Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
0:05

Welcome to Transacting Value, where we talk about practical applications for personal values when dealing with each other and even within ourselves. Where we foster a podcast listening experience that lets you hear the power of a value system for managing burnout, establishing boundaries and finding belonging. My name is Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and we are your people. This is why values still hold value. This is Transacting Value.

Oak Mountain:
0:33

Why else do artists create? Why else do writers write, if not to offer forward into the world something they believe is valuable or as an attempt to find value in the world?

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
0:45

Have you ever thought about the amount of power that we give words, the amount of bias and impact and influence that words can have? They start wars, end relationships, but they also mend them. They also help us find ourselves, bring clarity, purpose and guidance to a world of universal chaos. See this particular conversation. We're talking to a man named Oak Mountain and he's the author of a book called What in the Word? We're going to talk all about it. So, without further ado, I'm Porter, I'm your host and this is Transacting Value. Oak, how you doing?

Oak Mountain:
1:19

Okay, brother, doing well, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
1:22

Good yeah, man, I really appreciate it and, like I told you last time when we initially spoke I think maybe a couple of weeks or a month ago or something, I can't remember Once I started hearing about your story and what you're doing and what ultimately it's done for your perspective, your progress, your self-worth, I'm really excited to be able to be a mouthpiece for you to share it. So, if anything, thank you for coming on.

Oak Mountain:
1:43

It's a sincere pleasure and honor. I pray that whatever it is that I can offer here is of genuine value to all those here. Dude.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
1:51

I'll tell you what Canadians are so nice.

Oak Mountain:
1:54

Well, just get us on the ice rink and we'll show you a thing or two.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
1:57

Okay, all right, all right, me too, I'll slide everywhere. I don't do that in public usually.

Oak Mountain:
2:03

I say that, but I can't skate.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
2:05

So yeah, okay, all right. Well, let's jump into this here for a second. I guess let's just get sort of the elephant out of the room first. What is the Smiling Humans as a brand? What is this about?

Oak Mountain:
2:17

Absolutely. The Smiling Human is, from a personal perspective, my attempt to bring forth the greatest amount of value that I can into the world. From a logistics perspective, we are a media company. We are an education brand, focusing primarily at the moment around helping people find their empowered, authentic voice through ameliorating their communication skills. So that involves online courses I have my book, like you mentioned in the intro one-on-one mentorship and, if you're in the Victoria Vancouver Island area, also in person workshops.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
2:54

Sweet, and you did this all on your own in the last what three, four years.

Oak Mountain:
3:00

This is my second year. A couple of years back, I was living in a rural part of Vancouver Island and I was approaching my 29th birthday and, as I do traditionally around that time, I sit in a space of contemplation, create a bit of a hermitage, if you will, maybe for a day or for a night, and look at the year ahead and the year behind, and particularly being that it was my 29th birthday, coming into the closing of a decade approaching 30, I asked myself what I felt to be a very impactful question, and that question was if I were to continue living as I'm living today. In that moment, would I be satisfied with the legacy that I left behind at the end of my life? And the answer to that question was a very uncomfortable and resounding no. If I extrapolated out all of my actions, my motivations and my habits over the next 60 years pray I live to 90 and beyond I would be devastated, to say the least, and that deep somatic discomfort led me, or we could say was the fuel for the investigation of the antidote. What can I do now in moving forward that would leave me feeling satisfied, like I lived my life with my song sung, so to say? And the first thing I did in order to answer that question was I put myself as future self. What would it be like to live my last day feeling satisfied, feeling fulfilled and fully lived? And I had an image come to me, sort of a moment of recognition of that. And from that image and from that felt emotion, I worked my way back. How did I get there? How could I get there? What would I have to do in these large scale sort of manifestation pieces, and what would I have to do today?

