Unlocking Your True Gifts and Greatness with Kute Blackson

Trevor: Kute, it’s so great to have you on my show. It’s so great to interview you.

Kute: Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Trevor: Yeah, so I know you’ve got this amazing story that I think is really inspirational for people and I think a lot of people ask the question, Why are we here? And that was a big question that led you on this journey. So, I want to talk with you about that today. With my audience, I talk with them a lot about skin health and how our skin impacts our self-esteem and how our level of health shows up on our skin. And I think that when we talk about our purpose and everything, it really connects into everything, and it helps us have this glow that goes more beyond skin, but it impacts our skin as well. So, I’m excited to talk with you about all of this. Let’s start off with your story and talk about that.

Kute: I was born in Ghana, West Africa. My father is from Ghana, my mother is Japanese, I grew up in London. So I feel like I am from everywhere. My first memories were two things. This deep calling to be of service and make a difference in people’s lives, so I always had this feeling that I would be impacting people’s lives in some way. And then my other memory: I remember being about 7 or 8 years old and being a chubby kid lost in the crowd, and seeing this crippled woman crawling on the floor, and she picks up the sand that this man walks on, and she literally wipes it on her face, and stands up. So, I grew up seeing miracles, blind people seeing, deaf people hearing, and people throwing away crutches. This man was my father. He built 300 churches in Ghana, West Africa, and was a spiritual adviser and teacher to hundreds and thousands of people including the president of Ghana.

And so, around age 8, I start speaking in his church. At age 14, I was ordained as a minister. So, my life was really, you could say, set out for me and all these expectations of people and the community and his congregation. That was my path. He had these expectations for my life. But I knew deep down that I had a different calling. I felt deep down that I was meant to take a different path. So, I was ordained at 14 even though I knew that that wasn’t my destiny. Meanwhile, I’d start reading hundreds and hundreds of books. From age 8 to 18, I had probably read about 700 to 800 books on personal growth and psychology, spirituality and personal development. Really trying to understand who are we and why are we here and what’s the purpose of this whole thing. Why are some people completely happy? Why are some people miserable?

I went on a quest as a young kid. It took me about 4 years to muster up the courage to tell my father thee truth which was that I didn’t want to take over his congregation, take over his personal organization. There was tremendous fear; I was afraid of being outcast and my father never speaking to me again. So, when I was 18, I had the conversation with him, and we didn’t speak for many years. But, I knew that if I followed his expectations for my life and the life he set out for me, I felt the sense that I was dying, that I would literally die. And I could see my trajectory of death. I might become successful by many other people’s standards, but I knew that within my own heart, in my own spirit, in my own soul, that I would be a failure.

I believe that whenever we follow our true calling, our souls, our deepest truth, the universe really aligns to support us and I ended up winning a green card in the lottery which brought me to the U.S. of all things. I had this desire to come to the U.S. because this is where all the authors and teachers that I had been reading about seemed to live — in California, Los Angeles, southern California specifically. I came to L.A. with two suitcases. I knew no one in the country. I had $1,000. And just showed up here when I was 18. I went and found teachers and mentors and the healers and really just trying to understand this whole thing called life.

I traveled the world: went to Israel, studied with rabbis, went to Japan, studied with zen monks, went to Bali and Indonesia and India — all in a quest of trying to understand life. And then it was really from that that I tapped into something for myself — a level of freedom and joy for myself that I wanted to share with other people. And then I started coaching people, and one thing led to the next thing and the next thing, and the whole thing started expanding. So, now I get to travel the world, and inspire people, and help create processes that help people connect to their authentic selves.

Trevor: Wow. What a great story. It’s similar to other people’s stories in some ways, but also very different. Not many of us have a healer as a father. To grow up with that kind of experience and that first memory — it’s pretty amazing that you had that experience. But what you’re talking about as somebody telling you, ‘This is what you need to do; this is what you have to do,’ and not resonating with what you know what your purpose here is. Even though it is so hard sometimes to be able to honor that, I think it is really important. And I think it’s something that a lot of people are afraid to do, and it does take some courage to do.

But like you said, once you do make those steps to follow that path, then you know you’re there because things just start to line up. And at the same time, though, there is a certain amount of discomfort and pain that we need to go through in order to feel our path and to discover that. Now, I’m reading your book and I’m enjoying it, and I think it’s interesting. There are a few things I want to talk to you about. First, I really love the story that you tell in the beginning of the book. And, I’m enjoying reading the book, and I actually had my 14-year-old daughter. I gave it to her, ‘Just read the story,’ I think it’s an important story. I hope it’s okay, if you would just go ahead and share that.

