Latest / Love Conquers Fear / #13: Tero Isokauppila: Mushrooms, Consciousness, Spirituality, & the Power of Simplicity

Transcript

#13: Tero Isokauppila: Mushrooms, Consciousness, Spirituality, & the Power of Simplicity · Love Conquers Fear

• 0:00
  For Sigmatic today has sold over $300 million of products with
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  very little outside funding. Mushroom coffee globally now
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  over $2 billion category. We created the original mushroom
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  coffee a decade ago. Sigmatic is the number one
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  organic coffee in in the US natural channel.
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  As part of this journey, I got into these like there was this
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  non dualistic science and non dualistic conference and there
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  was the tapes and it was cool because they brought all these
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  spiritual leaders and thought leaders and thinkers around the
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  world, you know, seemingly believed in different forms of
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  God discern the world's largest scientific laboratory.
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  They were still trying to find Hicks Boson and they poured so
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  much money into this thing. Experience with myself, people
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  around me having fear. And usually it does end up in a
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  worse place, even though on paper, intellectually it's like,
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  well, I eat this clean and I do this yoga and Pilates and
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  practice and meditate and breath work.
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  But like you're sick all the time that you're now cleansing
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  in India for this thing. But like, I think it's probably
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  something emotional. So welcome back everybody to the
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  Love Conquers Fear podcast. I am going to distill a couple
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  of books that I've read recently and my guest today has also read
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  it in the episode number 2 with Mark Gober.
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  You know, he talked about the impact that Doctor David Hawkins
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  had had on his life. And I've talked with Mark Gober
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  further about that. And he said that at one point he
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  got into David Hawkins to the point where he watched 200 hours
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  of his lectures over the period of about a year or so.
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  And, you know, when I re listened to that episode, I
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  realized there was a little tell in there for me that really lit
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  me up. And I thought it's now time to
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  read a little bit of Doctor David Hawkins.
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  And so I read his book recently called How to Surrender to God,
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  and it's a profound read. I would highly recommend it on
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  Audible. It's only two and a half hour
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  long listen. But essentially it's this
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  exploration into the unity of all things and how your soul
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  over many lifetimes is seeking to have that unification with
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  God. And again, when I say the word
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  God, a lot of people are triggered by that.
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  I understand that. But you know, replace it again
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  with consciousness or the greater intelligence of the
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  universe. If you're kind of a Joe
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  Dispenser fan or anything that makes you feel comfortable, that
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  the key point, no matter how much you study early
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  spirituality, is that it's rooted in love.
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  That's really the key. And we're going to dive into
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  that a lot today. But it was really cool because,
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  you know, reading that book, it really has a lot of
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  synchronicity with the lattice. And again, I wrote this for fun.
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  I'm not seeking some financial gain with it.
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  I'm just trying to make an impact.
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  But you know, this is available on Amazon now.
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  And it's a positive science fiction novella about how
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  humanity could have a collective awakening to the knowledge of
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  what our actual reality is, the reality beyond this world of
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  physical form that we find ourselves in.
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  Where's Martin Gober would say we only know what 4% of the
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  entire universe is made of. We call that matter.
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  The other 96% we call dark energy and dark matter.
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  Truth is, we have no idea what it is.
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  We don't know if we're living in a multi dimensional reality.
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  So there's a lot of things that we need to have real scientific
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  curiosity about and childlike play and not view them in a
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  dogmatic way. You know, remember that
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  Copernicus, when he perfected the telescope, he tried to get
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  the clergy to look through it, to show them that the Earth was
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  not the center of all things, and they refused to do it.
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  And he actually got excommunicated from the church.
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  So we need to be fearless in terms of our pursuit and
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  discovery because there's so much we don't know.
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  I mean, just think about it for a second, you know, just pause
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  and reflect on the fact that we only know what 4% of the
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  universe is made of. But yet we act sometimes so
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  arrogantly, like we have everything figured out.
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  So anyways, in the lattice, you know, Doctor Alexander Bliss,
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  which if you read anything by Doctor David Hawkins, you'll
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  understand where the word bliss comes from.
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  He he ultimately has this crazy idea to unify humanity and the
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  collective awakening occurs and it changes the course of not
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  just human history, but the history that will then propagate
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  the universe from the years 2030 through 2085.
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  SI had a lot of fun with it. People are really enjoying it.
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  I'm getting a lot of great reviews.
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  And I wrote this, you know, to process Dover probably 50 books
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  at this point. I read this year into a science
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  fiction novella and give humanity basically a positive
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  way of how things could play out versus all the dystopianess.
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  And I think that the dystopianess, frankly, is
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  because a lot of science fiction writers themselves are caught up
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  completely in the world of form. And as a result, they are making
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  the same mistake as a lot of scientists are making, which is
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  in the world of form. If you can't prove it to me,
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  it's not true. And so the world of form people
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  tend to be very anti spirituality, very anti God,
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  very much a product of when they grapple with something like the
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  hard problem of consciousness, they look at it as well.
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  Of course, consciousness just magically popped out of matter.
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  Nothing to see here. And the reality is none of us
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  actually know what consciousness even is.
