Chapter 5 - Redefining Academic Careers and Happiness with Kian Alberto

What happens when a random encounter at a café sparks a conversation that unfolds into a captivating story?

Get ready for a compelling episode that’s bound to challenge your perspectives! Join me as I welcome Kian Alberto, whose life story reads like a screenplay of triumph and struggle. From a three-year-old soccer prodigy to navigating the complexities of a multicultural identity, Kian's journey is anything but ordinary.

But that’s just the beginning. As we peel back the layers of Kian's experiences, we delve into a bold critique of academia—does it truly prepare us for the harsh realities of life? With tension brewing between our differing viewpoints, we embark on a philosophical exploration of what happiness really means. Is it found in enduring pain and sacrifice, or is it an internal state of being?

With each twist and turn in our conversation, you’ll find yourself questioning everything you thought you knew about success, self-discovery, and the role of education. Kian’s insights are raw, honest, and at times, provocative forcing us all to confront our own beliefs.

Don’t miss this episode where we navigate the fine line between dreams and reality. Tune in and prepare for an unforgettable discussion that could change how you see your own path of happiness!

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Creators & Guests

Host

Veronika Becher

What is Identity Library?

Welcome to the Identity Library, a captivating podcast hosted by Veronika Becher, a German student exploring life in the United States. Join me as we unravel the different layers of identity and embark on a quest for authenticity. Each episode delves into how our backgrounds, cultures, and personal journeys sculpt our sense of self.

Every month, we journey into a new cultural landscape with our guests, sharing stories and experiences from the tapestry of life. Whether you're forging a path in a foreign land or simply curious about the forces that define us, The Identity Library invites you to write your own narrative or uncover fresh perspectives.

So, settle in with a cup of tea and immerse yourself in tales from around the globe with some sense of humor. If you don't find your story here, keep exploring—there are countless books with chapters waiting to be discovered. Identity Library is a podcast by WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2.

Veronika Becher 0:01
Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of Identity Library. My name is Veronika Becher, and today I'm joined by Kian how you pronounce the last name? Yes.

Kian Alberto 0:15
Can you please introduce yourself, and just like you know, just tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, hi Veronika. Let me just I'll redo the intro for it. Hi everyone. This is Kian Alberto, and this is the great podcast of the world. I'm joined here by Veronika. And why you, you're not the one I'm interviewing.

Veronika Becher 0:39
We had to redo that a little bit. We are not for doing anything. So dear listeners, I'm just joined by a person that is overconfident and really wants to be, you know, part of my podcast. That's okay. We're accepting, you know, everyone that wants to be part of it. Jokes aside,

Kian Alberto 0:57
can you please introduce yourself? I'm very grateful to be here, and I'm sure that we will have a great time on the podcast. But anyways, I'm Kian Alberto. Like I mentioned again, I live in Raleigh. Currently, I definitely don't go to NC State. I graduated from Colgate University, a little school in upstate New York, and definitely jersey, born and bred, if you couldn't tell, very upfront, very in your face, very straightforward to ask wrong person,

but, yeah, um, that's, that's, in a nutshell, who I am, pretty much. That's the shortest introduction ever. There's not really much else to it, you know, like, This is who I am. This is where I'm from. This is where I'm at. Okay, if I ask you the next question, what language you speak and how many languages you speak, and then we can talk about, you know, a real introduction.

Yeah, sorry, I don't have Joe Rogan across from me right now.

No, oh, yeah. So, so, yeah, I speak five languages here and there, Spanish, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, mainly because of just my life and where I grew up. I spent a lot of my young life out in Europe playing soccer. I was a old soccer, professional soccer player before this, so

a lot of my life was spent across different countries in Europe, where I was able to pick up different languages, and honestly, very grateful for it, because it's pretty cool. Where's your family from? Yeah. So my parents both actually immigrated to this country during the same kind of time, during the 70s. My dad came from El Salvador during the civil war going on over there, and my mom actually came from Iran during the revolution, the Islamic Revolution.

So yeah, obviously they fled for a lot of women empowerment reasons and suppression, for that matter. And so they met in Jersey, and it was just a love story from there. It's fantastic. It's a beautiful story. You should ask him about it sometime. I'm gonna interview them. My next interview is gonna be with your parents. Congratulations. You just like, brought in a whole new story to the podcast. They're still in Jersey. It's okay. We can travel, right? This is how you see New Jersey again. I'm just saying, as long as I don't have to go down the east coast and get stuck somewhere in, I don't know, Ohio, like last time we're fine, wow. How's a beautiful place. It's a beautiful place. I'm not complaining, but I'm complaining about being stuck there for like six hours. So I think that's a different story for itself at like midnight.

Veronika Becher 3:32
So yeah, don't do that. Don't do that.

Kian Alberto 3:35
So you mentioned soccer. I know your story, yeah. How did we meet? Veronica? Why don't you tell people how we met? Okay, this is the most random though conversation I was I was at work. I was at my office, super office, like he's literally living in a coffee shop. Why others, apparently, like my, you know, co host, he lives in a radio station. You just live in the coffee shop, just saying, um, yeah, okay, we can, we can talk about that. Yeah, sure. Shout out jubala coffee shop, Hillsboro, on a random Wednesday

for this shout out, you guys should give me free coffee. Me too, please. But I don't want coffee at one tea. Um, but yeah. Basically,

I was just reading a book and calling my mom, because I do this all the time on random Wednesdays. Um, just have being just good conversation with my mom. And I love reading books. And then there were, like, two random girls sitting next to me and him, the random stranger in the corner, just saying,

working in his office, apparently. Um, so if you ever see him, or a guy who's every single time in Juba, you will know it's him. There's just one guy, probably just wearing something really cool too. What do you mean? You're just a soccer player? I Well, maybe not cool. Just stand out, fashionable. Stand Out.

No, stand out. Not good or bad, just stand out. I definitely wear things that would stand out. Sorry, you just lost.

You just lost. I'm sorry that's I didn't say good or bad. No, stand out. So basically, you were sitting there in a corner, and there were two girls next to me, one both engineers. One was studying for stats exam, and I just couldn't handle being quiet anymore, and so I had to, you know, have Veronica, sometimes she just interrupts conversations. So I interrupted the conversation to give her an advice how to study for stats. And this other guy, you know, in the corner was also really eager to help her, so we end up advising her on whole stats.

So if you ever see us being professors in the future, probably not, but who knows, you will know what happened. We're probably going to be the stats duo.

I will never be a professor. I will stop at writing college recommendations.

I know that you're not gonna be a professor. I'm trying to get my PhD, but that's a different story. I believe in academia.

I don't believe in academia. That means you reshape it, but that's a different story. So um, and we start talking to each other.

