When We Are Connected to Our Humanness, We Are Limitless

[00:02] Bobbi: Welcome to UnYielded: Thriving No Matter What, where we talk about how to make your next chapter in life your best chapter. I’m your host, Bobbi Kahler, and I believe that the best is yet to come. Welcome back, everyone. Today’s conversation is a bit of a departure. As you know, usually I have a guest on who shares their story of transformation, and then they share some of the mindset, skills, or behaviors that they developed because of that transformation. Today’s conversation is more philosophical in nature. My guest, Michael Magrutsche shares his thoughts on how we’ve lost our connection to our own humanness and how that can cause us stress, frustration, and constraints on our spirit. He shares ways that we can adopt a more human centric way of being and in doing so, reach our true potential and be limitless. Michael is a multimedia artist, and that includes painting, writing, music and film, an art advisor, and a podcaster. Michael, welcome to the show.

[01:20] Michael: Hi, Bobbi. Good to see you.

[01:22] Bobbi: Good to see you. I am so looking forward to this. Why don’t you just jump in and tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

[01:29] Michael: Okay. I was born in Vienna, Austria, and was a sick child. And then I went to school, got the second hit on my head. I was extremely neurodiverse, dyslexic, stuttering. I couldn’t do anything. I had to repeat three grades. So I wasn’t like a lazy person that didn’t want it. I really wanted. And I’m blessed with a spirit that is amazing and 18 to 20. I always knew I had to go to America, moved here, medial jobs, just built myself up. And then I was system relevant, but I could never fit in the system. So the art was art creation was making me being part of it made me real. And you know that from adolescent when how often did art save lives just to see a movie? And you say, oh, yeah, I’m not that bad. It gives you unbelievable reference. And I have everything learned from art creation. My whole wisdom, my whole awareness, my whole perspective, everything. I’m a big proponent of art creation, not of the art product so much. The art product is beautiful and everything. Of course, we all know that. But the art creation is really a blueprint that brings us back to what? The possibilities of humans. That what humans could be and their imagination. And that’s why art creation is just unbeatable. I have never seen anything better than art creation because it seems that the world is okay in the art world.

[03:18] Bobbi: Yeah. And now when you say art creation, what’s your definition of art?

[03:23] Michael: Art has no purpose. So I create for the creation to say, I think white canvas, and I imagine there is yellow and I painted yellow, and I say, okay, there is green and then there’s red. Like, what is behind me? It’s like I start with a blank canvas, and I feel the yellow. Or I get inspired by a poppy or something that has a certain orange hue. And I just say, I need to make something too. So I make the background orange, group orange, and then add to it what I think would be good. The same is in music because I do music, too. So you hear a rhythm, you hear a sound, you hear a pitch, you hear how slow or how fast the rhythm is.

[04:18] Bobbi: And it’s interesting because I took a, I don’t know, a creativity class once. This was in Undergrad, and I said, I don’t think I’m all that creative. And the professor is like, there’s all kinds of creativity, right? It’s the act of creating, whether that’s cooking or singing or music or writing or painting or photography. And that really kind of changed the way I felt about it. Because I’m like, wait a minute. I do a lot of creation. I wasn’t all the time, all the.

[04:45] Michael: Time setting the table. You set the table different than your husband.

[04:49] Bobbi: That’s right.

[04:50] Michael: Your kids might set the table also different. So you’re constantly creative conditioning a condition. Because we are creative animals. We are not. Like when you look in nature, the dolphin can swing better than we, the eagle can see better than we. We are creative. And for being the creative and the creators, I mean, an ant creates also an ant heel. But we are creating. Our strengths is creating. And because of creating, we need to be self aware. You need the loop, feedback loop of self awareness. You cannot create without self awareness. You need to say this before, after? What did I do? You need to have the tool of self awareness. And so that’s inherent in us. So our superpower is creation. And the highest form of creation, an iPhone, a Nike shoe, or whatever. But the height of our creation is out of nothing. For that, you need to be self aware more than just creating something that you will repeat. So system repeats. Human can create. When you have a system for a shoe company, it knows what it does and the focus is creating shoes. But it’s a copy. It’s like AI is going to be it’s going to be just a copy. It’s not something new, but humans need the new to be inspired, to be growing. It’s not about copying. It’s about creating more. And that’s why podcasts are so powerful, because they create. Actually, in podcast, I adapt to you, you adapt to me, and we together do a dance with all our six senses.