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  We can grapple with consciousness, with
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  spirituality. And that's what Doctor David
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  Hawkins did in that book. He basically says, look, God and
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  consciousness are both fundamental and the same thing.
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  It's the root of the existence that we live in.
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  We're all part of that. So therefore we're all children
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  of God. We're all part of consciousness.
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  We all have a collective union, and we all return to that when
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  we pass in physical form and we live from lifetime to lifetime.
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  He was very much a believer or a knower, if you will, of
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  reincarnation, very much how I am as well, and has been
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  explored by Stephen Mitchell and his master translation of the
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  Gita, which is one of the original books about the
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  knowledge of self in the world of form and the knowledge that
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  there's the observer and the person that's walking around in
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  physicality. So anyways, I, I would highly
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  encourage you to listen to Mark Gober's episode again and pick
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  up some Doctor David Hawkins books.
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  How to Surrender God is a really, really good one.
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  And it's cool that has synchronicity with this.
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  And frankly, this has synchronicity with a lot of
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  things that read on spirituality.
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  I continue to repeat the same patterns in my mind.
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  And as you'll hear from my guest today, that gets it into your
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  subconscious. I remember that from the last
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  walk we had together. So pick it up if you feel moved.
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  And if if you know how to reach me and you don't want to buy it,
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  that's fine. I'll just e-mail you a copy.
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  So just reach out to me. I'm not, I'm not trying to sell
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  books. I'm just trying to make an
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  impact. So thanks again.
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  Today I'm honored to have my good friend Taro on.
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  Taro is someone who has really changed my life.
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  You found it. 4 sigmatic and four sigmatic is something I put
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  in my body every day, literally every day, multiple times a day.
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  And yesterday, you know, as we're recording, this was a Yom
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  Kippur. And I do the fast like I did
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  every every year. And it's a great day for
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  reflection and really to get recentered and start the new
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  year fresh. It's one of the things I love
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  about Judaism is this, you know, this practice of fasting and
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  cleansing our body. And you'll be happy to know that
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  last night as I broke the fast at Jason Karp's home, who he was
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  on episode 3. He's the founder of few
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  Chocolate. As you know, one of the first
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  things I put in my body was 4 sigmatic mushrooms.
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  So it's I feel great. I'm happy to hear that.
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  I'm great to be here. I'm excited for your new
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  journey. Yeah, with this podcast, the
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  book and whatever, if it's going to transpire.
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  Yeah, yeah, Well, I'm having, I'm having a blast with it.
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  And as you know, I'm operating from this place of really trying
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  to make a big impact for all, all of our sakes, you know, for,
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  you know, our children, for, you know, for all of humanity.
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  There's a real love of for all of humanity and the divinity
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  that we have at our core and returning to that.
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  So let's talk about your background because it's it's not
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  your typical background. I knew you grew up essentially
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  as a forager on your family's farm in Finland.
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  So maybe we start there. Yeah, I'm from Finland.
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  I grew up on our family farm that we've had at least since
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  16/19 in in Finland. Finland was few 100 years part
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  of see, I think over 600. You're part of Sweden and part
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  of the Russian Empire. So we don't really know for how
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  long exactly, but at least in 1619.
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  And that makes my parents the 12th generation and me and my
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  brother the 13th generation living in the farm.
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  And there I grew up like learning about mushrooms,
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  berries, foraging, farming, forest.
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  And for the context of this podcast, I was like brought up
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  half Pagan, I guess, to use these like words that are a
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  little blunt and don't, but like believing in powers of nature.
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  And a lot of traditional Finnish believes are rooted in various
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  nature based religions. And then half Lutheran, which is
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  the dominant form of Christianity and and in
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  Scandinavia and Nordics. And yeah, grew up there and
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  studied chemistry, nutrition, got in into this world.
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  A lot of things happen. I've lived in eight other
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  countries between Finland and then landing in the US.
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  I've been here a little over a decade, married to a beautiful
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  wife. A soul mate.
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  Yeah, from California and we have 3 little kids, all born and
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  raised Texans now. And yeah, we still spend our
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  summers at the farm. I'm trying to help my brother
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  where I can. And then rest of the year we're
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  here in here in Texas. Yeah.
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  I'm envisioning that this farm is like this idyllic, beautiful
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  countryside. It can be especially in the
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  summer and there's definitely moments.
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  Finland is Europe is pretty N actually like you don't really
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  think like Spain is on the same level as like Toronto or
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  something, right. So there just happens to be a
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  Gulf Stream that keeps a little warmer, but it's very dark.
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  And so there's there's in the summer, there's no really night
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  part of the year. And then in the winter there's
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  almost no daylight. So it's very like extreme and
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  there's moments of beauty in all seasons, but it's not, it's not
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  this idyllic place all year round.
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  It's pretty rough, you know, comparable to what I would maybe
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  call like Alaska or something like that.
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  And then I think a lot of people romanticize if they grew up in
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  cities and the life on a farm, you know, and the the beauty of
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  it is being close to nature, but it's also a lot of hard work,
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  like practically like we would run out of warm water and things
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  like that. But when you are older, you
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  appreciate those lessons. But maybe as a kid it's not as
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  as fun, you know? Yeah, as we know, we learn
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  through suffering. All is through love, but it's
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  weird also to your technology background.
