Joshua Kramer: Episode 866

Transcript

[0:00:00] Joshua Kramer: These individual drivers I found were very useful in defining them and being more clear about the value of each principle. Kindness, as I said, compassion. Gratitude, I feel you need to have awareness. For integrity, I believe it's guided by decency. And humility, perspective is required. And lastly, acceptance, it has to do with flexibility. So those different drivers of those principles, I feel like distill them down a little bit more clearly. and they become much more attainable as well.

[0:00:35] Host: To be light, you first have to be solid. Have you ever tried to find peace and joy by simply being? Or do you take a different path, instead wandering down the frustrating road of always doing? Our pursuit of meaningful personal growth can be elusive and difficult to sustain. We search for an approach that feels natural and organic, but our success is often short-lived. What if we had a foundation of values that removed this weight of expectation and emphasized a strong basis for living? In the Unicorn NU, Joshua Kramer identifies a sensible path to peace and joy based on the fundamental principles of kindness, gratitude, integrity, humility, and acceptance. He outlines practical, actionable steps for reconnecting with these universal qualities and demonstrates how our potential extends beyond what most of us envision in our daily lives. The Unicorn in You is an inspirational guide and powerful reminder to step out of your head, build a foundation for being, and take the path less traveled to unlock a more peaceful, joyful life. This is the Author Hour Podcast, and I'm your host, Frank Garza. Today I'm joined by Joshua Kramer, author of a brand new book, The Unicorn in You. Joshua, welcome to the show.

[0:01:59] Joshua Kramer: Hey, thanks so much for having me.

[0:02:02] Host: To kick things off, could you please share with us a bit about your background and how that led to you writing this book?

[0:02:08] Joshua Kramer: Sure. Well, I'm from Northern New Jersey. I grew up just outside of Manhattan and a very happy childhood, loving family. Spent time in my formative years in Washington DC and Miami and New York City. And I guess over the past 25 years or so, I have always been a student and reader of self-help books. mostly in the personal growth and development space. And I always felt like there was something that I was cultivating on my own, something that I probably wanted to say. And it wasn't until really the onset of COVID, perhaps a couple of months before that I felt that a perspective was beginning in my mind. And that was sort of the genesis for my book, The Unicorn in You.

[0:02:48] Host: You mentioned in the book that you spent some time searching for a certain kind of happiness and that ultimately you realized that what you were really seeking was peace and joy. Can you talk about that distinction between peace and joy versus happiness?

[0:03:05] Joshua Kramer: I think for me, I had years of struggle with depression and sadness and it was something that was so pervasive that I never could get out of my own head that I think I was looking for in my mind the sense of happiness, not even understanding that there were different types of happiness. And as I came to understand this process of mine that didn't feel like a process, it was the idea that peace and joy was itself a type of happiness. It was more of a balance and a harmony within rather than this very abstract, very ambitious sense of just general happiness. So for me, peace and joy had to do with something that more how I felt on the inside rather than what I was trying to attain on the outside.

[0:03:51] Host: Makes sense. So who did you write this book for? Who is your target audience?

[0:03:57] Joshua Kramer: Candidly, I wrote it for myself. And initially, it was out of self-preservation. It was at a time where I felt like I really needed a different perspective and outlook. And as I went through the process of writing, I made the comment to someone, you know, if this book helps one person, I'll be very happy. And the truth is that it did help one. It helped me. But more broadly, now that I am releasing it and feeling comfortable enough sharing it in that view that I think can be helpful to people, I think that broadly, I would say it's for anyone who is on this journey of trying to find their best version of themselves. And I know that sort of in vogue and that type of cliche has become a little obvious. But I think it really does translate to the person that maybe is saying, listen, I'm sort of curious. I'm not a real believer or student in this kind of methodologies, but let me try to understand how to simplify life. And then maybe it's to the person who has read a lot of different books and tried different things and nothing is really sustained because everything has felt like such an involved, unnatural process. And I think that it sort of transcends that idea that there has to be this mechanism or approach to finding peace and joy, rather than what I feel like we're providing is a more simple path, a kind of back to basics approach.

[0:05:16] Host: There's this phrase you use throughout the book, to be light, you first have to be solid. Can you please expand on that and talk about what that means?