Oak Mountain:
5:03

And the first thing that I landed on was to write a book. So I set my sights to writing what is the first of hopefully many books. And in order to do this well, we might call it serendipity, if I'm being totally honest with you, because, as I'm approaching this, this is about in May, my birthday's. In July, I had a work contract end, I had a lease end, and parted ways with a partner, all within sort of six weeks, and this freed up all of this energy to direct towards this end. So I booked myself a plane ticket to Mexico, what? And I started this hermitage. I landed in Bucerías and dedicated every single day. I took one day off a week, so six days a week, four to eight hours a day, depending on motivation levels, depending on other responsibilities to writing this book and in 33 days, starting in July I think it was July 5th before my 29th birthday 33 days I had the book completed and launched in January of 2023.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
6:10

Congratulations. I mean there's a bunch of questions I want to unpack there, but most recently, why did you go to Mexico? You could go five minutes down the street. You could stay in your living room. What's the appeal that inspired you about Mexico?

Oak Mountain:
6:25

Low cost of living, seeing that my contract had ended and I was working only part time as a freelancer, I would not have been able to continue to live on the West Coast of Canada at that time, given where I was in my financial situation. Also, as a secondary impetus to that, move to Mexico, the year prior to that, or I should say year and a half prior to that, I was in Mexico for six months as well. So I traveled through Cancun and then to the western side, in Puerto Vallarta, and I made some beautiful friends and sat in some plant medicine ceremonies and had a deeply changing and transformative experience. And so I felt that the culmination of easy access, warm weather, people I know that are down there and the ability to be remote and untethered to any other responsibilities was the sort of perfect storm. So fuse my creative energy as best I could into this project in that rapid period of time.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
7:25

So not to harp on your successful efficiency, which I think is admirable, but also, I guess, sort of divesting away from this fear matrix a lot of us have, especially when starting something new myself included where, on things where we tend to lack confidence, it's easy to be afraid and build anxiety of what could be in the future, without really keeping sight of. Okay, but what is? And, more importantly, if what is happens, what is the ideal? Everything went well, best case scenario in the future? That's tough to sparse out, but I'm hearing you say things like transformative and freed up energy, mental energy and fusion of creative juices and these types of phrases. And then you said plant medicine and so, initially, what I thought of as some sort of other trigger or creative driver, what are we talking like micro dosing? Is that what started all of this? Or what was the actual catalyst for this? This, what transformation, this clarity.

Oak Mountain:
8:26

So specifically in my time in Mexico was Ayahuasca. I have also worked with micro dosing and macro dosing of psilocybin mushrooms for personal development. In fact, if you go anyone listening is interested I wrote an article on my success in my own transformation using psilocybin. It's a blog on the smilinghuman. com. You can find it there. So the power of transformative plant medicines was not unknown to me. But from where I stand now, ayahuasca I wouldn't say was a main driving factor for this book.

Oak Mountain:
9:03

I don't feel like I got so much out of that in terms of content or in terms of motivation. What I did find in that experience that I've carried with me now is a genuine sense of belonging. I think that is maybe what carried me through. To touch on the points that you were speaking to around confidence. I don't want to give a false impression that I went down there, you know, head high. Oh yeah, I'm going to write a best-selling book and it's going to be great, and I'm going to get on Transacting Value. It's going to be amazing. I had all these goals. I tell you, man, I was terrified the whole way through because there was no. What I did for myself that maybe distinguishes this endeavor from others is. I had no plan B. This was the only thing that was going to happen.

Speaker 3:
9:52

All right, folks, stay tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

Speaker 4:
9:58

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Oak Mountain:
10:58

This was the only thing that was going to happen. There was no other option. I wasn't going home, I wasn't going to live with my parents, I wasn't going back to the island. There was only one pathway forward, and so every ounce of my soul and being was dedicated to making this happen and the line that sort of get me going. I said to myself I don't know what's going to happen, but something's going to happen.