This is how you meet strangers. I should rename my podcast to Veronica's coffee shop. You really should. Is the coffee shop podcast? Yeah. I mean, yeah, when I go to call, when I go to the coffee shop, I try to meet somebody new every single day. Um, so I make a point of with myself to go ahead and say hi to someone every single day and meet somebody new. Talk to them, learn about their story, learn about why they're there, and just learn about their perspectives on life. Because you can learn something from every walk and shape of life that comes across. If I would fly more often, I would actually have a like airport podcast, because I meet the most trained, like the the most impressive people for some reason in the airport. I mean, no, it makes sense, they're traveling for work, aren't they? Yes, but it's just strange, and I always have a really insightful conversation. I come back every single time I travel back home to Germany. My mom's like, Who did you meet? I'm like, I didn't try, I swear I didn't try to talk to them. They start talking to me first. So, yeah, I don't know that's definitely happy, definitely go and talk to everybody. No, it's not. You jumped into our conversation. I was trying to recruit them to work for me, and you decided to hop into the conversation. So you just misjudged them and thought they'll issue graphic designers, and they were engineers. Can we just like talk about the fact that you thought they were graphic designers? Opportunities? Opportunity, okay, never missed that. Just go back to the actual topic, Mr. Coffee Shop.

So this guy here was really eager to record an episode to such an extent where he managed to get my normal, you know, weekly plan, um, destroyed for the next two weeks. I'm joking,

Veronika Becher 8:05
but he found some time in my calendar, and

Kian Alberto 8:09
so far, we've been wasting it, but that's going to

Veronika Becher 8:15
change. Okay, starting

Kian Alberto 8:18
so you said you started playing soccer. Can you just elaborate a little bit how you started playing soccer, and why soccer? Like, let's just go, you know, start with the basics. Yeah, the massive wormhole of life. Um, yeah. So, I mean, I started playing when I was about three years old, so I've, this is something I've always wanted to do. This is something that I've always been drawn to and, like, it wasn't very hard to understand that I wanted to do this with my life. Um, honestly, the story you're probably asking for is, like, how do you get there? Like, what do you do? More More likely than not, right? So it's just like, No, let's just start with the basics. Why soccer? Where did you get your soccer? Like, I didn't play any other sport too. I know soccer is bigger in Europe and bigger in other countries than the United States, but still, well, that's simple, right? So, like, my dad played. He didn't play professionally, but he played, so it was something that the family enjoyed, like they liked it, like, I'm a part Hispanic. So most of the Hispanic community play soccer. You go up around it, like it's part of just the culture, like Sunday weekends, things like that. You go to church, you watch soccer the rest of the day, you go play soccer, you go do this, like it's just ingrained in the culture of what we do. Um, so realistically, just that it wasn't kind of like an active choice. Maybe it was like just a cultural thing that I don't really know, really that probably, but from there, he just loved it. The first time that I touched the ball like I knew that I wanted to do it, it was fun. I loved it made me feel free. It made me understand that expression is something that I enjoy doing and being able to express myself free.

Is something that I like doing when I have a platform for it to it like impact and affect other people. And I learned that really, really young. So when I kind of realized that at about like four years old, I kid you not, at about four years old that looked my dad straight in the eyes one day and said, This is what I want to do in my life. And so ever since I said that, like I just lived it right, like I wasn't lying. I knew what I wanted to do it. And I said, All right, this is what I'm gonna go do. And I decided to just go do it every single day. Is just, this is what I want to do. This is what I want to do. And just keep going every single day. Keep pushing every single day. He didn't believe me at the time, but obviously, as like he sees this four year old kid go from four to six to eight and just doesn't stop doing what he's doing that children don't do like you start to believe it.

Words and actions are two very loud things. Actions are way louder than the words, because the words tend to always fade over time

without proven action.

How old were you when you first brought up the idea of playing soccer? 444,

24 so 20 years ago?

Veronika Becher 11:10
That's crazy. Yeah,

Kian Alberto 11:13
20 years I think the crazy part is we are, like, two years apart, and that's the crazy part. Like, what you've done, what I've done, like, complete opposite things, yeah, well, I mean, it comes with a lot, right? Like, I mean, I don't know how much you've explored yourself on this podcast with other people, but for me, it comes with sacrifice. There's a balance in everything, right? Yes. So if you want, if you want to achieve something that is 1%

Well, you're not gonna have the life of 99%

it's so true. I know I actually, I do know what it means to sacrifice things. I sacrificed my whole social life in high school, like back then, even because I danced. And most people that dance professionally, they couldn't do academics and at same time dancing full time. So what I did is kind of not having any social life. I only practiced danced and studied, and I knew I want to have good grades because I needed for college, but also I knew I want to continue dancing. So did both. But then you kind of sacrifice something else, and I feel like you need to understand, are you willing to sacrifice it in the long run? Are you willing to sacrifice something for just a short period, or do you even sacrifice anything at all? Well, that comes with my favorite word, but we're not going to bring that up

right now. Perfect sense, but we're not going to talk about that right

Veronika Becher 12:36
now. I mean, yeah, I agree. I agree with that wholeheartedly, right? Like, it's just like, um,

Kian Alberto 12:43
it brings you to places, right? It's like, sometimes you have to sacrifice something if you want to achieve something. And it is what it is, but

it happens. But I'm so proud that I'm here where I am right now, sitting at NC State because of what I've done so far, which is amazing for you.

Veronika Becher 13:01
Um, but, yeah, I agree with that. I think that everybody will sacrifice, and everybody has the capabilities of sacrificing, but it just depends on what. And it's like that, what and that, why is something that's so strong that if you really commit to that and you understand what it is, it's really not that hard to make a sacrifice, nor is it really sacrifice until you look back, it's 10 years from now, five years from whenever it is that it happens, you're like, Oh, well, I wish I had that. Do you you would have a different life than you do now? Are you happy where you're at now? Are you content with your progress? Well, if you are, then you didn't wish a different outcome than what you did, because it doesn't if, if you want to be great, if you want to accomplish something in your life, it's not just going to fall into your lap. It does for about 1% of the people, but for the rest of everybody else, you have to go and do exactly what it takes to go and get there. And you need to prepare yourself for it every single day. That takes a lot of sacrifice. Like for me, childhood didn't exist. Ever had one? Why? Because of soccer, because of your career. Time consumption, time what do I spend my time on utility? What's the utility of training soccer every day, focusing on it every single day, every hour? The utility of that is that I will then become professional, hopefully, is that my goal in life? Will I be happy when I accomplish that? Yes, does it go with a lot of the lifestyle that I want to be able to do, what I want to be free, the way that I want to be around the people that I want more than I more than usual? Yes, yes, yes, check, check, check, check. So it's like

Kian Alberto 14:44
sacrifice to who

it's sacrifice to the regular person. It's not a sacrifice to me, because I was doing what I wanted to do. I remember, um, when I was like, even still in middle school, I think even elementary school, my mom was like, no.

Let me play outside, because she was like, do the math equations. It was really bad, and I complained to her. I'm like, why am I doing homework and so much more than anyone else outside. And it's really interesting, because if I look back now,

I was where I started and where I am now. I made such a progress because of sacrificing certain things in life. Not saying that I didn't have a childhood, but it comes with, like, great

discipline and some other skills you acquire along the way. And it's just like, I'm grateful for what my mom did to me, but it's still something that is questionable,

just maybe a fun fact about my childhood, but I'm curious, do you believe in

happiness when you you said you are happy when you achieve your goal? Do you think it's the process that makes you happy, or what's the end goal? Does that make sense?

