Latest / Love Conquers Fear / #47: Meditation as a Catalyst to Deeper Meaning, Connection, and a Life of Service — Niraj Mehta

Transcript

#47: Meditation as a Catalyst to Deeper Meaning, Connection, and a Life of Service — Niraj Mehta · Love Conquers Fear

• 0:00
  Imagine, if you will, carrying 1000 lbs, very limited in almost
• 0:03
  every way compared to what we do today.
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  And imagine if someone came up to you one day and said, you
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  know what? I'm going to give you the
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  experience for only 24 hours to have the full body experience to
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  be a world class Olympic athlete.
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  I think because you've tasted that, maybe you start walking a
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  little bit more, maybe you start moving, maybe you stop eating
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  junk food or whatever it is. But because you've tasted it,
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  you now believe in it and you may work a little bit more
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  towards that. And then Ioffer this analogy
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  because most of us in Western society have grown up
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  spiritually obese. For a lot of us, we need a shock
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  to the system to know what's possible.
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  However, after tasting it, we also have the opportunity to
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  work towards that in the 1000 LB annuity.
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  Of course you're not going to go into the gym first day and do 20
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  pull ups, but if you go every day, a month or two or three,
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  there will be change. Meditation and spiritual
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  practice is no difference. Welcome back everybody to the
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  Love Conquers Fear podcast. I want to give a shout out to a
• 1:11
  very good friend, Tina Sharkey, who has been on her Soul quest
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  since a pretty incredible operation that turned out to
• 1:21
  turn out just fine. But she decided to start a
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  Substack called Sparks of Soul, and it's really good.
• 1:31
  I've really been enjoying it. She just started it at the end
• 1:34
  of last year, but she's given me a lot of love over the years,
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  especially for Love Conquers Fear, and I really appreciate
• 1:44
  that. Tina and I really encourage
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  people listening to this to to tune into her because she's
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  really bearing her heart and leading with a lot of love, a
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  lot of wisdom to share with you all.
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  One of her pieces, which is called Choosing Love, has a lot
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  of synchronicity with Pippa Malmgren's piece on Substack
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  talking about the balancing of tech and being very heart
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  centered. That was a really beautiful
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  synchronicity between a piece that Tina wrote.
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  And so I do plan to connect them and they're on a similar
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  journey. And as I've reminded everyone
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  from the beginning of this podcast, it's really going to
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  take team humanity. It's all of us leaning in, doing
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  little acts of kindness, sometimes very big acts of
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  kindness along the way so that humanity ascends to that
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  mystical or metaphorical or both place where heaven and earth
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  come together. And that's what this project is
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  all about. As I've said many times, I'm
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  self funding this. This is my soul song.
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  And it's really rooted in a deep love for all of humanity.
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  And I am really seeing people open up more and more.
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  And I think that at least that's in part related to what I'm
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  doing. But I also think that just
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  overall, we're having a consciousness awakening and it's
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  coinciding with AI for reason. We're going to dive deep on that
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  today. And I am really, really excited
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  to to have one of my best friends, a real soul brother on
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  Niraj Mehta. Thank you so much, Niraj.
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  Yeah, so good to be here with you.
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  So wonderful to be here, Brad. Thank you for inviting me and
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  creating the space for really following your Soul's Heart song
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  and for bringing this project to the world.
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  Well, thank you. Well, as you know, we've only
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  known each other for a year, but I think we've known each other
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  for many lifetimes before. Yes.
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  And it was just immediate, you know, connection when we when we
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  dropped in together and we did a meditation together today with
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  Jason Carp, who is on episode 3. And we did a meditation
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  yesterday with Edmund Alexander. Both were amazing.
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  I mean, really transcendent meditations and we're going to
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  dive into Siddha Maha yoga at some point in this.
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  But I want to first start out with just the audience getting
• 4:20
  to know you because you've had an amazing capitalistic
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  background with, you know, some bumps along the way like we've
• 4:29
  all had. But maybe we can just talk
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  about, you know, where how you grew up and you know ultimately
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  how you found your ability to really manifest resources or
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  energy through capitalism and how it got you to this beautiful
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  point that you're at today. Wonderful.
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  Thank you. Well, I was born in western
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  India in a town of Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
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  I came to the states at 2 1/2 and I moved around quite a bit
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  as a kid, mostly in the Midwest and East Coast.
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  And my father's a retired dentist and childhood for me
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  look like one elementary school, 2 middle schools and three high
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  schools and had my undergraduate training in physics from Lehman
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  Mary and my master's in computer science and engineering.
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  And I will describe my early years and journey as really
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  being indicative of what I believe all of us are seeking in
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  the human experience when our souls come into a body is the
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  craving of human connection and love and acceptance.
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  And for me, in all those moves and change of environment, I had
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  a natural tendency to seek achievement and performance and
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  accomplishment, whether it be goals or medals or tournaments.
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  I played tennis growing up trumpet and thinking that one
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  extra achievement of performance would get me closer to that
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  unconditional love and acceptance that I believe all of
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  us crave as humans. And that led to basically what I
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  described in Act one of my life journey as being in a rush to go
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  through the checklist of life. And for me, that started with
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  grades and schools and degrees and a job, career, business,
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  eventually getting to marriage and home and kids and at one
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  point simply running out of stuff to check.
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  But before I get there, just to fill in the gaps, I like to
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  describe my professional journey as a triangle.
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  And like you, I've lived in multiple corners of the
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  triangle. The first corner of being a
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  founder, starting something out of nothing, which I've done five
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  times and it's definitely a passion.
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  The second quarter I called being an operator, which is
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  running any kind of project, business or endeavor at scale,
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  which I've done for a decade. And the third corner, being an
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  investor helping impart energy into new entrepreneurs and
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  ideas. And I've been doing that
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  professionally for 26 years. So I've lived in all three
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  corners of the triangle. I was an embedded systems
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  software engineer and then a founder entrepreneur.
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  Then I was a research analyst and then I moved to San
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  Francisco in 99 venture capitalist.
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  And then I had a decade in the hedge fund industry and I was
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  fortunate to start an investment firm without any assets track
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  record or prior experience with a whopping 1.25 million under
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  management. I started a fund of hedge fund
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  business and through that decade, we were able to not only
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  grow to a couple billion in assets, but more importantly no
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  down years in performance. We were up every year, including
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  O2, including O 8. You and you and Jason Karp.
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  Yeah, yeah. We share that DNA and this is
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  leading to the end of what I call act one of my career or
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  professional or even life journey is I had the opportunity
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  to monetize my stake at a very generous multiple in 2010, which
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  I did. It also coincided with the year
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  I became a father and quickly I realized after that happened I
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  had nothing else to check on. My happiness.
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  Formula of life, I call it the A through G formula.
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  Formula of life as I just outlined and what I realized
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  that every time I checked something off, I was in a rush
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  to check off the next thing. And after I and, and when it
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  felt like instead of celebrating the next check, I raced to the
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  next check. And after I had nothing else to
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  check. I was so anti climactic and
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  disappointed. I said Oh my gosh, I got nothing
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  more else. What more else is there?
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  And I describe it as having this big void inside me, and I was
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  throwing anything and everything I could, whether it's
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  possessions or accomplishments or recognition, and it still
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  asks for more. And I described this period as a
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  very interestingly surprising challenge.
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  It's almost as if you're craving a train destination, your whole
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  life and career, and you arrive and you're like, Oh my gosh,
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  what else is there? So I'd say it took about a
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  couple of years for me to begin to ease into that skin.
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  Another way I describe it, it's like, imagine being a hammer and
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  you've been doing nothing but banging in nails your entire
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  life. And all of a sudden the hammers
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  hung up on the wall and the hammer just wants a nail.
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  And the hammer's told you don't need to bang nails anymore.
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  For the hammer's disappointed and feels useless and was
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  desperately looking for nails. And I didn't have at that point
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  any purpose or meaning. But that's what I call Act One.
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  Yeah, yeah. You know, there it reminds me of
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  this story that Swamiji Parthasarathy told me.
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  You know, I've studied Vedanta at the Vedanta Academy, which is
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  right outside of Pune in India. And he tells his story of being
• 10:46
  on this beautiful yacht because the, the, the wealthy in India
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  tend to be extremely wealthy. And there's obviously lots and
• 10:53
  lots of poverty. Biggest country in the world now
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  1.46 billion people. And he said that he's on the
• 11:00
  shot and he's looking around and, you know, he's, he's really
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  completely detached from, you know, there's no material item
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  which, which, which owns Parthasarathy at this point.
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  And he, he gave up his Rolls Royce when he was a teenager.
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  You know, he was born into a wealthy family and just got
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  detached from all materiality and just studied Vedanta.
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  And eventually people started to ask him what he was working on
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  and he started to tell them. And then eventually a following
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  of people saying, hey, I would love to learn about this path to
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  happiness because it's really what Vedanta is all about is
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  getting mastery over the mind. And realize, realizing that the
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  mind is like a child ungoverned, where he goes between states of
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  worries about the past, anxiety about the future.
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  And you miss the only moment that matters, which is this
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  eternal present moment that you and I are in.
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  And so he's standing on this yacht with one of the wealthiest
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  guys in India. And he's like, you know,
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  congratulations. You know, I hope you enjoyed
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  this. And the guy said, you see over
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  there, look across the Bay, it's like 1, twice as big.
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  And he says, that's next. Can't even enjoy, you know, what
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  he's on. And there is no path to lasting
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  happiness through accumulation of, you know, money or energy.
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  Now, money used in a beautiful way, in a very heart centered,
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  loving way as energy can really help change the world.
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  And there's lots and lots of examples of that.
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  And that's a different thing than being attached to status
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  and checking the next thing off the box.
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  And I'm curious as you really dive into your story, like what
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  were some of the wake up calls that got you to be like, Hey,
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  time to wake up. This is not, you know, I, I
• 13:00
  should also give a shout out that Mark Gobert, who was on
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  episode 2 of the podcast, you know, one of my favorite authors
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  and one of your best friends as well, who thank you.
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  He moved to Austin. He and he was at the dinner
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  actually with, with, with you, me and Evan Alexander, which was
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  amazing over here. But he, you know, he had a he
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  had a pretty hard wake up call too, where you know it, it
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  turned him. It turned him into kind of a
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  meta analysis for the world of this is what you need to know
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  about consciousness. And we'll get into consciousness
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  today and and all the things that happened as a result.
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  But that story that he told, you know it well, I know it well.
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  But that would just remind people that was a really, really
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  good episode on how the brain receives consciousness and what
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  the implications of that are. But yeah, what was your what
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  were the big wake up calls for you and your life?
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  Thank you. And yeah, this basically is my
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  Act 2 or Part 2 of my life journey, which really began 13
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  years ago, where after going through the motions and
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  realizing I thought I had everything I ever wanted but I
• 14:19
  was incredibly unfulfilled and unhappy.
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  The way I describe what I refer to as my truth seeking journey
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  or spiritual journey or consciousness journey for me was
• 14:32
  like a pendulum swing. It started in 2013 with
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  experiences in psychedelics and things like LSD, 4 trips to
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  Burning Man in a row, plant medicines intentionally held
• 14:50
  experiences like 5 MEODMT. However, in the course of those
• 14:54
  experiences that also led to an opposite end of the pendulum
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  swing. This is over a span of about
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  five years and while I was experiencing shifts and
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  consciousness and things that I never thought I would
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  experience, they also led to an extreme where through those
• 15:18
  series of experiences I became very disconnected with reality
• 15:23
  and to be very clear, 2 very different versions of me.
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  The guy who started that journey was clean cut, driving sports
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  cars, chasing the external. Really fun guy to be around,
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  caught up in, as you say, the world of form and material and
• 15:39
  the world telling him he's doing great, he's winning, keep on at
• 15:45
  it. And then through those
• 15:46
  experiences, the guy who came out after five years had a beard
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  down to here, hair down to here, pretty anti capitalist and
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  really was struggling for meaning and purpose.
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  And through a series of experiences had a wake up call.
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  It was October 2017 and without getting into all the details and
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  specifics, I was at a gathering and had an experience that
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  really caused me to realize I'd gone too far basically and
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  through an extreme experience that fortunately no one was
• 16:29
  damaged, injured or hurt. I said OK, I need to take a
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  break and what originally started as a 30 day cleanse
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  ended up becoming a way of life. And so in the immediate months,
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  as I basically cleaned up and sobered up and saw reality, an
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  experience happened a few months later where three things
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  happened within a span of week. I had a one day white Tantra
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  Kundalini yoga workshop which I'd never been to before.
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  A friend invited me, I had a private water ceremony with the
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  Bolognese priestess eat over see Ali, who visited US for the
• 17:04
  first time, and I was doing some shamanic healing with a friend.
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  Without medicines, wounds with my ancestry, wounds with
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  effeminate. And immediately, again, not sure
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  which of these experiences got the credit, I woke up and the
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  next day and threw me, spilled a document without efforting,
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  without trying, without thinking that I refer to today as my
• 17:26
  manifesto. And it was 15 sentences.
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  And it really was a rebirth for me.
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  That day I'll not forget, it almost was exactly 8 years ago.
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  And that day I describe it as a multi lifetime deal with the
• 17:44
  divine where I said from this day forward, it's not about me.
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  It's not about my kids, it's not about my employees or founders
• 17:51
  or companies or friends. It's about one thing and one
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  thing only. From this day forward, it's
• 17:57
  about highest service to all life, seen unseen, invisible,
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  invisible, known, unknown. And please universe, divine God,
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  creator, take me as your vessel in whatever way you choose.
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  And that has become a true North.
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  And that day began a healing journey for me between those two
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  versions of myself that I described that really were at
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  odds with each other inside me. The guy who started that
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  pendulum swing and the guy who came out the other end were at
• 18:27
  war with each other inside me. And what I realized that day
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  forward is by creating this common North star, we were able
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  to come together as one and work together and heal wounds I
• 18:40
  didn't know I was carrying at the time.
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  And that day began a series of things and experiences that
• 18:47
  really have served me well, including a form of effortless
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  meditation that we can talk about later called Siddha Maha
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  yoga that changed my life. I'm into and we also like.
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  So I basically went from an extreme lifestyle to a monk
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  lifestyle. You know, like you, I've been
• 19:03
  now plant based for 10 years, you know, free of substances and
• 19:09
  you know, medicines and alcohol. So I have been living this monk
• 19:13
  like lifestyle and I've been meditating hours a day for
• 19:17
  almost 8 years. And so really mostly in a cave
• 19:21
  I'd say a bulk of the last 7-8 years and slowly emerging out in
• 19:26
  the last two years and fighting my way back to reconnect.
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  And yeah, I'm now extremely happy and grateful for this
• 19:35
  journey finding its way through me.
• 19:37
  Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you brought up psychedelics because episode
• 19:42
  25 was with Patrick Jin Tempo and we really cover in that
• 19:47
  episode. He he created this documentary
• 19:49
  called Psychedelics Revealed. And we really cover in that
• 19:53
  episode how, you know, the intentionality is really
• 19:57
  important if you're going to use plant medicine and going into it
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  is. Is a very sacred experience and
• 20:06
  not a place you're supposed to stay.