Kute: Sure. How the experience came about was, I was in a place in my life — in my early 20s — I was in a place where I was frustrated. Nothing was working. My relationship with my girlfriend was like hell. Everything was at a standstill. I felt like, ‘You know what, I want to know what freedom is. I want to know what real happiness is.’ So, basically, I put everything in storage and started traveling the world. I said, ‘I’m not coming back to the U.S. until I find answers for myself. It’s great that Gandhi had the answers. It’s great that Deepak Chopra has the answers. I want to know what happiness is. I traveled to India; I traveled all over. And I ended up in a town called Bodh Gaya where the Buddha got enlightened. I went and sat under the tree and nothing happened. I met all these monks and nothing happened. I’m at the place of enlightenment and nothing’s happening to me. I’m getting more miserable.

And, every day I would see these beggars lined up outside the temple — the Mahabodhi Temple. I ignored them. And one day, I was so exhausted that I just sat — it was like 120 degrees heat. I sat outside of the temple and, for the first time, I observed these beggars. And there was one beggar that was literally sitting down, and he was the only one sitting down. He was singing. Everyone else was begging, and he was singing. I had no idea what he was singing, but for some reason, that day, it just touched my heart. He was singing his heart out. I don’t know if it was on key, off key, but it was just the purity and passion with which he was singing — it was so powerful. I was just enthralled and so moved. And then when I really looked at him, he was blind, he couldn’t see. And he had this bowl, but he couldn’t see how much money he was being given. He couldn’t see if anyone was around. And it got me thinking about myself — all the things I do to look good, all the things I do for validation, all the things I do in my life to see if anyone is appreciating me. And he had no idea. I thought, ‘This is really amazing.’

And I realized he was out there singing every single day, eight hours, ten hours a day, for days on end. This was his life. And then I looked more closely, and he was beating these drums with stumps because he had no arms. He was just beating the drums and singing — like he was singing some kind of praise to his god or something. It was just ecstatic. And, I thought, ‘This guy has no arms. He can’t eat by himself. He can’t use the toilet by himself.’ it just blew my mind. And I thought, ‘Oh, my god.’ Then I saw that he was the only beggar sitting down, and I realized that he had no legs and that’s when I just started weeping. This guy has no eyes, no arms, no legs, and here he is praising god, praising the universe, praising life. And he has every reason to be mad and miserable. I would, quite frankly, give him a pass and say. ‘Hey, you have a right to be mad at the world. It’s okay. I understand.’ I felt like such a beggar in that moment.

Here was that man who had nothing and he was giving what he had. And I had everything and I was giving very little. In this sense of feeling so entitled about my life and what I wanted. So, I went up to this man and I was just weeping, and I looked into his eyes — obviously, he couldn’t see me, but it felt like he was looking right through my soul. And, I asked him through an interpreter, ‘How is it you come out here every single day and just sing and just give?’ You know, someone doesn’t call me back, I’m mad. Someone doesn’t respond the way I want them to, they’re gone. And here is this guy just singing, singing, singing, and offering love to the world. And he looked at me — obviously, he couldn’t see but he looked right through my soul — and he basically said through the interpreter, ‘What else is there to do?’ And it was the simplest answer.

I expected some esoteric answer, but it was the simplest answer. What else is there to do? And I thought, ‘Oh my god, what else is there to do?’ And the man kept drumming, then he said, ‘Life might give you what you want; life may not give you what you want, but you can always give what you are, and this is what I have to give.’ The simplicity of what you said, the humility, the humbleness, it just broke my heart open and I realized, ‘To me, life isn’t about getting anything. We may get stuff, we may not get stuff, our dreams may manifest the way we want them to, they might not. We can’t really control life, but what we can do is we can give in each moment, we can love in each moment. Ultimately, that’s the freedom.’ And he taught me that very humbling lesson.

Trevor: So, how did that change your life going forward from there?

Kute: You know for so long, I had been in this phase of thinking that success is what I get from the world. And if I can visualize and read books, then I can get more and I can achieve more and create more. I realized it shifted my perception to think that I might get everything I thought I wanted but at some point I’m going to be dissatisfied. And my entire perspective really shifted at a heart level from a life of trying to get stuff to realizing I’m not really here to get, I’m here to give. So, it shifted a lot. My life became much less dependent. So often, our happiness, and our level of giving and loving is often dependent on, ‘If you give me something, Trevor, or if you respond to me, then I’ll give to you,’ versus, ‘You know what, this is who I’m going to be.

I am committed to being a force of love in the world. I am committed to being a force of love in the world. This is how I’m committed to living my life regardless of who you are or what the world is doing, this is my commitment and to really, really dare to live that regardless.’ So, I became less dependent on things outside and people outside for who I was being in the world, and just developed a fierce commitment to love. If this guy can do it, and he has every reason to not. I would say that’s when life started opening up in pretty magical ways.