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  Our farm is on the other side of the lake from Nokia.
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  Nokia is a small city in Finland or Julia Sawmill.
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  They made winter tires. They're still actually they spun
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  off a winter tire business. They made rubber boots, TV's and
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  then cell phones. So we had computers and
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  e-learning from very young age. So we got our first PC bit
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  before World Wide Web was discovered in CERN and we would
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  pay our bills online in like 1990.
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  And we there was a specific world.
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  And my first, you know, the mobile phones and smartphones
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  were like 99. And it was just like a weird
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  this Ying Yang of like high tech in a way where it's surrounded
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  by this rural nature of, of growing up.
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  So yeah. And tell me about when was the
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  moment that you decided to start 4 sigmatic and and what was it
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  that that caused you to see that the world needed that?
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  Yeah, 4 Sigmatic is the original mushroom coffee brand.
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  I have found it in 2012. And I say that mushrooms chose
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  me. I didn't choose mushrooms.
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  And why I say that is I learned about mushrooms from my mom who
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  was taught Physiology, anatomy since I was like a little kid
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  and and our family has a bunch of history with that, but also
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  other herbalism. And I was always fascinated by
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  human body, optimal human performance.
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  But I kind of rebelled like many teenagers and others of like the
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  farm life that we grew up with. And I always thought I wouldn't
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  do anything around that, but it kept coming back to my life.
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  About 20 years ago, I won an innovation award for discovering
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  this mushroom species with my friend.
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  And then, and that was another moment.
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  And then I did coach professional athletes and
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  nutrition. And one of the secret hacks was
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  always these adaptogenic mushrooms as they kept coming
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  back. And there was just a point when
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  nobody else was doing it. And I was entrepreneurial in my
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  mind, which translates into unhireable, so.
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  I know that one, brother. Yeah, I've been hired and
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  technically never fired, but it's gotten close.
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  But yeah, so, so then it was a passion of mine where kind of
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  passion that just a need to have a certain lifestyle almost like
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  it was, I didn't expect it to do as financially well as it has
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  done. It was more like I was into it.
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  Nobody was doing it. I was scratching my own itch and
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  that's where that's where it started.
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  But it was very much driven by personal passion and need to
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  have a lifestyle of an entrepreneurial lifestyle more
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  than like some outcome. Right.
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  Yeah, well, I'm happy to say I literally use all the blends.
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  Yeah, and I use the protein powder.
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  I am. So I'm getting like mega doses
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  of yes the odogens birthday. You're part fungi.
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  Yeah, part fungi and I feel, I feel phenomenal.
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  I mean level of mental clarity it gives me and just energy.
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  And you know, it felt so good to get that in my back in my body
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  after the fast and today how how many people are in the company?
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  Like, you know, how how big is this company?
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  I know it's I think it's number one on Amazon right for.
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  Yeah, for Sigmatic today has sold over $300 million of
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  products with very little outside funding.
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  Mushroom coffee globally is now over $2 billion category.
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  We created the original mushroom coffee a decade ago for Sigmatic
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  is the number one organic coffee in in the US natural channel and
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  #1 functional coffee in US retail overall we're best
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  selling coffee crown coffee on Amazon, Whole Foods, Sprouts.
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  It is sold in like 60 plus countries worldwide but more
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  mostly focused on the US market. Yeah, that's kind of feel really
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  good. Yeah.
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  And it's and it's all organic, right?
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  Yes, it's all organic plant based.
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  We test every batch for even if we buy like organic hemp protein
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  or something, we still tested for all toxins.
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  So try to do the best you can to deliver a healing nutrient dense
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  product, a premium product to people, but in a still like a
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  comparable price point. Yeah, yeah.
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  I mean, that's one of the things I love about it the most is that
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  I know I'm getting really high quality ingredients because I
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  know you and I know you're obsessive about that.
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  Yeah. And I see your Facebook ads all
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  the time, too. I'm like, oh, you do.
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  I'm like, I really don't need to see these.
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  I'm already behind everything. Yeah, you know.
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  You're out there now. You're like, you're, you're the
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  I I never knew that you would be the front man for it on Facebook
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  ads. I you're out there now.
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  Yeah, I didn't plan to be up, didn't plan to.
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  I've written a few best selling books on mushrooms and done a
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  lot of podcast and public appearances.
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  That was never the intention at all.
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  It was just like nobody else was speaking about mushrooms.
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  There was a loud a lot of or lack of domain expertise and
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  understanding. So I got pulled into it and but
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  yeah, I have a love hate relationship with, you know, PR
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  and personal brand and all these things.
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  But the good thing is like podcast for example, I love them
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  long form especially because it is a way to provide free
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  education to people is about all kinds of things.
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  Yeah, I mean, I'm always listening to them and it's
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  amazing. I mean, you know, just imagine
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  if we had podcast in the days of Benjamin Franklin or George
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  Washington or some of these amazing American heroes or
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  whatever the equivalent was in in Finland.