I don't think those are two in alignment. I think that

Veronika Becher 16:03
achieving your goals releases serotonin, which makes you happy,

Veronika Becher 16:09
but that's a feeling, not a state. You feel happy.

Kian Alberto 16:15
I think that that's a whole different thing, like,

I think life is happiness,

Veronika Becher 16:22
so like this is gonna get into something else, all right, so that's okay. Follow me here. Everybody else, follow me here. Let this kid cook real quick.

Veronika Becher 16:33
Okay, so we're gonna get really philosophical here. Realistically, the way that I see everything is reality in itself, is suffering.

Kian Alberto 16:42
Reality is struggling.

That's what reality is. That's what we live as human nature. Every single day,

life is everything that gives it meaning and beauty inside of it,

that includes happiness,

Veronika Becher 17:01
but that's not reality. That's not day to day. What you do and the goals you accomplish are part of reality

Veronika Becher 17:08
that is suffering. To get to your goals takes suffering and struggling and pain. Nobody ever gets anywhere just by getting there. They do it by failing 100 times, falling, breaking, whatever it is, they break and continue on the journey and just continuing to persist and grow. Every single time, you can't grow without getting knocked down. It's literally impossible.

Kian Alberto 17:33
The question is, will you, you know, put yourself up where you actually step up? Will you pick yourself up and persist? And so the question is not really happiness. If you pursue happiness, if you pursue happiness, you always fail at achieving it, because it's not a state. It's a feeling that comes in certain moments, so you'll consistently be unsatisfied. Because happiness is not a constant. It's a feeling that comes and goes.

Most people, if they're okay, they're just content. They're not happy. They have moments that make them happy from there. So if you're always chasing happiness, I'm sorry, you're going to be miserable your whole life. That's not the point,

right?

So like, essentially, what you need to be trying to accomplish is falling in love with the journey of what you're doing, you need to enjoy the struggles, and you need to enjoy enduring pain. Because when you understand how to endure that, and you find joy in that, you know you're doing the right thing, and that is called satisfaction. You're satisfied with what you're doing, and that gains the actual state of happiness, satisfied with enduring the pain because you understand, and you're becoming grateful for what you can do and what you can become. And then it turns into this thing where you're self loving because you understand what you're capable of accomplishing. And then that's a state of happiness, because you understand you're doing what's best for yourself. People think that being happy is just people picture happiness, right? And what do they picture? A lot of times, most people will picture what a beach and a drink in their hand, or like, I wouldn't say that, but a lot of people will, Oh, really. A lot of people will. That's actually surprising. Other people will picture what a family,

a home,

things like that, maybe, yeah, right, like certain goals they have, and they just achieve everything in a perfect state. That's what I feel like, yeah. See, is happiness, but there is no perfect state of life. Things don't work this way. There. Nothing is ever perfect. Nothing will ever be perfect. And then that leads to something else. So

Veronika Becher 19:43
people who want to do something, anybody who wants to accomplish anything, they will consistently fail if they look for the conditions to start,

Veronika Becher 19:54
if you look for the right conditions to start, you'll never find them, because the conditions are never right, because perfection.

Kian Alberto 20:00
That never exists,

Veronika Becher 20:03
and that's what scares people. You just need to do it. But in order to do it, you need to understand and be happy with the journey that you're gonna go through.

Veronika Becher 20:12
Because whatever it is you're gonna start, if you're gonna finish it, it's gonna be hard and you're gonna fail and you're gonna fall, and you need to be okay with that, and that's where your joy is going to come from is every single day that you fall when you wake up the next day and you're ready to go again, that's a state of happiness

Veronika Becher 20:29
because you're happy with what you're doing. I'm sorry, but I actually think of it very differently. I think that happiness is pain.

Kian Alberto 20:39
That's weird. I'm just like getting invested into this whole happiness is struggle. Happiness is failing and persisting. Happiness is that

someone who has everything is not happy. They're miserable. Think about it.

I think how I see happiness is you happy? I

have a different concept of happiness. I don't know purpose. Um, happiness, for me, it's like an internal thing. Like a lot of people, when you said about the beach, I completely disagreed, because I feel like you draw happiness from external validation, something that you feel like will come to you through external factors, something that you see materializing, but it was never gonna happen if internally you can't actually be happy. And I think a lot of people just can't live with the idea of happiness needs to come from yourself. There's no actually guide to be happy. There is nothing that will give you happiness, and you can never have consistent. Like you said, the feeling of happiness is never consistent. It will never be consistent, and shouldn't be, honestly, because I feel like a lot of people even struggle to feel anything. Happiness is something that you do feel things. For me, it's feeling emotions, feeling emotions and and

that's exactly what you said with maybe I wouldn't like portray my brain like in my head, that happiness equals to suffering and something because suffering is has a negative connotation. But I think happiness is

happiness is being grateful for what you do have

strive to improve what you do have and work towards it, but also realize that each experience, no matter good or bad, has an impact on yourself,

and that's happiness, because the impact will change the way you view things and develop you somewhere. And it doesn't matter, as long as you move, you move.

Veronika Becher 22:51
I agree, but I or I made a difference. Was the state of happiness and the feeling of happiness. The state of happiness, if you want to be a happy person, it comes from pain and struggle, because that's where gratification comes from. Self gratification comes from overcoming things.

Veronika Becher 23:13
A feeling of happiness is different than the state of happiness. Have you ever heard of the philosopher epicore?

Kian Alberto 23:21
Like his model of like we called in German Zealand rule, which means, um, I don't know how you like when your soul is resting or feeling like peace, finding peace. And there's this really famous, um, let's call it painting, where this guy sits in this big chair, and around him, they're like waves and things happening, and everything just falls apart, and he just is content with what he is. And I was just thinking, I know the idea there is you find happiness through your own soul finding peace.

But what's interesting is maybe you should combine your idea with this idea and say you find peace through

being okay, that things around you will not be perfect, and you find peace of not trying to chase an idea of happiness that we establish as a society, but rather actually as a person, realizing that happiness comes from other factors than what we usually see.

In this way, your soul finds peace. So that's when you feel unfazed by things that happen around you, because the process itself will actually give you the gratification that you need. Yes. So let me ask you something just to ingrain this, ingrain this further and for anybody listening, if anybody's even listening,

think about this as well.

When you accomplish a goal,

Veronika Becher 24:53
think about how you feel a month later, once you're in it,

Kian Alberto 24:59
it feels normal.

Doesn't it?

Veronika Becher 25:02
It feels like you were before you accomplish the goal, doesn't it? Because it becomes your new normal.

Kian Alberto 25:08
There's an answer to this. It's part of human nature.