Oak Mountain:
11:22

There's no way that I sit and work every single day, reaching out to all these people, generating something that I believe in my heart and soul to be true, meaningful and valuable, and then sharing it with the world that nothing's going to happen. This world is responsive, it's alive, it is ready to interact with that which is given forth. And so, again, didn't know what, but I knew something was coming, and so I had to lean on my faith. I had to lean on knowing that this universe is organized in a meaningful, responsive and resonant way, that if I put out with positive intention, an intention of service and to give good, that something meaningful will come.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
12:05

Well, it seems like it has, if nothing else, inspiration, clarity, presence, confidence, self-worth, right? All of these things are unbelievably beneficial, especially in my opinion. I've built a podcast around them. But having that degree of self-awareness, I think is hard to come by not to harp on your Mexico trip, because it's more you I want to talk about, but I think it's hard to come by, and, generally speaking, without other influences or supplements, right, because it's just not the prevailing topic of conversation. So there's a relative degree of ignorance around.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
12:37

How do you build self-awareness, how do you build self-confidence? I mean, I don't know what it's like in Canada, or really any other country for that matter, but I mean I'm sure hear about it in the United States too. Right, look at private schools. I mean they're businesses, they're not schools anymore. Their focus is to teach to X varying degrees of success and scale social sciences and natural sciences and math, science and math, right. And so if you think about, let's say, math is the language of science and science is how things interact, let's just trivialize that there for a second, okay, explaining, rationalizing objectively how things interact through mathematical equations, like those things are provable. Those things are called them time-tested hard enough to discover, but time-tested and proof. Okay, like there's no really debating that.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
13:31

You start talking about self-awareness and self-confidence and self-worth and clarity and presence. I mean those are terms you get in humanities. You know the art history, poetry, sculpture, type expressive means and those are all individualized experiences and you're generally, from what I can tell, everybody's going to get a different result. Right, we just have to find a way to express whatever the terms and results are in whatever that product is, that sculpture, that painting, that poem, that whatever to resonate with as many people as possible, because it's hard enough to explain it in a harder, more concrete manner, like science or math. And so when you're talking about, well, writing your book, for example, or changing your perspective on life, for example, how do you communicate that effectively? Or what ways have you found to be effective where you're not really being prejudiced as a spiritual advisor or something?

Oak Mountain:
14:27

I would say that the same successful method that makes powerful art, powerful poetry, a motivational speech, something like this, and successful writing or even strong interpersonal skills. It's all resting on the same foundation that, in order to convey anything of meaning, one has to be in contact with the authentic nature of their own being, or we could say truth. And the reason why this is the foundation, the relationship to truth and therefore authenticity, the reason why that's the foundation for successful communication in any art word, poetry, sculpture, what have you is because truth is the most valuable of all. Speaking of transacting value, what we're aiming at here is to distill this right and okay. So let me unpack that a little bit. What do I mean by? Truth is the most valuable.

Oak Mountain:
15:29

Let's take three different layers. Let's take our physiology first, and then we'll work into the more subtle. All right, in order to move through the world, your senses have to converge and agree that there is, say, a computer in front of you, or this is a car, any object that you interact with. All of your senses, or at least some of them, feed in information into your biological processing, which is interpreted by your consciousness, and converge onto a single entity with which you're interacting. If the information that your body is taking in is incongruent with that which is truly in the world, then we are in delusion. Our ability to function properly as biological beings sensing, perceptive beings is founded on our sense, perception and its relationship to truth.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
16:25

Okay, let me pause it real quick just to simplify that you bet, or to reframe it, I guess. So you're saying that, not to put words in your mouth but to clarify. So you're saying that if how we are perceiving and responding to whatever's happening around us as we go through life doesn't match with what X variable, that there may be some sort of delusionary, non-common, sensical, whatever response. Well, what is the baseline?

Oak Mountain:
16:52

Great question. To be a bit philosophical, I would say existence itself, that which is something that has being or substantial value in its existence. So let's just cut to the brass tacks and make it super simple. We have a baby right. It's developing its site, it's developing its sense of touch. It needs to latch in order to nurse, to survive. How does it do that? It does it by scent, it does it by feel, not really by site. It's guided and it's taking information that will allow it to receive its nutrients. If any of the factors, either its interpretive mechanisms or the scent, is incongruent with a pathway towards that milk, it would not survive. I see.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
17:38

Okay.

