Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / #125: John Perkins / Economic Hitman / Death and Life Economies / China / Central and South America

Transcript

#125: John Perkins / Economic Hitman / Death and Life Economies / China / Central and South America · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

0:01
Welcome to another episode of Come Together
0:15
and We Are Live. John Perkins.
0:17
Mr. Perkins, John, thank you so much for doing this.
0:21
I am I'm so excited that to be talking to you.
0:24
How are you? Great.
0:26
It's my my pleasure to be with you, Ephraim.
0:29
Thank you so much. Thank you.
0:30
So as a quick introduction, I, I, I, I mentioned to you when
0:35
you spoke the other day, but I read your book and it
0:37
immediately blew my mind that the confessions of an economic
0:41
hitman and did. And I'm going to try to make the
0:46
conversation, I guess, or ask my questions as pointed and
0:49
condensed as possible. So we could try and make this,
0:53
you know, as, as you know, as packed with information as it
0:56
could be. But can you give me a brief
0:58
breakdown of what the with the hitman Dubai?
1:00
I found your YouTube little animation that I thought was
1:03
really excellent. So I'm going to post the link to
1:05
that too. But you know what, what what?
1:08
What was your responsibility? Yeah, I should say that that
1:11
animation I had nothing to do with.
1:13
It just appeared it uses my voice but they never asked my
1:15
permission. No.
1:19
I I often use it 'cause I don't, I don't ask their permission.
1:22
I've actually tried, but they don't seem to exist anymore.
1:25
But I love it. I think it's a great video and I
1:27
like to say it's very humbling because it does in 2 minutes
1:31
what I have to spend 250 pages in a book to try to do.
1:35
And it pretty much covers what an economic hitman does.
1:39
So, yeah. So it's it's it's pretty
1:42
hilarious. It's a lot of fun.
1:43
So I I encourage your viewers to watch.
1:45
It's accurate. It's very accurate.
1:48
It felt like it. It felt like the best SparkNotes
1:50
I've ever seen. Exactly.
1:54
So yeah, my real title is chief economist at a major Boston
2:00
based consulting firm. And but you know, I had a staff
2:05
of anywhere from 10 to 50 people at different times.
2:10
And what my job really entailed was identifying countries with
2:14
resources our corporations covet, like oil or other
2:19
resources. Today, it might be one of the
2:21
rare minerals and, and lithium cobalt things that are used in
2:25
high tech. And once we identify that
2:28
country, to convince the country to take a huge loan from the
2:31
World Bank or one of its sister organizations, the money never
2:35
actually went to the country. The resource was used as
2:39
collateral. So the country signed off on the
2:41
loan, but the money actually went to our own corporations,
2:45
big engineering corporations like Bechtel or Halliburton or
2:48
Brown and Rood or Stone and Webster to build large
2:53
infrastructure projects in that country.
2:55
Things like electric power systems, highways, ports,
3:00
airports, industrial parks. And these were things that
3:03
benefited a few wealthy families in those countries, the people
3:07
who own the businesses, the industries, the commercial
3:11
establishments. And they benefited tremendously
3:15
from this improved infrastructure, as of course did
3:17
international corporations, our corporations, and of course the,
3:23
the, the, the engineering companies that built the
3:26
projects made huge profits off of it.
3:29
But the majority of the people in a country suffered because
3:33
money was diverted from from education, healthcare and other
3:37
social services to pay the interest on the loans.
3:41
And in the end, the country couldn't pay the principal.
3:45
So we'd go back, usually under the guise of the International
3:48
Monetary Fund and say, hey, since you can't pay your, your,
3:52
your debts, you, you owe us, sell your oil real cheap.
3:57
It's, it's your collateral. Sell it real cheap to our oil
4:00
companies without environmental or social regulations.
4:03
Let us build a military based on your soil.
4:06
Sell, sell off your, your water and sewage systems and other
4:11
Public Utilities to our investors.
4:13
Vote with us on the next United Nations vote here.
4:15
See Cuba or some such thing. And in that way, we were really
4:20
building a global economy. Yeah, and that was, and as I was
4:27
reading the book, I think even within the 1st 1015 pages, I, I
4:32
was struck and then it was kept on getting further reinforced,
4:36
but by the notion that there was America, the empire that was
4:39
acting along the interests of any empire, which is to expand.
4:43
And then there's America, the homeland, which is, you know,
4:46
the people that are kind of just funding and living there.
4:51
The question I wanted to ask is when we like, you know, for
4:54
example, let's say hypothetically or like in your
4:56
case, when you, when you were dealing with working in Panama
4:59
and you know, the government, let's say we gave or the World
5:04
Bank gave a loan to the, to the government of Panama to build
5:08
the infrastructure. That that's a sense that's
5:11
taxpayer dollars going to going to the country, correct?
5:15
It's American taxpayer dollars going to Panama.
5:19
Yes, often very indirectly through the World Bank or the
5:23
Inter American Development Bank. Yeah, which the the the United
5:27
States is not the only, but the primary financer of those
5:31
institutions. And then it's paid back at the
5:34
end of the loan. Who?
5:35
Who gets who? Who Who is Panama paid return
5:38
the loan to to directly to the corporations that are doing the
5:40
work or to the World Bank? No, to the World Bank.
5:44
The World Bank makes the loan, then the money is used to hire
5:48
American companies to build these infrastructure projects.
5:52
And I should mention also that it, it was my job was pretty
5:56
easy because the, the, you know, I, I, I like to make the kind
6:02
of, it's a metaphor. But I, I say that, you know, I
6:05
walk into a president's office and say, hey, in this hand, I've
6:08
got a few billion dollars to build these projects that are
6:12
going to help you and your friends and your family because
6:15
you own, you own the industries. And if you don't agree to this
6:20
deal, and this is how I got a gun.
6:23
And I didn't actually carry a gun, but I knew and he knew the
6:27
president knew the people right behind me, we called jackals did
6:32
carry guns. And we have a long history of
6:34
overthrowing or assassinating governments.
6:37
For example, a Hendi in Chile and harbins in Guatemala and
6:42
Mossadegh in Iran and on and on and on.
6:44
The list is very long. So, so you know, the president's
6:47
faced with this choice, do I take this money and and put my
6:51
country deep into debt and help my family and friends, or do I
6:56
risk being overthrown or assassinated?
6:59
Yeah, it's a pretty impossible position to be in, I imagine,
7:02
you know. Well, it's not much of A choice,
7:05
frankly, for most people now. The President of Ecuador, Jaime
7:10
Roldos, and the president and the head of state of of Panama,
7:13
Omar Torrijos, were the only clients I had that that did not
7:17
buy the deal. They took the risk and they both
7:19
ended up dying very suspicious deaths in their private
7:24
airplanes. Well, and they were both people
7:27
that you admired greatly, right? I mean, at least the tone in
7:30
your book indicates that they were both very admirable.
7:33
And, you know. Yeah, great people.