Veronika Becher 25:13
Think about it. You want to comment to this idea, but think about it. It's more rhetorical, but the answer is, yes, it's normal. Everything becomes normal once you do it for a while. No, yes, okay, um, so yes, it's so if you place happiness on achieving your goals, you'll never get it because I'm agreeing with you, I'm adding on to it, because the moment you get it and it becomes normal. It's not giving you gratification anymore. So no matter what it is that you accomplish, you'll never be happy,

Veronika Becher 25:49
because it'll always feel normal and always become just another thing, like it was beforehand. Yours flipped the page on the next chapter, but nothing's changed.

Veronika Becher 26:01
I feel like this episode is just me adding some random, you know, memories from my childhood and so on. But I feel like, um, good example. What you just mentioned is I initially didn't get into a fellowship program on campus here, and I end up getting off the waitlist because someone transferred out

months later. And so when I got, actually, my um, decline for I was a finalist, I got through all the rounds, and then they declined it. They said, like, we took someone else. Um, it was such a process, a growing process, for me to accept that things like that have nothing to do for yourself, like all the, you know, the whole development stage you go through, and people like, it's just a fellowship program. It's nothing. But I was hanging on to the idea of being in this fellowship program with much more, like aligning it with myself and being like, it's actually, you know, if my friends are all in the program, that something is wrong with me if I don't get in, because that means I cannot achieve things. It's like much deeper than that explained right now, but I think we don't have to go into the details and so be really real and very rude. It means you couldn't achieve it if you didn't get in. Sorry. It's true you didn't do it, but then it's true you didn't do it. That's where we differ. That's my mentality on things. You didn't do it,

Kian Alberto 27:27
you didn't do it.

Veronika Becher 27:29
That's how you feel it. For me, it was like me going over everything that happened and replaying it,

what happened and why I didn't get in, and where my flaw was and what I'd have to work on, and when I actually

got off the wait list the moment I did, and they actually wanted me in the program after I didn't get accepted,

I got the position I'm in the program now. But what did you have to do to get there? The crazy part is it was not the goal that I achieved, and that was, welcome back to the actual topic, because the thing that they told me gave me in the moment, I was like, Whoa, that's like, crazy. I just got accepted into, like, you know, the fellowship program I really wanted to get in, and they gave me specifically, you know, the the seat,

but I was, I was grateful, but that was not what was important for me. It was the process that happened between the rejection and the actual acceptance into the program where I just, huh, go ahead cook. And it was the development that made me actually pursue my the podcast exists because I got rejected. Okay, it's a lot of things that I start taking action on. A lot of things I started rethinking, and I was like, Okay, if I didn't get in, what was the thing? And it's first of all you do, and this is what we defer. I do. Distance myself from the fact that I didn't get in. It's true, I didn't get in, but with a big butt, you still got we still got to you still got to the same process that I would though. We just took the we'll take the first thing differently. But go ahead, keep cooking you. You start working on yourself and starting taking actions in other directions that you feel like you've just neglected. I started realizing that there's so many things I want to achieve. I just never did because was so transfixed on the idea of being in the fellowship program, not the actions that are behind the fellowship program itself. Now you're going a different direction than where I wanted you to go. There was direction you could have gone with this that keep cooking. No, think about it. Think about it. What did you start with? Okay, so you didn't get think about this is where we're different, and this is where people need where people need to learn No for real. Think about it. I go right to responsibility.

Veronika Becher 29:49
What was your responsibility? Just I would? I go right to responsibility. I go straight to take responsibility. Learn something from it, grow from it. Yes, I go straight to.

Veronika Becher 30:00
Okay, you didn't do it, except that. But what? Why differently? What can you do different? That's exactly what I did, right? It's just you realizing, okay, I didn't get in. But for me, it was more like a rejection therapy thing. Like a lot of people cannot be rejected. They fear the rejection so much that they don't do anything after that. They just transfect so much on the idea of not getting into something, and they feel like the biggest failure. Well, if you're the biggest failure, then continue growing and actually go somewhere and not be failure. So that's literally the mindset that I switched on, and I realized I'm gonna do things that I wanted to do, and I'm gonna do things that I wanna grow on, and I'm gonna improve and see this as a lesson, because there are things when you get rejected, but maybe you have, let's call it. You can find your own purpose, or your own like things that you really want to achieve in life somewhere else,

or you can get there through a different path. I don't know there's so many options, and I started working on that. And I feel like, when I got into the program, I'm really, really happy about that. But it was not the decision that made me happy, or anything that made me happy. It was the fact that I've been growing and the moment I let go of the idea I need to be in this fellowship program in order to be part of something great,

and the people are just people, and I can still be successful without the fellowship program, I realized I made much more progress than I would have done if I would be in the fellowship program from the beginning on. Okay, so we're talking about step one, which is realizing that you were not that you didn't do it, and that you needed to be better.

Kian Alberto 31:34
What did you do?

What did you do? Okay, so you realize that what did you do? Reflect, which is doing what? Taking responsibility, yes. And only once you take responsibility can you make a change and grow without you need to but you need to be honest with yourself. You need to buy into it with yourself, which you did, didn't you? Yes, okay, I love how you like I'm never gonna be a professor. And then the person who's sitting there is right now interviewing me back, even though it's his soccer story, not my soccer story, but it's okay. We just

Veronika Becher 32:06
podcast. No, I love it.

I actually appreciate it. I feel like a lot of times when I create these episodes, it's me adding my stories, but never getting questions back. It's conversational. This is the podcast. Welcome. Welcome the Joe Rogan experience.

Veronika Becher 32:27
I like Joe Rogan. I like the Joe Rogan podcast. If people couldn't tell i It's very fluid, and he does a very good job with his interviews for people, and seems interested in like everything I'm just saying. Thank you. I'll put this down. And that was our 10 second commercial in the middle of every podcast that everybody has.

Kian Alberto 32:49
Thanks for the donation, Joe, appreciate you.

Veronika Becher 32:52
This is how you say your like idea with some marketing, I should like, you know, label it as paid, paid commercial. So I get paid for that, you know, I'm joking.

Kian Alberto 33:07
So going back to the actual topic about me realizing not getting into the program, no, you have to be honest with yourself. Yes, most people aren't honest with themselves, and that's why it's easy to be great today. The bar for greatness is extremely low because people aren't honest and people really want to be lazy and really don't want to accomplish things. People are more okay with being complacent today than they were before. So the level for greatness is extremely low. You just have to put some level of self love into yourself and manifest it into something that you can accomplish and motivate yourself towards every day. How do you find self love?

Ask for another time. Go

Veronika Becher 33:54
ahead. Go ahead. So, all right, here we go. So no, I'll say it without saying it. How do so? How do you find self love? It's exactly what you just talked about. You need to take responsibility for everything in your life at all times, when it happens. Do you want to know what loving yourself looks like? It's called being honest with yourself. If there's one person you should never lie to, it's yourself. If you're lying to yourself, sorry, honey, you're screwed.