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  It's a place you're supposed to go get transcendent downloads,
• 20:14
  you know, life guidance and then integrate into your life.
• 20:18
  And, you know, I had Evan Alexander just on and he made
• 20:24
  the point that he's met so many people that have told him that
• 20:31
  they've done like ayahuasca hundreds of times and he and he
• 20:34
  does not, he was not saying he was saying this in a loving way.
• 20:38
  So I really want to make that emphasis because he is the
• 20:40
  embodiment of love. I think you would agree with
• 20:42
  that. We saw that come out in spades,
• 20:44
  you know, being with him, meditating with him.
• 20:47
  But he, he said that, you know, he doesn't find them having
• 20:52
  integrated the spiritual component of that.
• 20:56
  And I really want to emphasize that because, you know, I've,
• 20:59
  I've talked about how I'm very pro psychedelic.
• 21:01
  I am, I, I really believe that, you know, ibogaine, for example,
• 21:08
  over 80% of the time we're now finding that it will heal vets
• 21:14
  from suicide, suicidal thoughts, it'll heal Alcoholics, opioid
• 21:19
  addicts. So it's, it's, it can be a very
• 21:21
  valuable tool. But you know, my my thematic for
• 21:25
  this year is all about embodiment because I've been on
• 21:30
  the soul question. I've read lots of books at this
• 21:32
  point, you know, well over 55 books.
• 21:35
  And I'm really focused on embodying, you know, what I've
• 21:39
  learned. And my soul is actually telling
• 21:44
  me that that's what I should be doing.
• 21:47
  And I am not saying that I'm at the point where I wouldn't do
• 21:55
  plant medicine, but it's going to be continue to be very, very
• 22:01
  intentional and very sacred. And only when I have a clear
• 22:05
  calling. And, and frankly, I've never
• 22:06
  done it unless I've had a very clear calling and I've never
• 22:08
  done it at a party. And, and so just for people
• 22:13
  listening to this, you, I, I want to thank you because you've
• 22:17
  really been a guide for me. And as I've said, we've probably
• 22:20
  been working together lifetime to lifetime, but you've been a
• 22:23
  guide for me. That's, that's, that's shown up
• 22:26
  in my life again, thanks to to Mark Gober, who brought us
• 22:30
  together, who has helped me realize like I need to do more
• 22:38
  of the meditation and more embodiment because I have
• 22:44
  transcendent experiences with meditation too.
• 22:47
  And Evan Alexander, you know, he, he talks a lot about that,
• 22:50
  that, that he both talked about on the podcast as well as with
• 22:53
  us, that that, you know, his meditations are very
• 22:56
  transcendent. They're very much like a, like a
• 22:58
  journey. And the better you get with
• 23:02
  meditation, the more you connect with the divine, with source,
• 23:05
  with consciousness, you know, with God, whatever you would
• 23:09
  like to call it, the, the, the more you get messages to act on.
• 23:15
  And so that is a, that's a very powerful modality that doesn't
• 23:19
  require any medicine. Part of the reason I'm so pro
• 23:23
  psychedelic is because it has been transcendent for me.
• 23:27
  And I think you would agree at the beginning, maybe it was
• 23:29
  transcendent for you, but then anything taken to an extreme
• 23:35
  like that, it's it's balance in all things.
• 23:38
  You know, I want to I want to I want to invoke someone that
• 23:41
  literally showed up as a guide for Mark Gover when he was
• 23:45
  writing his books. It's Doctor David Hawkins.
• 23:48
  I read How to surrender to God. You know, it's a book that that
• 23:51
  Mark recommended on that episode.
• 23:54
  And one of the things he talks about, which is so funny, which
• 23:57
  has a synchronicity with this is, you know, it's a series of
• 24:00
  lectures. You know, he's, he's, he's, he's
• 24:01
  really comical, just like Anthony D'mello is in, in, in
• 24:05
  the book awareness. Both are great on Audible.
• 24:08
  And he says, you know, I, I see all these people that moved to
• 24:12
  Sedona and they've completely devoured themselves from
• 24:15
  materiality. And then they get into, you
• 24:18
  know, they've, they've sold their house, they've done all
• 24:20
  this stuff. They're like, I'm going to just
• 24:22
  be 1. And they end up getting into
• 24:26
  their place and then they go out to have dinner a couple of times
• 24:31
  and then they realize they need a refrigerator and they start to
• 24:34
  re accumulate. And it's like the whole point is
• 24:36
  not to be owned by your materiality to realize that it's
• 24:42
  a gift. Like, you know, I feel very
• 24:44
  fortunate. You know, Deborah and I, when we
• 24:47
  got married, I had $1000, she had $2000.
• 24:49
  They feel very fortunate to live in this house.
• 24:53
  And but I'm not defined by my materiality.
• 24:57
  I'm defined by my soul growth. And that's what's most important
• 25:01
  to me, my relationships, you know, the brotherhood we have
• 25:05
  that that to me is so much more valuable than any, any type of
• 25:09
  ephemeral materiality. So I just, I just want to make
• 25:15
  that that point because I think it, I think it's a very
• 25:18
  important and responsible thing to do for the Love Conquer
• 25:21
  Sphere project. Absolutely.
• 25:24
  You know, I can share on this topic of psychedelics and I'm
• 25:28
  glad you brought it up, Brett, because I think they were a very
• 25:32
  vital part of my journey for where I was at the time.
• 25:36
  And I don't think I was ready to look at what I do today.
• 25:42
  And when I talked to friends who are earlier on their journeys
• 25:46
  who are at the front end of considering that, I like to
• 25:50
  offer a visual analogy which I'll put forth here is a thought
• 25:55
  experiment. So imagine, if you will, in our
• 25:58
  current heights and bone structures carrying 1000 lbs
• 26:02
  independent of whatever caused us to be in that state.
• 26:05
  As challenging as that is, just imagine what life might be like
• 26:10
  with being 1000 lbs, right? Very limited in almost every way
• 26:15
  compared to what we do today. And imagine if someone came up
• 26:19
  to you one day and said, you know what, I'm going to give you
• 26:23
  the experience for only 24 hours to have the full body visual
• 26:29
  life experience, to be a world class Olympic athlete at the
• 26:33
  peak of physical form. And after years or decades in
• 26:38
  that body, you're given that. And but after having that
• 26:42
  experience, you come back to that 1000 LB frame.
• 26:46
  What do you think might happen? I think because you've tasted
• 26:50
  that, maybe you start walking a little bit more and maybe you
• 26:53
  start moving. Maybe you stop eating junk food
• 26:55
  or whatever it is, but because you've tasted it, you now
• 26:59
  believe in it and you may work a little bit more towards that.
• 27:03
  And of course, there can also be a tendency to want to just go
• 27:06
  after that experience over and over again.
• 27:08
  And Ioffer this analogy because most of us in Western society
• 27:12
  have grown up spiritually obese and hence why I use that
• 27:20
  metaphor because for a lot of us, we need a shock to the
• 27:24
  system to know what's possible. However, after tasting it, we
• 27:29
  also have the opportunity to work towards that.
• 27:33
  In the 1000 LB analogy, you can start moving every day.
• 27:36
  You can start working. Of course you're not going to go
• 27:38
  into the gym first day and do 20 pull ups, but if you go every
• 27:41
  day a month or two or three, there will be change.
• 27:45
  Meditation and spiritual practice is no different.
• 27:50
  Most of us did not grow up with it in a day-to-day format since
• 27:53
  we were young children. Many people in societies all the
• 27:56
  world do. But for me and a lot of my
• 27:59
  friends, that was not the case. So we're starting decades,
• 28:03
  decades later, basically having never been to the gym in our
• 28:05
  lives. We're in 1000 lbs spiritually
• 28:08
  and psychedelics for me were critical because I was 1000 LB
• 28:13
  person a decade ago and I didn't know where and how to begin on
• 28:17
  my spiritual journey. But after shocking me into my
• 28:21
  journey, it gave me a destination to move towards.
• 28:27
  Some people may be way more capable of going there directly,
• 28:31
  but for me it's just about having that practice.
• 28:34
  And then the neuroscience says it takes 60 days to form a habit
• 28:38
  and if you do something after 60 days, you don't even think about
• 28:41
  it. And for me, after 8 years, for
• 28:43
  sure, meditation is no different than brushing my teeth or going
• 28:46
  to bed or showering. I'll notice if I miss, but for
• 28:50
  me, I don't think about scheduling it in.
• 28:51
  It's just part of my day. Right.
• 28:53
  Well, you've made it habitual. Just.
• 28:56
  Yeah, like you said, just like brushing your teeth and, and
• 28:59
  that's, that's the important aspect of it.
• 29:01
  I mean, you know, I've been vegetarian now for 16 years, and
• 29:07
  most people I know who have been inspired to try it, you know,
• 29:11
  maybe they watched the documentary The Game Changers,
• 29:14
  which really was. I saw that.
• 29:16
  It was so good. I was there actually for the for
• 29:19
  a very early premiere before they even had it on streaming
• 29:23
  with Rick Vesselstein, which on Mackey.
• 29:26
  And it was, it was probably a year before they actually got it
• 29:30
  on a streaming platform. And they asked me what I thought
• 29:34
  afterwards. And I said this is really the
• 29:36
  documentary that has been needed for the movement because it's
• 29:38
  about human potential instead of about animal suffering and
• 29:43
  environmental catastrophe, which is super important to me.
• 29:48
  I want to emphasize that and it should be super important, but
• 29:53
  to really move, you know, the, the human heart for considering
• 29:59
  vegetarianism, what's in it specifically for them?
• 30:04
  And it it it really, it really did lead to to a lot of people
• 30:10
  trying it. But the challenge is most people
• 30:14
  that I know that got inspired to try it didn't make it over what
• 30:19
  I call the, the kind of two week hump.
• 30:22
  Because as John Mackey said on this podcast and as, and as said
• 30:27
  in many books, isn't it amazing how everyone around the world
• 30:33
  loves their diet, right? And what is this value about
• 30:36
  humanity? The body is very adaptable.
• 30:38
  However, the, the, the gut Biome where we have lots of organisms
• 30:45
  that live with us. Many, many trillions actually
• 30:49
  live in the gut Biome and we have the second most neurons in
• 30:54
  our body. We cut Biome, you know, we, we
• 30:56
  do, we do think with our gut as well.
• 31:00
  And you know, with the, with the, with the Biome, when you go
• 31:07
  into vegetarianism, it does have to reset and that causes a bit
• 31:14
  of stress because the Biome will actually send signals like what
• 31:18
  are you doing? You're changing your diet.
• 31:20
  Where's my meat? Where's this?
• 31:21
  Where's that, by the way, that'll happen if you change
• 31:24
  from a fast food diet to just a meat based diet, that either way
• 31:29
  it'll happen. If you radically change your
• 31:31
  diet, it's going to, you know, paleo, you go to paleo, whatever
• 31:34
  it is. And and so a lot of people don't
• 31:38
  make it past that two week up. But when you get on the other
• 31:41
  side of it, it's bliss. You feel like a freaking
• 31:43
  racehorse. Like you get to the other side
• 31:45
  of it. Now all of a sudden, as Rick
• 31:47
  Vesselstein says, he he he authored the engine 2 diet.
• 31:50
  Great, great guy. And Deborah and I are investors
• 31:53
  in his company plant strong, which is which has amazing shelf
• 31:57
  stable, you know, plant based food, really, really good food
• 32:00
  for you. He, he, you know, he's, he's
• 32:04
  this embodiment of this triathlete and like, you know,
• 32:07
  super amazing guy, his dad, his Carl Leslestein of the Cleveland
• 32:11
  Clinic. But he, he points out, look,
• 32:14
  this is a vasodilator, you know, so you're getting a lot more
• 32:17
  oxygen to your muscles. It's very good for the brain.
• 32:22
  I think it's incredible for the soul because you're, it is very
• 32:29
  ephemeral. You know, we talked about
• 32:30
  materiality, the the pleasure of the taste on the tongue is a few
• 32:36
  seconds. It's just a few seconds and then
• 32:38
  it's fuel in your body. And, and, and so, you know, the
• 32:44
  intentionality of like what the intimacy of what you're putting
• 32:48
  into your body and what is the karmic kind of value, I'll say
• 32:53
  of that. And how much does it make you
• 32:56
  feel? And, and you can tell that, you
• 32:59
  know, vegetarians sometimes aren't very popular at the
• 33:01
  dinner table. And I'm not in your face about
• 33:03
  it. And whenever I go out to eat, I
• 33:05
  have I have no judgment about it.
• 33:08
  I'm just trying to make the case of why I got here.
• 33:11
  And I think you would agree why you got there is that, you know,
• 33:16
  most people do not want to think about how that arrived on their
• 33:19
  plate, right? It's just tastes good.
• 33:22
  End of story. And that's why these, these
• 33:26
  these foods have disassociated names.
• 33:31
  They're not actually like, you know, you don't call I'm eating
• 33:34
  cow. It's like I'm eating a steak,
• 33:37
  you know? Totally.
• 33:39
  So it's, it's just a, it's just an important point that if
• 33:42
  people ever want to try it, if they're inspired by it and wanna
• 33:46
  feel like what it feels like to get on the other side, stick
• 33:49
  with it for four weeks. Because once you get on the
• 33:52
  downslope after that two weeks, you start to feel like a
• 33:54
  racehorse. And then that feeling doesn't
• 33:56
  ever end. And then, you know, to, to add
• 34:00
  even more to a lack of popularity, probably for what
• 34:04
  I'm saying right now. If you also give up alcohol,
• 34:07
  yeah, holy moly, then you don't have any bad, bad days in the
• 34:11
  next day. Because that's just, I mean,
• 34:13
  yes, it's a social lubricant. It's had its role, but you know
• 34:19
  it. It really is just a poison.
• 34:21
  It's just a toxin. So I know we have not shared
• 34:25
  this topic, but it's funny, it's coming up now we're.
• 34:29
  Quantumly entangled, as we've learned.
• 34:30
  We are very much in the field since I've been here.
• 34:34
  So when I gave up meat, it was exactly 10 years ago, and it was
• 34:42
  based on one conversation with a friend I was hosting from out of
• 34:45
  town who really pushed me into a corner intellectually.
• 34:49
  And my former wife was vegetarian her entire life, and
• 34:53
  at the time I'd be considered paleo.
• 34:55
  I'd cut out sugars and refined things.
• 34:57
  But I was very much a mediator. And she came back to me because
• 35:03
  the friend I was searching from out of town was vegan and gluten
• 35:06
  free. I didn't even know what that
• 35:07
  meant. And I asked her, where do I take
• 35:08
  this guy? Because I had my steak place and
• 35:09
  my sushi place. I was like, I always had my
• 35:11
  business places and I found a place that could cater to his
• 35:14
  diet. Anyways, we had this really
• 35:16
  impactful conversation and I was so affected by it.
• 35:19
  And you know, my former wife asked me, She said, how was that
• 35:23
  vegan, gluten free dinner? So I was like, yeah, it was
• 35:25
  actually not bad. And and she was kind of tongue
• 35:28
  in cheek a little bit. And I said I think I'm going to
• 35:32
  try it. And she started laughing and I
• 35:34
  honestly didn't think I could last 24 hours.