[06:45] Bobbi: That’s right. Because it’s a very dynamic thing.

[06:49] Michael: If you force the podcast to be, oh, I want to do the same thing as everybody else, coaching people doing this, it’s never going to work. No, because people cannot hear it because they don’t want to hear something they’ve heard already.

[07:02] Bobbi: That’s right. Okay, this is silly. It even relates to. I just recently got my hair cut. It was really long. Now it’s short. And surprise, surprise, I have curl. I didn’t know that. So now when I’m doing my hair in the morning, it’s like if I’m just trying to get it to look a certain precise way, it never works. It’s like, just go with what it’s doing today and roll with it perfect. You know what I mean? Because otherwise there’s stress involved. Well, it doesn’t look exactly like it did yesterday. The parallel there or the connection, is, I think that’s a lot of times where we’re trying to recreate something and we’re losing the Creation in that we milk the moment.

[07:43] Michael: We’re not milking the moment.

[07:44] Bobbi: That’s right.

[07:45] Michael: I teach my students. I said, you need to milk the moment because 97 or 99% of artists worldwide are poor because they focus on the outcome. You cannot focus on the outcome. You have to milk the moment. And when you focus on, okay, this needs to be the best statue. This needs to be better than Michelangelo. You’re already outside of Creation realm. You’re out of the Creation realm because you’re focusing on copying. You’re focusing on copying Michelangelo but making it more perfect. That’s completely systemic. And this is what I told you before. Know where you are? Are you living a life that is human centric, human nature centric? Because we are a species of nature. We can deny that. Or do you live a life because over generations, we were born into system. That is system centric. And are you adapting? Because there’s a third superpower. So I say first superpower is creation. This is what we are. Second is communication as a discourse that we can talk to each other. And the third is a human discourse, not system. I’m Republican. You’re a Democrat. That is not it right. So it’s not right or wrong, good or bad. A discourse is like what we’re having right now. So if your listeners don’t know, just listen to this. It’s a dance. I’m dancing with Bobbi right now. And the third is adaptation, because I can’t dance with you if I don’t adapt to you. And you cannot dance with me if you don’t adapt to me. And also, that’s the feedback loop that we are nature, because the strengths of nature is constant. Adaptation, harmony. That’s what nature is. There is an interaction of living beings. And that brings us also to having dogs, having a pet, because your interaction with other living being brings you in the six senses in your body, and the body is not in the mind. You can think everything about a dog, and the dog will always surprise you. You have to feel the dog. You have to feel the cat. You have to feel whatever you have, the rat, whatever you have.

[10:07] Bobbi: I completely agree. When you’re around a dog, because I’ve got three of them, you’re present.

[10:13] Michael: You have to be yeah.

[10:15] Bobbi: And that’s what I kind of heard. I was listening to some of your podcast episodes and I like, they’re all so, like, 30 seconds, just one insight. And it’s like, oh, man, I have to think about that one. But a lot of them are around. To me, it’s like art and nature. It helps you connect back to the moment to be in present and being human.

[10:34] Michael: Yeah. And also being because the moment brings you recognize that you’re human and it makes you act human centric. People need to take vacation, for example, in nature, you have no vacation. You need a vacation because you adapt and give so much from your life force that you actually need to have. And then the next pressure comes. The vacation needs to be better. Good. That’s right. I’m staying home with my three dogs and go for a walk. No. Which actually would be the best right. Because that’s your to relax and get back to yourself. But people go, no, I need to fly 24 hours. I need to do this. So systemically, even do the relaxation, the resetting that you actually can function for the company. See, it was systemically presented as a reward. It’s a reward that you can go on vacation. But it actually is time that you can reset, that you can be productive and keep doing. There’s nobody’s fault. We rather go instinctively who can be blamed? We just got time. And that’s why I want people making people aware of I have nothing to sell. That’s right. I just want people to be aware of that. Think, are you living a human centric life or a system centric life? And where is your fear, your pressure, all this stuff coming from? Because you have fear that you get fired. That’s a system centric thing. Or that your kid is sick or your dog is sick. That’s a human centric thing. And look at how many mothers are afraid. They stay, obviously by keep it. Their instinct is so good, they stay with the sick child. But they feel guilty that they have to tell their boss, I need to stay home for my car. That should never be. We created this system that the boss even has a job. All humans created it. So we need all humans.