7:36
Yeah, they were guys with a lot of integrity.
7:39
And I, I frankly had mixed feelings because my job was to
7:45
bring them around, you know, and I, I was, I was ambitious.
7:49
I wanted to be successful in my job.
7:51
But I also liked them, especially Omar Torrijos of
7:53
Panama, who was extremely charismatic.
7:56
He was a party animal. He was a really good president,
7:59
but he also liked to enjoy life. And we became quite good.
8:02
I felt like we were good friends.
8:04
And so, you know, I had very, very mixed feelings that I
8:09
wanted to succeed at my job. But on the other hand, I really
8:12
admired these guys for taking your stand.
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I, I, I was idealistic and it made to sound to your listeners
8:19
like, well, no, how could you be idealistic and do this job?
8:22
But for most of the time I did the job, I believed I was doing
8:25
the right thing. Because statistically we can
8:29
show that when you invest this money in, in infrastructure
8:32
projects in a poor country, you grow the economy, the GDP
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increases rapidly and significantly.
8:40
And it does. And GDP per capita, which makes
8:44
it sounds as sound as though everybody in the country is
8:47
doing better per capita. Wow, That's everybody.
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And so that's what I was taught in Business School.
8:52
And the World Bank continued to promote this.
8:54
And so I believed in this for a lot of the time.
8:58
And it was really Omar Torrijos of Panama who took me aside one
9:02
time and said, John, don't you realize that you're lying to
9:05
yourself and to the world? GDP only measures how well the
9:10
really wealthy are doing in the big international corporations.
9:14
It measures how what kind of wealth they're bringing to the
9:17
rich people of the country. And GDP per capita is simply
9:22
that number divided by the number of people in a country.
9:24
Doesn't really tell you anything about how well the the average
9:28
citizen is doing. Right, right, right.
9:31
So you say, is there in a in AI guess in a more ideal world, in
9:35
a little bit more of a, let's say moral way or a fairway of,
9:39
you know, trying to make these kind of deals?
9:41
What would be the, what steps along the way would enable the
9:48
population of the country that you're actually giving the loan
9:50
to to actually succeed? Would it be that the interest
9:53
wouldn't be as high? Would it be that you're not
9:55
giving them a loan that's so huge that they couldn't afford
9:57
to pay back? It would be a smaller loan.
9:58
What would, what would have to be the steps that would actually
10:01
allow a country to actually become, you know, more wealthy
10:05
and more and more modernized, I guess.
10:09
That's a that's a key question and it's a question that I had.
10:14
I just, I spent a lot of time in Latin America today and I, I
10:18
just came back from a former Soviet country and, and, and the
10:22
Middle East and Europe. And I'm asked that question a
10:27
lot by these countries and by African countries.
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And my response is, you know, that the, the only that I think
10:34
the best way in the long run is to recognize that, that you have
10:40
resources that the world wants that otherwise we wouldn't be
10:42
doing this. And in the case of Africa, it's
10:45
the wealthiest continent in the world on a based on resources.
10:51
And the poorest. Yeah.
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I mean, it's got the most resources.
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It's got incredible resources, probably Latin America's second.
10:57
And yet they're very poor from a from a human standpoint, from an
11:02
average human standpoint. And but if they could come
11:06
together, could unite and say, you know, like we're not going
11:11
to take on this debt of these outrage with these outrageous
11:14
conditions. Yeah, we we don't have the
11:18
technology to develop some of these resources.
11:20
We need your help US or now China and other parts of the
11:24
world. We need we need your industry.
11:26
We we need your technological know how.
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But these are our resources and, and so we expect you to help us
11:34
develop value, add it. We don't want to just produce
11:38
barrels of oil that you ship out and send to your refineries.
11:42
We want refineries here. And beyond that, we want plastic
11:45
companies. We want the companies that use
11:47
the oil to do things other than just power cars.
11:52
We, we, we want industry here. We, we, we demand that we're not
11:57
going to continue this process, but really that that's going to
12:01
take a, a united effort on the part of many of these countries.
12:05
And in both Africa and Latin America, they'll tell you, you
12:08
know, they have this long history of division.
12:11
It's, it's, and it's a lot of it was imposed it, it's a result
12:15
of, of colonialism by the Portuguese and the Spaniards in
12:18
Latin America and now the Americans and by the Dutch and
12:22
the, and the British and the French and others in, in, in
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Africa. So I have this history of
12:29
division. It makes it hard to do this, but
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I like to look back to the US history.
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There was a lot of divisiveness between the 13 colonies back in
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the 1770s. You know, the, the South had
12:43
very different interests than the North.
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And within each of the colonies in the north and each of the
12:48
colonies in the South, they had different interests from their,
12:50
their neighboring. There was a lot of divisiveness.
12:53
It took, it took an effort, it took a big effort.
12:56
It took a tremendous amount of politicking by people like John
13:00
Adams and, and Benjamin Franklin and others to pull people
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together. But they did it.
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So they became united. And, and I, and I really want to
13:10
encourage Africa and Latin America to do something similar.
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And it doesn't require all the countries, but it requires a a
13:17
significant number that have these resources that the world
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desperately wants. Sure, sure, sure.
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I mean, and I guess, I guess just, I guess piggybacking on
13:29
this, on this notion, we, there's more opportunity now
13:33
than ever to kind of democratize news and information and
13:38
messaging to get across, you know, especially on different
13:40
platforms that you know, because like what you, you know, so
13:44
let's say America or China goes to Africa, America or China or
13:48
both of us go to Africa and say, Hey, we want, you know, XY and Z
13:51
resources. And they say, well, we know
13:52
these resources are valuable to you.
13:54
We insist on, you know, being dealt to fair hands.
13:56
You know, in this, in this, in these negotiations.
13:59
They say, well, you know, we have the money in one hand.
14:01
We have the jackals in the other hand.
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And they say, well, we have a microphone, you know, or we
14:06
have, you know, we have, we have the world, you know, we have the
14:09
voice of, you know, civility and, and humanity, you know, on
14:13
our on our sides. And like what you said, I think
14:16
it would require a massive organized effort of just saying
14:21
we're not being treated fairly for the whole world to be like,
14:24
Oh my gosh, they're not being treated fairly.
14:26
And to take a step. I mean, you know, I mean, that's
14:28
you could, you could definitely make the argument that that
14:30
Hamas and Gaza are currently winning the OR have been winning
14:33
the PR war for the last two years relative to Israel, judged
14:38
by the fact that the sentiment overwhelmingly lies with them at
14:41
the moment. And, you know, I think that if
14:43
any, if any country that was quote, UN quote on the on the
14:46
bottom, you know, could manage to rally some kind of effort and
14:50
democratize the information, make their voices unified, then
14:54
you really have a chance of fighting of fighting.
14:57
Oh, absolutely, you're right. And incidentally, it may be that
15:01
Hamas and Palestine, the Palestinians are winning, but
15:04
but in a way, it's, it's actually Netanyahu and his
15:08
administration that's losing the propaganda war.
