where you don't even view it as giving, you just view it as being? It's like, I'm not even giving to you. Like, I mean, like Yeah. You're sitting there Yeah. That's true. And it's like forget about forget about giving. I like I'm not looking to give. Like, I'm sitting here. I'm just being Ben. You're just being David. That's a good

David Sorkinthat's a very good modification of what I was saying. Yeah. Because the way that the Kabbalists describe the divine, it's it it is giving. It is as an expansive force of sharing. It doesn't then share.

Ben BeeriIt is Sure. But what but what if it's just being translated to giving so we can kind of understand it? But it's not looking to give. It's just looking to be. It just it is. But by being, we're receiving. So we're looking at it as something is giving to us. Yes. But really, it's just being. Right. And the true essence of love is just being. Yeah. I'm not looking to give love to you. I'm just looking to be Ben. Yeah. But my be being Ben, you're receiving love from Ben. Right. And by you being David, I'm receiving love from David. You're not actually taking the act of giving anything. You're just being. Yeah. And I think that, if you could reach I like that. That level of vibration of being rather than give, like, you're not, like, you're not even taking any action at all. Right. You're just being. Like, you're fully in your essence.

You're expressing yourself as close to a 100% authentically as you can, And there is no longer an act of giving. It's just being. Yeah.

David SorkinYeah. What did I say? It was the giving pool party? It's the being pool party. It's a being pool party. I love that. That that was a great that's what I'm talking about, bro. High level idea. We work through it. We talk through it. And then we get to, like, that we just figured out the world's problems. Our problem. It's

Ben Beerijust went through the whole progression and I don't know how long that was. But are are are they really problems? Or did we just sit here and unpack something, and all of a sudden now, we just opened a door that reveals all this light? You're right. See, the way I'm using the terminology, it's not a problem. It's it's a blessing. Like, there's all this it's just a puzzle. There's all this light on the other side, and we just, like, all of a sudden just moved the boulder that was blocking it. Now the light can shine.

David SorkinYeah. Yeah. Maybe yeah.

Ben BeeriDavid, we shared such a great conversation here, man, today. Like, just such great thoughts. Where can our audience connect with you?

David SorkinI mean, my Instagram, d dot sorc. In my bio, I have a page called Dave's Digressions, where I just kinda write, you know, stream of consciousness and try to show up as as we talk about unconditionally ourselves. And maybe people can read some of those. And then Lucy Goosey, you'll see me on TikTok for Ryan and I's brand. We're filming a lot of content. Yeah. I mean, I'm I would love to chat with anybody who is curious about any of my thought processes or how I got to this point or what I see as continued growth.

I'm I'm just blessed, bro, to connect deeper with you and closer with myself because I think there's so many revelations that we had in this conversation that are eternal. For the rest of my life, I'll remember these conversations and Bill Russell having 11 rings instead of 12 and the sugarcane story and the Bijan, and there was just so much sauce. And we talked about the pool party. Like, I'm really humbled and grateful, and I encourage anybody to follow more more of what Ben's doing. I mean, he's really you're really inspiring, and I think you show up very well as you're unconditionally yourself. And I know that's a challenge for all of us to do so. And I really much respect that and want to receive more of that superpower that you have. So I'm very happy that I was able to join you.

Love you, brother. Love you too, bro. Good work. Love you. That's awesome. Until next time. It's awesome. Till next time. Uh, if you guys

Ben Beeriresonated with anything that David said today, like this episode, go ahead and share it with your friends. Leave us a comment. Let us know what you think. I'm your host, Ben Beeri. You guys can connect with me on Instagram at benbeeri, b e n b e e r I. And we'll see you guys on the next episode of the authentic journey.