[0:05:27] Joshua Kramer: Yeah, that phrase, I think, informed everything I did in this book, because it really brought me back to the beginning of it. And then what the thesis of the book is. So in my mind, the idea of this feeling of being light connects to the sense of peace and joy. And that feeling of lightness is so elusive. And what I came to realize is that It wasn't something that I necessarily had to pursue very specifically, but instead by having this foundation of principles that would make me very grounded and very solid, that would allow for that feeling of lightness. And we can certainly get into the principles in a bit, but I think that's kind of the essence and spirit of what I meant by that. But you're spot on the idea to be light. You first have to be solid. If there's one key takeaway from the book, that's it.

[0:06:21] Host: Yeah, I'm excited to get into those principles and I wanna quote a section of the book here, quote, as simple as it sounds, I believe that's the most direct path to peace and joy, kindness, gratitude, integrity, humility and acceptance, end quote. So we're gonna get into some of these at least in more depth, but to start off with, can you talk about those five principles and how you define those?

[0:06:49] Joshua Kramer: Absolutely. And I think that when I think about the principles, the idea that for everyone, they're going to be very different. But at the same time, I found there was a common thread between those five and it was selflessness. This all ties back to this feeling of being light to getting out of our own head. And what I came to appreciate was the fact that selflessness was in fact, a viable path to peace and joy because We made it less about ourselves, very obviously, of course. So kindness, I found, was driven very much by compassion. And these individual drivers, I found, were very useful in defining them and being more clear about the value of each principle. Kindness, as I said, compassion. Gratitude, I feel you need to have awareness. For integrity, I believe it's guided by decency. and humility, perspective is required. And lastly, acceptance, it has to do with flexibility. So those different drivers of those principles, I feel like distill them down a little bit more clearly, and they become much more attainable as well.

[0:07:56] Host: Yeah, I really like how the book is structured. You know, basically there's a chapter on each of those five principles and you talk about the path of which is kind of how the principle guides you toward lasting peace and joy and you talk about the way to which is which are ways we can practice these principles. I'd like to dig into a few of those. For humility, when you talk about the path of humility, one of the ones that caught my eye was humility eases the weight of self-importance. Can you dig into that?

[0:08:27] Joshua Kramer: Yeah, and humility, as I mentioned in the book, I think, is maybe one of the most underappreciated principles, values that really all of us have, because the idea of easing the weight of self importance, one of the struggles that I always came back to was not being able to get out of my own head. And much of that had to do with my sense of my significance, but really a lack of awareness of my insignificance in the world. And so by having humility, which I believe is guided by a sense of perspective, we're able to let go a little bit of our sense of our self-importance. And in many ways, it lightens some of the burdens that we carry, some of the anxieties. And for me, what always was so pervasive was the sense of worry. And so the idea of cultivating awe, which I believe is a key element to humility, that really helps you ease that weight of self-importance. It almost develops a sense of curiosity in the world. It diminishes ourselves in our mind in a good way, in a way that doesn't belittle us, but it just, it reduces us down to a more realistic size and scope.

[0:09:41] Host: OK, how about acceptance? One of the paths of acceptance is acceptance helps us let go.

[0:09:48] Joshua Kramer: Acceptance was my fifth principle, and I felt like it really tied everything together in many ways. I initially wrestled with the idea of what would tolerance look like, and I didn't really like the way that tolerance suggested that we put up with something. Acceptance means, in my mind, that we are able to Make peace with it. And you're absolutely right that helping us let go is really at the core of acceptance. By accepting something, what it does is that it grounds us in what is rather than what isn't. And I think that it's very, very important. In so many ways, it acknowledges the truth. It roots us in reality. So by practicing acceptance, by being in touch with it, it can help us let go of the things that maybe we don't like that happen in our lives, but at least makes us in tune with the fact that they have happened and we need to accept that.

[0:10:47] Host: Okay, now I want to talk about a few of these, the way to the principles, which is just some practices that can help us implement these. For kindness, the one that really caught my eye was practice pro-social behavior. What is pro-social behavior and how do you do that?

[0:11:04] Joshua Kramer: Yeah, pro-social behavior is something that isn't talked about too much. And with all of these, I certainly wanted to make them feel more instinctive and organic. And I think that pro-social behavior can become that for people. And basically, it's a sense of awareness that the greater good has value to all of us. In many ways, pro-social behavior has to do with it's not just about me. And as I mentioned, kindness is guided by compassion. And I believe the surest way to do that is by releasing our own judgments, letting go of what we believe about people, and perhaps using our sense of imagination. And pro-social behavior ties into this by saying, I'm going to use my sense of compassion by realizing that my sense of kindness, my happiness is not just all about me. It's about everyone else's as well. And that when we search for other people's happiness, we can find our own a lot quicker as well.