[12:44] Bobbi: Yeah. So how do you become more human centric or human? What do you say? Human relevant. You use that also earlier?

[12:55] Michael: Yeah. It’s with awareness. The awareness, like you became aware, oh, what michael says, look at my dogs. What I do with my dogs. That’s awareness. I cannot take that away from you see, when I tell you three steps oh, what was the second step? Michael said, or what was this? You forget awareness. It trumps everything. And that’s inherent in humans. So everybody is like, who do you want to be? I said, I don’t want to be anybody because I’m one of 8 billion I’m one of them. I want to find myself who I am because I’m a part of that puzzle piece. And I have that intuitively because I never felt like I need to look up to somebody or whatever. I appreciate people. But for me, human was almost more worthy because I couldn’t fit into systems. So if somebody was humane, that was what touched me. Not because somebody was a CEO. And I still feel it when people start following me. I recognize it, I like it, but it means nothing. But if you would follow me and know you I have a relationship with you that would mean something to me. See, there’s a difference. Yeah. Because if it’s just this time I have a connection with you.

[14:21] Bobbi: That’s right. So, what would you say the big advantage or value is there in the human centric life?

[14:35] Michael: You’re limitless. You’re recognizing. You’re limitless. And you are okay being you because you have to be. You’re one of 8,000,000,001 of 8 billion. Everybody’s different. Everybody’s unique. And, oh, my God, the life becomes so wonderful because just recognizing it’s awareness, it’s not something you learn. It’s just oh, my God. It’s like if somebody never has a child and then they have a child, you cannot tell. But somebody doesn’t have a child what that is. And that’s how we system distorted we are. And it’s not against anybody. But we think men or women that don’t have children can tell a woman what to do. We cannot talk about this subject because we have an experience. It’s like telling the guy that went on the moon what he has to do next time he flies on the moon.

[15:30] Bobbi: It’s more than a week. Exactly.

[15:32] Michael: No, every woman that has but I say the same thing. A woman that hasn’t given birth has also no business to tell a person that is a mother to tell her how it is or that she should do this when she gives birth. No, that’s an experiential knowledge. Wisdom. That’s awareness and wisdom. And that’s an experiential knowledge. So people that haven’t had that experiential knowledge. That’s how I find human centric thing. See what nature does.

[16:09] Bobbi: That was something that came out when I was listening to your podcast is to watch nature, see what nature does. Why do you think that’s so important?

[16:18] Michael: Yeah. Because, again, we’re so distorted. System distorted. Humans are species of nature. Nature is so brilliant and so perfect. It’s sustainable. It always balances other out. So the power of nature is balance and harmony. To get yourself constantly in harmony and balance. When something happens, you adjust. You adapt. And when a species dies out, like the dinosaurs, you adapt again. And some, like the pelicans, some from that era survive because they have adapted. So it’s all an adaptive game.

[16:59] Bobbi: What keeps coming up for me or what I keep hearing is the role of awareness and adapting and also the uniqueness that you can’t copy. Like we’re not here to copy someone else. We’re here to be ourselves, whatever that might mean.

[17:15] Michael: Yeah. I find you’re given birth, right? And then you have a parent, you have a social circle. How this physicality works I’m not spiritual. I’m just saying this is how I see it from a Dyslexic neurodiverse mind. So you get born, you don’t know the first 18 months. You’re not even separated. I mean, this is scientific, but you’re not separated from the mother. When the mother feels depressed, the kid is depressed. And then you get into family dynamics, so you learn. You have a mean sister. You have a good sister. Dad gives you everything. Mom doesn’t give you everything. So adapt into dance. You learn to dance into the little section of till seven years old, and you learn what you need to survive. As soon as you need to survive, you go to school and you expand the circle. So it’s like the apprentice, the mastery. So you learn, and then you get more social interaction. But it’s about the social interaction. It’s not what you learn. See, I’m working on an educational system. It is what is the most value of education. It’s the social interaction, not what you learn. Okay, then we go in the school, it’s another system. Then we go into job, another system. And every time we adapt ourselves to the system, so we forget. We get basically because we have never learned that we are part of nature. It wasn’t important to teach you that you are so adapted so that you can actually survive. And it’s just crazy. So it’s system already system conditioned, but we are not aware of it. We are completely without senses, without feelings, and our senses and feelings are distorted by mind constructs, thinking about the past and the future and the now.