15:11
I mean, shooting themselves in the foot.
15:13
But both, it takes both. And I think that's a really good
15:16
point that I, I emphasize what needs to be done in in Africa
15:19
and Latin America. But at the same time, the people
15:21
of the United States need to be better educated about this.
15:24
So we, we have the sense, you know, like I people will tell
15:27
me, well, why are they demonstrating against embassy
15:31
in, in Ecuador or wherever? We're just there to help them.
15:36
Well, that embassy is not there to help the people of Ecuador or
15:39
any other country for the most part.
15:41
That may, that may not be true. Maybe they are there to help
15:44
countries to some degree in Europe.
15:46
But really that embassy is there to serve the interests of
15:49
American corporations for the most part.
15:52
And American foreign policy, which right now and for quite
15:55
some time has been very expansionistic.
15:57
It's either, it's the most expansionist now, I think
16:00
despite the fact that Trump came into the presidency saying he,
16:04
you know, he, he didn't want to get involved in these things,
16:07
but that's been our history of getting involved in these things
16:10
and, and expanding and expanding.
16:13
And so, but Americans don't understand that we truly think,
16:17
I believe that a majority of Americans truly believe that
16:20
what we're doing in these other countries is helping them.
16:24
And maybe to their detriment that oh, you, you can't help
16:27
them. Well, it's true that we
16:29
shouldn't be helping them in ways that exploit them.
16:32
But we can offer services, technology and, and, and money
16:37
to help, but only if it truly is used to develop.
16:41
Yeah. And to develop these countries,
16:44
to develop the businesses in these countries, help employment
16:47
in these countries. We talk about the immigration
16:50
problem. The immigration problem is a
16:52
problem because we've created economies in Central America
16:58
that are just exploited by our corporations.
17:02
NAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, and I mean the
17:07
North American Free Trade Agreement and Kafka, the Central
17:10
American are are totally biased to helping out big corporations
17:14
and in the process making it very, very difficult for the
17:19
average person in in much of Central America to make a
17:22
living. So they emigrate.
17:26
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder So what I I, I can
17:30
vouch for both myself anecdotally and with really
17:33
almost everyone that I know it. I know only a handful of people
17:38
that know much about any other part of the world other than
17:40
America that grew up here. And even then, you know, what
17:42
they know is, is severely limited.
17:45
And, you know, so actually I do want to dedicate probably, you
17:48
know, a chunk of this recording to talking a little bit about
17:51
other countries, especially from your experience.
17:54
I think that that'd be extremely valuable.
17:57
One thing I wanted to ask for you to please elaborate on a
18:02
little bit was the notion of a corporatocracy that you've
18:06
discussed. Because I think that the way
18:09
that you, the way that you expressed it in the book, at
18:12
least had put it into such plain and digestible terms.
18:17
And a notion that primarily has been kind of put, put aside for
18:24
the kooks, you know, for the conspiracy theorists.
18:26
And, you know, you walk around with terms like a deep state or
18:28
whatever it is. But but there is, but, you know,
18:32
there is this notion of a corporatocracy.
18:34
Can you explain what that is please?
18:36
Yeah, well, my, what what I've written about is the
18:38
corporatocracy is not really a conspiracy theory as such.
18:42
So that's sort of overarching agreement with the Bildenberger
18:46
whenever they get together to be in dark corners and, you know,
18:50
to to plot things. But the conspiracy, if you want
18:54
to call it that is, is a a philosophy that is part of what
19:00
I call predatory capitalism, which is the kind of capitalism
19:03
that rules the world right now. And that philosophy is that you
19:07
maximize short term profits regardless of the social and
19:10
environmental cost that drives these corporations.
19:13
And it pretty much drives our governments that to set up
19:17
policies that help us maximize materialistic consumption and
19:20
short term profits for corporations.
19:23
Now, corporations need to make profits.
19:25
All businesses do. But they don't need to maximize
19:28
them to the extent that they just basically disregard the
19:31
future, right? You know, and the idea of
19:34
maximizing profits regardless of the social and environmental
19:38
costs is ridiculous when you think about it.
19:42
And yet that's the driving force.
19:45
So let's say you take the oil companies and you may have Exxon
19:48
and Chevron and Shell are all competing for you at the gas
19:52
pump. They're all advertising our oils
19:53
better than their oil, you know, saying, but that's what they're
19:57
doing. But but if, if, if, if any
20:01
country in the United States or any of the countries where they
20:03
have oil wells begins to look like they're going to institute
20:07
policies that in some way are going to negatively impact the
20:11
oil company, the oil companies, they all basically.
20:15
They don't have to come together in a dark room and agree to do
20:17
this. They don't even have to meet
20:18
with each other. They just automatically know
20:21
we're all going to fight to get rid of this policy, to keep this
20:25
policy down. We're all, we're going to spend
20:27
a lot of money on, on, you know, we at Shell are going to hire
20:30
our lawyers and, and you at Texaco or Chevron are going to
20:34
hire your lawyers. And we're, you know, we're all
20:37
going to fight this, this, this policy and that goes through
20:40
all, all the various industries, whether it's retail or food
20:43
production or, or chemicals or pharmaceuticals.
20:49
So, so that's this corporatocracy.
20:52
But on top of that, you've got the fact that most of our
20:55
government officials come out of the corporate world or plan on
21:01
going into it when they leave the government.
21:05
Yeah, yeah. The revolving door.
21:08
And that's a form of corruption that's been legalized.
21:12
It's so it's, it's not corruption legally speaking, but
21:17
it is corruption on, you know, from any standpoint.
21:22
And, and of course, these last few years, it's gotten a lot
21:26
worse over these last few, few months.
21:27
I mean to say it's gotten a lot worse the the Trump
21:30
administration is blatant about it, which may be a good thing
21:33
because it's bringing to the surface the fact that the
21:37
presidents and other politicians use their positions to enhance
21:43
their own personal wealth and that of their friends and
21:46
cronies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:49
It's been. I don't know whether this is
21:52
just the media that I've been consuming lately or whether or
21:55
not this is the zeitgeist, but it certainly feels as if it's
21:57
been a lot more blatant. You know, the transfer of
22:03
wealth, prestige and power is like unfolding in front of
22:07
people's eyes And it almost and, and then at the same time, life
22:11
becomes a lot more, a lot more difficult for the middle lower,
22:14
you know, economic class of, of, of individuals.
22:17
And there's just nothing like you could just it's a good
22:21
silent groan, you know, like there's, there's not really much
22:23
that's happening other than everyone just kind of throwing
22:25
up their hands and being like, well, I guess, you know, I guess
22:28
this is life now. I guess, you know, I guess I,
22:32
you know, there's not there's really, it doesn't feel like
22:34
there's necessarily a way out. Do do you have any kind of, you
22:38
know, hope or what kind of positive other than, I guess
22:42
messages, messaging, other than the speaking and the coming
22:45
together that we were talking about, you know, is there
22:47
anything else that could happen? Yeah.