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  It would have been unbelievable to go back and into those
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  archives. I mean, the best I can grasp of
• 18:56
  one of my heroes is Benjamin Franklin is his early
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  biographies are just incredible. Like his Advice to a Young
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  Tradesman is one of the best books I've ever read.
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  But to listen to him riff with Thomas Jefferson, that would
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  have been pretty awesome. Yes, yes, a three hour podcast.
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  So let's let's talk about, you know, in terms of your
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  spirituality, because you've helped me on that journey too.
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  It's the last walk that we went on around beautiful Lake Austin.
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  One of the things people don't realize about Austin that
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  haven't been here before, although that's a smaller and
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  smaller number of people, is we live in these rolling hills
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  downtown is built with this beautiful lake and all these
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  great trails around it. And that that walk we went on
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  really had an impact on me because we were breaking down,
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  you know, what we both believe in terms of the nature of
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  spirituality and the nature of this reality that we live in.
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  And you recommended a book to me which which I absolutely loved.
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  And I've now recommended it to so many people.
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  So as I remember our conversation, you were saying I
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  during your soul quest, you'd read like probably over 130
• 20:23
  books. All right, I've now read around
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  50. And you said out of all of
• 20:28
  those, the one that you remember the best stuck with you most was
• 20:32
  awareness by Anthony D'mello. And one of the things that that
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  I loved about Doctor David Hawkins book how to Surrender to
• 20:41
  God is he's he's a lot like Anthony D'mello, very similar.
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  He's really funny, right? He's like laughing out loud.
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  He's like kind of in this bliss state.
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  I think when people reach that level of spirituality, they're
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  really, really good about telling stories, making fun of
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  themselves, like just not taking them themselves so seriously.
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  And Anthony Bello definitely fits that.
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  He's like the George Carlin of spiritual teachers, I tell my
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  friends. Yeah, exactly.
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  I I've learned so much from George Carlin too, even though,
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  you know, it's just, it's just like the twinkle in the eye.
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  I talk about very important serious topics.
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  But it was like the humor and the love that is around
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  laughter. So yeah.
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  Yeah. My story is for the.
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  I mean, it's ongoing. Let's start there.
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  Like, I have no clue. It always is.
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  But what I remember is when I was in my late teens, we have to
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  serve in the military, Finland. We have defence forces.
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  We're not allowed to attack anyone.
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  I leave our borders. But we do share a border with
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  Russia. And I went to the Air Force.
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  I'm a Sergeant in, in the Air Force.
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  And I remember we had this winter camp and it was like -30
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  to 40°F. And we're by this ocean and I'm
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  laying in the snow and I'm, I'm just there.
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  And in the military, if you don't know, you're always rushed
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  or you're waiting. There's no in between.
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  So you're like running and they build a huge sweat and then you
• 22:15
  lay and you wait or yeah, like you rush to a place, then you
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  get to a line and then you wait for an hour for some, you know,
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  higher up major to show up to salute.
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  And I'm just waiting there in the snow.
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  And I'm like, I came to realize that, like everything I believe
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  in life is probably not my belief.
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  Like it's like it hit me. I didn't know what to believe,
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  but I knew like my beliefs were from friends, family, parents,
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  TV, video games. I was like, where like who am I?
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  And it started this 6-7 year really journey of like peeling
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  the onion layer by layer. I'm learning things and the more
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  I peel, the more you cry. And it started with very basic
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  things like a young teenager would think about what I think
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  about like material things and what do I want in life and
• 23:14
  relationships and stuff. And then he went deeper and
• 23:17
  deeper because you start to realize as part of that journey,
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  first I like I gave up porn because military there was a
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  porn magazines everywhere. Then like coffee, alcohol, meat
• 23:30
  to just take them away and see what happens if I don't eat meat
• 23:33
  or drink alcohol or have coffee or whatever the journey is.
• 23:37
  And as part of that journey of like, what was basically like
• 23:41
  self help ish, then it was called personal development.
• 23:44
  I read, yeah, like so many books.
• 23:48
  I spend a couple 100 days in various seminars just like
• 23:51
  trying to figure out like, what do I believe in?
• 23:54
  And that's where spirituality came.
• 23:56
  There's like a like a Venn diagram of this, like personal
• 24:00
  development, self help to also spirituality.
• 24:04
  And I was initially very turned off by religion, I guess part of
• 24:08
  this journey. And I was like, this is like
• 24:11
  people are being manipulated in the name of of God.
• 24:15
  And it took me a while as to age to learn that like both can be
• 24:19
  true is that there are these higher powers the spirituality
• 24:25
  and any religion or parts of religion can still be like
• 24:30
  crooked and manipulate it. Both can be true at the same
• 24:33
  time. Can be true at the.
• 24:34
  Same time and and it's it's so obvious, but it's this non
• 24:37
  duality and learning about there's so much of this like non
• 24:42
  duality versus I feel like society, at least for me, was
• 24:46
  pushing a lot of dualistic beliefs.
• 24:49
  It's like you have to pick a side here in America.
• 24:51
  It's like Democrat or Republican choose.
• 24:54
  You know no other option, right? Yeah.
• 24:57
  And then if you I'm. Independent though I I did
• 24:59
  choose to not be yes. Yes, I I try to do the same.