• 35:36
  I just thought maybe I'll just try for 24 hours and see what
• 35:39
  it's like. It was difficult and I and it
• 35:43
  was and it's so funny because it was exactly 4 weeks and I
• 35:46
  remember this very well. The first week was difficult.
• 35:50
  The second week was also difficult.
• 35:51
  I would go to business dinners, there'd be a lot of meat on the
• 35:54
  table and I was craving and my body was wanting in and craving
• 35:56
  and I kind of resisted. Not easy.
• 35:59
  Your Biome was freaking out like.
• 36:01
  But the the secret of how it clicked for me was exactly 4
• 36:07
  weeks. And what happened was without
• 36:10
  getting extremely graphic, is I was basically purging from
• 36:13
  inside my colon and cleansing layers and layers of things that
• 36:17
  are accumulated without me being even conscious or aware of it.
• 36:21
  And as I tell people who have been curious to explore this
• 36:24
  path, the analogy that I gave is imagine wearing 7 layers of
• 36:30
  clothing your entire life and all of a sudden you take off a
• 36:34
  layer and another layer and another, and finally the sun
• 36:37
  hits your skin for the very first time.
• 36:41
  And that's exactly what my digestion felt like.
• 36:43
  And it had never felt like that in as long as I could remember,
• 36:47
  where I was being able to like instantly process.
• 36:50
  And I love your racehorse because I basically say it's
• 36:52
  like going from driving, I don't know, a Cadillac to a BMW or a
• 36:58
  Ferrari where you can feel like a coin that you go over.
• 37:00
  And my digestion had never felt so high performance.
• 37:04
  And the moment I felt that, I said, I'm not going back.
• 37:07
  The first four weeks were not easy, but the moment I tasted
• 37:10
  that, I was sold. But to prove your point, right?
• 37:13
  Right. Yeah.
• 37:14
  So, so getting to these experiences that you've had and
• 37:21
  where you're at now, you know, really situated in your life,
• 37:27
  what, what is your theory of consciousness at this point?
• 37:32
  Wow very beautiful open-ended all consuming question.
• 37:41
  First of all. Also deep shout out to our
• 37:43
  mutual brother Mark Gober who connected us because he has been
• 37:47
  a really important part of my own consciousness journey and
• 37:52
  have turned on almost everyone that's meaningful in my life,
• 37:56
  personally, professionally, onto his body of work.
• 37:58
  So I can't not reference him. I think for me in my own
• 38:07
  journey, consciousness for me today starts with the truth that
• 38:16
  I am. I exist, and we can call it the
• 38:20
  oneness that Somos have tasted and other realities and
• 38:23
  experiences, or the One. But I think for me, the
• 38:26
  beginning of the consciousness discussion starts with knowing
• 38:31
  that I am one, whether it's one with my own body, one with
• 38:36
  nature, one with the divine, one with all creation.
• 38:39
  But knowing that I exist and I am, I think is the foundational
• 38:44
  layer on which I can build my own consciousness, experience
• 38:48
  and definition, which everyone has their own so.
• 38:54
  But yes, I do believe it is the most pronounced fundamental
• 39:00
  common denominator across all humanity, across all life that
• 39:05
  we have an opportunity to now explore, realize, materialize
• 39:11
  and elevate starting with each of our own souls and then?
• 39:17
  More broadly, yeah. Yeah.
• 39:19
  Mark Gobert, in his books, he calls it the one mind that we're
• 39:24
  all part of that one. You know, I'll say Mind of the
• 39:27
  Universe, Chris Beige. That's the way he he talks about
• 39:31
  it in his book, LSD in the Mind of the Universe, Diamonds from
• 39:35
  Heaven, which was episode 36, the podcast amazing.
• 39:40
  He was, he also stayed with us for several days and what a
• 39:44
  beautiful human being. That's a that's a great, great
• 39:48
  episode. And that because we're all
• 39:52
  connected and we're all one, the way we treat each other is
• 39:59
  actually directly the way we should be treating ourselves.
• 40:05
  And looking at the unity that way, and if you look at it
• 40:10
  biologically, we're 99.9% the same DNA wise across the world.
• 40:17
  And most people don't even think about that.
• 40:19
  You know, we, we, we, we, we kind of fight a lot about that
• 40:24
  .1% difference And, and, and, you know, it's, it's, it's,
• 40:30
  there's a lot of reasons for that.
• 40:33
  And I would like to ask you about that because there's, you
• 40:36
  know, we, we've touched on the podcast quite a bit on the
• 40:38
  illusion of separation. And I know that you've got a
• 40:45
  really pretty pronounced way that you discuss that.
• 40:50
  I'd like to educate people on what?
• 40:52
  What do you think that? Yeah, I I appreciate you
• 40:55
  bringing that up because as you said, you know, the way I like
• 40:59
  to describe it. Is that what unites and binds us
• 41:05
  is far greater than what's perceived to separate and divide
• 41:08
  us. And as I was deep into my
• 41:12
  journey the last several years, I received some insights that I
• 41:17
  hadn't really considered or thought about.
• 41:19
  And one of these was the illusion of separation.
• 41:25
  And this may likely come out in some content form in other ways.
• 41:31
  And the coming months and years. But for now, I'll just simply
• 41:35
  share that I was able to name 13 forms of separation that I'll
• 41:42
  cover here for you and the audience.
• 41:47
  And by no means is this meant to be definitive and exhaustive.
• 41:50
  This is simply meant to be a starting point to frame the
• 41:53
  awareness around how we say I am here and Brett starts there.
• 42:01
  I mean, I'll say that I know you really well at this point and
• 42:04
  you're deeply rooted in humility.
• 42:06
  And the reality is that none of us can fully decode whatever the
• 42:12
  reality we're in is. But grasping at it is super
• 42:16
  super fun and will make you a lot more loving if you actually
• 42:21
  pursue it with with boundless curiosity.
• 42:23
  Just like Max Planck and and others.
• 42:26
  That that really where the patriarchs of the quantum
• 42:29
  physics field became much more spiritual when they saw the
• 42:32
  connectedness of all things, right?
• 42:35
  100% And so part of bringing this awareness out is for people
• 42:41
  to become aware of these illusions, or as we say in the
• 42:46
  Vedic tradition, the Maya of separation.
• 42:49
  And so I'm just going to name these six of these were born
• 42:54
  with. So the moment a soul comes into
• 42:57
  a baby's vessel, six are shaped and imprinted out of the gate.
• 43:05
  What are those six? So the number one is the gender
• 43:08
  in anatomy. Number 2 is the appearance,
• 43:14
  face, skin, etcetera. Third is the location where that
• 43:20
  baby is born, 4th is the language that's spoken to it.
• 43:25
  Of course we learn others. The 5th is the nationality or
• 43:31
  passport which doesn't always coincide with the location, and
• 43:36
  the 6th is the name that's given to it.
• 43:39
  So each of those six create an imprint of some level of initial
• 43:46
  identity that takes root and that begins to cast an
• 43:51
  impression in each of our souls journeys into a body's journey.
• 43:56
  So that's the first six. Yeah.
• 43:59
  Does that make sense? Yeah, it does, yeah.
• 44:01
  OK. The next seven are a little bit
• 44:04
  more subtle because these are ones that we acquire over time
• 44:11
  through our choices and through our social and our family and
• 44:17
  our professional structures. And I'll just briefly explain
• 44:23
  each one. The first is education and
• 44:29
  profession, which is pretty self-explanatory.
• 44:31
  It's not just the type of school, did you go to school or
• 44:35
  not? And whatever professional title
• 44:39
  creates its own identity. The next is competition in and
• 44:47
  of itself. For a lot of us who relate to
• 44:51
  that, it may have started out in sports and academics to really
• 44:55
  differentiate, but the very construct of all competition is
• 44:59
  0 sum game. Winner needs a loser or to win
• 45:06
  and distinguish has to be separated.
• 45:11
  And of course that translates for you and me and a lot of our
• 45:14
  friends into business, but itself is a form of separation.
• 45:19
  The third is property or money in those who have accumulated or
• 45:27
  choose or are gracious to accumulate resources to those
• 45:33
  who don't, because that creates its own level of separation.
• 45:41
  The 4th is lifestyle choices. We talked about one of them
• 45:47
  being plant based and just to give some very broad examples,
• 45:50
  one could be carnivore or vegan, another could be extrovert,
• 45:55
  introvert, or you know, a number of different lifestyle choices.
• 46:02
  Oh, I'm a party animal, I'm a hermit, but they lead to
• 46:05
  identities. The next one is relationships,
• 46:11
  and this can be single, couple, parents, gay, straight, all the
• 46:19
  different relationship permutations that lead to their
• 46:22
  own forms of identity. The next one is age, and this
• 46:31
  one is a little bit more subtle because Once Upon a time we were
• 46:37
  a lot more inclusive across generations.
• 46:40
  And over the last century especially, we ship our kids
• 46:43
  away to school. We ship our elders away to
• 46:45
  retirement homes. But once in a while, until time,
• 46:47
  we were more intergenerationally connected across a tribe and a
• 46:51
  fire. And so today the separation
• 46:55
  across age can be like, oh, you're too young, meaning
• 46:59
  talking to a kid to know that or do that or allowed, or you're
• 47:02
  too old to work here. You know, there can be many
• 47:05
  manifestations of thinking that age creates almost segregation
• 47:11
  in some ways. And then the final of the seven
• 47:14
  that we acquire over time is perhaps the deepest, biggest and
• 47:17
  most pronounced one I have found in my experience, which is
• 47:21
  separation from self. And this means forgiveness,
• 47:25
  healing with our own vessels and souls and journeys on anything
• 47:31
  and everything we have done to 'cause that self worth and
• 47:37
  blocks and resistances to our own self love and that impacts
• 47:43
  all the others. But that's in a nutshell what I
• 47:47
  have defined for myself and given myself an opportunity to
• 47:52
  create awareness of each of these, contributing to the false
• 47:57
  sense of identity. Because once as we both have.
• 48:01
  And I am grateful to you for your recommendation for Journey
• 48:04
  of Souls, which is one of the most important.
• 48:07
  Books by Michael Newton. Last year had a great impact on
• 48:10
  me because when we have experiences with our souls, it
• 48:15
  really gives us a sense of what is our real identity.
• 48:19
  It's not being, you know, Indian or American or a fund manager or
• 48:26
  this or that or a man, All the things that I just listed.
• 48:30
  It means that our identity is beyond all of these constructs
• 48:35
  and our souls are timeless, are eternal, are boundless, and if
• 48:40
  they truly are infinite fractals of this infinite divine creator
• 48:46
  and God, it means we are the same and as we can move past
• 48:53
  these 13 forms of separation. Or others that I've missed.
• 48:57
  It gives us a chance to reconnect with our true nature
• 49:01
  of who we are and what we are. Yeah, I think that's extremely
• 49:05
  well said. And, and for me, it, it
• 49:07
  intersects with, with fear scarcity in terms of a mindset.
• 49:14
  And it, it's understandable in many ways how we got here
• 49:22
  because of what we prioritize now.
• 49:25
  Some of it was we were just trying to survive.
• 49:28
  You know, as I, I've said many times on this podcast, we've
• 49:32
  only had electricity for .1% of our evolutionary time on as Homo
• 49:38
  sapiens, even though it would be longer if we say, well, we, we
• 49:43
  derive from hominids, Homo sapiens have been around for
• 49:46
  300,000 years, but hominids have been around for 4,000,000 years.
• 49:49
  So, so even less than less than 21%.
• 49:53
  And as Byron Reese said on, on episode 11, this one really made
• 49:56
  me laugh out loud. He, he was like, you know, all,
• 50:01
  all of us today came from the Homo sapiens who ran when they
• 50:08
  saw the bear versus the optimist who were like, oh, it's probably
• 50:11
  not a bear, right? And then they had to eat my
• 50:14
  bear, right? And so, you know, we have these
• 50:17
  highly developed fear centers. They're constantly being, you
• 50:22
  know, jacked up by the dystopia pushed to us by social media, by
• 50:30
  the media, by the food companies, as we, we covered in
• 50:34
  episode 3 with Jason Carp and all this toxicity, mental,
• 50:39
  physical toxicity entering our system to keep us addicted and
• 50:46
  really hijacked our and, and leverage our bassist instincts.
• 50:52
  And that really is the definition of putting profits
• 50:56
  over people. And that's why I've been
• 50:59
  involved in the conscious capitalism movement for for so
• 51:03
  long. That's why I chose Do More good
• 51:07
  as the publisher for, for my third book, which is called Love
• 51:11
  Conquers Fear, Humanity, AI and the age of abundance for all.
• 51:14
  And you know, I had Jay Wilkinson on for episode 41, who
• 51:20
  is the founder of that movement. And we're having the conference
• 51:24
  on May 27th through 29th and Omaha, which is going to be
• 51:28
  fantastic. The theme they picked this year,
• 51:31
  which is really cool, is love conquers fear.
• 51:34
  Together we rise and beautiful. I think you're I think you've
• 51:39
  seen what the cover of my book is going to be, but but it
• 51:42
  really fits with that. Well, it's gorgeous.
• 51:45
  And so, you know, we have to we have to transcend this scarcity
• 51:52
  and fear based mindset and deprogram and reprogram in a
• 51:58
  love centered approach. And that is what it means to
• 52:03
  walk a spiritual path. And and you know, I was in some
• 52:07
  discussions earlier this week and one of one of my friends
• 52:12
  who's a spiritual leader, he's part of the clergy for a
• 52:18
  religion. He said, well, hold on.
• 52:20
  Does that mean when you say deprogram and reprogram, do you
• 52:26
  mean that that means deprogramming from ritual, like
• 52:31
  religious rituals? And I said not necessarily.
• 52:35
  It means analyzing very deeply, you know, through meditation and
• 52:40
  other means, like, am I doing this because it's really part of
• 52:45
  my soul and something that I really truly love?
• 52:50
  Or am I just doing it as kind of like a robot, you know, because
• 52:55
  my parents did it before or whatever else.
• 52:59
  And you know, as you reprogram and you say this serves me
• 53:03
  versus that didn't you know, there's lots of things that that
• 53:08
  you're going to keep. You know, it's not like you're
• 53:10
  you're going to lose your identity.
• 53:12
  I mean, one of the funny things that that happened in India the
• 53:15
  first time I went there is I was talking with with friends and
• 53:20
  YPO that are successful there. I've been in YPO for like 17
• 53:24
  years and the, and I was telling him about Vedanta and how much I
• 53:29
  loved studying Vedanta with, with, with Samaji Partha
• 53:33
  Sarathi, who eventually I brought to the US for a YPO
• 53:37
  event, really opened up a lot of people's eyes and, and I think
• 53:41
  it ended up helping a lot of people.