22:49
Well, I think yeah, first of all, yeah, it's, it's definitely
22:54
gotten worse. So.
22:55
So I actually think we have developed the, the conspiracy
22:58
theories in a way coming true. It's it's self realization.
23:02
I think we have in the last months we've been moving beyond
23:07
the kind of corporatocracy that I talked about and we've been
23:13
moving much more into an overt one, an oligarchy.
23:17
And that's not just true in the United States, it's it's been
23:19
happening in many, many other countries, Argentina among so
23:23
many countries, Italy, countries in Europe.
23:26
You know, we're moving in this direction increasingly.
23:29
And and I think that the message here is it's these terrible
23:34
mistakes that we've all made in the past.
23:36
Those those in power, those are not even necessarily in power.
23:40
I don't consider myself to be in power, but I'm part of, you
23:43
know, this white American privileged class.
23:47
And we've kind of sat back and watched, you know, the Democrats
23:50
have not done a good job at dealing with what's going on.
23:53
And I'm not, you know, I'm not just coming down on the Trump
23:56
administration. I think the Trump administration
23:59
is stirring the pot and that that's probably a good thing.
24:03
It needs, it needed to be stirred.
24:06
The question is, can can we? Can we cool down the pot before
24:10
it boils over? Yeah.
24:12
That's the big question. Can we truly save democracy?
24:16
Because I think I'm a, I'm a very strong believer in
24:20
democracy and we've never really had it in the United States, but
24:24
throughout our 250 year history, we've been kind of on an upward
24:27
trend. You know, women didn't have the
24:30
right to vote until the 19 until 1919, but they did get it.
24:34
And and then and then we've still got tremendous inequality
24:38
and and so on. But I think we were moving in in
24:41
the right direction. And it takes time. 250 years is
24:45
not a lot in human history. But but now it seems as though
24:49
we've taken a step back, as have so many, many other countries
24:54
and really deeply concerned about this.
24:57
I was just recently in the Republic of Georgia, which used
25:01
to be part of the Soviet Union. And they're terrified, you know,
25:05
they, they do not want to be part of the the equivalent of
25:08
the Soviet Union again. And they see what's happening in
25:11
Ukraine. They are expecting that it will
25:13
happen to them if it unless it gets stopped in Ukraine.
25:17
And you hear this all over Europe.
25:19
It's a tremendous amount of fear.
25:21
We in the United States are very privileged in that we've got the
25:24
Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean in Canada and Mexico.
25:28
So, yeah, these are not enemies. I mean, we're, we're, we're,
25:33
it's getting close. Are we?
25:35
Are we going to turn Canada and Mexico into enemies?
25:37
That would be a terrible mistake.
25:39
But I don't think we are going. I don't think that's going to
25:41
happen. And and so we've been so
25:43
privileged because most every other country in the world has
25:47
neighbors that at one time or another, including usually
25:50
fairly recently, were their enemies.
25:53
So, well, they're very, very aware of these kinds of threats.
25:57
We're not. We're not.
25:58
We're spoiled. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:00
Well, something's gonna, I mean, I guess something's gonna you're
26:02
spoiled until something wakes you up in life.
26:04
You know, that's usually how it that's usually how it works.
26:06
So I'm hoping we can learn, you know, before we before we get
26:11
one of those wake up calls that we're not, you know, that we're
26:12
not very happy about. Speaking of Ukraine, there was a
26:18
whole, and again, it wasn't a huge, huge deal on the news, but
26:21
it was kind of a couple of months back that Trump was
26:24
trying to push Zelensky towards a mineral deal.
26:27
You know, is that the would that be the equivalent of, you know,
26:31
extract, extracting this pound of flesh that like, hey, we just
26:35
propped you guys up for X amount of years and gave you X amount
26:37
of billions of dollars. And now we're expected to.
26:40
Now you're expected to work with us, whether you like it or not.
26:44
Yeah. We didn't give them that money.
26:45
We, we, we, we've, it's, it's, there's a lot of it is loans.
26:49
Some of it has been granted. Oh, I see.
26:51
Most of it is loans and let's remember that most of that money
26:55
or great a large share of it that came back to us for them to
26:59
buy military equipment from us and, and, and, and other
27:02
supplies from us. So, yeah.
27:04
And, and why are we in Ukraine? So that the people of Republic
27:08
of Georgia would say we, we went through the same thing you, you.
27:13
So the I mean Russia annexed the large parts of of of the
27:19
Republic of Georgia recently and the world didn't react at all.
27:25
When was that? It was what, 2000?
27:30
Shit, I just came from there, you know, 2007, 2000.
27:34
Within the last 20 years. Yeah, yeah, Oh, yeah.
27:37
There's I, I've met with a lot of people who were told you've
27:41
got 48 hour, told by the Russians you've got 48 hours to
27:44
get out of your house and and move 350 miles away.
27:50
We now have taken over the section, but who knows about
27:55
that? I, I didn't really, I knew, I
27:57
knew about it, but I didn't really know about it until I get
27:59
there and talk to these people. And so they say, well, why
28:03
doesn't the world know about it? Why Ukraine?
28:06
Why not us too? We, we, we want to support
28:08
Ukraine, but what about us? And the answer is they don't
28:12
have the resources. Ukraine has these amazing
28:15
resources that, that are available to including it's,
28:18
it's known as the bread basket of Europe, huge, huge
28:22
agricultural production. So that's why.
28:25
And it's about these resources. It isn't about just human
28:30
decency from a here's. The thing as a from a from.
28:34
A human standpoint, yes, you and I and many other people were
28:38
very sympathetic to the Ukrainians or the Palestinians
28:41
or whoever. So there's that human aspect.
28:44
But from a governmental policy standpoint, it's all about
28:49
resources. It's all about superpower
28:53
status, and usually that also means it's about personal
28:57
ambition of of heads of state like President Xi of of China
29:03
and President Trump of the United States, or any president
29:06
of the United States for that matter.
29:09
Yeah, I've heard before that the issue with organizations like
29:14
governments or corporations that they act like sociopaths in the
29:17
way that they're kind of treated like people, but they're never
29:20
responsible for actions. They don't feel, you know, when
29:23
they hurt someone or when they do anything.
29:25
There's no sense of remorse or guilt or any kind of morality to
29:28
kind of hold anyone back. And everyone kind of just points
29:30
at the other person or looks up, you know, rather than and, you
29:34
know. And so I mean, I guess that
29:36
would be the purpose of having generally speaking, democracy is
29:40
to say is for the for the humans to say, whoa, like the humanity
29:44
in this situation has gone way down, you know, and and the way
29:48
that you're the way the government, which we don't even
29:50
expect to behave like a human because they're not humans.