• 25:02
  But if you choose one side, then you have to believe everything
• 25:05
  they believe. That's why I don't like yes, I
• 25:09
  don't like it because it puts you in a box and you should
• 25:12
  never put yourself inside a box. You should always have the
• 25:15
  ability to listen to your soul and have a communion to know
• 25:20
  what's right or wrong in your eyes as opposed to what is right
• 25:26
  or wrong in a party's eyes. I think that's a.
• 25:29
  It's a ridiculous notion, I think.
• 25:31
  Yes, completely agree. And as part of this journey, I
• 25:35
  got into these like there was this non dualistic science and
• 25:39
  non dualistic conference and there was the tapes.
• 25:41
  And it was cool because they brought all these spiritual
• 25:43
  leaders and thought leaders and thinkers around the world that,
• 25:48
  you know, seemingly believed in different forms of God and they
• 25:51
  all like had the same lessons in a way like or themes, if you
• 25:57
  may, about loving God. And I had experienced through
• 26:02
  nutrition on various psychedelic substances too.
• 26:05
  But like using psychedelics, you know, in my late 20s more
• 26:11
  onwards, it deepened that belief about spirituality.
• 26:18
  Whatever words you want to use, same way as psychedelics trigger
• 26:23
  people because like, it's either very positive or very negative
• 26:27
  expression. Same way as if you like the word
• 26:29
  God, like you said is like triggers people, right.
• 26:32
  But these like higher powers. And it it was pretty obvious
• 26:36
  that there are these higher powers.
• 26:39
  And then yeah, it's it's a lifelong journey that will never
• 26:42
  be completed to figure out what it does mean.
• 26:44
  But I feel like I've at time different times touched feelings
• 26:49
  and experiences of communicating with that.
• 26:53
  Yeah. Energy.
• 26:55
  And apparently when you do actually figure it out, you
• 26:59
  don't Incarnate anymore. So you and I wouldn't be here if
• 27:02
  we had already figured it out. No, I, I believe that.
• 27:06
  I remember actually when I lived in one of the countries I lived
• 27:09
  was Switzerland. And I really wanted to visit
• 27:13
  Myanmar or if you want to call it Burma.
• 27:17
  And it was hard to get to at that point, like you really
• 27:20
  couldn't get there and like you could go to Bangkok and get a
• 27:24
  visa. But because I was in Geneva and
• 27:26
  Myanmar was technically part of the UN, they had one of the only
• 27:29
  embassies were there. And then my friends mailed me
• 27:32
  their passports and I got all this a visa and I went with two
• 27:35
  friends there. And it's I've never been to
• 27:39
  North Korea, but I assume it's like, at that point, it was like
• 27:42
  as close to you can get to what is North Korea and and the
• 27:45
  dictatorship and the people that were being quote UN quote
• 27:49
  oppressed were so happy. Like I think in America, people
• 27:54
  are worried about oppression for so much less than these people
• 27:57
  live through every day, of course.
• 27:59
  And they were just so happy is because they believed is that
• 28:03
  reincarnation? So the generals who are living
• 28:06
  in these big palaces, they must have done something right in
• 28:09
  their previous life. And then them, you know, have to
• 28:13
  be kinder and nicer people to reincarnate into something
• 28:18
  better in their next life. And it's both like a very sad
• 28:22
  and very beautiful thought. It is very sad and and and very
• 28:26
  beautiful because the reality is that the generals in those
• 28:31
  palaces, maybe some of them truly have become very
• 28:36
  enlightened, but maybe others are using the manipulation of
• 28:40
  the man made scaffolding around religion.
• 28:44
  And this is what gives religion a bad name.
• 28:46
  Is that the, the, the best part of religion to me, and I think
• 28:52
  you and I agree on this, is that the core of spirituality is
• 28:57
  deeply rooted in the love of the universe or the love of God or
• 29:01
  the love of consciousness, whatever you want to call it,
• 29:04
  that our core reality beyond this world of form and the
• 29:10
  highest vibratory field in the universe is love.
• 29:16
  And that's just fantastic to even know that that's the case.
• 29:21
  I mean, I, I, I saw that through psychedelics myself.
• 29:26
  But to know that that is the truth of our reality makes you
• 29:32
  so much more embodied in your physicality in this lifetime
• 29:36
  because you realize that we live in a loving universe versus if
• 29:42
  you just stayed in attached to the world of form.
• 29:46
  And it really isn't attached. It's like, you know, how much
• 29:48
  can I get? Like what cars, you know, what
• 29:50
  boats, whatever else. And, and it becomes this
• 29:54
  comparison game in the world of form that you basically start to
• 30:02
  say that, well, this boat, this car, these objects, they don't
• 30:07
  have a consciousness. They're not loving things.
• 30:11
  And basically, I'm just on this meaningless planet and an
• 30:14
  infinite universe. Nothing matters at all.
• 30:18
  I just should get everything I could get in this lifetime.
• 30:22
  You only live once. You know, all of these, all of
• 30:24
  these belief systems come into play.