Veronika Becher 34:22
Just like, quote that, sorry,

Veronika Becher 34:26
yeah, sorry, sorry to everybody. Sorry, honey. You're screwed. New episode, I'm just,

Veronika Becher 34:34
I'm just saying, like, think about it if you're gonna lie to yourself, like, I'm sorry, but you're hopeless. Like, what are you going to grow from? What are you going to change? What are you going to manifest? You're not even living in true reality with yourself. It's okay to hide things from other people, but you should definitely be honest with yourself, like, grow in secret, grow in the darkness. That's fine. Like, that's what you should do, honestly. That's exactly why we record.

Veronika Becher 35:00
Episode right now without light? No, it's nice. We're just doing this. I have my own I have my own ways, my own auras, you know, pure darkness, my own auras. Over here, it's pretty good. So I actually have a friend who really wanted to meet you. Really Yes, Varun, he's like, I always joke about that he doesn't want to be on my podcast. Yes, shame on you. Um, but also for different reasons. But he always gets mentioned in all my episodes, and I'm like, the moment you started listening to them, you realize that you're like, an ongoing, like person that is in the room. Okay, so you brought him up, not me. Yes, exactly. You know who this is. Why does he want to meet me? He loves soccer, but he also wants to go into the startup branch. And there were, like, two things, and a lot of things, I was like, telling him, I'm like, You should talk to him, because this guy will actually give you a proper rundown of what you need to do, rather than what you get taught in school. I mean, What? What? What do you need to do? Um, be honest with yourself. I'm going to say it again.

Veronika Becher 36:03
Be truthful with yourself, and I'm going to say it one more time for the people in the back, be for real. That's it. Just be for real. Anything in life, whatever you want to accomplish, just be for real with yourself.

Kian Alberto 36:18
Everybody has

untapped levels of motivation.

Veronika Becher 36:24
But that's because motivation is something that comes and goes. It's discipline that stays. And everybody has untapped discipline, but only in certain regards, for certain things that move them, not everything.

Veronika Becher 36:36
So what you need to do is figure out what that discipline is for you and what that thing is that you can lock into every single day and commit yourself to and never lie about, and that's what you should go do. And from there, it's very easy to accomplish whatever it is you want to accomplish, because you're fully honest with what it is that you're doing, and your discipline and motivation will never cease to exist. Like

Kian Alberto 37:01
analogy,

I didn't know that you're creative. Analogy. There is a fire that you need to keep burning. Literally, a fire. You burn fire with wood, wood. You burn wood, fire. Oh, you just said it the other way around. I'm like, how do you burn? There's a fire that you need to keep burning. Okay, cool, that's better continue.

Veronika Becher 37:29
No, that was the opposite way around. It's like, the fire needs to burn. Yeah, fire needs to burn. So the fire, there's a fire that you need to keep burning. Okay, yeah, go ahead.

Veronika Becher 37:41
What do you need to do to make the fire keep burning, keep it going, never let the flame go out. What do you need to do? You need to find wood right? And the wood is here. You chop the wood. No, you chop the wood right, and the wood is what you put in the fire, and the fire keeps burning.

Veronika Becher 37:57
So what you need to do is find your forest that has the most amount of wood,

Kian Alberto 38:04
and go there and start your fire there, because you'll never run out of wood, and the fire will keep burning. Can I also add something? Yes, and then you need to find the right forest for you.

That's that's the whole point. Because find your forest, your forest, because there are different forests. This is horticulture. So my dear friends put it this way, picture everything that you can do in life. Picture everything you can do in life as a different

Veronika Becher 38:31
piece, everything you can do in life as a different state in the United States

Kian Alberto 38:38
like literally broken up, and each one of them has different landscapes of topography demographics, so they each have different amounts of forest and available wood you need to find the one that has the most on your map for your specific needs. No, yes, needs change every single day. Okay, cold, because life changes every single day called not neat, your alignment. I'll say it.

Veronika Becher 39:04
We dropped the word that he just can't I'm sorry. So

Veronika Becher 39:10
you find what you do is you find the in on your map, your personal map. You find the

Veronika Becher 39:17
thing, career, job, purpose, alignment, whatever it is that you want to do, you find the one you look at it from Eagle Eye scope,

Veronika Becher 39:27
like far eye lens, find the one with the most forest, and that's where you start your wood. That's where you have your most drive, that's where you have your most motivation, that's where you have your most discipline.

Veronika Becher 39:40
It's very easy, but where does that go? Tie it back around again, honesty and truth with self.

Veronika Becher 39:46
But how okay? Just as a listener, right?

You talk about being honest and thinking about, I need to be honest with myself, but that's not always easy, because we not like no one teaches you.

How To be honest with yourself. Sometimes we think we're honest with ourselves, but it's not as easy. It's something it's a concept that works, maybe in theory, but then once you want to put into practice, I feel like I'm sitting here and I'm like, be honest with yourself, Veronica, and I'm like, but I think I am honest. I just don't know what I want, like, it makes no like, do you know? Like, when people get successful and they discover later on in life, what actually is their drive? Because they didn't know that yet. They haven't experienced these things to be successful. They haven't experienced these ideas or interests that might potentially spark the idea of, oh, being honest means I want to be an artist, but I've never actually seen that there's a profession out there that means you need paint, and you paint something on a canvas and you become an artist. Does that make sense, like for you? Just No, you said the perfect thing. You know you want to be an artist. You're just scared that outcome is not going to give you the life that you want. But what is if you don't know that something like an artist exists, or something that artists can be created.

Kian Alberto 41:04
Everything in humanity and society already exists. The Last Great, greatest innovation of humankind is technology. And that will only grow like towards AI or whatever. We'll never invent something else that doesn't exist. That is the that is our capstone. We will not get more capped out than technology. It is the last invention the wheel was the first technology is lost. But then, just an example, I want to go into business. Okay, how do I know for sure what I want to do in business? If with the things I learned in school are not always aligning with what I actually could do in the real world, like, what is if I miss the step in between what I actually know and what I potentially could like to do and want to do? Does that make sense? Yeah. Well, there's your dilemma with academia and why I don't believe in it. The only reason, the only way to figure out what the hell it is you want to do with your life is to go try new things and go do things and explore, and you need to be honest with yourself and every single one of those, because you'll pick out and start learning more about yourself and every single thing.

Veronika Becher 42:10
But like, think about it, you pick out and learn new things about yourself consistently, you're putting together full picture take, like a puzzle. So say, you don't know yourself perfect a puzzle. You don't know where all the pieces are going to fit, but they're all in front of you. You start piecing more together, putting it together slowly, slowly, until you have the full picture. To do that, you have to actually try it. Do things, literally. Do it. Pick it up, put it down. Oh, it didn't fit. Okay, pick up another one. Put it down. Oh, did that one fit? Maybe. Oh, look, this string of thing fits over here in this corner. I don't need that right now. I'm just gonna put that away for later.