29:52
It's just a machine that's like, you know, almost like moving on
29:55
its own accord, you know, the way, you know, we have to we are
30:00
going to re navigate. We're going to take the debt,
30:02
we're going to take the steering wheel and we're going to, you
30:04
know, realign what the values and the way they were behaving
30:08
are, you know, is I guess are I'm not sure which one you put
30:10
there, but I guess, I guess ideally that's what democracy
30:15
would be about, right? Yeah, it's, it's an unfortunate
30:19
fact of history, I think that systems have been created that
30:24
that do encourage nationalistic sociopaths to rise to the top,
30:29
whether it's in government or business.
30:32
Sure. It looks big business.
30:34
It's that's just there like, who wants that?
30:37
Who wants those jobs except somebody who's narcissistic and
30:41
sociopathic. I don't want one of those jobs
30:44
really. You know, it's tough.
30:45
And I wouldn't say that everybody that has those jobs is
30:48
that way. And there's certainly varying
30:50
degrees. Some are more so than others,
30:53
but it's a system that we've created that does that.
30:59
That's not human nature in my opinion.
31:02
And as you know, I spend a lot of time with indigenous people
31:05
in the Amazon and elsewhere in the Himalayas and, and, and so
31:09
on and so forth. And if you really look, if you
31:12
look at indigenous cultures throughout history and let's
31:15
face it, we've, we've all have, we all come out of indigenous
31:19
cultures. It's in our DNA to want
31:22
something better, to realize that as the indigenous people in
31:26
the Amazon that I, I continue to spend a lot of time with,
31:29
understand if anybody in the community is suffering
31:33
needlessly, then everybody is suffering.
31:36
So somebody may have a broken leg and they may suffer
31:38
something, whatever, but if they're lacking in love or
31:42
they're lacking in food or water or or housing or whatever,
31:45
everybody suffers. You've got to take care of them
31:48
and, and when they form organizations to get together,
31:53
for example, right now in the Amazon, it's a big step to, to,
31:57
to oppose, for the indigenous people to come together to
32:00
oppose the oil companies and the, and the, and the, and the
32:03
Chinese big mining operations that are going in, in cattle
32:08
ranch. And when they do that, they,
32:11
they, they have a system where they elect for every community
32:15
elect someone can't serve for more than two years.
32:19
And then that person then meets with the guy in the next in the
32:24
other communities of the same nation.
32:26
But we used to go try, but now at least in many parts, they
32:29
recognize as nations. And then they, and then they
32:33
come together to elect 1. So let's say the Ottawa people
32:37
of the Amazon, there's 46 different communities that send
32:40
in 40 to 6 different representatives and they are
32:43
like 1 to, to meet with the representative from the Schwarf
32:46
Federation and, and the Kichawa Federation.
32:50
And then they all come together and it's all just for two years.
32:53
So these guys, these people are elected to really serve the
32:56
interests of the community. It's a bottom up approach where
33:01
we've got this top down approach where you don't, you know,
33:05
what's, you know, the community I live, live in, what's the
33:09
chances that it's really going to have an impact outside of
33:12
this community? And it's, it's controlled by the
33:16
top. And you don't, you know, you
33:18
don't get to the top, you don't get to be president of the
33:21
United States unless you've got a huge support system behind you
33:26
and a lot of money behind you. And the system is rigged for
33:30
that way. And it's rigged.
33:32
You know, it's become increasingly rigged that way
33:34
with Citizens United and in recent Supreme Court, the
33:37
decisions that really favour big corporations and favour the
33:42
power of the executive branch of government.
33:46
I'm going to let you decide which way, which path you want
33:50
to go down. Do you want to talk a little bit
33:52
about China or do you want to talk a little bit more about the
33:54
South and Central American tribes and a little bit more of,
33:59
you know, the I want to, I want to go a little bit more into the
34:02
other types of books that you've written and other types of work
34:05
and philosophy and meditation and practices.
34:08
Which which path would you like to meander down?
34:11
Well, I think they're connected. So let's let's try this one.
34:15
The two biggest countries, the two most powerful countries in
34:18
the world, China and the United States, contribute almost 50% of
34:23
the world's economy, something between 40 and 50% and also
34:28
between 40 and 50% of the world's pollution.
34:31
And what we've really done is created a, what economists are
34:34
calling a death economy, an economic system that's that's
34:39
killing itself, that's polluting and consuming itself toward
34:42
extinction. And it is based on this one goal
34:45
of maximizing materialistic consumption and short term
34:49
profits for corporations. Can I?
34:51
Ask real quickly, I'm so sorry, just to, but real quickly, China
34:55
doesn't operate on that same time as time scale and corporate
34:58
interests as America do, do they?
35:01
Certainly not the same. No, they don't.
35:02
And neither one of those in the time scale they're much, they
35:05
look to the long term much more. But it's still considered a
35:08
death economy in that sense. Yeah.
35:10
Because what they're, they're, they're, they're, they're still
35:14
looking at making huge profits, maximizing profits regardless of
35:20
social and environmental costs. And then the maximization of
35:23
profits may include a little bit longer term.
35:25
So it may not be quite as maximized.
35:28
Right. Right.
35:28
Yeah. And it's still looking at
35:30
controlling the resources of the world, you know, and a major
35:34
difference is that many of the big corporations in China are
35:37
51% or more owned by the Chinese government.
35:40
So they don't really have to tax their corporations because they
35:43
profit from them. You know, you're already getting
35:46
51%. You know, it's a hell of a lot
35:48
more of our corporations. So it's it's actually a very
35:52
smart system and their economic hit band are just doing a bang
35:56
up job. I mean, they're they're smart.
35:58
I think you know this. This map tells.
36:00
You about please? Yes.
36:01
Can you explain the top in the bottom?
36:05
So the top, the top is like in the year 2001, the United States
36:09
was the number one trading partner in 80% of the world's
36:12
countries. By 2023, China had taken over
36:16
70% of the world's countries. Crazy.
36:20
And, and since 2023, it's gotten more so.
36:23
So, you know, China's economic hitman.
36:28
Well, first of all, they have a great story to tell, and that is
36:33
that they brought over 800 million people out of dire
36:37
poverty. That's huge and more than twice
36:41
the population of the United States.
36:43
And they have, they had economic growth of around 10% a year for
36:48
30 years. Nobody else has ever done that.
36:51
So if you're the president of a country in in Africa or Latin
36:55
America or, or other parts of the world that you want to
36:58
develop your economy, you look at that as a pretty successful
37:01
model. You may not like the Chinese
37:03
government, you may not like the way they run, but you think that
37:06
that economic system looks pretty damn good compared to the
37:09
US system where we put our our federal minimum wage today is
37:15
lower when adjusted for inflation than it was in 1973.
37:22
Wow. And that's crazy.
37:25
Yeah. And, and, and some country
37:27
president of the country looks at this stuff, you know, and
37:30
also there's a tremendous resentment of the United States.