Oak Mountain:
17:39

So we could say that what is it resting on? What is it interacting with? Well, it's the milk, it's the mother Sure, that's what it's interacting with, that which is outside of itself, outside of its body.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
17:49

Okay, okay, sure, and then? So this intuitive sense of what gets me closer to my goals or away from my goals, then, is what you're describing now as a physiological response to truths.

Oak Mountain:
18:00

It can be Absolutely. This is where we start to get into the subtler and subtler expression. So, bringing it back to the art example, we use the body's relationship with truth as supporting a realized sense experience, something that is a truthful sense experience. Now, when it comes to art, now we're talking about intuition, we're talking about emotion, we're talking about these, maybe less material aspects, but if you as an individual don't have a deep connection to the true emotions that you've been through, you don't know what your grief feels like, you don't know what your anger feels like, you don't know what your fear feels like, then you will not be able to translate meaningfully those into any medium. For the sake of what? So the sculptor who paints beauty?

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
18:48

pardon, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. But for the sake of what? To translate them into any medium? For what purpose? To just express them and get it off your chest, kind of thing.

Oak Mountain:
18:58

Oh, for your purpose. We were speaking about poets, we were speaking about sculptors, we were speaking about authors. The reason why I did mine, and I took the opportunity to distill down what I believe to be the closest articulation of truth into my book is I did it because it changed my life. Why else do artists create, why else do writers write, if not to offer forward into the world something they believe is valuable or as an attempt to find value in the world?

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
19:25

I mean, geez, yeah, I think that's the whole point of communication. We create stories to enhance or refine our understanding of somebody else's reality and history, and so it becomes our stories today, even though it was totally nonfiction and absolutely real 100 years ago to somebody else as an experience. But we're not there right, so we can't interpret that, and so we turn it into a story to teach a lesson, to make sense of it, to try to figure out the world around us or what came to be as the world we exist in, the society we live in, the family we're born into, the families we create today, whatever. You said a thing about grief, and I know you have a third point, so I'm going to come back to it. You said a thing about grief, though, that essentially, if we're not in tune with our emotions, how they're expressed and what our triggers are to feel those things right, for the sake of control or bearing maybe some situations, for the sake of just processing and dealing with, for example, grief, I think that's powerful, man, the point you made. I think that's powerful.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
20:24

There's an aspect about setting boundaries that I think generally more often, at least in a culture that I'm more familiar with here in the States that it's a negative connotation. You don't want to bring work home with you and it starts young right, like you don't want your friends to see your parents dropping you off at school, and so you start putting these boundaries in place because it's not cool to be filling the blank, whatever right Got it. I wore hand-me-down clothes for 10 years, like I. It wasn't cool actually. But we're not talking about me, Oak. So let's back up for a second.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
20:56

When we're talking about grief and we're talking about these expressions, I think there's a lot of aspects about setting boundaries perceived to be negative ones that are totally mislabeled. Understanding ourselves to the point you made, understanding ourselves to that degree or to that depth, or really to any degree in any depth, helps us say okay, well, if this happens again, now I have constraints and thresholds for how to more effectively process in a way that suits me to heal or that suits me to turn it into something productive or proactive or positive, as opposed to being detrimental and depressed and alcoholic and anything else. And so the first thing you brought up we were talking about expression being physiological, the second thing being, I guess you could say, intuitive or in tune with ourselves what's left? What's your number three?

Oak Mountain:
21:46

The three is where we start to get transpersonal, and this is to say that the idea that there's an individual weighted or an individual truth is a bit of a misnomer. Right, we could say well, what's your truth, what's my truth? Well, there's your perspective and the truth that comprises your perspective and the truth that comprises my perspective. But as soon as we join into community, now we have a transpersonal truth.

Speaker 3:
22:14

All right, folks, sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
22:18

Join us for Transacting Value, where we discuss practical applications of personal values, Every Monday at 9 am on our website, transactingvaluepodcast. com, Wednesdays at 5 pm and Sundays at noon on wreathsacrossamerica. org/ radio.