[19:24] Bobbi: And that takes us out of being present. Once again, we’re back to that.

[19:29] Michael: Also, by the way, what means being in the moment is being aligned and being balanced. So your gauge is if I’m focusing right now on you, I’m in the moment. And that’s why all this stuff comes in. And that’s not intuition. It’s just that I remember things. I don’t stutter. I mean, I’m the best example of I’m living what I preach, basically.

[19:54] Bobbi: Yeah. So this has been fascinating. I knew it was going to be a great conversation. Where can people find out? Where can people find out about your podcast, what you’re doing, and that type of thing?

[20:04] Michael: I do a 32nd podcast because I don’t want to steal anybody’s time. And it’s called the smart of art. The power of art and creativity. And this is a lot of stuff. When you think this was a good conversation. These quotes that I have, it’s just a quote and a question for you. And you can do it whenever you want. It makes you aware. It’s like my mentoring without me being present, basically, because I think in art, and it takes art creation, but it’s basically for human. And you just listen to one episode a week or every second day and just let the percolate. There’s no right or wrong. Just let that percolate. And that awareness will make you show you your uniqueness. It will show you your superpower that is you.

[21:04] Bobbi: Yeah. A lot of great insights. And now the quotes that you read, are those from your book?

[21:11] Michael: From my book, but they’re all mine. There’s no quote in stone or thing. Every quote is written by me. I refuse to take other people’s notes. Yeah, that’s the hop for me. You find me all over, and we can do that anytime. Bobbi, if you get more questions or whatever, because I know that question skipped out, but then we do it again.

[21:40] Bobbi: Okay, well, I appreciate that. Any final thoughts that you want to share about art, nature, anything that we’ve talked about?

[21:51] Michael: Quick questioning. Every time you get ambiguous, keep questioning the ambiguity that I’m feeling. Is that human related or is it system related? And you get that. Then when it’s human related, lean into it. Human centric again. Human centric. System centric. Separate that. If you can do this, you are 60% better. I know that. And I know if you really get that, your life gets so fun. And without having more money, without having anything more, it just gets more fun.

[22:31] Bobbi: Yeah. And wouldn’t that be a great place to be?

[22:35] Michael: Great place. We have it all. We have everything.

[22:39] Bobbi: We already do. And that’s the thing. Well, Michael, I appreciate you coming on and for sharing all this. And I’ll put the link to your podcast as well as your art site. I’ll put all that in the show notes for people, too.

[22:53] Michael: Awesome. Thank you for giving me the canvas to paint.

[22:59] Bobbi: I hope that you took some insights from that conversation. One of my favorites is that nature doesn’t have to go on vacations. As I was doing the editing on this episode, I happened to glance out the window of my studio, and I could see the squirrels running around, flying through the trees as they chased each other around. There were, like, three or four of them out there, and they were having so much fun. I mean, they were joyful. And I couldn’t help but chuckle as I thought about Michael’s comment. And then I had this momentary flash of the squirrels with, like, little hard hats on, carrying lunch buckets, dragging their feet, saying, gosh, another day of hard work in the trees. I can’t wait till Friday. And, I mean, obviously I didn’t see that, but I just had that flash because of Michael’s comet, and it drove home the point, nature doesn’t need a vacation. Nature works and it thrives. And I think that’s one of the biggest takeaways for me, that we can learn so much from nature. I mean, when you think about it, nature is absolutely brilliant. My dad and I used to talk about all that, about that all the time. Like, if you think about a baby deer that’s born, how does it even survive? How does the mother of a baby deer survive, for crying out loud? So nature is brilliant. Nature is patient. And I also think that nature, when you look at all the animals, it’s present. A squirrel is present, isn’t, and what it’s doing. A deer is present, a fox is present and what they’re doing. So I think I’ll go take a walk out there and see what I can learn. Thanks for tuning in and supporting the podcast. I appreciate it so much. I hope that you have a great week and that you continue to thrive no matter what.