• 53:43
  I worked with a, with a great white PO partner on that and,
• 53:47
  and they said, oh, well, is that the thing where you're just
• 53:51
  going to go up and meditate? Like that's a bad, like that's a
• 53:54
  bad thing. And it was this attachment to it
• 54:00
  was fear basically of like, well, if I do that, then I'm not
• 54:03
  going to be a capitalist. And I want to make the point
• 54:05
  that like you're, you're, you're extraordinarily successful to
• 54:12
  this day. It's it's, you know, and I very
• 54:16
  much invest in companies, you know, I do it from a very heart
• 54:20
  centered approach. The number one thing Deborah and
• 54:21
  I are asking ourselves right now is, is this truly going to get
• 54:26
  humanity to abundance? That's that's leading with the
• 54:30
  heart in terms of making that decision.
• 54:32
  But but it's like they were in India.
• 54:35
  I can't, I can't I I really couldn't believe it.
• 54:37
  But then it makes sense if you just kind of look around in
• 54:40
  America too, that they were afraid to even try to study
• 54:45
  Vedanta because Oh no, that's just going to mean.
• 54:48
  And part of it is the illusion that gets that gets imprinted if
• 54:55
  you're not aware of going to a place like the Vedanta Academy
• 55:00
  and you're seeing a lot of people there that really are
• 55:02
  just fully in it and want to be there.
• 55:07
  But that's because they're the teacher persona, right?
• 55:10
  They're meant to do that. Like that is their soul song,
• 55:13
  right? You know, I know that my soul
• 55:16
  song is to create a better world through technology.
• 55:19
  Well, very good vehicle to do that with is capitalism, you
• 55:23
  know, investing in companies, starting companies.
• 55:25
  And right, that's been my life arc.
• 55:27
  You know, I'm I'm I'm on this journey with with love conquers
• 55:30
  fear, because this is really the meta thematic of my entire
• 55:33
  career. I think frankly, you know,
• 55:35
  everything that came before was to get me to this point where I
• 55:39
  had the ability to do this at the most important time for
• 55:45
  humanity's inflection point. And I've actually seen this
• 55:49
  through through psychedelic journeys that I incarnated for
• 55:52
  this purpose to be able to help with the transition as humanity
• 55:58
  endeavored to allow love to conquer fear.
• 56:01
  And I, I really love that, you know, you're on that journey
• 56:06
  too. You know, with all, all the
• 56:08
  things you do unconsciousness. I I know that you really love
• 56:14
  the book The order of Time by Carla Gravelli like I do.
• 56:18
  And boy, that is amazing. You know, in terms of, in terms
• 56:22
  of Benedict Cumberbatch reading that on audible, it's just like
• 56:25
  smooth as silk. And what, what is your
• 56:30
  perspective on time as it relates to this universe
• 56:35
  consciousness and you know, the experiences you had?
• 56:41
  So this is definitely one of my passions, one of my jams, and
• 56:45
  one of, I believe the easiest to identify low hanging fruits for
• 56:55
  people to begin the process of transitioning out of what some
• 57:02
  of us refer to as the matrix and what we call time in the Earth
• 57:10
  experience. And I like to offer a very
• 57:12
  simple visual analogy to set the tone.
• 57:15
  We can easily visualize a cube in three dimensions.
• 57:20
  If we squish the cube, we get A2 dimensional plane.
• 57:23
  If we squish the plane, we get A1 dimensional line.
• 57:27
  If we squish the line, we get a 0 dimensional point.
• 57:30
  So we've gone from 3:00 to 2:00 to 1 to 0 dimensions.
• 57:34
  Time in our experience on Earth is in a line, linear and
• 57:42
  unidirectional. It only lives in One Direction
• 57:44
  forward. So we have prohibited and
• 57:48
  limited our own, with our own construct of it being able to go
• 57:53
  backwards and the ability for it to live in 2 dimensions or three
• 57:56
  dimensions or N dimensions. And the reason I give this
• 58:01
  thought experiment is for a lot of us, think of how much in our
• 58:05
  human experience is built off of linear time.
• 58:08
  Things like cause and effect. Almost every structure we have
• 58:12
  is built on past, present, and future.
• 58:17
  For us to even begin the unraveling of that process
• 58:21
  requires us to erase almost everything of our human
• 58:26
  experience in a given lifetime. So I like getting voice to this
• 58:31
  because when we open up to altered States and experiences,
• 58:35
  as we talked about in our own journeys, it begins the
• 58:38
  possibility to transcend time on a line.
• 58:43
  And I strongly believe as we begin this process to realize
• 58:48
  the infinite potential of our species in whatever way and
• 58:51
  shape we want to refer to at the age of abundance, the ascension.
• 58:54
  I believe beginning the awareness and the process of
• 58:58
  transcending the shackles and confines of linear time is
• 59:03
  materially related for us as a species to begin the journey to
• 59:09
  realize our deepest, truest, fullest potential.
• 59:12
  In terms of experiences you've had, like I've had experiences
• 59:17
  in both journeys and meditation where it showed me how illusory
• 59:23
  time is. Yeah.
• 59:24
  Are there any that you want to? Yeah.
• 59:26
  Share here. I mean this simple.
• 59:28
  Things, yeah. I think, I think the easiest way
• 59:31
  to describe it for people is like Mark Ober refers to these
• 59:35
  as anomalies in his first book and then upside down thinking.
• 59:38
  And the official word is things like precognition where you may
• 59:42
  have a vision and in linear time that may be referred to as a
• 59:48
  future experience. But in my direct prime
• 59:51
  experience, it's is it real? Is it present?
• 59:55
  Have I had it already? So I'm implying that the
• 59:58
  blurring of whether I am reliving A childhood memory and
• 1:00:02
  a meditation or in a dream state, I'm having an experience
• 1:00:06
  that feels real, but I can't tell if it's already happened or
• 1:00:10
  not because I'm applying the construct of past and future on
• 1:00:12
  it. My point is if we open up to the
• 1:00:16
  blurring of past and future on experience.
• 1:00:20
  Can be parallel, and some people refer to this as parallel
• 1:00:23
  universes and parallel timelines.
• 1:00:25
  And we typically have difficulty fathoming that we can have many
• 1:00:32
  things going on at the same time and that the past and the future
• 1:00:35
  are simultaneous. And these are very hard concepts
• 1:00:38
  to come to grips with. But the moment we start having
• 1:00:42
  visions of the future that come true, or memories of the past
• 1:00:46
  that feel like today, then we start realizing that maybe
• 1:00:50
  there's a little bit you have a blurriness between past, present
• 1:00:52
  and future. And maybe that dream I had
• 1:00:55
  already happened will happen. Doesn't matter.
• 1:00:57
  It's happening all at the same time, so it all comes back to
• 1:01:00
  the present. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been
• 1:01:02
  Alexander explained this really well on the last episode and he
• 1:01:06
  explains it really well in in his one of his books, the first
• 1:01:10
  book Proof of Heaven, that what he saw in Heaven or source or
• 1:01:16
  whatever you'd like to call that, which is rooted deeply in
• 1:01:19
  love that he saw that, you know, it's all collapsed.
• 1:01:26
  It's it's, you know, past, present, future, It's all there,
• 1:01:28
  right. And the time as a construct, the
• 1:01:33
  way that Carlo Rebelli really spells it out in the order of
• 1:01:37
  time in that it's the measurement of interactions
• 1:01:41
  between between things, chemicals, you know, objects, et
• 1:01:44
  cetera. And and this construct that
• 1:01:48
  we've created to make sense of those interactions that that is
• 1:01:55
  completely an illusion and source.
• 1:01:58
  And Michael Newton, journey of souls, beautiful example of when
• 1:02:02
  we leave our bodies through all those past life regressions he
• 1:02:05
  outlined of the same thing that we move beyond linear time and
• 1:02:09
  we're in a boundless experience in our life forms as souls.
• 1:02:12
  Out of a body and it and it makes sense that the ego would
• 1:02:16
  do that to let us walk about in this world with some sense of
• 1:02:20
  linearity. I mean, you know, our souls are
• 1:02:25
  these infinite, you know, divine, you know, sparks or, you
• 1:02:30
  know, light. And you're like, we know that
• 1:02:32
  we're all light and energy at the at the quantum level.
• 1:02:37
  And you know, as and all spiritual text as well.
• 1:02:41
  And, and so at that, at, at, you know, in the physical space, in
• 1:02:46
  the world of form, especially as the soul is, is endeavoring to
• 1:02:50
  grow from lifetime to lifetime. And, you know, suffering's a
• 1:02:55
  teacher. I mean, there's lots of lots of
• 1:02:56
  things that that happen in in the world of form to get you to
• 1:02:59
  grow from lifetime to lifetime that there would be a construct
• 1:03:06
  that is kind of like allows for some measurability.
• 1:03:10
  But the beautiful thing about, you know, going into a journey
• 1:03:15
  or going into a meditation and seeing it be a loser is that it
• 1:03:20
  starts to show you like, right, actually, the reality behind the
• 1:03:24
  veil is very, very different. And that, you know, this is just
• 1:03:32
  part of the, it's part of the school and, and it, it, it's
• 1:03:38
  super fascinating. I mean, when Carlo Rebelli wrote
• 1:03:41
  that book, I don't think he was endeavoring to write a book that
• 1:03:44
  was spiritual. I think it was just writing a
• 1:03:47
  book that was really rooted in science, but it ends in a very
• 1:03:50
  spiritual way. It's just a beautiful, beautiful
• 1:03:54
  book. You know, I, I'm, I'm curious
• 1:03:56
  like I, I, I've sometimes gotten these concerned friends.
• 1:04:02
  People have been friends for a long time that they're like,
• 1:04:06
  Brad, what's happening? Like, you know, you like this,
• 1:04:08
  you know, capitalist and this entrepreneur and you know, still
• 1:04:12
  AM and you're being so transparent, you know, like,
• 1:04:17
  like, are you going to lose friends?
• 1:04:19
  I mean, are you losing friends? And the, the, The funny thing
• 1:04:24
  about that is that I've actually gained a lot more friends than I
• 1:04:29
  would have ever expected. People can feel your energy and
• 1:04:33
  authenticity and whether or not you are grounded.
• 1:04:40
  And that is an attractive characteristic, you know, to
• 1:04:44
  mutually, right. I mean, it's part of the reason
• 1:04:46
  you and I have been so attracted to each other's soul brothers
• 1:04:51
  and you know it. It's gotten a lot of people to
• 1:04:55
  be also very authentic and transparent with me.
• 1:05:00
  I mean, you know, as I, as I, as I've said a few times, I said
• 1:05:05
  this on the Evan Alexander episode 2, I've had 11 friends
• 1:05:09
  open up to me about their near death experiences before 20250
• 1:05:15
  friends open up. And I thought, you know, that I
• 1:05:21
  was a pretty safe guy to share things with.
• 1:05:24
  And I think I, I, I think I was, but they didn't feel safe
• 1:05:28
  because they didn't create an opening in a container that
• 1:05:32
  would make them feel like I would be open to something
• 1:05:35
  that's quote UN quote that woo. And it's the most transcendent
• 1:05:39
  experience of their life. And I'm, I'm just kind of
• 1:05:42
  curious for you as you've as you've walked this path of
• 1:05:45
  being, you know, so successful checking the boxes and then, you
• 1:05:51
  know, having that real awakening and going into the second, you
• 1:05:57
  know, act if you've if if you've, you know, have you, have
• 1:06:02
  you kind of dealt with that with friends that are like you OK,
• 1:06:05
  Yeah. I'm so glad you brought this up,
• 1:06:08
  Brett. This has actually been non
• 1:06:13
  trivial to witness and experience and live over the
• 1:06:18
  last several years. And I'd say at the beginning of
• 1:06:20
  the journey, it was a lot harder when I felt like I had a fork in
• 1:06:24
  the road between friends of mine for 20 years that didn't really
• 1:06:27
  want to explore spirituality, truth and consciousness and me
• 1:06:31
  kind of getting pulled deeper and further into this.
• 1:06:34
  And it did have some tension and at the time I thought it was
• 1:06:38
  just me and I didn't really have any other friends going through
• 1:06:41
  it I could talk to about it or that I felt were in it.
• 1:06:47
  And over time that became more common.
• 1:06:52
  And so it was actually very difficult to beginning to lose
• 1:06:57
  relationships or long term friends transitioning out of an
• 1:07:01
  11 year marriage with kindness and love and grace and even
• 1:07:05
  professional tensions with people that were less aligned.
• 1:07:09
  But over that first series of transitions, the next waves
• 1:07:13
  became a lot more easier over time.
• 1:07:16
  And I eventually ended up creating this little mental
• 1:07:20
  model about this in chatting about it with friends as today,
• 1:07:25
  you and I are very driven by doing our best that we can with
• 1:07:29
  our our God-given resources and skills and abilities to help the
• 1:07:36
  global project or process our species journey right now.
• 1:07:42
  And if you will imagine an upside down pyramid or triangle
• 1:07:47
  and at the top, I would call it asleep.
• 1:07:52
  And again, part of the reference here implicit is Ken Wilbur's
• 1:07:59
  wake up, clean up, grow up and show up process so.
• 1:08:03
  He's author of so many books. Yeah.
• 1:08:05
  And it's it's a beautiful frame because waking up many people
• 1:08:08
  are focused on, but it's only the beginning.
• 1:08:10
  It's not the end point. And that's why I've referenced
• 1:08:12
  it. So at the top, let's call it
• 1:08:15
  asleep. And people who don't frankly
• 1:08:17
  care about seeking for truth or spirituality or consciousness,
• 1:08:21
  which today may be the majority of the 8 billion.
• 1:08:24
  And then the next step down, I would refer to it as casual or
• 1:08:31
  recreational seekers of truth. And that could look like, oh,
• 1:08:35
  I'm going to take a yoga class or may I try this 10 minute app
• 1:08:39
  meditation. But it's something just a little
• 1:08:42
  bit dipping our toes in the water.
• 1:08:44
  And the next step down I would refer to as a very serious, very
• 1:08:49
  deeply committed seeker of truth.
• 1:08:51
  And that could look like traveling around the world and
• 1:08:55
  trying different modalities and lineages and teachers and some
• 1:08:59
  people even decades of trying different things to really
• 1:09:03
  commit to their souls potential. And then the next step down,
• 1:09:08
  which are people who are starting to realize shifts in
• 1:09:11
  consciousness. And he coined this term
• 1:09:16
  persistent non symbolic experience.
• 1:09:17
  But he's saying, you know, through a series of locations,
• 1:09:20
  people can start experiencing these shifts.
• 1:09:22
  But as you pointed out, they can be very disruptive to 1's life
• 1:09:26
  personally, family, business, professionally.
• 1:09:30
  And it's not an overnight process.
• 1:09:32
  And for some people, it can take many years to integrate and
• 1:09:37
  successfully weave those new found realizations and soul
• 1:09:42
  journeys and experiences into one's world.
• 1:09:45
  Family, friends, kids, work, business, all of that.
• 1:09:48
  And he's saying once you get through the other side, then
• 1:09:52
  that's what he calls an explorer.
• 1:09:54
  And to me, I'm just using this nomenclature to be a
• 1:09:59
  placeholder. But answering your question, you
• 1:10:02
  know, the question that I love asking and I've had many
• 1:10:05
  beautiful conversations with folks who have been on the
• 1:10:10
  journey and are deeply committed to the global realization is
• 1:10:13
  where is it most effective for us to focus on energies and our
• 1:10:18
  resources? And you know, where I've landed
• 1:10:20
  going up and down this triangle is it's not an or, it's an and
• 1:10:26
  we need opportunities and content at the very top of the
• 1:10:30
  funnel to make it interesting for people to want to dip their
• 1:10:33
  toes in the water and meet people where they're at, whether
• 1:10:36
  it's like mainstream entertainment, whether it's on
• 1:10:40
  the same level of a docu series or a reality TV show.
