Success Redefined with Larry Kesslin

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Lion Show. I'm your host, your favorite coach, Robert Lyon. Today we have the great pleasure of talking to Larry Kessling. He's a speaker, executive coach, contractor, he's a published author, he's working with different kinds of businesses. Uh, he's just an amazing man. I'm super excited to have a conversation today, Larry, uh, why don't you just kind of introduce yourself a little bit, tell everybody a little bit about your background and then what you got going on today.

Speaker B: First and foremost, I'm a dad. I've got a 26 year old daughter and a 24 year old son. So they are the, I could say the most important thing in my life at this point. So, um, my daughter lives in Denver, my son's in Houston, and I'm, uh, here in San Diego. Uh, what am I working on? Enjoy writing, coaching, helping people find more peace. Uh, helping my clients understand that the stress that they have in their life is chosen and that they are just living out some of their own trauma that authentically inside of us lives love, abundance, gratitude, presence and neutrality. And the rest of it is created by this thing I call the mind that wants to convince you that you're something different than what you truly are. So that's what I've been working on. I got a keynote on Saturday night that I'm doing ah, called Human Connection in the Age of AI. So everything that I've been studying for the last two decades is about human connection. And I don't think that technology is the problem. I think it started once we left the campfire and once we were no longer connected to each other in a way that was based on survival and that we as humans need each other. And this idea of belonging was not a conscious conversation. When you're living around a campfire and you're fighting against nature and you cook everything at the campfire, you tell all your stories at the campfire. So I think we need to start bringing back campfires because technology is just an accelerant. It's not the problem. The problem started a long time ago when we stopped connecting. And every time we've made an advancement in society, we've lost a little bit of connection. It's almost like we're the frog in the pot and we've been on a low heat for a few thousand years and we've lost this thing that we call connectedness. We are especially in the United States. I've traveled to 42 countries at this point and this is the only country that I've been to where the first question people ask is, what? Is what do you do? And in other countries, people ask, who are you and why do you exist and why are you doing what you're doing? So that shift is something that I'm looking to help people do, is to stop focusing on what people do and start figuring out who they are and why they exist and if you even want to do business with them. So I was at a networking event probably about six months ago. This woman said, so what do you do? I said, why does that matter? And she says, well, I really like to understand what people do because it gives me a sense of whether I can do business with them. I said, well, if I did exactly what you needed done for your business today, if my skill set was exactly what you needed, and I was a total jerk, I didn't listen to you, I wasn't kind, I screwed over all my clients, would you care? And she sat there like, dumbfounded because to me, the value somebody has is probably more important than the quality of work, although the quality work needs to be there. I'd rather be around people that share. So I started my own campfire. So I have a men's potluck dinner that I do once a month. And I had 15 men sitting around in a circle last Wednesday night. And we had an amazing conversation. I mean, men were vulnerable. They were able to take their masks off and just be humans versus this performance that we put on when we're trying to be something that we're truly not.

Speaker A: You talked about a great bunch of subjects, but, like, what's it like to have a keynote coming up this Saturday? How does that feel for you? What's that like?

Speaker B: I've been on stage a lot, so for me, this is going to be small. It's 60 people. At an alumni dinner from my university, I went to Rutgers. So the San Diego Rutgers Alumni association asked me to speak. It looks like I'll have an opportunity in November to speak at a conference around healthcare and AI. And I think everybody's missing the issue with AI. And for me, I'm going to end the talk with, as artificial intelligence becomes more human,

Speaker A: like,

Speaker B: what happens to humans? How do we choose to behave? Because if we continue to go down the isolation route and think that we're individuals, then I think we're going to be in trouble. But if we choose to take the freedom that artificial intelligence offers us and says, I need to go back to having more time to be with others. So having the keynote. I love being on stage, I love being in front of an audience. I practiced a lot and I've learned some keys to being on stage is whatever's coming out of my mouth is exactly what's supposed to come out of my mouth. And I don't worry about what I'm going to say because I pretty much know what I'm going to say and I just enjoy it. I enjoy transferring knowledge and that's the opportunity that I have when I get on a stage. And it's been crazy because, uh, this topic I'm talking about I think is timely. And I have some friends in the tech industry and they're like, Larry, there's 350 conferences that deal with this, the tech and the channel and all this other stuff. You should just contact all the conference coordinators and tell them about your talk. I'm like, you know what, I really don't want to do that. If they want me to speak on their stage, they'll come find me. They'll see me talking about it somewhere. I'll get an opportunity to speak at some event and I'll get invited to speak at a different event. And if my subject becomes less timely five years from now, then I don't know, I'm at a different place than when I was chasing. So there's no chase anymore. There's just being. And when you be, you get to enjoy, uh, what unfolds. I mean, before we started, you were talking about redefining success. And for me that was a huge journey in my life. In my 30s, let's say 30s through 50 is at, uh, 28. I defined success as freedom, ability to do what I want, whenever I want to do it. And then I went to Africa and I spent a month in Uganda and Kenya. And I saw people happier than anybody I've ever met. And they had nothing. And I had the freedom to spend a month in Africa and not really worry about it. Although I did worry about it because that's what I did. And I really didn't get to be there all the time. I was kind of half there, half not there. But what I witnessed was people that were totally present, people that were deeply connected. Maybe it was because John Cony had left five years earlier and the child soldier war was over. Maybe it was the fact that they were deeply connected because they were still farming the land and they were still spending time with our ancestors. I mean, we have destroyed the multi generational family. We have taken apart the infrastructure that builds stability and we have created a world of loneliness trying to raise kids as nuclear families. And we were not meant to raise children as couples. We were meant to raise children in community. And I'll just say everything I'm saying is an opinion. Uh, there's nothing I'm going to come out and say. This is a fact. And I know better than anybody, I just have lots of thoughts and ideas and I share them. And if somebody has a thought or an idea that's different, great. I have no problem with that. And I don't need to be right. All I know is that the belief system that I've developed for myself provides me a lot of peace, which is my North Star. So success is an interesting word, especially in the United States.