Kian Alberto 42:47
And then, through experiences, you get the picture so you're stupid and teaches you nothing. I disagree. Wait until you get a job and then reteach you everything you thought you knew and anything. I went

to one of the best institutions in the entire country. It pains me to say that, but I have because I don't necessarily like the school I went to one of the best institutions in the entire country. I do not use a single thing that I have learned outside of my astronomy class when I go look up at the stars. Do you want my opinion on that? I'm sure it's different. I love how we have a whole discussion going on. I'm sure it's different. Never, ever on this podcast, but I like it. Um, I disagree, because the way people view academia is like everything you learn you should use in your daily life. Disagree, you should never use it. You'll never use it. You don't have to use it. The purpose is not to use it. The purpose is to develop yourself of learning how to learn things first of all. So then, why are there grades?

That's a system that's not up to me. Most people don't learn when it's grades. They just learn how to pass Yes. Actually learn Yes. But that's exactly where I feel like what I want to change, that's my thing, what I want to change. That's why I want to go into academia and why I want to teach back then, because I feel like so. Is it worth it right now? Though it is, because I think a lot of people will benefit in my industry from that. I think one of the biggest issues that we have in today's society and in specific business is you have a lot of people that are really,

really smart people that know what they are doing. Example, you're an engineer. You know exactly what you're doing as an engineer in your specific field, in your company. And then you have the manager. The biggest issue that I feel like I've experienced working for different companies is the fact that the manager has no idea what they

Veronika Becher 44:39
what the other person needs. Of course not. Why? Because they didn't go to manager school, because it doesn't exist. So again, academia is stupid. If you want to, if you want academia, why don't you teach people the stuff that they'll learn when they go to the workforce? Anything you learn in school doesn't mean anything. Do you want to know what higher level education is? It's a hierarchy symbol. You.

Veronika Becher 45:00
What do we learn? Things that only the nobles and royalty learned back in the day. Nobility learned the books we read, The things we write about,

Veronika Becher 45:09
the topics we learn subjects. It's all nobility. It's all status. It's never changed. That's all it's ever been. And then when you think about the structure of it, okay, well, everybody thinks differently. Everybody's wired differently, everybody learns differently, everybody studies differently. Everybody has different answers and processes to everything. So how are we going to group them into one grade and call them good enough or not good enough? Well, that's a grading issue. News flash, I was nowhere near the top of my class.

Veronika Becher 45:41
They're all working for people and hating their life for it. Need to be louder for that. They're all working for people and hating their life for it, and not knowing what they want to do and having no purpose or sense of growth. And here I am

Kian Alberto 46:01
accomplishing 1% of things that people do not accomplish.

Academia would have told me I couldn't do it, and other people could have but I'm the one actually doing it. Well, that's exactly the question that I would ask myself from like, how do you set up academia? And I, like I said, I agree with you about the grades. I agree about the system where I feel like people that have actually worse grades. This is thing. I think my dad told me that. He told me back in the days when I started learning English, English was my worst grade, as well as math, back in the days, and I had such a bad turn, like most my teachers, everyone told me I can never speak English. I could never go to a different country and speak in a different language, because it was so bad. Same with math. Well, I put the effort into improved. I actually ended up being the best in my whole grade to complete my math exam. But not because it's just a grade. It's just me putting a lot of effort into it, and then me studying here right now and speaking English was because I put more effort in and I worked on it. But something my dad told me was the people that actually complete their degrees with a C, like in German, you can go a little bit below, you can still get a D. So people with a C will actually be more successful than people with an A, because people with just straight A's, sometimes they focus only on the great they don't actually process what they've learned. And they sometimes, because it's too easy for us to process certain things,

we don't really pay attention to what is said. We just try to achieve better, better grades. We just work through that. But people that got C's, they actually struggled, but maybe because of the system. They struggled because it was the wrong teacher. It's not a reflection of how they are and how smart they are on what they can achieve. Sometimes people with the seas are the ones that actually thought it through twice and questioned what was in front of them and like written in the book, and question things and because they are questioning, instead of following a certain system, they don't fall into the system later on, they actually go routes that make them successful. And it's a whole concept, I know. Okay, so I had a class, I think it was my senior year. It was like Chinese art, animation studies, like old, ancient Chinese art and learning history through there.

Veronika Becher 48:25
And I remember the kids who would get best grade in the class, they would raise their hand and participate in class. And I wasn't one who did a lot of homework, but I did homework for that class because I was just struggling. And

Veronika Becher 48:40
when I started doing homework and listening to what they were saying, they were just regurgitating the homework readings. And the teacher would sit there and go, Oh, excellent. And I'll be like, I have a question. Yes, but like, Wouldn't their interpretation also be something like this? Like, can it just be like this? Like, what if I think this?

Veronika Becher 49:01
Like, who's saying that you're thinking this the right way? Because you didn't get this from the people that wrote it, either did you. And the people that are writing and we're reading about aren't the people that made it? Are they? So everything is interpretation thought, especially in an art class.

Veronika Becher 49:19
So I'm going to give you this different interpretation that I thought of, and by the way, it's very sound and makes a lot of sense if you just listen to me, but you as the teacher, don't even know what the hell you're doing in the first place, so you just commend the regurgitation of the reading, which is what you've learned without putting any Second thought into it as well.

Kian Alberto 49:39
Academia is stupid. Do

you want to know what creates success in the real world, all the critical thinking? Do you want to know academia hinders critical thinking because you like Well, that's a different issue. I think it has nothing even to do with academia itself. It has something to do with our society, and I know this opens completely different discussion.

But I feel like it's easier to manipulate or lead people that don't think because the more you have critical thinkers out there, the more they question the system that people brought up in society to like, to follow certain standards, and the more we have people that question it, the least people will follow you if what you're saying actually is completely stupid,

Veronika Becher 50:20
meaning it's easier to control and standardize certain academia and certain processes overall. But I don't think that academia is bad, because I think a lot of the things we learn, we actually don't understand how much they can actually just expand our view on things and understand the world in a different setting. It's not about I have a job, and I actually had to take this

class. I had nothing to do with my degree, and it's a random class on,

I don't know

whatever you want to pick. Um, physics.

Well, look into physics. Yes, maybe you will never use it in your career. Doesn't mean that it's not insightful. Maybe certain things that are interdisciplinary will actually give you a good understanding of what you need to learn, what you need to understand, and how a certain concept works. Maybe you can connect it with your industry without even realizing it. It's the thing of when you think outside your own degree, outside of what you will learn in a real life, and I think that's where creativity flows. That's where new ideas flow. It's I disagree, like I said, I disagree that academia is comfortable that, but I think you should not. You should just view differently, view differently, viewed as a learning experience? Yeah, no, no, so, so I'm not gonna say academia is bad. I think for each the beholder, right? I think academia is good for people who want to be academics. Makes sense, doesn't it? Yes, that's exactly what shouldn't that be one sect of academia? Shouldn't there be an academia sector for people who want to be business owners, shouldn't there be one for people who want to be athletes? Shouldn't there be one people want to be cooks? Shouldn't there be like, doesn't that make more sense? Break it up. So here, this is why I say academia is stupid,

Kian Alberto 52:17
because this is going to get into like,

there's a pathway for everything you just be willing to do it

Veronika Becher 52:25
small tick tock creators, so people with anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000 followers make anywhere between 200 to $1,000 per post. Post, you post once a day, 52 weeks, just one post a day,

Kian Alberto 52:42
that's $52,000

Veronika Becher 52:46
the average salary right out of college, after you go through four years of college and learn something and then go get a trade which requires more hours of work than doing this tick tock stuff, which is free, and you can start at any time, is $55,000 a year.