37:33
If you're a Muslim country, you really resent the fact that the
37:37
United States went into Iraq and Afghanistan and is, is, is
37:42
supporting Israel against the Palestinians.
37:45
This history and, and, and, and so many country we have, we've
37:49
have military bases in over 100 countries.
37:52
China has them in one, maybe 2. And they're not really very
37:56
strong military bases. They're supply bases.
37:58
People don't like to be occupied by a foreign power.
38:02
We didn't in the United States back in the 1700s when the
38:05
British were here. We always went to war over Cuba.
38:09
Yeah, yeah. You know.
38:11
Yeah, and, and, and now Venezuela, you know, we, we, we
38:15
want to control the policy. I hate, you know, Maduro.
38:18
I'd, I'd like to see him go, but that's another story.
38:21
Anyway, so, but the thing about China and the United States both
38:25
is we're is we're competing is to expand the death economy.
38:32
And the the challenge today is to get these two countries that
38:36
have so much influence in power politically, economically,
38:40
militarily, to work to create a life economy and a life economy.
38:45
This gets back to the other side of the story here.
38:47
The indigenous people have had life economies.
38:52
We're up to 200,000 plus years. We've conceived ourselves as
38:55
human beings. We've we've lived most of that
38:58
time in life economies. It's only been within the last
39:00
several thousand years and it's gotten worse in the last few
39:04
decades that we've had this death economy.
39:07
And so the life economy, you know, is a recyclable economy.
39:11
It's a circular economy. It recycles it, it, it, it
39:14
circulates and it doesn't destroy resources.
39:17
It helps to replenish resources. So as a practical case, we, we
39:22
pay people to clean up all the plastic that's floating around
39:25
in the oceans and recycle it to replant devastated environments,
39:30
devastated forests, to, to, to restore all of devastated
39:34
environments, to recycle, to create new technologies.
39:38
You know, we, we've been on that path.
39:40
Solar, wind, electric cars is taking us in the right
39:44
direction, but we need to go a lot further, a lot faster.
39:49
And so the, the life economy is not about, you know, living,
39:52
going back and living in caves or having lousy lives.
39:57
It's about paying ourselves and each other to do things that
40:02
make the. Future of the world, a better
40:04
place to make the world a better place for us, our children, our
40:07
grandchildren, our great grandchildren.
40:09
And it's exciting, you know, I, I think this is an incredibly
40:13
exciting time. That's why I say we're stirring
40:15
the pot And I, I'm hoping that out of this pot, you know, comes
40:21
an amazing Stew of life economy. I would, I would, I would love
40:27
that. Can you so tell me some stories,
40:30
perhaps if you, if you don't mind, of some of your
40:32
experiences in South America or Central America and about the
40:36
cultures? Because again, one of the things
40:38
when, you know, I emailed you when I reached out, one of the
40:41
things that I said, aside from how much I loved your book was
40:44
I've been so I've been learning more about different parts of
40:47
the world. I never dreamt, you know, I, I
40:50
could never, I could never even imagine existed, you know, and
40:53
you started bringing a lot of life to a lot of these South and
40:55
South and Central American countries.
40:57
So do you want to just tell me some, you know, some of your
40:59
favorite aspects of these countries or which countries in
41:02
particular are, you know, speak to you or resonate with you?
41:06
Yeah, well, yeah, there's a lot that speak to resonate with me.
41:11
I'm particularly enthralled by the Amazonian people who live so
41:16
close to nature and, and really is believe that they are a part
41:21
of nature, not a part from it. And, and that's the biggest
41:24
thing. And, and I don't idealize these
41:26
people. There are murderers amongst
41:28
them. They're crazy people.
41:29
There are wife beaters. You know, there's good and bad
41:32
people. They're people, but they have a
41:33
philosophy of life that they live as part of the economy, as
41:38
part of the part of the natural world, part part of part of the
41:41
world. Whereas we have a philosophy
41:44
that we are a part from the world, that we have a superior
41:49
over it. And that's, that's the basis of
41:52
our, of our problems. And so I, I take people on trips
41:56
of the people who've read my books on, on indigenous cultures
42:00
often to, to learn from the indigenous people.
42:02
It's one of the aspects that they are most impressed with is
42:05
how much these people live within the system as part of it.
42:10
They're not destroying it. They are trying to keep others
42:13
from destroying it. They're trying to keep us from
42:14
destroying it, but they've they've always, always lived as
42:18
part of it. And as I said, we all have that
42:20
in our DNA. Do they, do they have multiple
42:24
religions or one religion or what's their, how do they,
42:28
what's this version of, I guess of, of national storytelling or,
42:33
you know, philosophical compass, you know, what's their compass?
42:39
Yeah, I don't think you can generalize and there's there's
42:43
many different. There's a bunch of them.
42:45
Yeah, but but if you were to, to generalize, you'd say, you know,
42:49
they, they believe that everything has spirit and soul
42:54
trees and the animals and the rocks and the rivers.
42:57
So they, they honor that and most of them believe in some
43:02
bigger force that we would call God or different.
43:05
There's different words for it. And most of them believe in
43:08
that, that, that beyond all of this is that.
43:11
And they believe for the most part, and again, I'm
43:13
generalizing here that, you know, life, the soul never ends,
43:19
that the body dies, but we, that we transform often into trees or
43:23
plants. They, many of them believe that,
43:25
you know, being human is one of the toughest aspects that you
43:28
don't want to come back as a human being.
43:33
The humans, we're here as humans to learn about the difficulties
43:37
that humans have such power. So we're here to learn how to
43:40
use that, that power over the rest of nature to, to continue
43:45
to, to, to support nature, to continue to be part of nature.
43:49
And we're, and right now we're in this incredibly difficult,
43:53
chaotic, but important time of really understanding that we
43:57
need to evolve into a better understanding of what it means
44:03
to be human beings, being human on this planet.
44:07
And they understand that. And again, I don't idealize them
44:11
as individuals, but as a philosophy of life to really
44:15
understand this. And again, we all come from
44:17
that. But I love that about the
44:19
indigenous people and the Amazon and, but I, but I also the Mayan
44:24
people of, of Central America are, are incredible because they
44:30
know that they went through something around the year 900 in
44:34
our calendar, like what we're going through today.
44:37
They have these huge pyramids, you know, amazing, amazing
44:40
pyramids that just phenomenal. They built these.
44:43
They don't get any attention relative to Egypt, right?
44:46
Very little attention. To Egypt, yeah.
44:48
And to me they're much more impressive than the Egyptian
44:50
pyramids. I've spent time in both because
44:53
there's 2 views that the shamans still use them in their
44:56
ceremonies, that they're, they're, they're, they're a
44:58
living part of these people's lives, but they don't build them
45:01
anymore. And so between the years 800 and
45:05
900 in our calendar, they had drained the swamps and cut the
45:11
forest in order to build these vast, spectacular cities.
45:15
And there were dozens and dozens of these huge cities.