• 1:10:44
  But to make it cool and interesting and say, wow, maybe
• 1:10:47
  I do want to become a seeker. And then for those of us that
• 1:10:50
  have started experiencing, to help our friends and brothers
• 1:10:54
  and sisters who are choosing to start on their journeys and for
• 1:10:58
  us to basically pay it forward to older versions of our self.
• 1:11:00
  Which is how I have finally come to grips with this, is not
• 1:11:04
  judging people where they're at and meeting them, but having
• 1:11:07
  compassion for frankly older versions of ourselves and
• 1:11:11
  saying, Oh my gosh, that reminds me of me where I was.
• 1:11:13
  And I can help an older version of me along.
• 1:11:16
  But I think there's opportunities for each of these
• 1:11:20
  with the idea that it just takes one Jesus, Krishna, Buddha to
• 1:11:25
  really tip the entire world potentially.
• 1:11:29
  So it's a very challenging issue that I don't have a strong view
• 1:11:32
  on. And I actually see both sides of
• 1:11:34
  quantity versus quality. I do believe you and I are
• 1:11:38
  committed to as you refer abundance for all that without
• 1:11:41
  leaving any soul behind, including as you point out, Chad
• 1:11:45
  and all these other under resourced underprivileged areas.
• 1:11:49
  But do we start at the top? Do we start at the bottom?
• 1:11:53
  And I think we're at a stage where we're going to do it all
• 1:11:56
  at the same time. Right, right.
• 1:11:58
  And I actually think that that's the right way to do it.
• 1:12:01
  I mean, it was that it was that same episode with, with Byron
• 1:12:03
  Reese where he really challenged me episode 11 to say, well,
• 1:12:09
  Brad, you know, because he asked me like, why are you doing this?
• 1:12:13
  Like, what is the, what is the, what is the actual, like, what
• 1:12:16
  do you want to happen? Is what he said not why are you
• 1:12:18
  doing this? But he just asked me, you know,
• 1:12:20
  what do you really want to happen here?
• 1:12:21
  And I said, well, I want the, you know, top 2000 liters to
• 1:12:25
  really have a heart shift. And he said, well, that's not
• 1:12:30
  really the way history works, right?
• 1:12:32
  The way history works is it's a lot of individuals doing, doing
• 1:12:38
  acts of kindness, right? And he was so right in that.
• 1:12:42
  And I think, I think really love conquers fear is both bottoms up
• 1:12:46
  and tops down. It's it's, it's us getting to a
• 1:12:51
  point where through the technology acceleration of AI,
• 1:12:56
  quantum computing, robotics, brain, computer interfaces, this
• 1:12:59
  is pronounced, you know, exponential to exponentials
• 1:13:02
  where humanity has never prioritized anything like this
• 1:13:06
  before. I mean the amount of money,
• 1:13:08
  energy, time, and that we're going to be able to see
• 1:13:13
  abundance. Yeah, it's, it's like we're
• 1:13:15
  going to be able to glimpse it. And that's going to be the
• 1:13:20
  really important choice for us to make on.
• 1:13:23
  Do we want to choose to create planetary abundance for all?
• 1:13:28
  And I would include for all also to include, you know, our, our
• 1:13:35
  Biome, our planetary Biome, the plants, the animals.
• 1:13:39
  Like, you know, I'm not, you're probably like this too, But
• 1:13:43
  like, and it's, it's maybe this is a embarrassing thing to say,
• 1:13:47
  although it's not embarrassing to me.
• 1:13:49
  But I, you know, I won't even step on an Ant.
• 1:13:51
  Like I like I say this, I'm like walk out the way, you know,
• 1:13:56
  because there there's, there's there's no reason to try to
• 1:14:00
  inflict harm on on any, anything else and to have compassion and
• 1:14:05
  love for all these amazing things.
• 1:14:08
  I mean, just witnessing a beautiful sunset.
• 1:14:10
  You know, the night that that you came over and you know,
• 1:14:14
  we're, we're having dinner with Evan Alexander.
• 1:14:17
  The sunset that night was beautiful.
• 1:14:20
  I don't know if you've seen seen the e-mail yet for the group,
• 1:14:23
  but I shared it. It was proof of heaven moment
• 1:14:26
  right there, just witnessing beauty.
• 1:14:28
  You know, Pat Patrick Gentempo talked about that on episode 25
• 1:14:33
  that he said his definition of love is the witnessing of
• 1:14:37
  beauty. I just, I told Evan that and he
• 1:14:41
  just loved it. And I just love that because
• 1:14:43
  beauty is all around us. I mean, this cosmic, you know,
• 1:14:48
  place that we're in, you know, this Earth school, yeah, there's
• 1:14:52
  bad things happening, but there is beauty everywhere if you just
• 1:14:56
  look for it and realize it. And there's lots of stuff that
• 1:15:01
  we have to transcend. And I'm, I'm curious like how
• 1:15:04
  you view this, this, you know, humanity, as I've said, making
• 1:15:08
  it. And I've said I'm 95% certain we
• 1:15:11
  make it. And I've outlined the risk and
• 1:15:14
  in my book, you know, Chapter 11 is really outlining what the
• 1:15:17
  risks are and why you should believe that we can make it.
• 1:15:21
  And I in the book with, with case studies of why you should
• 1:15:24
  believe as well. I'm just curious, how do you
• 1:15:28
  view it? You know, how do you view us
• 1:15:29
  making it? I mean, you're, you're, you're,
• 1:15:31
  you're very rooted as a technology investor.
• 1:15:35
  You're, you're on the front lines of seeing what's possible
• 1:15:38
  with AI, etcetera. How do you view us making it?
• 1:15:41
  Yeah, it's a wonderful frame and it's very nuanced in my
• 1:15:47
  perspective and experience here because to me, what's underneath
• 1:15:54
  the question is how we want, if you believe in the natural law,
• 1:16:01
  that which we put out, is that what we attract?
• 1:16:04
  And one of the reasons I'm here and supporting you is I very
• 1:16:08
  much believe we can create a new reality, starting with ourselves
• 1:16:16
  and projecting what we want in the world.
• 1:16:19
  Like the saying, be the change you want to be in the world.
• 1:16:22
  An I think love is the root of the roots in showing up.
• 1:16:27
  Not only was an open art and putting out kindness,
• 1:16:31
  compassion, forgiveness and love to attract the same.
• 1:16:34
  So with having said that, I believe that's materially linked
• 1:16:38
  to our commitment to consciousness.
• 1:16:41
  But the consciousness starts with ourselves.
• 1:16:44
  And once we work on our own healing journeys and our
• 1:16:47
  consciousness, it can then magnify and ripple out.
• 1:16:51
  But we start with ourselves first and now using that as a
• 1:16:56
  backdrop and a frame, I believe as you pointed out, these
• 1:17:01
  incredible tech innovations that we're witnessing in recent years
• 1:17:06
  and that are amongst us today. To me, our leverage on leverage
• 1:17:10
  on leverage and are simply magnifiers of everything that we
• 1:17:14
  ever thought was possible, we could do.
• 1:17:16
  And then what I like to say is just like the outlet in the wall
• 1:17:18
  doesn't really care what you plug into it, it'll give.
• 1:17:21
  To me, AI is the extreme manifestation of that.
• 1:17:28
  It will only be as good with our intentionality and our
• 1:17:32
  consciousness. So if we are less evolved, AI
• 1:17:36
  will reflect times 100,000 our intention and we can easily play
• 1:17:42
  out both sides. And to me, it's a gift giving us
• 1:17:48
  an opportunity to not only work on ourselves, but to quickly
• 1:17:51
  accelerate our own consciousness journeys to shift a is impact
• 1:17:57
  for more unity, more connection, more healing, more love in a
• 1:18:02
  world where there will be as much challenge on the other side
• 1:18:07
  of that. And it may be an opportunity for
• 1:18:10
  me to share the mission statement for Kilowatt because
• 1:18:16
  it's finally LinkedIn. Because up until a couple of
• 1:18:19
  years ago, people say, hey, what do you do?
• 1:18:20
  What do you invest in? And for the longest time, I
• 1:18:23
  would share, hey, we're here to invest in, to create the world
• 1:18:27
  that we want for ourselves, loved ones, future generations,
• 1:18:31
  which has been absolutely true. But it felt like it was a bit
• 1:18:34
  amorphous in general. And then it was only last year
• 1:18:37
  when I really went in and I'm like, no, no, what is it that we
• 1:18:40
  really stand for and believe in? And I was able to really distill
• 1:18:45
  this into a sense which is, and Kilowatt, by the way, is just my
• 1:18:49
  own family office. Like you're an investor, I'm an
• 1:18:51
  investor. And now a small boutique.
• 1:18:53
  We have a a small number of outside families when I was
• 1:18:56
  convinced A decade ago to come out of retirement and it's to
• 1:19:02
  expand resources by nurturing connection to realize collective
• 1:19:08
  consciousness. I'm going to explain each of
• 1:19:10
  those three expand resources very straightforward.
• 1:19:13
  We generate a dollar of profit when our investors have at least
• 1:19:18
  four. And to me, the investor contract
• 1:19:21
  is one of the most sacred contracts that is changed my
• 1:19:25
  life and given me more than I could have ever imagined.
• 1:19:28
  And I hold it so near and dear that when people entrust you
• 1:19:32
  with their intention, their source energy, their trust,
• 1:19:36
  their capital to me, not only do I safeguard it as my own, to me,
• 1:19:41
  I treat it as the ultimate act of devotion.
• 1:19:43
  And so for me, it's very sacred. So that's number one.
• 1:19:46
  Number two, nurture connection. This means create new
• 1:19:49
  connection, repair loss connection, deepen existing
• 1:19:54
  connection. What kind of connection?
• 1:19:56
  Four kinds connection to self, connection to others, connection
• 1:20:01
  to nature, and connection to the divine all and realize
• 1:20:06
  collective consciousness is that what unifies and binds us is far
• 1:20:11
  greater than what's perceived to separate and divide us.
• 1:20:14
  So for me, I'm committed in my soul, life, purpose and journey
• 1:20:20
  to. Accelerate the path to get
• 1:20:22
  there. And to now answer your question
• 1:20:24
  with that about AIAII believe in only with the caveat of the
• 1:20:33
  consciousness. Now that consciousness is the
• 1:20:35
  creators of it, the users of it, the amplifiers of it, and we
• 1:20:42
  basically have an extra set of imperative around us to really
• 1:20:49
  go deeper and faster to help everyone around us improve their
• 1:20:53
  consciousness. And I believe, like you, I am an
• 1:20:56
  optimist and I am a pathological optimist, as some might say,
• 1:21:02
  because if we really are here to create the reality that we want,
• 1:21:06
  why would we want anything else? And it starts with our belief
• 1:21:09
  systems, then our thoughts and emotions, and then our words and
• 1:21:14
  actions. But we can't build if our belief
• 1:21:18
  system is faulty. And if our belief system is
• 1:21:21
  fearing extinction, we're fearing like death, leaving a
• 1:21:26
  body, which I think is no different than leaving a rental
• 1:21:28
  car. It's taken me many years and I
• 1:21:30
  don't worry about leaving my body anymore if it happens
• 1:21:33
  tomorrow or decades from now. Do you cry when you return your
• 1:21:37
  rental car? Do you wonder when you're
• 1:21:38
  getting a dog? But no, you return your rental
• 1:21:39
  car. And I know this is a bit out
• 1:21:41
  there, but to me, I have decided when my soul took this
• 1:21:48
  commitment, this lifetime, you and I both chose to be here at
• 1:21:52
  this time, which is an incredibly opportune time to
• 1:21:56
  have an impact in an outsized way on this beloved planet.
• 1:22:01
  And all of our brothers and sisters is to make sure we are
• 1:22:07
  embodying the living example leading from the heart, showing
• 1:22:12
  unity without fear. And for me, overcoming fear is
• 1:22:16
  fear of death, fear of extinction, fear of loss, fear
• 1:22:19
  of loneliness, fear of rejection, fear of what people
• 1:22:22
  are going to think and say to you that thought you were this.
• 1:22:24
  And now you and I are saying something different than what
• 1:22:26
  they thought we were. But it's overcoming these fears
• 1:22:29
  when we can show up as ourselves are authentic selves.
• 1:22:34
  But in physics, the term is called resonance.
• 1:22:36
  And just to geek out for a second, the mathematical term of
• 1:22:40
  resonance is a high amplitude signal where we Crest at the
• 1:22:44
  peak at called Omega naughty, which is the natural frequency.
• 1:22:48
  And when you drive at the natural frequency, you get the
• 1:22:50
  highest amplitude signal. So when you and I show up
• 1:22:54
  personally and professionally and with our loved ones and our
• 1:22:56
  families in our most authentic self, we are vibrating at the
• 1:23:02
  natural frequency creating resonance.
• 1:23:03
  So the science of this is really clear is when we put out that
• 1:23:08
  natural frequency, we attract that same back, hence the
• 1:23:13
  resonance, hence transcending win, loss, heads, tails, because
• 1:23:20
  there's no way we can lose. It doesn't matter what the
• 1:23:24
  outcome is because we are being true.
• 1:23:28
  We're honoring our souls in complete depth and we let go of
• 1:23:32
  the outcome. We give it to the divine.
• 1:23:34
  Yeah, and you know, I would actually say that that's another
• 1:23:37
  great definition of love. Yeah.
• 1:23:39
  Being in this beautiful musical city.
• 1:23:42
  And I've I've, I've told you, you know, please fly in to
• 1:23:45
  Austin sometime when there's a Austin City Limits music TV
• 1:23:48
  tape. And that's one of the favorite
• 1:23:50
  things that Deborah and I do here.
• 1:23:52
  It's been going for 52 years, longest running music TV show,
• 1:23:58
  but I was I was watching Jon Batiste here.
• 1:24:02
  I've heard him. Oh my gosh, he's amazing.
• 1:24:05
  He. Is absolutely manifesting love.
• 1:24:09
  Yeah. And and it's because he is in
• 1:24:12
  such alignment with what he is meant to do in this lifetime.
• 1:24:16
  You know, he you can feel authenticity and and, you know,
• 1:24:21
  music and art is a very pronounced way to feel it.
• 1:24:25
  But capitalism too is, is artistry.
• 1:24:30
  We, we can all be artist in our field.
• 1:24:34
  And when you lead with love, it's really hard to lose It is,
• 1:24:39
  it is, it is extremely attractive.
• 1:24:41
  You know, I, I, I have the love that I have in my heart in large
• 1:24:47
  part to, to my mom, you know, who really, who really put it
• 1:24:50
  in, you know, at a very young age, unconditionally loved me,
• 1:24:54
  You know, since since age 7, introduced me to my computer
• 1:24:57
  and, and learned how to program with me and then kept everybody
• 1:25:02
  out of my way, said he's in alignment.