[0:12:09] Host: OK. On the way to gratitude, for me, not to me. Tell me more about that.

[0:12:17] Joshua Kramer: That has been something that I think more than anything else, those four words of the past two years have meant a lot to me personally. In the idea being that we have many ways that we can look at anything. And gratitude certainly, as I mentioned, has to do with the sense of awareness. And oftentimes when things happen in our lives, perhaps more so when things happen that we don't like, we think, why did this happen to me? And we feel like a victim in some way. And if we shift our thinking, and if we say that, especially under the principle of gratitude, that this thing may have happened, maybe not to my liking, but there's some benefit here in it for me. And so we say that this didn't happen to me, it happened for me. And by doing so, it allows you to be grateful for the fact that maybe there's a lesson somehow, maybe we can find the positive in it. And maybe just maybe it makes you more in tune with the things that we should be thankful for. And it helps us focus on what we have instead of what we don't.

[0:13:23] Host: Yeah, I like that one. Can you think about any examples from your own life where that particular practice has helped you?

[0:13:31] Joshua Kramer: You know, I would say that in business, there have been things that I would say mistakes or missteps that I've taken. And I had two choices. I could either really regret them deeply. I could certainly wallow in the self pity. Or I could try to take the lesson from it and say, you know what, maybe this happened here in a way that wasn't the outcome I wanted. I'm disappointed in it. But the reality is, going back to acceptance, it's happened. I'm grateful for this lesson. And now that I've made this misstep, this happened for me, not to me, because now I know I maybe won't make it again and that I've learned a very valuable lesson. And so I think that reframing in our mind can become really important And it shifts everything that happens in our lives. We tend to see the positive in the things that happen that we don't want. And I think that that can really release a lot of the angst, a lot of the worry and much of the regret as well.

[0:14:36] Host: Okay. How about integrity? One of the practices here is keep the right company. Tell me more about that one.

[0:14:44] Joshua Kramer: Yeah, integrity. I think that a lot of people think, okay, it has to do with honesty. Recently, I was listening to someone go through their methodologies of personal growth and development and They said, integrity, let's distill it down a little bit more. And what does it really mean? It's too abstract. And to me, it's quite the opposite. Either you have integrity or you don't. And so for me, it's guided by decency, a sense of decency and understanding that we define our values. We know who we are. And the idea of keeping the right company, I think, has real merit here. And there's an expression in some way, shape or form that we've all heard that we're the average of our five friends or the five closest people that we keep. And to me is that if you want to have integrity, be around people who have it as well. It can become contagious and not in a self-righteous way, not in a way that has the sense of self-importance. But my grandfather used to say to me that, you know, your word is your bond. And it's such a simple expression, probably more from a different generation that I think that really meant something. The idea was that you shook someone's hand, it meant something. And so I believe in keeping the Ray company is very important in embodying integrity and having it as an active and practical principle in your life.

[0:16:03] Host: Yeah, that phrase you mentioned, you are the five people you spend the most time with or some version of that is the first thing I thought of when I was reading through that chapter. Okay, how about humility? One of the practices is to cultivate awe. How could one cultivate awe?

[0:16:21] Joshua Kramer: I love the idea of being out more in nature, it's something that I've become more connected to in recent years. And that was sort of what prompted that idea of when we cultivate awe, we can reduce our sense of self-importance. So one way that we can do that is to put down our devices, put down our smartphones and really look around, really, you know, this idea of being present has become in vogue. But when we really stop, quiet our minds and look around and cultivating awe has to do with maybe looking at something that we typically take for granted and maybe the example I give of being out in nature, it has to do with looking at the sky, looking at the trees, and becoming more awestruck by what's around us. And I think I write something in the book that when we allow ourselves to be awestruck about the world around us, we worry less about being awestruck by ourselves. And I think that's so true. I believe that this idea of cultivating awe and curiosity lessens our sense of significance, our own personal significance. We're all special, but we're tiny. We're small in the whole scheme of things. And I think it's important to recognize that.

[0:17:35] Host: OK, how about acceptance? There's a practice called feel it first. Tell me more about that one.