Oak Mountain:
22:36

There's your perspective and the truth that comprises your perspective and the truth that comprises my perspective. But as soon as we join into community, now we have a transpersonal truth. This is where the power of story, like you were saying, really comes in, because it's the transaction of information and truth. That is why language, in particular, is so important and story is so important. And so you say how do you manage to convey this? There is necessarily already a shared human language, and I don't just mean English, I mean a narrative language. We talk about archetypes, we talk about the hero's journey or the different hats that people can put on inside of these very common and easily understood narrative arcs. Talk about our own cultural history or the different cultures, history across the world. In order to more accurately and meaningfully interact with that which will get us closest to our own truth, we have to be able to interact with others for the same end.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
23:49

Yeah sure, interaction, gathering, perspective, gaining insights, depth responses to certain stimuli or experiences. What options do we have to navigate dangers and threats? And happiness and whatever applies. That's what you're getting at right For the sake of interaction and transcendence.

Oak Mountain:
24:06

Yes, and I would love to relate it to a point that you brought up about boundaries where some of the most supportive but also some of the most detrimental boundaries that we set in our lives are the boundaries of what we will and will not show to others about ourselves. Yeah, yeah. So detrimental and positive, because on the positive side, we might say, okay, this person can't be trusted because they have displayed, maybe deceptive, manipulative and malicious behavior. I will not show them deeper vulnerabilities because they are, in a sense, of threat to my security. Yeah, okay, exactly Detrimental, because if you are showing up in a meaningful, honorable, loyal way to a friendship with me and I still choose to turn away from you, to hide my heart, to hide my truth, then what I'm doing is I'm robbing us both of an opportunity for closeness and strength in community.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
25:06

Okay, well, that explains your, I guess, proclivity for belonging now, experience, I guess, or gaining experience and insight being a driver there. So you went from again not to put words in your mouth. This is me interpreting, based off of my perspective of what that situation might be like. And also, I'm assuming when you say partner, you mean a romantic partner, not a business partner. Yeah, okay, so you go through a breakup, not that you realize it, but for the second time. So you go through a breakup, your career path tanks, your income disappears, you're effectively, from the sounds of it, unemployed and homeless. What three, four years ago? And you say you know what, now's a good time for me to do me? And so you do.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
25:51

What are you dealing with then? Like this is the you now, and I think there's a relative degree of higher education that's coming out of your vocabulary and insight and perspective now. But I can't help but wonder this wasn't you then? You know what I mean? Like you talked about grief and you talked about boundaries. Like what were you dealing with that you decided this is something I just need to take a break because I'm not enforcing me, I'm not taking care of my mental health, I'm not taking care of. You know I'm not implementing healthy boundaries. This isn't working. It's not sustainable. What led you to that realization, then?

Oak Mountain:
26:25

A very powerful question and, to some degree, I would say that very low self-esteem, particularly around my role as a man, in relationship and in society. What am I providing? How am I showing up? That was a very, very strong motivating factor that was grating me at a deep level, this of coping and escapism, so using a lot of cannabis at that time, choosing to tune out rather than to tune in, and more of an occupying escapism. What can I watch? Can I do something? Can I go somewhere? Can I be away, rather than turn towards these more difficult pieces. And the funny thing is, as you mentioned, the language and the sort of academic vocabulary. That is one of the things that kept me in that loop, because what I was doing was intellectualizing my emotional experience. I wasn't feeling it. Yep, I get that a lot.

Oak Mountain:
27:25

And so to drop and to be freed, we might say, from all of those tethers, to go down in Mexico to not be smoking, to be out of a relationship where all of my bad habits are showing up, to have the opportunity to work out five days a week consistently and just be on that grind, dedicated to myself, really examining, going through personal development courses and books and business development courses. I had to take a really strong and sober look at all of the for lack of a better term weak and flaccid aspects of my personality and go. This is not acceptable. If I want to be the man I know I was born to be, then the boy who holds on to these things out of fear must move on. And so you asked me what I was dealing with fear, grief, anxiety.