• 1:25:04
  This is what he's meant to do. You know, he's passionate and,
• 1:25:09
  and that was a that was a true gift for her to realize that and
• 1:25:14
  allow me to be, you know, authentic.
• 1:25:17
  And you know, when you see that in anyone, it's super
• 1:25:23
  attractive. And so getting back to the to
• 1:25:26
  the upside down pyramid, the first you outlined, you know,
• 1:25:31
  what type of friends do you want to attract?
• 1:25:34
  You know, do you want to attract friends that are only friends
• 1:25:39
  because you have some nice material item that totally that
• 1:25:44
  it's a status thing, Or do you want to attract friends that are
• 1:25:48
  there because they're in alignment with your soul's
• 1:25:50
  mission, because their soul is in alignment with your soul in
• 1:25:54
  this field of consciousness, in this fundamental, you know,
• 1:25:58
  aspect of the universe, right. And that's, that's a, that's a
• 1:26:02
  really important way to think about walking in the world.
• 1:26:04
  The way I describe that is when you and I were four years old,
• 1:26:07
  we were present, we were in the moment, we were activated.
• 1:26:11
  We weren't attached to too much in the external and the way I
• 1:26:16
  described in the decades since then is we started becoming
• 1:26:21
  under the influence of a series of different constituents,
• 1:26:25
  starting with our parents, our teachers, our best friends and
• 1:26:28
  classmates and boyfriend, girlfriend, boss, Co worker,
• 1:26:32
  employees, investors, spouse as children.
• 1:26:35
  But through all of those people that we dig into, we crave love,
• 1:26:41
  acceptance and money and sex and all those attachments to those
• 1:26:47
  things from all those people. It leads us to focus on the
• 1:26:52
  receipt of those items from all those people.
• 1:26:56
  But the reason I'm outlining that is from that natural
• 1:26:59
  frequency, we start shifting away by thinking we need to get
• 1:27:03
  all those things from all those people to get fulfilled or the A
• 1:27:08
  through G life happiness formula.
• 1:27:10
  And then by putting out that inauthentic energy, we attract
• 1:27:14
  the same inauthentic energy back, causing a negative
• 1:27:17
  feedback loop. So the beauty of this process is
• 1:27:21
  by unraveling and unwinding that in our truth seeking journeys,
• 1:27:25
  we start getting back to that inner foiled and play and
• 1:27:29
  resonance. And now we can go back to who we
• 1:27:33
  were, what we were all along, and not put out inauthentic
• 1:27:37
  energy and afraid of what may come back or not come back.
• 1:27:41
  Because heads we win and tails we win.
• 1:27:43
  There's no way you can. That's right.
• 1:27:45
  That's right. Yeah.
• 1:27:46
  And you know, one, one of the things I just want to double
• 1:27:48
  click on because I, I want to give the translation to what you
• 1:27:52
  said. You know, Evan was asked last
• 1:27:55
  night, you know, I hosted him in the Jewish community and he was
• 1:27:58
  asked last night by the audience, do you are you afraid
• 1:28:06
  of death after your experience? And he was like, not at all.
• 1:28:10
  But it's different than having a death wish.
• 1:28:12
  Like it means that he has seen beyond the veil, has seen and
• 1:28:21
  has actually seen how much this lifetime matters to grow his
• 1:28:25
  soul. And you know, you and I are both
• 1:28:30
  operating from that place. I mean, you know, I, I can, I
• 1:28:33
  can say this about you for sure that you're operating at your
• 1:28:39
  highest frequency in this lifetime.
• 1:28:41
  And and how do you, how do you view your personal role in terms
• 1:28:46
  of US making it to abundance for for all?
• 1:28:49
  Thank you and it hasn't been an easy process, but as I pointed
• 1:28:56
  out eight years ago, it started with me writing this one page
• 1:29:01
  manifesto of senses. I'll distill that into 8 words,
• 1:29:06
  which was a few years later. Which is my sole's purpose this
• 1:29:09
  lifetime is to realize collective consciousness and
• 1:29:13
  bring truth into earth. What does that mean?
• 1:29:19
  And that actually came to me and I etched it into an important
• 1:29:25
  piece that has been a huge aspect of my guide, my guiding
• 1:29:31
  in this focus point. But practically to answer
• 1:29:34
  question today, I divide my energy across a few sides of a
• 1:29:39
  pyramid is the way I visualize it.
• 1:29:42
  The first is this effortless meditation and global community
• 1:29:48
  called Siddham Maha Yoga, which you have experienced in December
• 1:29:52
  and in May you're going to experience in person in Bali.
• 1:29:55
  You know, you asked me a few weeks before my book was due to
• 1:30:02
  start the editing process, meaning that all the chapters
• 1:30:05
  were, were written if I wanted to be in an online retreat.
• 1:30:10
  And the ego immediately like reacted of like, don't even
• 1:30:15
  think about it, right? But the heart was like an
• 1:30:19
  emphatic yes. And my soul, like really lit up.
• 1:30:22
  I can feel like I can feel the energy.
• 1:30:24
  It's like my whole body lights up.
• 1:30:26
  And you know, I knew that it was a yes, so I cleared I cleared
• 1:30:32
  the deck where it was just like that was what I was going to do
• 1:30:35
  this online retreat with Kurji. We'll talk about him as well as
• 1:30:41
  as well as finish the book. And I got to tell you, you're
• 1:30:45
  like your fingerprints through introduce me.
• 1:30:48
  This are not just because of our friendship, which is amazing,
• 1:30:52
  but but they're on the book now. You know, you're in the book
• 1:30:55
  and, and, and it's and it's, it made the end of the book so much
• 1:31:01
  better. You know, it, it just really, it
• 1:31:05
  put me in a state of flow. And it really shows you like
• 1:31:11
  how, you know, we've been doing meditations in person in this,
• 1:31:14
  in this room, actually every morning together.
• 1:31:18
  But it showed you how even physically apart, which makes
• 1:31:22
  sense because it's we're all in this one field of consciousness,
• 1:31:26
  how you still, when you're meditating together, you can
• 1:31:32
  feel it, you can feel the energy.
• 1:31:34
  And I had such transient meditations and then boom, going
• 1:31:38
  back into the book and it just made it, it made it, it made
• 1:31:42
  more heart come out. So I want to thank you for that
• 1:31:44
  because this is this is really a gift.
• 1:31:47
  You are most welcome, and I hinted about this earlier, and
• 1:31:51
  credit to your soul and your heart for saying yes to that, to
• 1:31:55
  call it in. And as I said earlier, this was
• 1:32:00
  not something I was thinking I was ready for or seeking.
• 1:32:05
  And it was almost eight years ago in May of 2018, when I was
• 1:32:08
  at a gathering in Mexico. And up until that point, I think
• 1:32:10
  I'd meditate a total of 2030 minutes combined.
• 1:32:14
  My entire life I'd meditated 5 minutes here, 10 minutes here.
• 1:32:19
  I tried an app, none of it stocked, none of it felt
• 1:32:22
  comfortable and natural. And I basically assumed
• 1:32:24
  meditation was not for me. I was caught up in the world of
• 1:32:28
  form and father and investor and Burning Man camp guy and I said,
• 1:32:34
  so I was checked out. And at this gathering, a dear
• 1:32:39
  brother, Jack Herrick invited me and said, hey, and you're ever
• 1:32:44
  going to meditate in this room? And Long story short, we were in
• 1:32:47
  this room with a dozen friends, and we were welcomed into this
• 1:32:53
  ancient lineage called Sid the Mind.
• 1:32:55
  I had no idea what any of this was, and I wasn't on a spiritual
• 1:32:58
  quest for meditation and a community, but we were told we
• 1:33:03
  were going to mentate for an hour.
• 1:33:04
  And I said, Oh my gosh, I was not happy.
• 1:33:08
  I was not happy. I, you know, gave.
• 1:33:09
  This 3X my whole lifetime I was. Literally giving Jack the evil
• 1:33:14
  eye. And I was like, what did you get
• 1:33:15
  me into? At any event, we got in, but
• 1:33:19
  they said, OK, no suffering, no pain.
• 1:33:22
  If you want to extend your legs to tingles, you want to lie
• 1:33:23
  down, lie down. All right, fine, I can do with
• 1:33:25
  this. All this.
• 1:33:26
  So we sat for an hour. I laid down for over half of it.
• 1:33:30
  And at the end, I didn't really feel anything in my life didn't
• 1:33:32
  shift. But Jack did, as we found out in
• 1:33:35
  a very small majority, and he had to leave.
• 1:33:36
  The next thing he basically said, look, Niraj, this is real.
• 1:33:40
  Stick with this. I'm telling you, this gurgy guy
• 1:33:43
  is legit. And so I did a couple more,
• 1:33:46
  Nothing crazy happened. And then ended a couple months
• 1:33:49
  later. We're in Bali.
• 1:33:51
  I do it two hours, one hour, twice a day for 10 days.
• 1:33:57
  Still don't experience any wild crazy shifts.
• 1:33:59
  But afterwards, a few friends came up to me when I came home
• 1:34:02
  and said, hey man, you seem happier and calmer.
• 1:34:04
  What are you doing? I'm like, I don't know, maybe
• 1:34:06
  it's this meditation thing working.
• 1:34:07
  And with a couple of those reflections, I committed to it
• 1:34:10
  daily July 18. And since then, it's been a life
• 1:34:15
  changing aspect. My relationships improved, my
• 1:34:18
  health improved, my productivity, my insights, my
• 1:34:22
  clarity, my peace. And so within a year after
• 1:34:25
  seeing this, we decided this is the best thing we've ever
• 1:34:28
  imagined. We need to share with our close
• 1:34:30
  friends. However, we could only get the
• 1:34:31
  spiritual master from India a week or two a year.
• 1:34:34
  And it was really hard to figure out which of your 15 or 20
• 1:34:37
  friends you could host in your home for four days.
• 1:34:40
  It was really hard. We were swapping favors with
• 1:34:42
  each other. 3rd buddy Nirvana Ravikanth.
• 1:34:44
  We took turns hosting the Siddha Master and in the end we
• 1:34:52
  realized this was having impact and it was amazing.
• 1:34:55
  Fast forward, it's March 2020, everyone is in lockdown and
• 1:35:00
  can't travel and the Siddha Master can't come.
• 1:35:02
  We come up with the idea to bring it online and zoom and and
• 1:35:05
  it started out with eighteen of our friends in April 2020.
• 1:35:08
  And not only did it work, in many cases it worked even better
• 1:35:11
  because you don't go to some beautiful faraway destination
• 1:35:13
  and come home trying to integrate it and then it goes
• 1:35:16
  away. It was integrated day one.
• 1:35:18
  And so people had shifts and then it took off.
• 1:35:21
  And we did 6 in 2026 and 21, a handful in 22.
• 1:35:25
  And within a few of these, not only did it go to friends and
• 1:35:29
  friends of friends and volunteers.
• 1:35:30
  And today just our little group has grown to over 3000 people,
• 1:35:34
  150 volunteers, 92 countries and it's just a pure labor of love,
• 1:35:40
  No profit, no nonprofit, all volunteer driven.
• 1:35:44
  The website is just Enjoy dot live and we welcome people every
• 1:35:48
  Tuesday, Thursday we do a couple zoom online, but we have in
• 1:35:51
  person retreats all over the world, India, Australia, Bali,
• 1:35:56
  June, July is Europe, May is Bali.
• 1:35:59
  April is mostly Western Perth, Australia, August this year will
• 1:36:03
  be in Mexico and Argentina, September.
• 1:36:06
  October is Brazil, November likely Bali, but New Zealand,
• 1:36:11
  and then December, January, India and February Himalayas.
• 1:36:15
  So in person offerings all over the world, Zoom offerings at
• 1:36:20
  least once or twice a year, but weekly on boardings every
• 1:36:24
  Tuesday and Thursday. And the only three things we ask
• 1:36:26
  of anyone who wants to come in and explore is #1 natural
• 1:36:30
  curiosity for truth. Two, honesty with yourself first
• 1:36:34
  before others. And three, a daily commitment to
• 1:36:37
  try something. And we just, and we really only
• 1:36:39
  ask an hour a day, 30 days, just to give your soul a chance.
• 1:36:45
  But that has radically changed my life.
• 1:36:48
  It has been one of the greatest gifts to share with the world.
• 1:36:51
  And most of my best friends have come through these communities.
• 1:36:56
  Like my soulless relationships. My dear beloved has come through
• 1:36:59
  this almost every close relationship in my life I can
• 1:37:03
  tie into this. So that's the first side of the
• 1:37:05
  pyramid. Yeah.
• 1:37:07
  And and you know, one of the things that's really cool about
• 1:37:09
  it is that Guruji, you know, is part of the consciousness
• 1:37:15
  awakening and us getting to this age of abundance for all.
• 1:37:20
  And can you tell the story about how he decided to open this up
• 1:37:27
  and, and what the lineage of it is?
• 1:37:29
  Because it's pretty. It's pretty interesting.
• 1:37:30
  Yeah, this usually doesn't make it out, but I'm happy to.
• 1:37:33
  It's it gets a little bit magical and mystical.
• 1:37:38
  So as I got deeper into this, of course, I wanted to learn a lot
• 1:37:42
  more. And I was very privileged in the
• 1:37:45
  pre Internet era before things really took off to have a lot of
• 1:37:48
  one-on-one time with him in person to really go very deep
• 1:37:52
  and asking lots of these questions.
• 1:37:54
  And we have hundreds by the way, of these satsangs or Q&A
• 1:38:00
  sessions recorded and are all available within our community
• 1:38:04
  for free within our archive. So #1 the lineage we trace back
• 1:38:12
  10 generations verbally, but even before that many many
• 1:38:15
  centuries and for the longest time, this lineage of really
• 1:38:20
  pure enlightens to the masters. Only one of these initiations or
• 1:38:24
  blessings, which is just a wish that your soul become realized.
• 1:38:27
  This lifetime was given in a whole lifetime of a said the
• 1:38:31
  master and body to basically the next in line to carry it.
• 1:38:34
  That was the way it was passed generation after generation
• 1:38:37
  after generation, very quietly, very secretly in the shadows
• 1:38:41
  with entire purity and integrity.
• 1:38:43
  Because you could argue they knew that this was needing to be
• 1:38:47
  preserved whenever the world was going to be ready for it and the
• 1:38:51
  world was going to need it. And so that was for many
• 1:38:55
  generations, centuries in fact, until 2 generations ago, Gurji's
• 1:39:00
  Master's master, Vishnu 13, Maharaj, he basically started
• 1:39:05
  giving out a few other blessings, initiations to
• 1:39:08
  basically expand the notes of the family tree beyond just the
• 1:39:12
  next lineage holder and current lineage holder.
• 1:39:16
  Again, he's been in a monk since he was a young teenage boy.