• 30:27
  And as Gary Zhukov discusses in the book called The Seed of the
• 30:32
  Soul, which Oprah Winfrey says was the most transformative book
• 30:35
  she's ever read. You know, a lot of the suffering
• 30:40
  in the world is because you've oppressed yourself in becoming a
• 30:45
  5 sensory human being. And you really, you really have
• 30:49
  created your own self created matrix, matrix at that point
• 30:53
  because you basically are caught up in the world of form and the
• 31:00
  only path to happiness with any religious practice or spiritual
• 31:06
  practice you do is the discovery of self is that in Christianity
• 31:10
  it's called the Kingdom of God is found within you.
• 31:14
  Yeah, and Buddhism for noble truths, you know, life is
• 31:17
  suffering, suffering comes from attachment and so on, so forth.
• 31:21
  Right. One of my favorite quotes, I
• 31:23
  believe it's credited to Bob Marley is like, and I'm probably
• 31:26
  butchering English is not my first language, but it goes
• 31:29
  something like is some people are so poor that the only thing
• 31:35
  they have is money. And I, I, I, I think that's a
• 31:39
  good, good, you know, summary of, of that feeling is that
• 31:44
  there's a lot more than materia, you know, which I think everyone
• 31:48
  knows and they're, they've had experiences of it many times.
• 31:52
  If you've had kids and you see a baby being born or even, you
• 31:56
  know, pets and other these kind of experiences, near death
• 32:00
  experiences. I feel like almost every human
• 32:03
  has had multiple of these moments, acupressure moments of
• 32:07
  experiencing that, even if they've never taken psychedelics
• 32:10
  or meditated or prayed or whatever, they've had these
• 32:13
  moments. But then the 99% of their lived
• 32:17
  experience reminds them of this material and they they forget
• 32:20
  that very like sacred inner truth.
• 32:23
  Yeah, yeah. One of the stories that really
• 32:27
  impacted me a lot is, you know, you and I are both in Waipio and
• 32:31
  the young President's organization.
• 32:34
  And I went on a Waipio trip to India for the 1st for my first
• 32:38
  time to go to India since been multiple times.
• 32:42
  And I studied Vedanta. And Vedanta literally translated
• 32:46
  means the end of knowledge. And essentially it means the end
• 32:50
  of knowledge in terms of what you need to be actually happy.
• 32:53
  And it's all about mastery of the mind.
• 32:57
  And if the mind is ungoverned and you don't develop the higher
• 33:01
  intellect, then you stay caught in anxieties about the future or
• 33:07
  worries about the past. And you can totally, you can
• 33:09
  have a decade of your life where you completely miss the present.
• 33:13
  And one of the stories that Swamiji Parthasarathi told, who
• 33:17
  is the guru that that I studied under is that I had to look this
• 33:23
  up because it was so it really like shook me to my core when I
• 33:26
  read it. But I've since seen so many
• 33:28
  stories like this. But this, this German, I think
• 33:33
  it was German billionaire who's worth $3 billion during the
• 33:37
  2008, 2009 financial crisis. His net worth went from 3
• 33:42
  billion to 2 billion. And he ran out in front of a
• 33:46
  train and killed himself because he he was so caught up in the
• 33:50
  world of form that all that mattered to him was the
• 33:54
  comparison game between his friends.
• 33:57
  And you can imagine the type of people he was hanging out with,
• 34:00
  you know, people that, you know, are talking about how many
• 34:03
  billions they have or What Car they just bought or what plane
• 34:06
  they just bought or well, yeah, they're probably way fast cars
• 34:09
  at that point. They're more more in the planes
• 34:12
  and eventually they'll be in the spaceships, right.
• 34:14
  And And so it, it really struck me because, you know, people
• 34:19
  watching this, you know, you and I have have done well
• 34:24
  financially, but to my knowledge, you're not a
• 34:27
  billionaire. I'm not a billionaire.
• 34:29
  And, and you know, the, the, the people watching this, they could
• 34:34
  say, well, wait, hold on. I have very little money.
• 34:37
  And when I got married, I had $1000, my wife had $2000.
• 34:41
  So I know what it's like not to have money.
• 34:44
  I spent most of my life not having any money.
• 34:48
  And, and I can tell you that yes, material, having money
• 34:54
  gives you the ability to have experiences, but some of the
• 34:59
  happiest people I've known are extremely spiritually developed
• 35:04
  and have very, very little money because they've had that mastery
• 35:09
  of the self and they've essentially become, they have a
• 35:13
  regular communion with their soul and, and they're very
• 35:17
  loving towards themself and others as a result.
• 35:21
  They're not they're they're not caught up in the comparison
• 35:23
  game. Yeah, I'm, I'm about 20 years
• 35:26
  ago I went to Dubai for the first time and they're really
• 35:31
  hit me if like there's levels to money and like pretty much no
• 35:37
  matter how much money you have, someone will have more.
• 35:40
  And I learned that early on being involved in like
• 35:42
  professional athletes. Is that like there's always like
• 35:47
  someone better? I think in martial arts is the
• 35:49
  most dramatic. Is like, you think you're a
• 35:51
  hotshot, somebody always beat your ass.
• 35:56
  In that case, literally beat your.