Trevor: So, one of the things that you do is work with clients one-on-one, right? You do work with people and you take them on these trips and…

Kute: Well, I used to do a lot of that… I don’t do as much of that now. Out of that journey to India, I found myself literally in that state. I went straight from there a few days later, jumped on a train, and ended up in literally the poorest section of India in the back of the train. And, what you’re referring to is how I create these one-on-one journeys. But, how it came about was literally from that moment. A few days after that, I found myself on the train, on the back of the train, in a sardine can situation with the poorest people in the world. And I remember seeing a woman, and there she was with 5 children, and one of the kids’ heads was hanging off the train.

And I realized we live in a world where we can send people to the moon, and we have all this technology and we can’t feed people. And my heart broke feeling the suffering humanity. Then I looked into this woman’s eyes simultaneously like a few hours later, feeling like what’s looking at me is what’s looking at her and what’s looking through my eyes is really the same thing, and I really got in touch with the fact that at the deepest level of humanity, we may be different — black, white, green, orange, different religions — but at the different level, we’re all being lived and breathed by the same oneness, you know. And, I remember feeling this profound depth of love for this woman on this train whom I had never met. She had nothing. And I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if George Bush, the head of Nike, the head of Google — people in leadership positions — were on this train.

How would it impact their consciousness and how they perceive people and life?’ And I thought, ‘That would be cool.’ And I forgot about it. And I built my coaching business to a very successful level, one-on-one. And in 2006, I had this vision to create that journey that you’re talking about which my book is based on. It became called the Liberation Experience, where I would take one client to India. I take away your passport, your money. You have a backpack, a pair of clothes. And I take you to a 14 day intensive, radical, experiential  experience throughout India — planes, trains, automobiles. I create a journey that is designed to strip you from all your limits and take you to the core, to the essence of who you are. And you sign your will in case you don’t come back. Ultimately, you face death

So often, we’re afraid of death, we’re often resisting death. And the reality is that death is really the only guarantee. It doesn’t matter who you are or whether you’re the most enlightened person in the world, whether you’re Bill Gates or Oprah or a homeless person, we’re all going to die and

none of it we’re going to take with us. I think if we can just face death, make it our friend, realize death, I think it can inspire us to not waste time and get on with the business of living. So, part of the journey is you just face your deepest fear. That’s what I got known for, at least one of the things I got known for for about seven years.

Trevor: I think that so often we just get caught up in our day-to-day life and the modern world and our modern challenges of, ‘My internet down, oh my god. My life is going to come to an end because I can’t check my emails,’ or something. But there is so much more to life, so breaking it down into an experience like that, I can see how for some people that can be really life changing and really important to do.

Maybe for some people there’s no other way that they can see things differently than to go through an experience like that. Sometimes, life just kind of gives us situations and we didn’t necessarily sign up for it, but it’s amazing that people came to you and they were like, ‘I’m signing up for this.’ That’s incredible. So, for those of us that can’t do that opportunity or don’t have that time or are not really ready for that level of commitment, what do you suggest for people?

Kute: In terms of an idea or strategy, one thing I’ve seen keeps people stuck — and this is more of just an idea — is that we’re constantly lying to ourselves. That’s what I’ve seen. What I would suggest to people in terms of things people can do in their lives — one thing I’ve seen is that we’re constantly lying to ourselves. We’re constantly BSing ourselves. So, I would tell people to really shift your life, be willing to tell the truth to yourself about where you’re at and where you’re not. I think many times we play this game with ourselves of, ‘I don’t know.’ We play this game with ourselves of confusion. ‘Oh, my relationship is not so bad. It’s okay. My job, it’s bearable.’

And the reality is it’s killing our souls. Many times, we’re lying to ourselves, we’re rationalizing, we’re settling and we keep ourselves stuck. So, I think one of the most important things is, ‘Where are you lying to yourself? Where are you out of alignment?’ And really being ruthlessly honest with yourself about that. And ask yourself, ‘What am I pretending to not know?’ And I always say, the truth will set you free. Many times we keep ourselves stuck by lying, by rationalizing, by pretending, by playing this game of I don’t know. So that’s one thing I would say for sure.

Trevor: How do we know what the truth is?

Kute: I think we often can know what it isn’t because we often can feel a sort of pain because something feels off or something is starting to feel painful. And I think we have to honor that pain whether it’s in a relationship, whether it’s at work. That heart pain, that soul pain. I think what we often do is we feel that pain and then we go, ‘Uh-oh, I don’t know if I want to feel that pain.’ So, we often distract from it, we get ourselves busy. Because we’re often afraid, if I really let myself feel what this is, then I might have to acknowledge the truth. And if I acknowledge the truth, then I’m afraid of what the consequences might be of maybe I have to break up, maybe I have to leave my job, maybe I have to leave where I’m at, maybe I have to shift.