• 1:39:20
  So he's been doing this over 52 years in serving humanity and
• 1:39:27
  his master Chevelle, in touching Raj, he basically gave out
• 1:39:30
  dozens plus and wrote a number of books, but again, not to
• 1:39:37
  anyone. But that was his guidance and
• 1:39:39
  instructions. And then Guruji who got
• 1:39:44
  initiated at A at a very young age, was also an altered suits
• 1:39:48
  in reality for a long time. But it was really around the
• 1:39:51
  turn of the century, Millennium where he was basically guided by
• 1:39:54
  the lineage and said, Hey, this is what we've been waiting for
• 1:39:57
  for all this time. It's time for you to get back
• 1:40:00
  and human form and to really get to work and start getting this
• 1:40:03
  on. That was about 20 plus years
• 1:40:04
  ago. So originally, for a decade
• 1:40:07
  plus, this was given out a dozen, two dozen people at a
• 1:40:10
  time. In very intentional settings,
• 1:40:13
  like at ashrams, in person to look after them.
• 1:40:16
  And then only since we got involved did it start scaling
• 1:40:19
  broadly and firm. But we have collectives all over
• 1:40:21
  the world, literally. Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and
• 1:40:26
  South America, most countries in Europe, India, of course, a
• 1:40:31
  great group in United States, a great group in Bali, physical
• 1:40:36
  clusters of people, Sebastopol, Northern California, truly all
• 1:40:41
  over the world spreading. But yeah, that's the story.
• 1:40:44
  Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Yeah, I love it.
• 1:40:46
  And, you know, it actually reminds me of when when Chris
• 1:40:51
  Paige said, you know, in in, in times where it's really needed.
• 1:40:56
  Godsends in the best troops. And yeah, and and here, here
• 1:40:59
  Guruji is incarnated for this purpose.
• 1:41:03
  But also, you know, you and Jack, you know, and of all like
• 1:41:06
  realizing, hey, this is something that we can bring to
• 1:41:10
  people and you, you really do that very selflessly.
• 1:41:14
  I wanna I wanna emphasize that that this is not a for profit
• 1:41:17
  motive at all. I know you do a lot more than
• 1:41:20
  this. And I wanna make sure to cover,
• 1:41:22
  cover the, the comprehensiveness of how embodied you are in terms
• 1:41:27
  of helping us make it to the age of abundance for all, because
• 1:41:30
  it's really, it's beautiful, like the breath of what you do.
• 1:41:34
  Thank you. And it just, it honestly, I
• 1:41:36
  think required me to disconnect as much as I did the last
• 1:41:39
  handful of years to really push a lot of these products, which,
• 1:41:42
  you know, being a founder, you kind of have to put your head
• 1:41:45
  down to get from zero to 1 before you start engaging with
• 1:41:50
  the world. And I needed that space for a
• 1:41:52
  while. So that's side one of the
• 1:41:54
  pyramids at the Ma Yoga. Side 2 we've already covered,
• 1:41:56
  which is Kilowatt Capital. And that was my own family
• 1:42:00
  office starting in 2010. Was basically convinced to come
• 1:42:03
  out of retirement. So we have a small little
• 1:42:06
  boutique seed stage fund investing in mission line
• 1:42:09
  entrepreneurs very much like you and Deborah do, but have been
• 1:42:12
  doing it very quietly off the radar.
• 1:42:16
  But that is ongoing and we'll be coming a bit more active in that
• 1:42:23
  this year. But we haven't been that active
• 1:42:24
  because I've been focused elsewhere.
• 1:42:26
  That's side two of the pyramid, side three of the pyramid, which
• 1:42:29
  the world doesn't yet fully know about.
• 1:42:32
  So this may be one of the first introductions to it because it's
• 1:42:35
  not yet fully unveiled. This is a sneak preview is Kuge
• 1:42:39
  Research Institute, CRI for short.
• 1:42:43
  This is a nonprofit Research Institute that I founded seven
• 1:42:49
  years ago in 2019, set physically in Boulder Creek, CA,
• 1:42:57
  which is an hour and a half southwest of San Francisco in
• 1:43:01
  the Santa Cruz mountains and hills.
• 1:43:03
  Today it's on 53 acres. It's a Research Institute for
• 1:43:07
  the advancement of all life through the three corners of
• 1:43:13
  science, spirituality, and nature.
• 1:43:16
  Symbiosis KUNGI is an acronym. It stands for Consciously
• 1:43:21
  originating our Infinite Global Interventions and Endeavors.
• 1:43:28
  And those three corners are science, where we're mostly
• 1:43:33
  focused on etheric physics. And to be very precise, as you
• 1:43:38
  talked about and we had discussed over dinner with Evan,
• 1:43:42
  many of us see physics, whether it be talking about quantum, as
• 1:43:46
  really the fundamental building block on which we can understand
• 1:43:50
  how to build our reality, because many things are built,
• 1:43:53
  whether it's our chemistry and biology and psychology, all
• 1:43:57
  starting with physics. And very much like in Mark
• 1:44:01
  Over's work, we believe that our physics, unfortunately has
• 1:44:06
  suffered what I would call an intermission or really a period
• 1:44:14
  of stagnation for most of the last century and not being able
• 1:44:18
  to really fulfill its potential. We had a lot of beautiful things
• 1:44:23
  come out over the years. And without getting into the
• 1:44:26
  gory story from the ancient Greeks and Vedics, we've had a
• 1:44:29
  series of forks over the way. And as you beautifully refer to
• 1:44:33
  many of us now call it scientism because as you said, give us the
• 1:44:36
  miracle of The Big Bang, we'll give you everything else.
• 1:44:39
  And so what's the difference between that and religion?
• 1:44:41
  And I also subscribe to that view is that modern science as
• 1:44:46
  we refer to it, or materialism that we have inherited,
• 1:44:50
  unfortunately has a lot of limitations.
• 1:44:52
  So what we are focused on is creating a safe haven to not
• 1:44:56
  only bridge this divide, to create post materialism
• 1:45:00
  opportunities to study non physical phenomena, not relying
• 1:45:04
  on government funding, not relying on corporate funding,
• 1:45:07
  not relying on university oversight because that is the
• 1:45:10
  bulk. There's $2.9 trillion today that
• 1:45:14
  funds global R&D. 60% of that comes almost equally in the US
• 1:45:19
  and China. And almost all of that, because
• 1:45:23
  there's 8 billion of us and not many people are going to
• 1:45:25
  disagree that our future potential as a species is a
• 1:45:27
  function of our R&D. And about .1% of 8 billion
• 1:45:32
  people are about 9 million career scientists who do it full
• 1:45:37
  time investigating researchers. So .1% is responsible for 99.9%
• 1:45:43
  of the rest of our future. And that money comes from a
• 1:45:45
  small number of sources. And the moment that money
• 1:45:48
  decides it's not suitable, it won't get funded and we suffer.
• 1:45:55
  Everyone suffers, including the Ugandan farmer, because of those
• 1:45:59
  decisions from a small number of people, from a small number of
• 1:46:02
  entities that fund the mainstream science.
• 1:46:06
  So our opportunity is to be an example of alternate funding to
• 1:46:11
  do non mainstream research with true bona fide research
• 1:46:16
  investigators and scientists focused on alternate examples of
• 1:46:21
  physics of non physical phenomenon.
• 1:46:23
  The name of our lab will be consciousness, energy and life
• 1:46:25
  systems, including many things. So that's corner one.
• 1:46:28
  Corner 2 we've already talked about, which is spirituality,
• 1:46:32
  which is offering opportunities of awakening for those ready.
• 1:46:35
  We are deeply devoted to committing to Sidama yoga and
• 1:46:40
  maybe other things in the future like darkroom retreats.
• 1:46:43
  We are very pure in the way we hold the spaceland, so we're not
• 1:46:48
  on site supporting plant medicines or even allow things
• 1:46:53
  like alcohol or meat. We're very much in the same
• 1:46:56
  vibration as you and me and our lifestyle choices.
• 1:47:00
  And we hold the land the exact same way as a 1300 year old
• 1:47:04
  temple in India. And we make sure anyone who sets
• 1:47:07
  foot is going to honor those guidelines that we have.
• 1:47:11
  And then the third corner is nature symbiosis, which is how
• 1:47:15
  to eat and live chemical free. Before the industrial
• 1:47:19
  revolution, we lived in a world that was more pure, in our
• 1:47:23
  buildings that were not toxic and killing us, and in our food,
• 1:47:28
  which has been compromised through our soil and through
• 1:47:30
  toxins and many other things that are well discussed and
• 1:47:33
  talked about. So for us, what we do is natural
• 1:47:38
  organic, permaculture based regenerative farming to really
• 1:47:42
  show how we take care of the land through really deep mineral
• 1:47:45
  rich soil and to let the land take care of us organically,
• 1:47:48
  which there are many places to do that.
• 1:47:51
  And natural building, which is its own art where no chemicals,
• 1:47:55
  no toxins. And we can show by example what
• 1:47:59
  it means to live in natural building, whether it's clay and
• 1:48:03
  straw and timber, but truly beautiful works of art that are
• 1:48:06
  functional in today's world. It which is its own art form and
• 1:48:10
  there aren't many people who are actually aware of what it means.
• 1:48:13
  But we have to redefine all of current structures.
• 1:48:17
  So today to distill, there are thousands of places in the world
• 1:48:22
  you can go to learn about natural building and regener
• 1:48:25
  farming and permaculture based principles.
• 1:48:28
  There are probably 10s of thousands of places in the world
• 1:48:30
  you can go to learn and have a spiritual experience and learn
• 1:48:33
  meditation and yoga. And I may be off on these
• 1:48:36
  numbers, but they're by my count are less than 10 places in the
• 1:48:41
  world that I know today at least where you can do truly bona
• 1:48:45
  fide, independently funded research, free of government,
• 1:48:49
  free of corporate, free of university like ions.
• 1:48:54
  And we, by my experience, are the only one that I know the way
• 1:48:59
  you can do all three because these feed off of each other.
• 1:49:03
  And that is what's unique to CRI.
• 1:49:05
  In the next few months, we will be sharing more about our
• 1:49:08
  journey. Right now, the website
• 1:49:11
  iskumi.org, we just have a short video, but we will be unveiling
• 1:49:14
  a lot more of who we are and what we're doing.
• 1:49:17
  But that's side three of the pyramid.
• 1:49:20
  So there's the for profit side, Kilowatt Capital CRI, which is
• 1:49:24
  the nonprofit side, Siddhav Yoga, which is the volunteer
• 1:49:31
  side. And of course, I am a very
• 1:49:33
  deeply devoted father like you to two boys, 12 and 15.
• 1:49:38
  And the last side, which I would invite you to introduce is
• 1:49:42
  something that a lot of people know me for is Life Story
• 1:49:46
  Exchange. Yeah, so life story, What a
• 1:49:49
  process. You know, I've told so many
• 1:49:52
  people about your process for really going deep and getting to
• 1:49:56
  know people because it's really completely unique.
• 1:50:00
  I mean, you know, I just, I just celebrated my 54th birthday on
• 1:50:05
  Valentine's Day. Congratulations.
• 1:50:06
  And I can tell you that out of everybody I've known in my 54
• 1:50:12
  years, in this lifetime, I have, I have never gone through a
• 1:50:17
  process like that. WIPO has something called the
• 1:50:20
  timeline where you present for like 45 minutes and people can
• 1:50:25
  ask questions for around 15. And it's useful and it does
• 1:50:30
  allow you to get to know someone's life arc.
• 1:50:34
  But 45 minutes is very different than the nearest version.
• 1:50:38
  The nearest version is and, and, and I got to say at first like I
• 1:50:43
  was like, holy moly, like this is going to be a lot of time
• 1:50:47
  again. The ego was like, Oh well, but
• 1:50:50
  the heart was a big yes. And and it was really, it was
• 1:50:57
  really pretty amazing to go that deep.
• 1:51:00
  And why don't you describe it? But I, but I, I, I just, it's,
• 1:51:05
  it's incredible because some of my, some of my, you know,
• 1:51:08
  friends that have been friends for 10 to 20 years, I don't know
• 1:51:11
  as much about them as I know about you and, and, and vice
• 1:51:14
  versa, you know, well, and well, maybe maybe you've done that
• 1:51:17
  with a lot of people. But, but it's like, but the vice
• 1:51:20
  versa is like before you invented this life story.
• 1:51:24
  Totally. Yeah.
• 1:51:25
  So let's start from the beginning.
• 1:51:28
  It's about 2014. I come back from my very first
• 1:51:32
  Burning Man. I went to four in a row and as I
• 1:51:36
  explained my pendulum swing of my seeking training, this was
• 1:51:40
  really at the beginning of that. And like a lot of people who
• 1:51:44
  have these powerful experiences in their first burn, I was
• 1:51:49
  really depressed for about 3 weeks where I came back and I
• 1:51:55
  couldn't reconcile seeing homeless people on the street
• 1:51:59
  and then experiencing all this incredible love and abundance.
• 1:52:04
  And we can argue about burning ban being reality or not, when
• 1:52:07
  70,000 people who are very resourced with stuff for 200,000
• 1:52:11
  are taking care of whether or not it can scale to 7 or 8
• 1:52:15
  billion. But independent of that, I had
• 1:52:16
  the experience of just this life changing week.
• 1:52:20
  And then I'm in downtown San Francisco and I'm just seeing,
• 1:52:23
  no one's making eye contact, no one cares about each other.
• 1:52:26
  And it was really depressing. So I'm doing business meetings
• 1:52:30
  and just like you and I can relate to in most business
• 1:52:34
  meetings and I'm in the downtown high rise financial district
• 1:52:38
  office. You start out a business meeting
• 1:52:40
  with, hey, how do you know such and such?
• 1:52:41
  Do you establish some common ground?
• 1:52:43
  What do you do? What do I do?
• 1:52:44
  You do one to two minutes spiel and then you talk about the
• 1:52:46
  thing. That's how it goes.
• 1:52:49
  And I was so not wanting that. I said, hold on, tell me more
• 1:52:55
  about yourself. I don't just mean what you do.
• 1:52:58
  Tell me where you were born, where you grew up.
• 1:53:00
  Tell me about your family. And first people are caught off
• 1:53:02
  guard. And I said, no, I want to know
• 1:53:04
  more about you. And then before I knew it, I got
• 1:53:09
  people to open up. And before I knew it, it was the
• 1:53:11
  entire first meeting where we just shared about our our life
• 1:53:16
  stories. And then within not too long, I
• 1:53:20
  started noticing some really cool things where I started
• 1:53:24
  noticing more ease, more comfort, more openness.
• 1:53:28
  And what I realized after doing this, I said, wow, these
• 1:53:32
  relationships that I've started this way are going deeper,
• 1:53:36
  faster, they're more natural, they're more organic.
• 1:53:39
  And now I believe it's allowing the depth of the multi
• 1:53:42
  dimensional human connection to take root first, free of any
• 1:53:47
  limitation. And before I realized it,
• 1:53:50
  everyone that I met one-on-one, I initiated this with.
• 1:53:53
  And over the years, this basically evolved and iterated
• 1:53:56
  into many experiments like you and me having those tech founder
• 1:54:02
  entrepreneurial experimenter routes like you just try
• 1:54:06
  different things. And I love that little
• 1:54:08
  experimenting side of our shared DNA.
• 1:54:12
  And so I just said, all right, well, let's try it virtually.
• 1:54:14
  Let's try it asynchronously. Let's try it instead of half an
• 1:54:18
  hour, an hour, or let's try it one day walking in nature.