• 35:58
  Ass, yes, literally it's it's it's such a great like sport or
• 36:02
  practice because it's in a way that reminds you of that
• 36:05
  specific in the most concrete ways that like don't get cocky,
• 36:10
  don't get caught in the BS around.
• 36:12
  It is like there's always someone who can beat you.
• 36:14
  So stay humble and present in the moment and and do your best.
• 36:18
  And yeah, yeah, it's all illusion.
• 36:20
  That's why I love like the likes like George Carlin or Anthony
• 36:24
  D'mello. It's like that book awareness
• 36:26
  was top three most influential books I've read.
• 36:29
  I'm sure there's like 100 books better in the world, thousand
• 36:32
  books better in the world. But the time when I read it just
• 36:35
  out of the military, I had three different people recommended to
• 36:37
  me. I read it.
• 36:38
  And the key take away is like, it's like we tell ourselves
• 36:42
  these stories and illusions that are not real.
• 36:46
  And if if you don't want to read the book, there's also on
• 36:49
  YouTube some of his old talks. They're very entertaining, funny
• 36:52
  about like just the illusions and stories we tell ourselves
• 36:56
  all day long and how they they suppress our enjoyment in many
• 37:01
  ways. Yeah.
• 37:03
  Yeah, so you, you've, you've done a lot of reading and and
• 37:07
  awareness for me, did hit me at the right time.
• 37:10
  So when you told me about the book, I could feel myself light
• 37:15
  up and I've been, I'm getting better and better about reading
• 37:19
  my own energy on whether or not it's the right time to do
• 37:22
  something or the wrong time. And you know, one of the things
• 37:28
  that I loved about that book, and I want to ask you about what
• 37:32
  you believe about the nature of reality, but just to set it up,
• 37:35
  is that he, he said in that book that if you completely
• 37:41
  understand the root of your suffering for anything like 100%
• 37:48
  embody it, then the suffering goes away.
• 37:54
  And there are certain narratives that I've told myself since I
• 38:00
  was very young that once I fully understand, wait, I am actually
• 38:08
  still caught up in that narrative and it's time to
• 38:13
  graduate from that narrative. You know, for example, like, I
• 38:18
  don't harbor any ill will. And I didn't prior to reading
• 38:21
  that book against all the people that picked on me as a kid
• 38:24
  because I grew up programming since I was seven.
• 38:26
  It was a very unusual growing up here in Texas.
• 38:30
  You are now, you know, a Texan. You now know that that football
• 38:35
  is like a religion here. And you know, here I am like
• 38:40
  programming over 40 hours a week from age 7 through my 20s.
• 38:45
  And that is what helped me get good at the material game is
• 38:52
  that I was like right place, right moment in history, right
• 38:57
  passion. But his genuine passion.
• 38:59
  It wasn't like a fake thing. I was never doing it because I
• 39:01
  thought this was going to make me money.
• 39:05
  I was doing it because I really thought that and I know that I
• 39:10
  was born to change the world for the better through technology.
• 39:14
  And so I've been practicing that over and over again.
• 39:16
  Every business I've started has been kind of leveling up for
• 39:20
  that. The most recent being dated out
• 39:21
  world, which has really become foundational to the enterprise
• 39:25
  AI movement. And now, you know, with love
• 39:29
  conquers fear my my my 7th venture as a holding company,
• 39:33
  which includes this podcast, but completely embodying the
• 39:39
  suffering was the biggest take away for me with that, with that
• 39:44
  book. And and I'm just curious, like,
• 39:46
  what was the biggest take away for you with awareness and what
• 39:52
  is your thesis on what is our actual reality?
• 39:56
  Like, what is this? What is this Earth school all
• 39:58
  about? I think the last question is
• 40:01
  very interesting, but to tackle the two first is when I read
• 40:06
  awareness in my, I think I just turned 20 at that point.
• 40:11
  It was, it was more like I still had like 5 years of unlearning
• 40:15
  left, but it rooted me in this belief of like illusions and
• 40:19
  stories and and. Deprogramming.
• 40:23
  That's what I call it. Yeah.
• 40:24
  And so I don't know if I like learn anything else at that
• 40:29
  point other than that. A lot of the the rat race that
• 40:34
  we put ourselves into and cultures.
• 40:36
  And that's why I was so interested in like traveling the
• 40:39
  world, backpacking after that experience.
• 40:43
  So it's like to see the world and see how people around the
• 40:47
  world are kind of all the same. It's like first, when you Start
• 40:51
  learning about multicultural, you Start learning.
• 40:54
  It's like, oh, so for you, Friday is a sacred day.
• 40:56
  For me, it's Sunday. And it's like all these like
• 40:59
  differences, like, wow, you eat that kind of food.
• 41:02
  We don't eat that food. It's like eating a horse.
• 41:05
  OK. It's not OK.
• 41:06
  This like cow's a sacred thing. It's like, wow, we're so
• 41:09
  different. But then the more you do it,
• 41:10
  it's like, no, it's kind of the same.
• 41:13
  And that was the epiphany for me.
• 41:15
  It was definitely around, like, these illusions of stories that
• 41:18
  I was telling myself. And it's not like it stops.