Oak Mountain:
28:27

There were nights where I would just weep because I was alone in a country where I didn't speak the language. I was just going through a breakup, like you said. And what did I have? I have this opportunity. I had myself, and the divine really I should say the divine had me.

Oak Mountain:
28:45

That's probably a better way of putting it because the only thing I could do was continually turn back in and say, okay, there's no plan B, cry it out. Write it out, get up and work, feel it, write it, talk to people who care, work it out, keep moving one foot in front of the other and just get really comfortable with pain, with grief, with my own failures and my own shortcomings. And what's beautiful in terms of that as a part of the book writing process is I was able to weave in the most valuable lessons that have come through all of my life into this, the story of this book, as well. So there's a little bit of a personal catharsis in the interweaving of the book, while also trying to deliver what is in some sense, a dissertation on the philosophy of language.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
29:39

Well, I'm glad you picked a light topic that says something. So dealing with all these things and introspection for me podcasting has been my therapy, you know, for anybody listening. If you've heard any of the previous conversations I've had on the show, then you're already familiar. I've been in the Marine Corps for over a decade almost 14 years now in my career, and just recently though especially if you're new to the show in Oak, in your case, about two weeks ago, maybe a month, I can't remember my active duty contract ended. So I'm in the reserves now and I've had a few transformational experiences in my life, not to the same scale or really even scope I'm arguing here to what you've described. We would have to give urine samples, so that was not allowed. But having a lot of these experiences in my career, more predominantly over the last 10 or 15 years, I don't think I really had any awareness as a teenager. Actually, I don't think I had any awareness until my 30s. Maybe I was just a late bloomer or something, but maybe I didn't even care to know.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
30:40

You know, in the Marine Corps for me, it gave me an opportunity to continue running and I didn't have to worry about it. People told me how to dress, where to go, when to eat, when to shave, what to do any given day and when to be where. I didn't have to think about anything. And you said, in intellectualizing as opposed to feeling, you know, articulating through words as opposed to articulating through emotion or action or intuition. A lot of that was the same for me, in that sense, when I joined the Marine Corps.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
31:05

That was really my first time not being able to make my own schedule and do my own thing. I don't want to say autonomy, because I still went home when I was in college on the weekends. If mom said, hey, come home. I didn't have the autonomy, right, I thought I did, but I was just playing, dress up. And then for 13 weeks I'm sitting at Parris Island. I can't go anywhere. I'm getting yelled at every day. I'm emotionally exhausted and frustrated and overwhelmed. I didn't know what boundaries to sit, because I didn't know what boundaries I needed to put in place, let alone how to deal with whatever was happening.

Speaker 3:
31:33

All right, folks, sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

Speaker 4:
31:42

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Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
32:38

I didn't know what boundaries to sit, because I didn't know what boundaries I needed to put in place, let alone how to deal with whatever was happening. And I'd say, experiences like that Maybe normally if you're lucky you happen once, twice, maybe three times in a lifetime. And not to say that I'm really that different, I just had some different experiences that hit me differently. And so over the last 10 or 15 years I think I've probably had five or six. I got back from Afghanistan. That was a transition. And then I got divorced. That was a transition.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
33:06

I don't mean just you got to adjust and things change. I mean for me as a person, I had to grow up and level up, become a super Saiyan, if that's your thing, and figure out how to do that, because I didn't know the questions to ask for help and it sounds like what you did was self-driven. Obviously there were supplements and you had assistance in that process from a few different variables, but largely based on your own interpretations and your own ambition and drive and curiosity to get this kind of transcendence. Am I missing the mark too much?

Oak Mountain:
33:43

Oh, I think you're spot on and I think the similarity between what you're articulating in your own journey and the story that I shared previously is what I call a willingness to die.

Oak Mountain:
33:53

Okay, when you go through a divorce or ending of a partnership or any sort of large life transition, the who you were in that space that no longer serves you has to die.