And we’re often afraid of what the consequences might be. And I think if we’re willing to acknowledge the pain of what might be or the inkling of misalignment and not run from it, then I think we can start going deeper to really feel what our truth is. And I think there’s a part of us, if we’re really honest, if we’re really courageous, if we’re willing to create the space, lessen the distractions, and get quiet for a moment, we know. I ask people, ‘How many times have you been in a relationship, and when it ended, one of the first things you said was, I knew something wasn’t quite right? Or when I met the person, I knew something was just a little bit off? Or I knew 3 months into it or a year into it, something was off?’ So, there is often a subtle knowing, a subtle sensing in the mind that we need to start honoring and cultivating as a knowing in our body. So, I think that’s one thing I would say. There’s a part of us that knows if we’re willing to be honest and truly responsible. We know we often don’t fully align or own that knowing.

Trevor: And sometimes it seems easier just to put up with it and just go about your day and not stir it up. We’re settling and we’re not willing to step outside of our comfort zone. I’m a naturopathic physician and as a naturopathic physician, one of the biggest things I talk to my patients about is trying to find the underlying cause of their health problems. Because when we can address the underlying issues, that’s when real hearing can occur. So, I remember I had this patient once. She came in to see because she wasn’t sleeping. Insomnia was her main thing. I went through a full history, a physical exam, and we looked at her lab work. She was telling me how stressed she was, and how she didn’t like her work, but she had to be there, and she had to have this job, and her family was dependent upon it. As I was doing this assessment, I was like, ‘There is nothing else wrong with her.

There is no other reason for her to not be sleeping at night other than the stressful job. That is the underlying cause of her health problem. Normally, I can find something else to tell people, but for her I said, ‘I’m sorry to say this. You’re probably not going to want to hear this. But the underlying cause of your issue, I really believe, is your job. And there’s nothing I can do. If you’re going to stay in this job, there’s not much else I can do for you. I can recommend these herb that are going to help you relax so you can sleep. But until you address this, I’m not going to be able to help you.’ Of course, she wasn’t real happy to hear that and she never came back. And I thought, ‘I guess, that’s not what she wanted to hear.’ But the funny thing is, Six months later, I ran into her at a Christmas party. And she came up to me and I was like, ‘Uh-oh. What’s going to happen here?’ But she said, ‘Doctor Cates, I just want to thank you. I know I never followed up with you, but I wanted to let you know that I thought about what you said and I quit my job. And my life has completely transformed. I have this new job, and I’m so happy, and I’m sleeping at night.’ So, sometimes it’s really hard to hear it, but we’ve got to make a change.

Kute: It takes courage. It takes real courage to tell the truth, to give up the pretend game, to truly honor yourself, and bring yourself into alignment. It takes a lot of courage. And I think when we can be honest about, ‘Okay, I’m lying to myself. I hate my job, but I’m not going to leave. Or, I don’t know what my purpose is.’ We do, but if I own my purpose, then I might have to do something about it. So, it’s just better to say, ‘I know what my purpose is. I’m terrified and I’m not going to do anything about it. I’m not going to leave my job.’ And to sit in the truth of whatever that is, I think, starts burning something inside and starts a process inside even if we don’t act on it. The truth is profound.

Trevor: That is so true. So, Kute, what are you working on now? You’re not doing those trips anymore, so what are you working on now?

Kute: Well, I’m doing a lot — launching the book, which I’m really excited about — getting the book out to lots of people around the world, and going on a book tour. I’ll be in New York City, Montreal, Maui, and a bunch of places, Washington D.C. i’m working on some media stuff, some television stuff, seminars. Twice a year, I do an event that’s inspired by Bali where I take 20 people. It’s inspired by the journeys to India. I take 20 people and create a 12 day intensive process. It’s called Bandas Bliss Bali. It’s inspired by the India journeys. It’s nonstop. It’s really about spreading love and inspiration across the planet.

Trevor: Great. Where can people find out about your book and about you?

Kute: People can find out about my book at www.youaretheonebook.com. Once they go there, there’s videos. And once they buy the book, they will receive 5 incredible free gifts from there. They can find out about my journeys. My direct website is kuteblackson.com. They can check out my videos, resources, and blogs, and that kind of stuff.

Trevor: Well, thanks, Kute, so much for your interview today. I love hearing your stories, your journey, and hope that this is inspirational for them. It’s been inspirational for me. Thank you for all the work that you’re doing.

Kute: Thanks for having me.