45:20
Some are just now being discovered by Lidar
45:23
technologies. And, and as they built these
45:28
cities, they changed their environment like we're doing.
45:32
The rain stopped and, and the food dried up.
45:36
And so the cities began to go to war with each other, which
45:39
they'd always been peaceful before over scarce resources.
45:43
And then eventually the people who lived outside the cities but
45:46
supported the city. So you only have the royalty
45:48
living in the cities and their administrators and their
45:51
religious people, you know, the upper class, the people lived
45:55
outside and supported the cities, gave them, you know,
45:57
provided the food and everything else just said I, we don't want
46:00
to kill our neighbors anymore. We're leaving.
46:03
And they went up into the mountains or deeper into the
46:05
jungle. They abandoned the cities.
46:07
The cities were grown over by nature took over, which is a
46:10
wonderful aspect. And for hundreds of years,
46:13
nobody knew these pyramids were there.
46:15
Maybe some of the Mayans knew, but nobody from the outside
46:18
world knew until the the 1800s when they were rediscovered and
46:22
started to be excavated. But so today the Mayan people
46:26
who who left and they, they kept their traditions.
46:29
They were built their calendars, their incredible calendars and
46:32
their readings of the calendars and their prophecies and their
46:35
fire ceremonies and their and their respect for nature.
46:39
And they live very simply. They didn't they.
46:42
So they kept those things, but they didn't continue to build
46:45
these cities. They realize that you got to
46:49
live much more simply and have really good lives and enjoy your
46:54
families and, and, and provide good food.
46:57
So they've got this and now they want to teach us because they've
47:00
seen what happens when you take this too far.
47:04
So which? Which countries in particular
47:06
are these? Did this happen in?
47:10
Did this I just what do you which country are you talking
47:13
about where this happened? Well, for the Maya, it's, it's,
47:16
they were basically what today we, we, we consider to be
47:19
Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Salvador and Belize, 5 countries
47:27
and probably the one that's done the most to kind of protect
47:31
these sites and, and, and continue to use them is, is,
47:35
well, Mexico's done a good job, but it doesn't allow the shamans
47:38
to do their ceremonies. Guatemala does.
47:41
And so those two countries, Mexico and Guatemala and
47:45
Guatemala are the ones that have the most preserved, you know, if
47:49
they preserve this and you know, so I are.
47:53
Part of their culture. What are?
47:56
Psychedelics, part of the culture, they're part of the.
47:59
What I didn't? Are psychedelics part of their
48:03
culture? Oh, with some of them, Peyori is
48:10
now in the Amazon and that's in Central America.
48:14
And the fire ceremonies, they do take you into altered states.
48:18
I mean, they're amazing. So it's it's not something you
48:20
ingest, but they do use peyote in some of them.
48:23
But many of them don't use anything except the fire
48:26
ceremonies. Historically, we don't know
48:28
exactly what they did, but now in the Amazon, ayahuasca is a
48:32
very important in many of these cultures.
48:35
And you probably know what ayahuasca is and that's, you
48:39
know, very, very strong. This takes you into altered
48:43
states. I just.
48:46
I'm still here because I continue.
48:47
OK, so yeah. And, but you know, it's, it's,
48:51
it's very interesting to me that I was trained as an ayahuasca
48:56
shaman back in 1969. I was a Peace Corps volunteer
49:00
living deep in the jungle with the schwa people.
49:03
And, and I was dying at one point and a schwa shaman saved
49:08
my life using ayahuasca and then demanded that I become an
49:12
apprentice for a couple of years.
49:13
So I did. Wow.
49:15
When was this? Was this before After your
49:17
economic career? Long before this is right after
49:21
I got out of Business School and I joined the Peace Corps because
49:23
it was a way to avoid the draft and I didn't believe in the war
49:27
in Vietnam. So I joined the Peace Corps.
49:29
They sent me deep into the Amazon and I got very sick.
49:32
At one point I was dying in ayahuasca.
49:35
They saved my life and and I was trained as an ayahuasca shaman.
49:39
And you know, I take people there now who one night we do
49:43
it. They don't have the opportunity
49:45
to do it. They don't, Some of them don't.
49:46
They don't have to. But, you know, I am concerned
49:50
that some of these are being, I think are being misused or
49:54
overused now because typically indigenous people will take
50:00
ayahuasca once just if they really need it.
50:05
And some guy the other day asked me, he said, you know, what was
50:09
the, how many? He said I took ayahuasca 20
50:12
times last year. How many times did you take it
50:14
and say, I haven't taken it for 10 years and I'm still working
50:17
with that plant. It's in me and it's working with
50:22
me. And the shamans who serve
50:25
ayahuasca do when I was trained to say you, you take it a lot
50:28
more than that. But the normal people, you
50:30
don't. It's not it's I, I, I'm afraid
50:33
in this culture of that we're in now to some degree with some
50:36
people, it's almost become a social addiction.
50:39
People say, well, there's an ayahuasca ceremony next Saturday
50:42
night at so and so's house. Let's go.
50:45
And, and that concerns me that we may be, it's using it like,
50:49
like so many things that, you know, I mean, we, we can say we
50:53
experience something similar with antibiotics where we, you
50:57
know, being abused. We certainly have experienced
50:59
with tobacco tobacco's, another sacred plant that's used in the
51:03
Amazon. And it's very, very important,
51:05
but it's used in a special way and in ceremonial ways.
51:09
We've perverted that in the United States and and throughout
51:12
most of the world by, you know, producing cigarettes that are
51:16
terribly harmful. Because we consume, because we
51:20
care about, we just care about just, you know, you know, trying
51:24
to fill our insatiable, you know, hunger for whatever it is,
51:29
you know, and. Yeah.
51:31
And if you have a, if you have a great experience on ayahuasca
51:34
tonight, last night, if you had a great experience and you say,
51:38
well, I want to do that again. Or if you didn't have a good
51:41
experience, you say, well, if it didn't work, but I understand
51:44
it, that might have just been that that particular potion or
51:47
whatever, I, I need to try some more.
51:50
Whereas the fact of the matter is in both times, it probably
51:53
did work. You've just got to understand it
51:55
and maybe give it time to work with you or for you to work with
52:00
it and not and and really open yourself to what the plants
52:03
trying to tell you. When I was dating my wife, we're
52:06
married for just about four years, 4 1/2 four years now.
52:09
And, and you know, she asked me, you know, you know, one of the
52:14
important conversations prior to, you know, our getting
52:17
married, you know, she was asking me about whether or not I
52:20
consume drugs. And I told her for honesty.
52:22
I was like, you know, I've done I've done LSD a couple, you
52:25
know, a couple of times and she was like, and she couldn't
52:32
understand me when I and she's like what's last me did I said
52:36
two years ago and she couldn't understand that like that, like,
52:39
you know, in her head, like a drug was like something that
52:41
like you want to do all the time.