Kian Alberto 53:04
If you are a large Tiktok creator, you make 10 to $50,000

per post.

So you make someone's salary who went to college in one post.

Veronika Becher 53:18
I am saying this because depending on what you want to accomplish, that determines what academia is to you.

Veronika Becher 53:27
It just depends. It's not for everybody, but it's the requirement for everybody.

Kian Alberto 53:34
It's true, but I think it's also really

Veronika Becher 53:39
use a specific, yeah. I mean, if you went through, if you just All right, if you went and ran a survey through schools, why are you going to school? Oh, because I need a degree. Get a job.

Kian Alberto 53:51
True, that's the response. But that's because the way it's set up. If you would have asked me back then days, I would have said, Yes, that's one point. But I also really enjoy academia. I genuinely enjoy learning things that have nothing to do with my degree, maybe. But why can't you go do that in the real life without having to pay X amount of money for it every single year? Because it depends where you live. We don't pay that much, but you get what I'm saying, like, still, it's cheaper to do it in the real world, and you gain more actual experience and grow faster. So if your goal is learning, why wouldn't you go learn in somewhere that's conducive of learning better, faster, stronger? I think academia gives you a certain development stage that you don't get usually, unless you put a lot of effort into but most people wouldn't. That's the point. I think that's a fallacy, because I think all academia does is allow kids to go be ignorant and immature and have a zero responsibility away from their parents.

Veronika Becher 54:47
I know the typical person in America, okay, thank you.

Kian Alberto 54:52
I was like, about like, I had really like, I think the person that taught me Critical Thinking besides my parents, okay?

Veronika Becher 55:00
Let's just exclude my family for a second. Was actually a teacher in school. In high school, she was one of the most interesting people I've met, and she was the one for the first time, she was a she, or she is a German literature professor. And what she did was, we write, we learn about a piece, we like, read about a poem, and she breaks it down, but then she asks us such critical questions, where you start questioning what you actually think would be true. And

that's something I've seen so far a lot in German education. It's just like re questioning, asking, why? All the time. It's something you learn a lot if you want to go to college. It's something really strange in society, specific in Germany, because if you don't go to a gymnasium, that's what we call it, or gymnasium, you don't actually usually go to a university, unless you get a certain degree that is three years long, and then you go actually into a university. And I feel like a big difference that we have in this like school system, is if you go towards a path to go to college in Germany, you will experience these conversations in classes where you need to critically think, but the majority doesn't. Why can't you do it with more experienced people who are more successful in the real world. You can, you can? I think people shape their perspective when they're younger. I think people, after they go through their 20s, they have a certain established view on the world. And if you haven't like, if you haven't been exposed to a lot of like, life changing moments. You probably

you just missed out on certain developments. And I think going to academia or going to school, and I know you can say, the same things happen. If you go to a company, you will learn about the things, same things. But I feel like I learn a lot about people too. I understand how people are, how I interact with people, what type of people are, school or high school. It's not the fact what you've learned. It's the way you handle conflicts, the way you interact with people, the way you are in a class setting. Because a class setting is a small little world. You always meet interested people that are from such different backgrounds, the good and bad people. And that's exactly how the world works, because students in high school, middle school, are just reflection most of time of their circumstances, how they grew up, how their parents are, how the surrounding was, things like that. And that reflects a lot, especially in younger kids that don't really take action into like working on themselves and developing themselves in a class setting, and that's why we have certain issues in society. But I think I'm not saying I'm supporting bullying or things like that, but I feel like it was a great reflection of learning how people will be in the real world.

Does that make sense?

Kian Alberto 58:05
Like learning, the teaching and understanding how people are, how people are in society, that's what is the big learning experience. It's when the fact that you question academia is the first step that you were a critical thinker, the fact that most people don't, but you need to put effort into that, and we and not be scared. These are certain qualities you develop, to being critical, to thinker, oh my gosh, um, yeah, yeah. I mean, I really need to think about it. It's always been. I was always like, the point, why am I doing this? This is stupid. I don't want to what, what am I learning is dumb, because, like, when you think about it's like, all right, you go through school your whole life, how much do you apply it to the real world throughout your whole life? You never did.

You were always told, Oh, okay, it'll come. You'll apply it eventually. You apply it eventually. But it's like, the tail of the time never changes, like it's the same thing the whole time, like, that's never going to adjust, that's never going to change. Whatever it is that you're doing. You're doing whatever you're never going to learn. You were never going to learn, whatever you're never going to implement. You're never going to implement. I agree with what you're saying, but I think it's like To each their own right. Like, it really is kind of To each their own. Whatever it is that you'll get out of it, you'll get out of it. If you want to get something out of it, you will, if you want to make it useful, you'll convince yourself it's useful. If you don't, you won't. It's just whatever you want to process and think of it. But that doesn't mean that academia is stupid, because academia has a purpose. No, my opinion is that it's stupid. That's my opinion as a practical influence, yes, but I don't think it's

it's not always applicable for all careers too. I think academia can serve a lot of purpose for other careers besides business. Business, no sense. Business, yeah, no, no. Business doesn't make sense. There's a lot of careers that you need it because you have to know things, yes, be able to do things. But most.

People, I feel like it's, it's this thing of you start a year, most people come into like a business school. Most people are women. It's actually a thing. You can see it nowadays, and it's why was the case, because most women, statistically speaking, get better grades, and then they go into these careers that don't actually serve them, sometimes not, not saying, like, generally speaking, but some people do,

Veronika Becher 1:00:26
and what happens after that? Well,

most people that get successful are not. Most people that are women in this classroom. Why? Because they discover along the way that they can do or they what?