Speaker A: Just this recent epiphany that I've had has kind of rocked my world. Um, so I've been studying success. Obviously, I've always been very ambitious. That's all I've ever done is been an entrepreneur for 15, 20 years now. And it's always just been like, get to the money, keep going, keep growing, right? And then I finally had a huge successful business and then it all fell apart. And I've been going through this rebuild phase and I had to ask myself the question, it's like, why am I so, you know, driven and motivated to just make more money? And the answer came back, you know, I'm trying to seek validation to get love, right? That's kind of like what everything kind of comes down to. It's like I'm seeking love. And then I finally had the realization that, oh, I'm enough. I don't, I don't. I don't really, like, I've done enough stuff now. I'm also bonafide, but it's like, I don't need to go chase this huge thing. I can kind of now use my energy and my life to bring things to me and to just kind of like, chill a little bit. And that's been my biggest, biggest epiphany lately. And I'm wondering if you've experienced something like that too, or if that's kind of like, what are your thoughts on that?

Speaker B: Um, 100% agree. I started dating a Latina about a year and a half ago. And she's like, can't you just be at home at night? Because when I first met her, I was going out networking. I mean, I've been in San Diego for 16 years, the last 11 business wise, because the first five years I brought my business from New York here and ran that while I was living here. And then I realized I wanted to build my life here. Hard to build a life in San Diego when you're on the road 30% of the time. And I decided to change that. But letting things come to you versus pressing is the definition of my life. I have pushed. I pushed for over six decades. And I had an epiphany. January of 2025, uh, through a psilocybin experience, my spirit left my body and went on its own little journey for a few hours and realized that I was a spirit that happened to be inhabiting this body versus my mind. And that has brought me immense peace. And I think that what you're talking about is the biggest epidemic we have in our country as people are chasing something they don't even know why. This guy, Peter Crone, and he says there's three basic issues that we all suffer with if we have suffering. And one is scarcity, which drives a lot of the entrepreneurial drive. One is how we think about ourselves. Enoughness. So in the joy molecule, there's five lessons I've learned from eight different people that I've met since I got back from Africa. And the fourth lesson is called the Enough Academy. And it's what is enough, and when we have enough, what is our responsibility back to society? And I believe our responsibility is philanthropy. And philanthropy is not about writing a check. It's about the connections that we make with other humans. And people tell me all the time they're looking for their purpose. I'm like, stop looking for purpose and start looking for connection. Because deep, meaningful purpose is about connecting on a whole nother level with people. So the five lessons that I learned that I talk about in the book is circumstances not define my joy. And this is the key part to this whole conversation, is that when I first did my first talk around the joy molecule, I said that joy was the destination, and I needed these five lessons to get there. And when I did my first major keynote and started talking about it, I realized that the puzzle, completing the puzzle was not the real vision, that the joy already lived inside of me, that the enoughness is already here, and that the five lessons I had. So I worked with a young guy on Fiverr, and I started building this layers idea that I'm peeling away these lessons, and underneath those five lessons, joy already existed. So I'm peeling away the learning that I've had in my life to say I'm not enough. Because when I was a baby and when I was first born, my being was plenty. So this idea of peeling away our lesson so circumstance does not define my joy. I need meaning in my work. I can't do meaningless work. Other people can and I don't judge them, but I can't. I need to do something that matters. So I coach. And, um, my coaching revolves around helping mostly professional services. Firms that are the owners are stressed because they're stressed for one of three reasons. Well, probably all three. They don't have enough prospects, so they take bad clients. They don't have the right staff because they don't know how to recruit and manage talent. And their mindset is focused on stress. And they don't understand how to separate their belief system from their being. So self identity and ego all get blended together and they don't know how to separate them. So those are the three things I focus on. So circumstance is my first lesson. Meaning is my second lesson. So my work has immense meaning because my clients are happier today than I, they've ever been in their lives. And that feels incredibly good. The third lesson is probably the most important for me. Three stories of three different challenged athletes that I've met. So one guy I met through the Blind Stoker's Club when I started riding bikes with the Challenged Athletes Foundation. I've cycled most of my life and, uh, I rode my electric bike to work today. And that's a lot of how I get around. And I got introduced to this guy. His name is Jeff Mata. Jeff lost his sight at 26, boxing. So for 26 years he was a sighted human. I met him in his late 30s, early 40s, probably 40, 40, 41. He's 44 now. And, um, he owns a jiu jitsu studio. He's a three time world champion jiu jitsu competitor. And he's blind and he competes against sighted people and he can feel energy. So we've been on a bicycle for thousands of miles together. We did a ride from San Francisco to San Diego. Seven days, 640 miles,

Speaker A: and he's blind riding the bike.

Speaker B: Well, he was on

Speaker A: the

Speaker B: back, he was on the back of the tandem, so. But the experience we had together was amazing. And then I met this woman named Moon Tucker who lost her arm in a motorcycle accident. Got to interview her, she was amazing. And then Joe Deligrave is a good friend. He's the coach of the wheelchair rugby team. And all three of them have lost their identity. And that whole idea of identity and ego is what kills my joy. So the more I'm attached to who I believe myself to be versus being attached to just being, the further away I am from joy. That's the third lesson. The fourth lesson is Never quit. And the fifth lesson is, uh, what is enough? So those are my five lessons, and those are the things I needed to peel away from the joy that already lives inside of me. And that's kind of what you're saying, is that you're enough. You've always been enough, and you've always been loved. The problem is you were taught that you weren't because as soon as your parents got a hold of you when you came out of your mother's womb, they were telling all you. They were telling you all the things they needed you to do in order for them to be okay. They wanted to protect you from this horrible world and make sure that you were okay. And most people are trained to be something that they're not. So in the book, I have this thing called the 20 something rule, and it says from birth to 20, we are taught to be the person that the world wants us to be. Media, family, teachers, siblings, friends. And I say one out of a thousand of us were taught to be the person that we were born to be. And then the other 999 of us schmucks, we got to figure it out ourselves. So I've met people that know who they are and have always known who they were. I have a friend who's been at, um, Purdue Farms, uh, selling chickens since he's out of college. He's been there 41 years. Great guy. Always knew who he was. Nobody can tell him anything else. And I define joy as knowing what you are, who you are, and why you are, in that order. Because the what, the who and the why defines who we are, how we walk on this planet. And if you know those three things, nobody can tell you anything other than what you know yourself to be. But they're in that order because those are the levels of connection. A, uh, what connection? What do you do? What's your favorite sports team? What are your hobbies? Those are all what questions. Those are surface level, starter relationship places. Your who, which is your values and your essence and your priorities in life, that's a better, deeper connection. But the why connection, to me is the deepest. And if you know all three and you really know your what and your who, and you find people that are aligned and they have a shared why, that's magic. When you connect around people that have shared joy. And the way that I define joy doesn't need to be the way anybody else defines joy. Just like what you said at the beginning with Your definition of success. My definition of success was the ability to do what I want whenever I want to do it. Freedom. But when I saw these people that were happier than I was, I'm like, well, I have all this freedom, but they're happier than I am. So if I'm really chasing happiness, then I'm done with success. I need to be significant. So I started going down the path of significance. I was 48 when I got back from Africa. And over the next three years, I realized that success without significance isn't success at all. So I needed to combine my success definition and my significance definition. So the definition in success redefined for me is the ability to do what I want whenever I want to do it, while being part of something greater than myself. If I don't put that second piece in, then the definition is empty for me. At least it was at 48. Success for me today is waking up and breathing, and that's it.

Speaker A: Um,

Speaker B: the world is always taking care of me. It always will. I was born privileged. My daughter tells me all the time, you're a privileged white man. I agree. I don't know how to be anything other than that. I mean, I can be humble and I can, but I have the privilege to go spend time. I was with 15 men last week, and one of the guys said, it's a privilege that we get to sit here and talk about the things we're talking about. There are people that have to go to work every day and they're home exhausted because they're just trying to survive. And then there are people that have half a million dollar a year incomes thinking they have to survive because they're trying to keep up with the Joneses and buy the nicest house and drive the right car and belong to the right club and take the right fancy vacations. That's not survival. That's a whole nother level of insanity in my world. What does success mean? I think we all need to define it for ourselves. And I don't need anybody to adopt my definition of success or joy or happiness or any. But what I do ask people to do, I have these flashcards here, and they're lists of words. Alignment, presence, intention, acceptance, enough, gratitude, belonging, compassion, contribution, peace, love, giving, self, identity, ego, authenticity, success, joy, happiness. These are all words that I consider soft words. You can define them any way you want to. And I asked a client once, define yourself, your identity and your ego. And he couldn't tell me the difference between himself and his identity. He was the roles that he played in life, I'm like, there's a being inside of you that observes everything that's self. What happens to self when you go to bed, he's still there. He's just letting your mind rest. He's observing it all. He, she, it, I don't care what you call it. But we are all beings having a human experience. And that I'm clear of. And you know what? The truth is, I might be wrong. I truly could be. And I'll never know till I'm dead. And I might not even know when I'm dead. The belief system that I've adopted at this point in m my life brings me immense amount of peace. And it allows me to use my thoughts as input rather than as master. I think most people, when they get a thought, feel like they have to respond to the thought and that that thought is real. There's a guy named Shi Hengyi. He's a, uh, Tibetan monk and he just has been amazing. Michael Singer is the same. I mean, totally talks about it. All this information that comes into us is just information. Our mind creates thought. But Shi Hengyi was saying, so can you predict your next thought? Nobody can predict their next thought, so we can't predict it. And your thoughts are really an, uh, outcome of your belief system. And your belief system was built on how you've interpreted everything that's unfolded in front of you since you're born. So how could that be true? I mean, it's my truth and it's my, my reality, but it's not truth and it's not reality. It's my 18 billionth of human experience on this planet. There's 8 billion other people and they're experiencing something totally different, teaching them totally different lessons. So what do we do with all that? And to me, that's where I find entrepreneurs that are struggling. They are struggling to figure out what it means to be a human being. So how do we learn to be who we were born to be versus how society has taught us to be? And you're chasing for the bigger company. You hire people you probably shouldn't have. You take on clients you probably didn't want or need because you need to drive revenue and might have not had ideal clients because you didn't have enough prospects. I mean, that's the stuff that I help people understand is that is the root cause of the outcome. But the stress is a choice based on your belief system. If you believe that the world is out to get you, then the world's going to get you. If you believe that everything's happening for you, then that's a whole nother mindset. And the truth is, neither are true. I think the world's just happening and we are interpreting everything with this computer that's in our head. And we've created a computer that tries to mimic how the brain works, and that's called AI, but

Speaker A: still needs some work, I think. Uh, so, I mean, I'm on the verge of getting a great idea from you, and I want to kind of get a little bit clarity. So, like we spoke, the, um, the kicker for me was when I finally did let go and say that, you know, I am enough, you know, like, kind of start attracting instead of aggressively acting, right? Everything started to work out, right? And that kind of is such a reverse. Like many things in life, it's like it just. It is what it is. It's the clarity. But my question for you is, like, what is the healthy balance between still being, um, very, like, ambitious, Right? Like, I think. I think you said you have to have something like a bigger why or a bigger purp, right? So you got to know what that is, and you go towards that, um, while also maybe walking in your own, you know, enoughness. Right? But, like, what is the. What is. What does you see as the. I don't know if it's like. It's such a stupid question. It's like, what's the proper balance, right, between being a monk and being, like a super ambitious person? And it's. It's. We can't all just go into the quiet all day, every day. Like, my. My father, he. He meditated for 50 years. His whole thing has been inner journey, right? So that's his path. My path is to go out and try and do things. I want to improve things. I want to try and help people. So what do you think is the proper balance, I guess, for those kinds of ideas or those kinds of, like, what's a good philosophy? I guess if you had to put it two together,

Speaker B: I'd agree with both of you. So everybody's different. Everybody's on a different journey. So let me tell you the biggest shift for me in life. And you have a choice. So I've been working on a bunch of concepts. So the campfire is one of them. So back to the campfire is campfire to agrarian. So we become farmers. We lose the community that we had around the fire. We lose something. And then from the farmer, the church started to get big. And we get ritual, and we get the beauty of feeling like we're connected to source and then industrial revolution comes and spurns cities and suburbs and we just lose a piece of human connection. So human connection starts with self. So in order to connect with others, we first need to connect with self. So I agree with your dad, going inward. And the truth is for me that the world is just unfolding. It's not happening to me, it's not happening for me. And the shift in life is from reacting to what's happening to you or for you to understanding that everything is just happening. And my reaction is due to my own wounds inside or my own training inside and has nothing to do with what's going on outside. So that's where I 100% agree with your dad is it's all inside. This world that we see is all a made up story. It's like we're living in the matrix. I mean it's real, we can touch it. I mean I can touch this computer, I can touch this camera, but that's all a computer in my brain analyzing it and putting into perspective for me. So if I look at my daughter asked me a question in January, she said dad, why are we really here? And for me that was a beautiful question for a 25 year old daughter to ask me because I'm like honey, the reason we're here is to wake up. I think that's why we're here. The question is wake up to what? So when I did my TEDx talk in 2014, I challenged Abraham Maslow, started doing a bunch of research on Maslow and realized that Maslow never created a hierarchy of needs. Maslow studied human behavior and came up with different stages of human behavior. Food, water, shelter, safety, let's call that survival, love and belonging and self esteem. I'll call that me. And then the next stage I'm calling ascension which is self actualization. And when he was dying he was talking about self transcendence, oneness with God. So if you look at this continuum, survival, survival, me, Ascension I feel like to teach to my daughter, I call it the Ascension ladder is that we're here to figure out where we are on that continuum and to wake up and help the people below us up. Which is why I coat and to reach up to the people above us that see things that we don't see and say what are you seeing that I don't see? And that's I believe why we're here. So the ambition, nothing wrong with ambition. I don't believe that's why we're here. That's an American construct. That's capitalism. That's when you were out hunting and trying to kill. You just hunted enough to take care of your family. That was all you needed. And now we're trying to find abundance so that we don't have to work, so we don't have to go hunt, so that we can whatever. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with achievement and wanting, but I think it's all a construct and a belief system. And the majority of Americans that I grew up with, uh, they wanted jobs, they didn't want their own business. That's too risky. And the system teaches that you go to school, you go from one class to the next, an hour each. It was all set up to teach you to be part of a system rather than thinking as an individual. But every tax advantage, everything that's written in the code of our, our United, uh, States of America is all about self preservation. I mean, small businesses have so much more advantage than an employee. I mean, I can't tell you how my life is different than most people that go to work every day, that have a job. And I'm dating someone who's had a nine to five since she left her marriage seven plus years ago. And she doesn't understand what it's like to be me. She doesn't understand what it's like to just have a life. She's like, can't you shut it off at night? I'm like, shut off what? I don't turn it on. I just have a life. And in that life, there's some activities that produce revenue, there's some activities that produce joy, there's some that produce fulfillment, there's some that do physical exercise to keep my body in shape. We do all different things, so we're just trained differently. So you ask the question about which is right, achievement or seeking inner peace. I'm um, like they're both right. If you believe that that's what's right for you, then that's the right thing to do. If your dad's happy doing the inward journey and that's what's right for him, then God bless.

Speaker A: And I think the answer kind of came to me what we were talking. It's like peace is kind of the ultimate goal. So if you come from a place of peace and then if you want external things, it's an experience that you can choose to go and achieve for fun or for your journey. You know what I mean? It's like we're all just here to have an Experience, but instead of doing it from a panic standpoint of like, I have to make a bunch of money because of what other people think, you get to decide, hey, I'm going to, I am enough, I am here, I have my foundation. But I can choose now to take my energy and maybe go achieve this goal or go have this thing, or go experience this thing, right? And be, ah, somebody who experiences, uh, the different spices of life. If that's what you're here to do, right. Um, and one interesting thought that I like lately, uh, your daughter asked you, what is the purpose of life and the one that I've been enjoying thinking about the most? And I don't have the correct word for heaven, but I believe the purpose of why we're here is to create a heaven on earth, right? And I think that is a, kind of a cool way to think about it because like, if you create a good business that actually helps people, that gets people results, you're creating a better life for them on Earth. If you do something, you know, philanthropic, um, you're actually doing things for the planet, for other people and you're helping other people and that's how you can win. Like the only businesses that are winning right now. It's good for the customer, it's good for the team, it's good for the business, it's good for you and it's good for the world, right? So you got those three cups that, that, those are the business that are succeeding and the businesses that worst is seeding. A couple years ago, um, kind of got wiped out by AI. Like there was too much disruption when they were just, you know, ripping people off and making a lot of money and not giving a great service, right? And then now we're kind of in the age where the customer doesn't have as much money, they don't have as much attention span, they don't have as much resources. They've been spammed by AI so much that now what they want is a great customer experience. They want above average human connection, right? It's like we have to go to events, we have to actually talk to people on the phone and just be a real human to actually get business done nowadays because we, we, we, we're like so fried from all the AI, like slop that has just been like pumped at us. And like our dopamine levels are so high that we're actually getting bored of our phone now because it's all just AI crap. So now we have to go back to, like you said, the humanity the campfire, the. The feelings of connectedness. So anyways, that was.

Speaker B: But everything you've shared is all your story.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Good, not bad. But it's just your story.

Speaker A: Exactly. So

Speaker B: that's your belief system, if you were born in. So I'll give you an example. The last story in the Joy Molecule is Emmanuel Trinity. And Trinity was born in Kampala. His mom was shunned out of her house because the guy who impregnated her at 17 didn't admit to being the father. So the parents kicked her out. She decided to go from this little village to the big city, figuring that people would take care of her and help her. And that wasn't the truth. Ends up in the worst slum in Kampala, and it's called Kosovo. And, uh, Trinity wakes up at nine years old after his mom took him to every job and she got a job outside the slums in the city. And he now had to fend for himself. So he joined a gang. And within the first six months of joining the gang, four of his friends died. Like dead. Mhm. So you imagine 10 years old, 9 years old, and your friends are dying, and all you worry about every day is getting to see the next day. And by the time he was about to turn 13, two weeks before his 13th birthday, he was a Christmas. He's a Christmas Day baby. Um, his gang leader got stoned in front of him. He was trying to leave a bunch of times, but he knew that if he left, they would come find him and kill him. So his gang leader gets stoned and all the people around him said, run, get out of here. So he took his best friend and another guy who was. The other guy was emaciated. They're hiding behind her church in the slums in Kampala. And this woman taps him on the shoulder. She's from Northern Ireland. She says, young men, we're starting a boys group here. If you accept Christ as your savior, we'll give you food and clothing. And there's one thing we can get you to keep you off the street for life. What would it be? So Trinity's best friend said, if you get me a musical instrument, I'll stay off the street. And Trinity said, get me a computer. Because he just wanted to play video games and escape everything that was going on in his world. And they did that. And the woman got Trinity a Mac. And the other, his best friend got a guitar. And it's now, ah, 20 years later. And he was 13 when he got his access to his first computer. First couple of years, all he did was play games. Then he started realizing what the thing could do. By the time he was 16 or 17, he was the best graphic artist in the slums in Kampala. And by the time he was 19, he got a job with Coke. And that paid him enough to get out of the slums and take his family with him and get an apartment. And after six months working for Coke, he's like, I was not put on this planet to go help Coke make things prettier. I need to go back and teach these other kids what it means to learn how to use computers. So he goes back into the slum and he meets this young girl. And this young girl comes up to him and says, my dad, uh, fell off a ladder today and he broke his back. And I'm the oldest of six children, and I need to figure out how to make money for my family. And everybody told me the best way to do that is become a prostitute. So I'm going to go out on the streets tonight and sell myself. And Trinity said, no, you're not. And she's like, what are you talking about? She says, I will take care of your family until we figure it out, but I'm going to teach you everything I know about computers. And her and her best friend started training. And what Trinity took three years to learn, she learned in three months. And then he got this idea that I can teach people about computers. This is 2018. The young girl ended up getting a job and working computers as well. And he started a company called Era 92. And he started teaching street kids about computers. And over the last seven, eight years, he's taught over 5,6000 young people. He's got six containers in different slums around Uganda and Kenya. He just built this gorgeous building in Kampala, and he's got these other facilities in Jinja and Gulu and, uh, Nairobi. And he's teaching young people how to get out of the situation they're in, use the technology to help them out. Now you look at his childhood, and he's been spent time at my apartment. He's in my Jacuzzi, jumping in the pool, saying, mister. He's like, papa, look at all this. I mean, this is amazing. So for him, what you have is beyond measure. So all he's doing is everything he has right now. I'm like, trinity, how are things financially? So they all suck, but it's all good. And he's figuring it out. He's got 150 employees, got a car wash. He's got a Safari business. He's got a foundation that funds young people to buy their first computer and finance them. Uh, he helps them with entrepreneurial projects, and they do software development, videography, and web development for nonprofits globally. And he's got lots of employees that he's hired and built a business around. And he's just magic, absolute magic. And I called him last week and he's like, papa, uh, it's been hard. And then Trump just screwed me because I can't get a visa to get to the United States. So we can't come and fundraise. But you start to get perspective as to what it means to have a hard life. And the fact that we are living in the most abundant time in history and the loneliest we've ever been because we're so striving to achieve. And I don't think it's why we're here, but we're brainwashed that that's why we're here. Madison Avenue, Hollywood, Wall Street. To me, those three entities have done a masterful job. And if you want to believe them, then you'll believe that you're not enough. During the enough conversation, there's this thing called the trust, uh, equation. And I'm like, trust equation. It would be cool to have an enough equation. So I started playing with chat and I said, here's the trust equation. What would something similar look like for Enoughness? Because it had my book, it has all my information in it, and it came up with an amazing, uh, equation that I think one day will be its own book. And it says, enoughness is being your authentic self plus giving, intentionally plus having, which is knowing the difference between a want and a need. Which was the original title of this book, When Wants Become needs. Because I think success is basically most of us saying we need something when it's truly a want. So being intentional, being yourself, giving, intentionally having, divided by comparison. Anytime you start comparing yourself to anybody else, you'll never be enough and you'll never find joy. Comparison is the killer of joy. And I agree. And to me, that's the denominator entrust. It's, uh, credibility plus reliability plus intimacy divided by self orientation. The more it's about you, the less trustworthy you are. If it's always about the other person, you'll earn more trust. So enoughness is the killer of enoughness is comparison. And it's resonated deeply with a lot of people when I share that. And I think it's important for people to understand that they are enough and that uh, we're here to live the best life we can. And we're an interesting animal, we really are, but we're an animal. We're no different than any other animal. We just happen to have a bit more cognitive ability to manage and dominate. But I don't think we're serving the planet, definitely serving ourselves.

Speaker A: Well, I mean, there's just a lot to unpack there. And I appreciate, uh, the story and the conversation put things in a lot of perspective. We got a lot of, you know, good things going for us too. What, what is your main, like, focus these days? You're just working inner peace, working with the. The guys that you work with, and keynote speaking. What's kind of the topic that you think about a lot lately?

Speaker B: Human connection is what I think about often. So there was a post today. Bill Walton was a friend. And he died, I guess a year and a half ago now. And, uh, pretty sudden. I'd known him for, I'd say, close to a decade. And he'd remember me. He'd be like, caf. Blind guy. And he remembered everybody. He remembered everybody he talked to. He could remember conversations he had in hallways of gymnasiums that he hadn't visited in decades. He just remembered everything. And he was so kind and so caring, and he never used it for anything other than the pleasure of other people around him. So we're doing a. They're doing a concert in November fundraiser for him at the Belly up here in San Diego. And he was just, um, an amazing guy. All the non profits that I was really interested in, he was around. So the Lucky Duck foundation, which deals with homeless San Diego Sports Innovators, which is the sports and lifestyle nonprofit here in town. We worked together at San Diego Food Bank. He was involved in the Burnham center for Community Advancement. These are all local San Diego organizations that he was actively involved in. And he's just an amazing human. And there are not many of them that are like that. So I think about. So it just. The reason it's top of mind is that I saw the post today about the event and I reposted it and shared my thoughts about. I mean, I've never met a better connector than Bill. He was connected to spirit and source, and he was an amazing human. And there's. Why do we think, therefore, that we are? What if we are and therefore we think? So when I came to my own clarity, I realized I'm a being that has thoughts. Those thoughts are not me. Those are just thoughts. And I can decide what to do with those thoughts. So uh, every year I come up with a mantra for the year. In 2025, my mantra was quiet mind, skillful mind. That if my mind's going to produce thoughts, it should be positive thoughts. And that was a really productive year for me. 2025 was an amazing transformation in my life. 2026, the word for the year was agency, which means my being, my spirit has agency over the thoughts. Not just quiet mind, skillful mind. But I can decide. It's almost like a bully. If you tell the bully to stop bullying you, then it will stop. If you know what you're doing, if you understand that it, if it doesn't get its way, then it's going to stop doing it. So I've done some research around negative thought for humans, and I think it's in the 60 percentage of thought, 60% of all thoughts and most people's brains are negative. Um, I don't have that. And when I do, I just tell it to go away. I mean, there's really no use for it. I'm 63 years old. The world is always taking care of me. I live in San Diego, freaking California. I've traveled to every state in the United States except for North Dakota and Alaska. I've been to every major city. I've been to sporting events and concerts. I've visited the Coliseum in Rome, and I've been to San Safari in Kenya and Uganda. I mean, I've experienced life. What could be so bad that would ever happen in my life? My parents are 94 and 92, 91 and about to turn 95 and 92. And next month in November, early November, we're going to go and my brother and sister, we're going to celebrate my parents 70th wedding anniversary. I'm um, beyond blessed. So what could happen in my life that would be so bad? My parents are going to die, I'm gonna die, and my kids are gonna die. And I just hope that my kids don't die before I do because that would be challenging. And then I see people that say that I'll be devastated if this happens. Well, if somebody dies, why do two people need to die?

Speaker A: Why

Speaker B: do some cultures celebrate death and other cultures mourn death? What is that? It's all training, it's all belief systems and they're not true. That's the crazy part, is that my belief system is just my interpretation and, um, of everything that I've observed in my lifetime. That's what I believe my belief system is. It's not right, it's not wrong. It's just mine. And I can change it whenever I want to. But that takes work. Most people don't want to do the work. They just want to live with what is. They don't want to change. They just don't. Risk tolerance. To me, if you think about anything that sounds like you have a very high tolerance for risk. You're probably in the less than 5% of population, so everybody else wants a job. Honestly, a job is more risky than five clients, because if you lose a client, you still got four. You lose a job, you're out of your income.

Speaker A: I

Speaker B: don't. I never understood that. I've been on for 33 years, and every time I've had an opportunity to go back and get a job, I'm like, you're going to pay me what. I can make more than that in a day speaking,

Speaker A: you're

Speaker B: going to pay me and you're going to tax me at 40% by the time I'm done. It's crazy, but that's how the majority of society lives.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's wild. I think. I think it is a very, um, pertinent issue, though, the, uh, trying to be more human in the current state of AI. So, like, what. What would your tips be on either, like, networking or just having more human connections? Like, how do you. It's a. It's almost a weird question to ask. It's like, as an adult, how do you make more friends? How do you actually have more human connections? Like, do you have tips or thoughts or ideas? Like, uh, what do you think people should do?

Speaker B: So, in my Joy Molecule, what, Who? Why? The first question that most Americans ask when you meet them is, what?

Speaker A: Yeah, what do you do? What do you do for a living?

Speaker B: It's a deck of cards called Spark cards. 54 questions that have nothing to do with what you do and everything about who you are and why you exist. Four suits, four themes, two jokers. The deuce of every suit is the least vulnerable question. The ace is the most vulnerable question. The jokers are over the top, and they're used to teach people. So when I speak, these were regionally designed for me to speak and put them under people's chairs. Because I told a friend who's a speaker that I wanted to create a card with 50 questions that have nothing to do with what you do and everything about who you are and why you exist. And he said, why do one card with 50 questions when you can do a deck of cards? I'm like, that's brilliant. So I created Spark cards, conversations that count. And I will be speaking on Saturday, and I'll get there early. I'll put one card under each person's chair. And towards the end of my talk, I'm going to ask people to pull out the card and read the question to their neighbor. If they want to answer it, they can. But here's an example of 54 questions that you can ask somebody that have nothing to do with what you do. And my dream before I die is that I can teach Americans to stop asking the question, what do you do? And start asking better questions. So when I went through my journey and I saw the envy that I had for others, and I saw the judgment I had for others, and I saw the, uh, ways that I was perceiving the rest of the world, the journey told me that just be curious. So I'm doing my best to not judge others. I'm curious as to why they are the way that they are. They didn't come out of the womb that way. They were taught to be that way. So their addiction to whatever, some of it's natural, some of it's trained, whatever. Stop judging. Be curious about who people are and really want to get to know them and see how you can be of service. That, to me, is the shift that we need to make when we're out networking. We don't need to network. We need to connect. And when you're connecting, you can truly decide, does this person serve me and do I serve them? Is it worthwhile to have a relationship with this person? And you never know who other people know. You have no idea. I can tell you story after story of people that I've met, and then I introduce a lot of people. My title and my card is Chief Connector. And people in San Diego will say that if Larry says we should meet, we should probably meet, because there's something there. And I love doing that. It's my trademark here in town. And I have these, uh, poker chips. My business card is a poker chip. So I have these five dots poker chips. And on the back is my contact information, phone number, email, and the title Chief Connector.

Speaker A: And most people, that's the best business card I've seen. I love it. And

Speaker B: most people never throw it out. They. They. I saw a guy over the weekend who was my facilitator at a workshop almost a year and a half ago, and he said, I still have your chip on my desk. Don't think. I don't think about you. I just. I'm really busy, and I get it. And for me, I have, uh, now taken these spark cards and I actually printed up 10 decks with my contact information on them. So I have poker cards and poker chips for my business cards. And it's fun and I enjoy myself. So when you're out networking, stop networking. Start connecting. Start getting to know human beings and get to know whether their values align with yours. And if they do, they probably know others that have values alignment. So if you find values alignment but not professional services alignment, then they probably know people that function like they do versus finding someone who does exactly what you want but you're not aligned, you don't see the world in a similar view. So my group, when I did this dinner last week, I had 15 people potluck dinner. And I asked everybody why they came, and they all came because they said, I know that you will bring quality people here. And there was no ego in the room, nobody trying to solve each other's problems. Just people giving insight into how they live their lives. So no telling you should do this. No, that doesn't serve anything. We want men, we want to fix things. But what most men really want and need is to be heard, heard, uh, seen and appreciated.

Speaker A: That's truth. Just kind of a funny question. Is, is the icebreaker that you do, you do it. Who are you and why do you exist? Because that seems that's a little bit tough. What are your good icebreakers? Just to like, meet new people. What's the. What's one from the deck or what are the ones you like to use?

Speaker B: M. What's your favorite place to travel to?

Speaker A: Yeah,

Speaker B: tell me about your family. What motivates you? Why do you do what you do? Um,

Speaker A: tell me about, ah,

Speaker B: tell me about something that, that makes you happy.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, something you do that you like lately.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I can read you some of the cards. I mean

Speaker A: the deuce,

Speaker B: the deuces, and the uh, deuce through seven is like really basic business. You can ask in business situation. What's something you loved learning as a kid? What have you gotten better at recently? What used to scare you, that doesn't anymore. What wisdom has stuck with you over the years? What struggles has taught you the most about yourself? Those are the clubs. The diamonds are. What's something simple that brings you joy? Where do you feel most at home? It's a good question. What's your favorite way to celebrate? What always lifts your spirits? Hearts are all about love and connection. What's a small gesture that always makes you smile? And, uh, the ace of hearts what does your heart need that hasn't that you haven't been able to say out loud? So the ace becomes a lot more vulnerable. And then the jokers are over the top. The jokers are joker. Where to go. I actually put them in here. Um, the two joker questions are heavy. And, uh, one is, what part of yourself have you never shown anyone? And the second one is, what needs to change for your life to feel like enough.

Speaker A: Damn. Yep. I love those. Well, that's awesome. I think that's really cool. I think we had a really good conversation today, so thank you so much. Um, I do have some questions that I ask everybody that comes on the show, but, uh, before we get to those, what's the best way for the audience to kind of learn more about you or get in contact?

Speaker B: My website's 5/dots, the number 5, the numeral 5-dots.com. find me M on LinkedIn. My books are on Amazon. Uh, the Joy Molecule is in paperback, Kindle and, uh, audible and successfully defined as in Kindle and paperback. Uh, that's. I mean, Larry@Larry Kesselin.com is my email. And Larry@5Stash dots.com you can get to me. I love talking to people. I'll give anybody 30 minutes. I never know where it's going to go.

Speaker A: Beautiful. I love it. We'll have all the links down below in the show notes. Uh, so the first question that I ask everybody, we've already kind of talked about some of these on this episode, but these are kind of clipped, and they're going to become more of a compilation. Uh, but the first one is money, right? What is your philosophy on money? How to have more money, how to manage more money, how to have a better relationship with money. Just what are your thoughts on money?

Speaker B: Stop focusing on the money and start focusing on what you love and where your passions are. And money is a byproduct, just like new products or new business is a byproduct. Uh, my company's called Five Dots and I have five dots that I teach people about business development. And new business is a byproduct of a system. You don't go out looking for new business. So when you say when you're out networking, to me, the five dots are, you need to develop relationships. That's the first dot. The second one is target market. You need to be really clear on your icp, your ideal client profile. The third dot, uh, is storytelling. You need to tell great stories, which I've been practicing my whole life. The fourth dot Is the most important strategic alliances. Who are the people that have access to your client, that don't compete with you, that their clients would benefit if they worked with you? Those are the keys. And then the last one is relationship management. So as you start to build better relationships, clearly articulate your target market and tell great stories to your strategic alliance partners. They'll be able to communicate those to their prospects or their clients and introduce you. Then you have to manage all those relationships. Who are the people in your network you need to touch every 30 days? Who are the ones you need to touch every 60 days? Who touch every 90 days? And that's kind of life. So money is the same thing. Money's an outcome. Money is not something that I chase anymore. And the more I become the person I was meant to be, the easier money flows.

Speaker A: Love it. And then the second question is happiness. Uh, what is the secret to a happy life? What is happiness? How do you find happiness?

Speaker B: I define happiness as getting my needs met. So the less needs I have, the easier it is to be happy. So I would say, as I said before, success redefined was when wants become needs, because happiness is getting your needs met. So I have seven basic needs. Food, water, shelter, safety, love, air, and health. Those are the things we need. And for some of us, we need sex, but the rest is all a want. So understand the difference between a want and a need, and I think it's easier to be happy.

Speaker A: Love it. And the final one is success. You know, how do you set a goal and achieve it? Or what is success? Or what. What is your thoughts on success?

Speaker B: Spend a lot of time thinking about success. And I think America has a disease, a success disease. Um, I no longer chase success. I no longer look at success as my barometer of anything. But I did spend a lot of years seeking it. And my definition for success, the ability to do what I want whenever I want to do it, While being part of something greater than myself is the easiest way for me to define it. Um, freedom is a beautiful thing. My ego and my identity need it, but my being doesn't. So I'm a being that has an ego, and my ego creates my identity. And the stronger your identity is in this lifetime, the easier it is to create cash flow. Nothing wrong with any of that stuff. There's nothing wrong with achieving and working hard, but doing it for the sake of the return is like living for the destination and not even being on the journey. So life is all about the journey, not about the destination. So that if we want to look at success. Success is enjoying every moment of the journey versus trying to figure out how to get to the destination.

Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Any last thoughts for the audience before we wrap up?

Speaker B: Oh, uh, thank you for being so insightful, for being on your own journey and being open to the possibility that what you knew wasn't truth. And then, um, you're learning a new way to be. And I promise you that there are lots of things you believe today that in 10 years, you won't. So why do you believe them? Why do we hold on to so many things that might not be true? Because they make us feel comfortable. So thank you for being who you are.

Speaker A: Every day is a paradigm shift for me. I'm learning stuff constantly. It's a wild ride, man. Uh, Larry Kessel, everybody. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Uh, we'll talk to you in the next one. Have a great rest of your day.