Oak Mountain:
34:06

And we can greet that with resistance and fear, begrudgingly kicking and screaming, or we can say, okay, maybe I'm more, maybe I'm more than what I know about myself. Can I step into the crucible, into the fire, through the door of death, so to say, because it really is a death, and have enough faith and it's for me it's faith because it's not confidence and who knows who you're going to be on the other side. I can't make confidence with me through that door, enough faith to trust that you're going to come out on the other side changed. It's a big deal, it's not easy, but fundamentally, that willingness is what brings us closer to at least in my experience in my line of work being able to be more authentic and offer more value into the world Is getting all of the garbage, all of the dead leaves out of the way, so that more of our potential that is powerful, empowered, strong, meaningful loving can come forward into the world.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
35:08

And so shedding that or that, was it Nietzsche?

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
35:11

or somebody said ego death, I think, was the phrase, and so yeah, yeah yeah, I think now, more colloquially, it's going to be an urban dictionary as humility or some other shortened word or some kind that I don't know about yet. But a lot of those things, those experiences that lead to humility, the reality checks the gut, punches. Those types of expressions, those moments. They're not when we are ready, at least not so far as we know, and in my experience, contrary to that point, they're exactly when we don't realize how ready we are and it's like this weird. I don't know man, I don't know if it's like a universal cosmic truth or some sort of divine intervention or just chance, I don't know, but I feel like, for whatever reason, and maybe we're not even aware of how comfortable we are in the moment or how well we're doing, we're just existing, doing our thing, arguably pretty well, and then something comes up, some sort of challenge or obstacle or setback comes our way. Like man, I can't deal with this, and I don't mean like your dog dies, that's unfortunate, and maybe that's a phrase you say I can't handle this, okay, or I just can't even. You know, whatever comes out, sure, they ran out of pumpkin spice lattes. I don't know if they have that in Vancouver, but you know some people. That's a big deal, right, but I get by. It's a seasonal thing, I just waited out.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
36:36

My point is to, whatever the catalyst is, something happens. We either get through it or we don't. You know, with the sake of therapy, social workers, family, friends, support networks or on our own. But in either of those, any of those cases, you could also not. And there's a lot of guys that transition out of the military, especially after 20 years. I'm like well, now, who am I? Or they stay in for 20 years or 30 years or however long, and I'm sure it's the same in Canada, but the people go to get out in convicts. It's the same thing Students leaving their parents' houses after 20, 30 years. Who am I? Everybody hits the same threshold at that point.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
37:14

And then you know your tolerance is going to be somewhere above, below or near that, and you got to figure out who are you. What is it? A midlife crisis? Same example. I've been feeling this role for so long and now I'm an empty nester. What do I do? How do I feel this? I don't even know who I am anymore.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
37:32

That is scary, and I think you're exactly right. You have to go on faith, not confidence, maybe confident that you'll be okay, but you got to go on faith how you're going to get there and what that looks like and what that means, and who you look like, who you'll be on the other side. So this, really, for the sake of time, I think it's going to be my last point for our conversation but when you reached that a couple of years ago and became who you are now, what are you taking with you? Because it's going to happen again? What's the travel bag that you packed that you think is best going to set you up for whatever that next catalyst happens to be? To come through it Okay, and deal with it used the present.

Oak Mountain:
38:11

Above all else and this is maybe very simple, but has been a distillation of all of these bumps and bruises, trials and tribulations is that the greatest struggles have been of my own making. The greatest sufferings have been of my own making. When I look at the present moment and I go, oh, I don't want this, or this needs to stop or something's wrong with what's going on, all of that is evoked and conjured by my own disposition and it ends up closing me off to Maybe potential solutions, maybe just a feeling of greater ease, maybe connection with the people around me or an opportunity to have my needs met. Ultimately, the more that I reject the present moment, the more that I suffer and the less I am Truly living. And so you know to speak about. You know your dog dies or your wife leaves you. I Can't get through. This is just a way of saying I don't want this.