• 1:54:21
  So I tried short form, mid form, long form, in person, virtual.
• 1:54:25
  And you and I did a mixture of virtual, Zoom and asynchronous
• 1:54:31
  recordings. We did this hybrid.
• 1:54:34
  And what I realized, I realized a few things.
• 1:54:38
  These relationships were so much richer than anything I'd ever
• 1:54:43
  had faster. I, like you reflected, I knew
• 1:54:47
  people. And so the thesis originally
• 1:54:49
  behind this is, why can't I treat someone I've known for 20
• 1:54:53
  minutes like I've done them for 20 years?
• 1:54:56
  But quality doesn't always be get quantity.
• 1:54:58
  And then it was, which I still hold in my heart today, that we
• 1:55:04
  have only begun to scratch the surface of the potential of
• 1:55:09
  human connection as a species, which is maybe controversial.
• 1:55:13
  But through my experience, I have gone deeper with people who
• 1:55:18
  are new and strangers very much like you and me.
• 1:55:21
  One of the deepest connections I have remembered in years, even
• 1:55:27
  though I've done a number of these because of the resonance
• 1:55:30
  and I believe with the truth bumps of this not being our
• 1:55:33
  first time around this lifetime. And through that remembrance and
• 1:55:36
  reconnection. So since then, so, so life story
• 1:55:42
  now has shifted. And I'll land this by saying
• 1:55:47
  that about seven years ago, halfway through this journey,
• 1:55:54
  Well, actually, let's say about 12 years is when I started.
• 1:55:57
  But about 6-7 years ago, I started sharing things more
• 1:56:01
  vulnerably about things that I was incredibly ashamed about.
• 1:56:07
  That were some of my deepest, darkest secrets that I thought I
• 1:56:10
  would take to, you know, the end of this life with me.
• 1:56:14
  That through the safety of that container, I mean, things that I
• 1:56:18
  didn't even share with my former wife until halfway through
• 1:56:21
  marriage, that in the course of being able to share those things
• 1:56:26
  in this life story container and arc, I could see my own healing
• 1:56:31
  and self forgiveness through some of that, giving me an
• 1:56:35
  opportunity to actually see my own healing, not just a
• 1:56:39
  connection tool. And so I said, wow, this isn't
• 1:56:43
  getting tired telling my own story a couple 100 times over
• 1:56:47
  the years. It's actually giving me a
• 1:56:48
  greater gift each time I do this.
• 1:56:51
  And then finally, because of the external reflections of you and
• 1:56:54
  many others that said, this is one of the most amazing things
• 1:56:57
  I've ever had. Please share this with the
• 1:56:59
  others. Please give me something so I
• 1:57:02
  can do this with all those I love.
• 1:57:03
  And I always ask people in the recent years, would you do this
• 1:57:07
  with so many love? Do you want to do this with
• 1:57:09
  others and give me feedback? And so originally I thought
• 1:57:13
  because I have many things in my life purposes, you now know this
• 1:57:16
  was not six years ago a priority.
• 1:57:19
  It was just something that was kind of a side hobby.
• 1:57:23
  And then because many people are asking for it, I said, OK, maybe
• 1:57:26
  I'll just write A blog post and just give this open source to
• 1:57:30
  the world for free. But other people said, no, no,
• 1:57:33
  no. The people who need this the
• 1:57:35
  most are the ones who value human connection the most, who
• 1:57:40
  are hyper prioritizing human relationships, which are usually
• 1:57:46
  people in periods of high agency and leadership and CEOs and
• 1:57:54
  leaders of government and investors and stewards of
• 1:57:59
  resource. And those people aren't going to
• 1:58:01
  value A blog post. And I said, oh, So what does
• 1:58:05
  that mean? I'm like, I'm not a seminar kind
• 1:58:07
  of guy and I was guided to write a book and so I started that
• 1:58:13
  process. It's been on the shelf for a
• 1:58:15
  while and I will be completing it later this year and now
• 1:58:20
  publicly saying this summer it's out there.
• 1:58:23
  You've declared your intention to the universe.
• 1:58:27
  And it will be 1/3 the. Why this works including the
• 1:58:31
  science and 2/3 or maybe who knows that ratio, how it'll
• 1:58:35
  change every time the how to go out and do it right, right.
• 1:58:38
  And so that's where this is heading.
• 1:58:40
  One of the things that I love about the way you unpack that is
• 1:58:44
  that you became more vulnerable as you went, which meant that
• 1:58:49
  you were on a journey of love, conquering your own fear in the
• 1:58:54
  process. And, and when you project that
• 1:58:59
  in your life story to me, it allowed me to also be more
• 1:59:04
  vulnerable with you. And how many friendships do you
• 1:59:10
  have, you know, for, for anybody listening to this or watching
• 1:59:14
  this, where they truly can be completely and totally
• 1:59:19
  vulnerable. And if they don't have those, I
• 1:59:23
  would encourage them to do right this life story and, and, and
• 1:59:28
  you know, maybe just we, we should end if, if you don't
• 1:59:32
  mind, with just just the real quick version of how to do this,
• 1:59:35
  cuz, cuz how you've, how you've sure, I know you're gonna write,
• 1:59:39
  write this beautiful book about it.
• 1:59:40
  But but it's very actually easy to describe.
• 1:59:43
  Like people wanna do this with with with their friends right
• 1:59:46
  now. Yeah, that's a wonderful point.
• 1:59:49
  Let's. Yeah, we can set up the basic
• 1:59:52
  framework. So number one is it has to be
• 1:59:58
  mutual opt in. So the invitation can be, hey,
• 2:00:03
  do you want to get to know each other better?
• 2:00:05
  Hey, would you be open to stepping into a journey, a
• 2:00:08
  process? The invitation is critical, step
• 2:00:12
  one of the process and the invitation can look like I want
• 2:00:16
  to get to know you better. It can be someone you've known
• 2:00:19
  for a long time. It could be someone you're just
• 2:00:20
  meeting. I call it pre-existing or new.
• 2:00:23
  It can be someone in friends or family or intimate or business,
• 2:00:27
  work or community. It can be any mixture of those
• 2:00:30
  or others, right? But based on whether it's
• 2:00:34
  someone you just have met or someone you've known for
• 2:00:36
  decades, the invitation may look a little different, right?
• 2:00:39
  Like, hey, I want to get to know you better.
• 2:00:41
  Like your wife of 20 years or someone that say you're going on
• 2:00:44
  a first date with, hey, would you be open to getting to know
• 2:00:46
  each other better through this little container?
• 2:00:48
  So #1 I'd say an intentional invitation in whatever is
• 2:00:52
  applicable to that scenario or situation and setting it up with
• 2:00:57
  a way. And we're like, I don't know,
• 2:00:58
  maybe. And then the next step is
• 2:01:03
  creating safety, which is absolutely essential and vital
• 2:01:08
  in setting up a groundwork and both agreeing and opting into a
• 2:01:13
  privacy component, which can be anything from this is only
• 2:01:16
  between us. This is only between us at this
• 2:01:20
  point in time, which means that even if we reference it with
• 2:01:24
  each other again, we need to reference it.
• 2:01:26
  So there's a few levels of that of privacy, but that leads to
• 2:01:32
  the safety. And then it can be short form,
• 2:01:36
  mid form, long form, short form can be, I've done as little as
• 2:01:39
  15 minutes each, which obviously is going to be a highlight reel
• 2:01:43
  and a table of contents to a day or two, full day walking around
• 2:01:50
  a whole day. So know that there's a spectrum,
• 2:01:53
  right? But letting that guide, I think
• 2:01:57
  that's also essential. And then of course, in person,
• 2:02:02
  virtual Zoom recordings, you know, all these things.
• 2:02:06
  And so I think that's the basics.
• 2:02:07
  And then the final thing I'll say, the easiest way to go out
• 2:02:10
  and do it is really the chronological way, which I like
• 2:02:15
  to refer to it. And again, all this will be
• 2:02:17
  referenced later in the next year or so.
• 2:02:21
  Birth through high school is what I call, you know, the
• 2:02:24
  childhood arc. And then there's coming of age,
• 2:02:27
  which is late teens, early 20s college for some people or
• 2:02:31
  university grad schools. And this is getting out of your
• 2:02:34
  house, having your own imprint and life.
• 2:02:37
  And then usually the next arcs can look like our professional
• 2:02:41
  journeys, which are a huge part of our identities that many of
• 2:02:45
  us have taken on. It can look like, you know,
• 2:02:47
  family. It can like marriage and kids
• 2:02:50
  and parenthood. It can look like, for you and
• 2:02:53
  me, truth seeking, spirituality, consciousness.
• 2:02:56
  It can look like many things. It can look like an intimacy
• 2:02:58
  journey. It can look like a, you know,
• 2:03:00
  for us, like a journey with the feminine.
• 2:03:04
  It can look like a healing journey with traumas.
• 2:03:06
  There are many different possibilities of what these
• 2:03:10
  thematic constructs could be. And some of those things come
• 2:03:14
  out of getting to know someone. So when you meet someone for the
• 2:03:17
  first time, it's I think, essential to be open to adapt
• 2:03:22
  without projecting. But if someone even know in 20
• 2:03:24
  years, you kind of know a lot about them already.
• 2:03:26
  Right, right. But I hope that does that set it
• 2:03:28
  up. Yeah, that sets it up.
• 2:03:30
  That sets it up extremely well. And you know, if people are
• 2:03:34
  wondering like, wow, how would I be able to talk about myself?
• 2:03:39
  You know, in our case, we, we did like an hour for each of
• 2:03:44
  these each. And I think I think it was
• 2:03:47
  cumulative like 10 hours of time.
• 2:03:49
  And how am I going to be able to talk about like from birth to,
• 2:03:53
  you know, to through high school for an hour?
• 2:03:56
  It's actually harder than you would think to even compress it
• 2:04:00
  to that. Like, like there's a lot you can
• 2:04:03
  unpack in just that. So allowing your yourself space
• 2:04:08
  to believe and do this, it's really just beautiful.
• 2:04:10
  I can't wait for the book to come out.
• 2:04:12
  And and wow, Niraj, I love your heart.
• 2:04:16
  You're such a brother. And thank you so much for all
• 2:04:19
  you do. And, you know, just just, you
• 2:04:22
  know, beautiful, beautiful. And yeah, thank you.
• 2:04:27
  Thank you. So.
• 2:04:27
  Much. I'm so grateful to you, Brad.
• 2:04:30
  Also thank you. That's best.
• 2:04:32
  Hugger too. Thanks again.
• 2:04:36
  My pleasure brother, I'm so honored to be here.
• 2:04:39
  So thanks everybody again for tuning in to Love Conquers fear.
• 2:04:43
  By the time you see this all have just been awarded by Tulane
• 2:04:50
  University, the entrepreneur of the year.
• 2:04:53
  I was in shock that I was named this by by the President of
• 2:04:58
  Tulane, Mike Fitts. Really look forward to
• 2:05:01
  celebrating that on March 10th. This episode will have come out,
• 2:05:06
  you know, slightly after that. And the reason I'm sharing this
• 2:05:11
  is part of the reason I was in shock is that the whole project
• 2:05:16
  of love conquers fear. And making the very conscious
• 2:05:19
  decision to be as open as I've been on this podcast and in my
• 2:05:25
  book, you know, was a journey for me of conquering my own fear
• 2:05:31
  in terms of transparency and operating from this place of
• 2:05:35
  authenticity. And I asked, I asked them at
• 2:05:40
  Tulane. I said, OK, I know you're a fan
• 2:05:43
  of love conquer conquers fear. You know, the president of
• 2:05:46
  Tulane told me that as well as others.
• 2:05:49
  I said, I just want to emphasize like, you know, that I'm talking
• 2:05:53
  about all types of things that, you know, would, would violate
• 2:05:58
  the, the rules of Ghostbusters, you know, in terms of crossing
• 2:06:02
  the streams. You know, there's, there's,
• 2:06:04
  there's discussion, deep discussion about spirituality.
• 2:06:06
  There's a deep discussion about the nature of consciousness.
• 2:06:09
  There's a deep discussion about, you know, capitalism and
• 2:06:13
  leadership. And usually, you know, someone
• 2:06:17
  stays in a swim lane. So I, I just, I just want you to
• 2:06:20
  think about that in terms of giving me this award and I, I
• 2:06:25
  said that prior to accepting it and their, their response was so
• 2:06:31
  beautiful and it really exemplifies why our daughter
• 2:06:35
  Rachel loves Tulane so much. And she really does.
• 2:06:38
  She just absolutely loves it. There is a triple major is doing
• 2:06:41
  fantastic and it's because what they said is they said, look,
• 2:06:48
  New Orleans is rooted in authenticity and Tulane is
• 2:06:51
  definitely rooted in authenticity.
• 2:06:53
  And we love the fact that you're rooted in authenticity.
• 2:06:57
  And so I mentioned this because if you're on the fence about
• 2:07:01
  being authentic yourself and in this journey of love, conquering
• 2:07:06
  your own fear to share more, right, Create a container where
• 2:07:10
  people can open up to you more. It may actually be the thing
• 2:07:15
  that becomes a catalyst for, you know, things that you don't
• 2:07:21
  expect I would have never expected.
• 2:07:23
  When our daughter got into Tulane, I had no relationship at
• 2:07:26
  all with Tulane University and I didn't graduate from Tulane
• 2:07:31
  University that I would be getting award as entrepreneurs a
• 2:07:34
  year from Tulane University. But it was, I will tell you that
• 2:07:38
  it was authentic for me falling in love with the school after
• 2:07:42
  Rachel's telling me so many beautiful things about and I'm
• 2:07:45
  seeing how much it manifests love on campus to get involved
• 2:07:49
  in the Innovation Institute, to get involved with the Family
• 2:07:52
  Leadership Council, Really fell in love with President Fitz, as
• 2:07:56
  I've told him many times. You know Adam Grant, who is a
• 2:08:00
  friend of mine, who's very well known professor at the Wharton
• 2:08:03
  School, author many books, famous Ted Speaker.
• 2:08:07
  He told me at Penn when President Fence left as as the
• 2:08:14
  Dean of the Law School of Penn to become the president of Tin
• 2:08:20
  Lane University, everybody on the staff cried and that shows
• 2:08:26
  you how much love he was manifesting there.
• 2:08:28
  And you can just feel it all over the campus.
• 2:08:30
  So huge, huge honor. It is public news at this point
• 2:08:35
  as of this recording, but that'll be a really beautiful
• 2:08:38
  night on March 10th with with family there.
• 2:08:42
  So I'm really looking forward to that.
• 2:08:44
  And I just wanted to to share that bit because hopefully it'll
• 2:08:49
  help you on your journey with being more authentic and
• 2:08:52
  allowing love to conquer your own fear.
• 2:08:54
  Thanks again for all the love you're giving me.
• 2:08:56
  And yeah, please keep sharing. This is my love letter to
• 2:09:01
  humanity. I'm getting so, so much love
• 2:09:04
  from you. And let's do it together.
• 2:09:07
  It's team humanity all the way. Niraj and I are part of it, and
• 2:09:10
  we all are. Thank you so much.