52:43
And I was like, I did that once and I do not feel the need to
52:47
like I will never. I won't do it again until I feel
52:50
that calling. It's not a it's not, it's not
52:53
just something I just do or just take for fun.
52:56
I mean, I could be like, I mean, I happen to be very into like,
52:59
you know, the counterculture, Grateful Dead hippie kind of
53:01
movement, you know, But I think I'm very happy that I'm watching
53:05
it as an observer from the side 100 years later, you know, 870
53:08
years later, then, you know, living in it at the moment, I'm
53:11
sure I would have had a much harder time finding a healthy
53:13
balance with, you know, again, the consuming and the and the
53:17
magic. But you know, one of the things
53:19
I had to explain, and there's an enormous amount, I guess of
53:22
stigma, reputation around it is that this isn't addicting.
53:25
I'm not like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not here to at least I'm
53:28
trying to be thoughtful or conscientious about it.
53:31
You know, I'm like, this is, this is part of a journey and
53:33
part of an experience. And I did a breath work class
53:36
recently. I forgot, I keep on forgetting
53:38
the name of it, but it takes you into, I guess, another elevated
53:40
state. And again, I did it to check on,
53:43
I felt like I needed to check under the hood of my, of my head
53:47
and see where I was in my life. And I did it.
53:48
And my wife keeps on asking me. She says, you know, there's
53:51
another class this week, another class this week.
53:52
I'm like, I, I'm not, I'm not there yet.
53:55
You know, I, I checked into the hood and I'm still working with
53:58
what? With, you know, with what the,
54:00
with what it's telling me, you know, but, but you know, I, I,
54:03
I, I, what you're saying deeply resonates with me.
54:06
Well, good. Yeah, No, it sounds like you're
54:08
dealing with it just the right way.
54:09
It it is something that can be very, very important in our
54:13
lives, but it can also be misused.
54:16
And, and it's got, you've got to be conscious and mindful of the
54:21
way that you use it. And I know I'm going to have to
54:25
get off in in about 5 minutes, but I'd love to do more of this.
54:29
I enjoy very much talking to you.
54:31
So I'm sorry I've got to get off, but I have other
54:33
commitments. Part 2 Another time if you have
54:35
time but. I want to leave you with, I
54:37
don't want to leave your listeners with five questions
54:40
that we can all ask ourselves. So this to me is the key to
54:44
where we're going. So if we want to transform the
54:46
death economy to a life economy, we all know that there's certain
54:50
practical things we can do. Use less fossil fuels, eat a
54:55
more plant based diet. You know so many things that we
54:59
can all that we can all do that we know.
55:01
Consuming the way that we do. Yeah, exactly.
55:05
But 5 questions that go beyond that.
55:08
And one, the first question is what do I most want to do for
55:11
the rest of my life? That's so important, so
55:15
important. And I would answer that question
55:17
by saying I want to write. I love to write.
55:20
My day is not complete unless I've spent an hour or two at
55:23
least writing. But I have a friend who's a
55:26
who's a Carpenter, the opposite end of the spectrum.
55:29
He says I want to work with my hands and wood question, how do
55:33
I do this in a way that will help transform the death economy
55:36
to a life economy? So whether you're a plumber, a
55:39
teacher, a parent, a student Carpenter, a writer, whatever
55:43
you are podcast host, you know, that's what you want to do.
55:46
But how are you going to do it in a way that makes the world a
55:49
better place? And as a writer, I'd say I'm
55:51
going to write about those things and try to inspire
55:53
people. And my Carpenter friend would
55:56
say, well, I'm only going to use sustainable woods.
56:00
And I'm going to plant a tree for every tree or hire somebody
56:03
to plant a tree for every tree that's cut from my work.
56:07
And the question #3 is what's stopping you?
56:11
What voice is telling you, well, you're not good enough to do
56:14
that. You don't have the time to do
56:16
that? You know, that would be it for a
56:18
writer. He might be.
56:19
Yeah, like, I know that to be a successful writer, I've got to
56:22
write for at least two hours a day.
56:24
I don't have time. And my Carpenter friend might
56:27
say, well, my, my clients don't want to pay the extra price for
56:33
me to plant trees and use sustainable materials.
56:38
Question 4. When you really confront that
56:41
blockage, that thing that's holding you back #3 when you're
56:45
really confronted, when you don't run away from it, when you
56:47
go out and touch it, when you confront it, how does it change
56:51
your perception? Because we change reality by
56:54
changing our perceptions. And, and, and I would say, you
56:59
know, as a writer, well, I could stop writing for, I could stop
57:03
watching television for two hours every night and write or
57:06
get up a little early in the morning, right?
57:07
My Carpenter friend would say, I'm going to tell my clients
57:11
that the extra price is not a cost, it's an investment in the
57:15
future. They're investing in the future.
57:18
And the 5th question is what actions do I take immediately?
57:21
Where do I get started? What are they going to start
57:23
writing about? And the, I got to start, you
57:26
know, building cabinets using and telling my clients that
57:29
they're investing in the future. And I think, you know, if we all
57:32
do that, we can all take different paths, but we're all
57:35
going to head toward transforming the death economy
57:37
to a life economy. Very exciting to be alive and do
57:43
this. Yeah, I think the most important
57:46
question that I've I realization, I think I've one of
57:48
the most important I've ever had in my life is that I'm the only
57:50
thing that's ever holding myself back from anything.
57:53
You know, like. That.
57:54
That that changed when I realized that that changed
57:57
everything about the way I live, about the way I think about the
58:00
way I act, about the way I exercise and eat and the way I
58:04
conduct business is I'm the only thing that's getting in the way
58:06
of myself, you know, or not, you know, I could be my best friend
58:10
or my or my worst enemy, you know, But just that realization
58:13
that there's no one out there but you, that's, you know,
58:16
that's putting that, that block in front of you, you know, I
58:19
think was was really important. John, thank you so much for the
58:25
time, for your incredible, incredible work.
58:28
Maybe we'll be able to do Part 2 if you have the time, because I
58:31
think this is awesome and I could, I would love to talk to
58:33
you about while I, while we were talking.
58:34
I have 100 notes that I'm of of follow up ideas that I have.
58:38
But one day, one day I hope I'll be able to do this again.
58:40
Thank you, this is amazing. Let's do it again.
58:43
And maybe we want to concentrate more on the indigenous and the I
58:46
and the use of some of the plants and where the Yeah.
58:50
Can I, I'm sorry real quickly, real quickly as we close, I'm
58:52
sorry, becoming, I guess, a trained shaman in ayahuasca and
58:59
then going off and being an economic hitman.
59:02
Did you what was the? Do you have an internal conflict
59:06
the whole time or were you again ideal like?
59:10
That has to be in the next show that.
59:12
Has to be in the next show. OK, we'll lead off to that
59:13
question. OK.
59:14
That's awesome. Thank you so much, John.
59:15
I really appreciate everything. Take care.
59:17
All the best. Bye.