Oak Mountain:
39:13

The experience, that's one of the yeah, one of whatever's happening. Yeah, like I can't handle it, it's like maybe, but it's more likely that you just don't want this to be the case, and Sometimes that's okay. It's okay to not want things, but if you allow that not wanting to be that which drives your action, then you're quite literally trying to push against the universal flow, the thing that made it happen in the first place, which is so much bigger than you. So what I take away is when something comes up, when there's struggle, when there's conflict or strife or challenge or the unknown, look it straight in the face, be here with it. The greatest embodiment of courage is the capacity to be present. Life is hard, man. Yeah, keep your eyes open.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
40:00

It sure is, man, it sure is. Prices went up on those PSL's. You know what I mean. So the point you just made, though anxiety and fear and grief, and failure, I think, personally at least, those are all rooted in some degree of pride. And again back to our ego death point Psychologically, or, I guess, psychiatrically. I think those are all attributed to ego for a reason in context of this conversation when and maybe I'm mixing this up I'm also not a psychiatrist trend or otherwise, but you know, if your ego gets in a way of perceiving things, it keeps you worried about future consequence, not presently engaged to course correct in any positive sense, and I totally agree.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
40:40

I think our words are a little bit different, but I think our concepts and our methods are, all things considered, pretty similar. Man, I really appreciate what you're putting out. I honestly, when we first talked, like I said, maybe a month ago or something, I wasn't entirely sure where this conversation could go aside from me, just sort of showcasing your story and going through it. But it's really cool to hear another perspective but, like you said, a sense of belonging and connection, I suppose, to collaborate on a lot of these Concepts. I've never met you. We're in totally different cultures. We've had totally different experiences geographically, obviously distant, and In terms of maturity, in terms of education. Everything, with the exception of your pretty awesome beard, is Different. So what does that? What does that mean? To me it is a commonality of human condition and that really we are not that different. A lot of superficial things, right, a lot of sort of lower tier hierarchy of needs type things are different, obviously, but as people we're really not. As long as we stop to listen, as long as we stop to pay attention.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
41:47

Do you ever see the Matrix reloaded the movie? In that movie, I think his name Hamon, counselor Hamon, maybe whatever the old guy there in the town and he's down in the bottom of the city or whatever it was and he's talking to Neo. Neo walks over and his Keanu Reeves way, asked him what's up and the counselor says I think he said I don't think anybody ever comes down here or something that effect. And the counselor says well, that's exactly the problem with people nobody cares how it works, just that it does. And I think a lot of that philosophy also applies to us as Individuals. A lot of people and not that there's anything wrong with this but a lot of people don't care how we work as people. They just care that we work and they're content with that, and that's okay, but that's also a fact. So it's really refreshing to hear your perspective, man, and I appreciate this conversation, the directions that it went, the depth that you were willing to go to and the vulnerability You're willing to put out for the world. I really enjoyed this.

Oak Mountain:
42:41

So I said it before, but thank you for coming on the show and sir, honor and pleasure to have the opportunity to converse with your brother. Thank you so much.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
42:50

God, that is so stinking polite, but I appreciate it for anybody else by the promise. My last question and I should have brought this up sooner if anybody wants to find out about your book, get in touch with you. Any services, any products, just chat with you, whatever. How do people do it? Where do they go?

Oak Mountain:
43:07

you bet I'm on Instagram primarily the smiling human. You can find links to my books, amazon Canadian store or us through there. My website, the smiling human. com. Give you access to my course load if you're interested in mindful language skills and improving your interpersonal communication and conflict resolution. Also offer one-on-one free sessions for people looking to Touch on and improve any of the various personal development communication topics we covered today.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse:
43:39

You can find that at the smiling human. com/ free sweet, sweet for everybody listening to whatever player you're streaming this conversation on, click the drop down arrow or click see more or click show more and you'll see links to get to Oaks material Also, so that's easier for you and it saves you some time. Try it down and check it out. Thank you to our show partners and folks. Thank you for tuning in and appreciating our value as we all grow through life together. To check out our other conversations, merchandise or even to contribute through feedback follows, time, money or talent and let us know what you think of the show. Please reach out on our website. Transacting value podcast. com. We stream new episodes every Monday at 9 am Eastern Standard Time through all of your favorite podcasting platforms and we'll meet you there until next time, that was Transacting Value .