[0:17:41] Joshua Kramer: Yeah, acceptance is the type of thing that when, you know, going back to what we spoke about earlier, this idea of living in reality, our truth acceptance, I believe is not giving in necessarily, it's acknowledging the truth. And so the idea of feeling at first I think is so important because it's a recognition of our emotions and our feelings about it. I'll give an example. Let's say someone ends a relationship. and there's a disappointment and perhaps it's a difficulty accepting that the relationship is over. I think the most important thing to do is at least acknowledge how we feel about it. Maybe it's a sadness and a disappointment. Sometimes we try to, I guess, sweep them under the rug a little bit, our feelings and emotions. We want to be strong. We want to be little tougher, we don't want to admit that we're hurt by it. But feeling at first, I think is the initial important step of saying, okay, this is the reality, the first step towards getting to that deeper reality. But I'm hurt right now. And that's okay, because everything's going to be all right. But I would at least you need to be honest about that.

[0:18:51] Host: As you've gone throughout your life and worked on these five principles, is there one of the five that you found to be more challenging to consistently implement in your life or one that you've seen others consistently struggle with?

[0:19:07] Joshua Kramer: It's a great question and I was asked that recently. I'll go back a little bit and I mentioned it in the book. I had an interaction with Ryan Holiday who's an author and thinker that I respect greatly. I was at an event of his where he talked about stillness is the key. It was in many ways the genesis for the idea of kindness. He had asked me what matters most in my life, what's my North Star, and I started with kindness. A few months later, fast forward to the start of the pandemic, I uncovered the other four. But the one that I think is so interesting, and I'll go back to it, is that idea of integrity. And it's interesting because in business, to me, there's no equivocation. And there shouldn't be a distinction between our business and personal, but for me, and perhaps it's because I grew up in a family business, my grandfather was important to me, and that idea of your word is your bond. I have made integrity a hallmark of my business practice. And I'd like to say that I follow that in my personal life as well, but in small ways sometimes, maybe because it's the times that we're in. I'll give a small example. You know, we tell people that we're going to meet. I don't love canceling. I don't like rescheduling. I don't like to take people's times for granted. And sometimes integrity is simple as doing what you say you're going to do. And so I think perhaps for me, I just need to be more mindful of that sometimes. If it's easy to have a default of, I don't feel like going today, let me cancel or reschedule rather than you made the plan, show up, be there and do what you said you were going to do.

[0:20:36] Host: Thank you for sharing that example. Well, writing a book is such a feat. So congratulations on getting this done. Is there anything else about you or the book that you want to make sure our listeners know before we wrap up?

[0:20:49] Joshua Kramer: You know, I think that In many ways, this book I thought for a while was a labor of love. And the truth is that there was no labor. There was effort for sure. I don't even say there was work. It was all love. It came from a place that really was important to me because I needed this. And as someone who has studied many of these types of books for a long time, what I'm so proud of is that upon completion, I had a second epiphany, which was that this was the unself help book. And it's a claim I make only because I know that going back to that first quote you read, you know, to be light, you first have to be solid. This is a book about being rather than doing. This isn't about a process or a mechanism. This is about creating the fundamentals, back to basics, a foundation in our lives. that can help us get to a path of peace and joy. And I hope that readers enjoy it, that it resonates with them. I encourage them to connect with me directly at theunicornandyou.com, because I really would like to hear how this connects with people, if there are other principles in their lives that they find important, because I'd love to implement them myself. But I do believe that for And I'm hopeful that for a lot of people, kindness, gratitude, integrity, humility, and acceptance create a viable foundation and a path for their own peace and joy.

[0:22:16] Host: Joshua, this has been such a pleasure and I'm so excited about your book and happy that you put that out into the world. The book is called The Unicorn in You. Besides checking out the book, where can people find you?

[0:22:29] Joshua Kramer: They could come to the website, theunicorninu.com. They can check out some of the videos and other footage and other media that has been posted there. I've been very fortunate to get some acknowledgments online through some business publications and some other podcasts I've been guests on. So I'll continue to keep people updated there. But I just want to express my gratitude to anyone who is interested in reading it, learning more, and finding the unicorn in you. Thank you, Joshua.

[0:22:55] Host: Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Author Hour. You can find the unicorn in you on Amazon. A transcript of this episode, as well as all of our previous episodes, is available at AuthorHour.co. For more Author Hour, subscribe to this podcast on your favorite subscription service. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. Same place, different author.