Okay, that's like a topic by itself. I'm just thinking about it. But, or they have to make career success because they want to get pregnant. How they can shout out nurses, nanny's, my company,

Kian Alberto 1:00:51
second intervention? Yes, I can keep going on that one. If anybody wants to know, share the word you know, any nurses. Get them in contact with me, please. I will get them jobs that are very beneficial to them. We'll pay them really well, and we'll give them a good work life balance, and they're empowering women. In the meantime,

Veronika Becher 1:01:09
all right, continue. The people that actually become successful are really often, actually random people that just sit in a classroom. They don't always have to have the best grades. Even though companies, for some reason, hire you based on your grades, they think that good grades equivalent to you being actually disciplined, smart, successful in life. No, they don't. They don't exactly, no, they don't think that. That's why I could do me a stupid No, no, businesses don't think that businesses get people who get good grades. Because you know what? The people with the good grades are robots that will never question those systems, no. So they know that. Okay, this is somebody that I can control for my whole life. This company can control this person. This person will be our robot. They don't have a mind of their own. They're not an individual. This is 1984

and this is what we're doing. This is Taylorism. Yep. What happens college is perfect for industry, because college creates robots. But I think other um, other careers would benefit a lot from academia. I think academia can actually provide you a lot of resources that might help you with something that, if you don't have the resources, it will help you sure, be a doctor. Science, yeah, exactly. Science, doctors, I think certain skills like business. That's like what I always say. Business doesn't equate to success through going just, you know, get a degree in business,

Kian Alberto 1:02:42
you don't really will be successful. But the question is, do you want to be successful in the first place? That is the question, but that comes with honesty with yourself. Most people don't. Most people don't do what it takes to be

successful, even though they tell themselves they want to be

Veronika Becher 1:02:59
because they don't want to go through that path. They can see it, but they don't want to travel through it, because they see every dip and hole and valley and trench

Veronika Becher 1:03:09
and every single thing that will break them down to literally their core, and they can't handle it. So they don't go down the path, or they have no faith and belief in themselves, and they never go down the path,

Veronika Becher 1:03:22
one or the other, the other can't handle it, or they don't think they can, and they never do but what you have to do is just go do it

Kian Alberto 1:03:31
and enjoy doing it. That's why happiness is pain.

Veronika Becher 1:03:37
Feel like we didn't talk about your soccer career. No doing anything good and worth it, doing anything good and worth it,

Veronika Becher 1:03:45
you only know that it's good and worth it because you can feel the pain and you can feel the suffering and you can feel the struggle.

Kian Alberto 1:03:53
And it doesn't mean you're depressed, just making sure that people don't understand that, no, it doesn't mean you're depressed. It means you're doing something really good for yourself. If the amount of pain and struggle you feel is extremely immense when you're doing something to improve yourself, that result is going to be equally and as immensely positive

law of balance and attraction you

Veronika Becher 1:04:23
if it's really that bad, oh, the outcome will be that good. That's how it works.

Veronika Becher 1:04:31
Can you elaborate on Law of Attraction and balance? Just short, please, for listeners that never heard that law of attraction imbalances, manifestation, positivity, religion, blessings,

Kian Alberto 1:04:45
really what it comes down to, and boils down to, right?

I think that when you're talking about things like this,

Veronika Becher 1:04:55
when you're talking about things like this, essentially what you're going to be wanting to focus on.

Veronika Becher 1:05:00
Israel is really, really that balance between honestly,

Kian Alberto 1:05:06
it is religion and it's manifestation,

and if

Veronika Becher 1:05:11
it's not religion, then it's positivity, all in the same what you need to understand about things like this is that law of attraction is basically being prepared and creating your own luck. Luck is not something that exists and comes to people. Luck is something that's created.

Veronika Becher 1:05:28
The more that you prepare yourself for an opportunity, the more the opportunity will present itself back to you, and the more successful your chances will be, because you'll be ready for it when it shows itself

Kian Alberto 1:05:41
naturally. We as people

Veronika Becher 1:05:44
will gravitate towards things that we are working on and things that we are ready for, and we won't see it when we're not ready for it.

Veronika Becher 1:05:55
And that's where other things, like blessings come in and counting them, where, if I like, if, if you want to be I'm going to keep religion out of this. If you want to be strong, you're not just going to be strong. You're going to have a crap ton of things that you're going to have to get through, and it's going to be really hard. And if you get through it, you'll be strong,

Veronika Becher 1:06:20
right? If you want to be kind, you're not just going to be kind. You're going to be presented with a lot of people that are really going to bother you, but you have to be kind to anyways, because that's going to be really hard to do, but the outcome of that is you will be a kind person, because you can do it in the worst of circumstances.

Kian Alberto 1:06:42
So you need to just work on whatever it is that you want to do, and align yourself with it, and prepare yourself with it as best as possible. And then the opportunities will present itself for it to be possible, law of attraction, what's yours will come, and what's meant to be will be but you have to be ready for it, and you have to be working towards it, because you can't just sit around and be like, oh, you know, the universe will give me what I need in life. Well, it's not yours if you're not working towards it, yes.

Veronika Becher 1:07:11
But also it's a mindset thing, of course, positivity, right? So you just have to think of everything as an opportunity to grow be better

Kian Alberto 1:07:22
get closer to what it is you're trying to accomplish. Like I think that if

Veronika Becher 1:07:27
you take every downfall and every hardship that comes your way and you think that this is life preparing you for the next positive and next good thing that's going to come your way, then you're always going to have peace of mind, you're always going to be okay with what's going on, and nothing will really push you so far off your journey, because you understand that this is part of your journey, and that's where you fall in love with that type of stuff, because you're happy that it's happening, because it means you're Growing, which is a state of happiness from suffering.

Veronika Becher 1:08:03
I feel like this whole episode is a good reflection of how to be a critical thinker,

the fact that you

you questioned what I said, and you actually

went back to your theory in the end of the whole discussion was a sign of being a critical thinker. That's because my theory is right, and I was just trying to prove it the whole time in 100 different ways. Well,

that could be a different discussion for a different day. Surround yourself by people that disagree with you. Just saying, just saying. That's actually really beneficial.

But I think honestly, we should, like, round up this episode.

Kian Alberto 1:08:47
I want to talk more.

Veronika Becher 1:08:52
Yeah, I think

we gave the audience enough things to think about in a good way, and you can disagree or agree with academia, and I see the point in both like sides. I think it's important to like

meet people that have that disagree with you. You

Kian Alberto 1:09:12
just need to align yourself with your goals. And that'll tell you where academia stands,

Veronika Becher 1:09:17
because it is very stupid for a lot of people, and then it's also very required and needed for a lot of other people. It just depends where you stand and whatever that is for your life. But there are very valid instances where it's the stupidest thing in the world and very valid instances where it's the most important thing in the world. Yes, I agree. That's something I agree on. Wow.

Veronika Becher 1:09:40
Thank you so much for, you know, the first spontaneous episode ever.

Kian Alberto 1:09:47
For anybody listening, you can totally fall asleep to this if you want to.

Veronika Becher 1:09:52
Oh my gosh, there used to be a thing this joke about white noise. My episode being white noise, if you ever in a lab or.

You do some research, you can just listen to it or fall asleep, but that's okay. We we're just gonna, you know, run with that. Um, thank you so much for coming to my podcast and stay tuned my dear friends, to, you know, a second episode of this person, because, as you can see, we have a lot to uncover still left. Do you want to say you lost two words? Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it, and I'm actually very grateful for this. Um, no, you don't. Nobody has to listen to me. Nobody should listen to me, but at least think about what I'm trying to say and consider it and then try to argue it. And if you can't, then maybe listen at that point, but try to make it out for yourself, because I'm not great in any rate or respect myself,

period.

Thank you so much, and I wish you all a great day. Bye, bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai