What AI Can't Replace: The Ancient Skills That Will Save Us | Soren Gordhamer

Soren Gordhamer (0:00)

With AI, Artificial Intelligence, emerging in our culture right now, there needs to be a similar renaissance of spirituality or of awakening because the artificial intelligence is going to get so powerful, and it can need to be used for good or for bad.

Michael Gervais (0:13)

The question is not if AI will advance, it will. The real question is whether we as humans will advance with it.

Soren Gordhamer (0:21)

A world where AI takes over and we lose contact with humanity, we lose contact with our own feeling, that is a more dangerous world.

Michael Gervais (0:28)

Welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. Now, the idea behind these conversations is really simple, to sit with the extraordinary and learn, to really learn about how they work from the inside out. In this week, we're joined by someone who is an expert at doing just that.

I've known and respected him for a long time, my friend, Soren Gordhamer. Soren is the founder of Wisdom 2.0, a global event series at the intersection of wisdom and technology.

Soren Gordhamer (1:06)

I meet with a lot of the tech founders and some of them are working their ass off to build this company, to sell it, to take it public. I see them when they sell it and they'd always hoped, oh, this is the moment that I've been waiting for. Finally, this desire in me gets satiated and they get everything they want and they're absolutely miserable because no shift in the external world can satiate what is unresolved in the internal world.

Michael Gervais (1:27)

His new book, The Essential, Discovering What Really Matters in an Age of Distraction, invites us to stop performing and start being.

Soren Gordhamer (1:35)

Some people see the inherent beauty that they are, but they're not willing to see any of the dark. And some people, all they do is they see the dark and they judge themselves. And so can we hold both of those as truths?

Michael Gervais (1:46)

With that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with wisdom teacher and my friend, Soren.

Soren, I am so happy that we're getting this time to be able to do this. We've been friends for a long time. This is a great celebration. And before we dive into all the different places that we're going to go, because I know how our conversations go, can you give like a flyover about why this book, why now, and like really what were you trying to do by introducing this, your writing to us?

Soren Gordhamer (2:23)

Well, first it's wonderful to be here again with you, Mike. The book is called The Essential, Discovering What Really Matters in an Age of Distraction, and it is what it says it is. How do we discover and harness that which is most essential in our lives? And I think in this day of social media and pings and all the things that we get that distract us, how do we actually come back to what is true and real and we live from that place?

Michael Gervais (2:45)

One of the challenges, I think, for us in this conversation is that we've been friends for a long time. And I want to have a conversation that helps me better understand you, but at the same time, have our community really get the wealth of information, wisdom that you come from. So if we started with this hinge idea that when I first met you, you were an observer of teachers. And I'm talking like the heavies of wisdom. Call it Thich Nhat Hanh, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and, and, and. And now, in this book, I see you as a teacher. So from the observer and the student to a teacher, I do want to understand that arc. First, I want to start with your book that you just wrote.

It's really intimate. It's really clear. It has a deep tone of honesty. And at the same time, I think your teachers, the teachers, would say, oh my gosh, it's an unbelievable reveal of wisdom. So you hit the depth on both parts, the depth of wisdom and the depth of intimacy. So well done.

Soren Gordhamer (4:07)

Thank you.

Michael Gervais (4:08)

I'm so happy for you.

Soren Gordhamer (4:10)

Thank you. That means a lot.

Michael Gervais (4:11)

Yeah.

Soren Gordhamer (4:12)

It means a lot. You know, I think when we go out to write a book, we don't know exactly what it wants to be. We start out with an idea and then it tells us how it wants to unfold. And as I started writing, I didn't have a lot of those personal experiences in it, but something felt kind of stale. I felt like I was repeating other people's words and I just didn't feel like authentically connected to it. And then I started going back in and going, hold it, where did this insight come from? What was the source of this insight? Oh, the source of that insight was when I was depressed as a 16 year old. Oh yeah, what was that experience like? Let me tell that story, because that story says more than me just talking about depression from like an analyst perspective. It like brings people into the actual experience. And so for me, it was like a review of my life and different points of my life. And then trying to really get back to, can I share the experience of that? So the person who's listening to it actually feels it. Because I actually think words, words can be kind of dry and pointless in some ways, but it's the energy and it's the passion, it's the authenticity behind the words. That's what really matters. And so I feel like I had to go really deep into myself and be like, all right, where was this insight from? And how can I share that as like, vulnerably and openly as I can for the service of others?