• 41:21
  Like I still tell myself stories that are not true.
• 41:25
  Like right now I have three young kids and I see their
• 41:27
  personalities form and it started in my head telling these
• 41:31
  stories of who they are, like extrapolating their like
• 41:35
  personalities instead of enjoying it in this moment.
• 41:38
  And I like my head goes like, where are they in 20 years where
• 41:42
  they keep on this path? And I'm projecting and like I
• 41:45
  constantly catch myself like, don't do that.
• 41:48
  So it's like this, it's this muscle that you stretch and then
• 41:53
  the more you stretch it, the IT doesn't bounce back the same way
• 41:58
  anymore to the bad habits, so to say, but it still bounces back
• 42:02
  and to the more deeper question that you finished about what we
• 42:05
  are. And I don't have a clue.
• 42:08
  And like, at the end of the day, again, I've had experiences that
• 42:13
  define my, some of my beliefs, but I don't know, I think
• 42:16
  spirituality is interesting because right now I feel like
• 42:23
  you have to believe in God or gods of some sort, or you have
• 42:27
  to believe in aliens or both. And otherwise it just kind of
• 42:33
  does not make sense. And it's easy to discredit
• 42:37
  certain pockets of isms, right? You know, muscle, you know, if,
• 42:43
  if, if you're Islamic, Jewish, that doesn't matter.
• 42:46
  Like, what do you like? It's easy to discredit or like
• 42:50
  poke holes at stuff, but like if you zoom out enough, can think
• 42:54
  about what we know what we don't know.
• 42:56
  I like this anecdote of before moving to Texas, I lived briefly
• 43:00
  in in Los Angeles where I met my wife.
• 43:03
  And I would go in the mornings, early morning, I would live in
• 43:06
  Venice Beach. I would walk to the pier and you
• 43:09
  look from the pier to the Pacific Ocean.
• 43:12
  And I like to think like us as whole humanity, not me, but like
• 43:16
  humanity. We know as much about the world
• 43:18
  and the universe as I was able to see of the Pacific Ocean from
• 43:22
  the Venice Pier, which is not a lot it.
• 43:25
  Is not a lot. Right.
• 43:26
  Even like, you know, people refer to these numbers like we
• 43:29
  know this percentage like you mentioned is like, do we know?
• 43:33
  Do we like that's true. Like, do we?
• 43:35
  I'm just talking about the dimension we can see.
• 43:37
  Yes. It's like, I don't, I don't
• 43:39
  know, like what's out there, but I would like to believe that
• 43:43
  there are powers. I sometimes call it the Big
• 43:48
  Electron. I got it from George Carlin, but
• 43:51
  it's some big electrons. It's just vibrates.
• 43:56
  It doesn't judge, you know, it just vibrates and that's
• 44:01
  interesting. 1 little tension, if you may I I mentioned I lived
• 44:05
  in Switzerland and I had a roommates and it's a weird place
• 44:11
  because you know, you have like the UN and you have like these
• 44:15
  watchmakers. And, but then there's CERN, the
• 44:18
  world's largest scientific laboratory.
• 44:21
  And, and at that point, they were still trying to find Higgs
• 44:25
  boson and they poured so much money into this thing.
• 44:27
  And a lot of my roommates were like, one guy was part of
• 44:30
  capturing the first people in the world to capture neutral
• 44:33
  antimatter. And they were like, they were
• 44:35
  like actual like geniuses in physics.
• 44:39
  And it's so interesting. And at the same time I'm reading
• 44:41
  all these like spirituality books and trying to like watch
• 44:44
  tapes of this, you know, science and non duality conference of
• 44:48
  spiritual leaders. And they're all speaking the
• 44:51
  same language. They are.
• 44:53
  It's at the end of the extreme, so to say, extreme science and
• 44:58
  extreme spirituality. They're talking about
• 45:00
  vibrations, the universe, particles, and that was a big
• 45:08
  epiphany for me is like it's the same even though in theory they
• 45:13
  are the most polar opposite beliefs of the world of because
• 45:17
  they do believe in physical form because of particle physic
• 45:21
  physics. But at the same time, like how
• 45:24
  they described the world is the same as my hippie friend in
• 45:27
  Sedona or Kauai would describe it the world.
• 45:31
  Right, right. No, I love that.
• 45:32
  And I think that the dogmatic separation between science and
• 45:39
  spirituality is part of the suffering in the world right
• 45:42
  now. Because, you know, science
• 45:44
  starts with this miracle you have to accept and grapple with,
• 45:48
  which is the miracle of The Big Bang, which is, frankly what
• 45:51
  they're trying to decode at CERN.
• 45:53
  Yes, like that's what they're trying to figure out.
• 45:54
  Yeah, it's odd particle and and totally and and what I struggle
• 45:59
  with after studying sciences, I've founded a biotech company,
• 46:04
  aesthetic chemistry. It's what I struggle is like is
• 46:08
  it's the pursuit of truth. A lot of scientists presented as
• 46:11
  the truth, right. And that to me is a huge
• 46:15
  disconnect between much of the science community, not all much
• 46:20
  of the science community and and what it was originally supposed
• 46:24
  to be. It's like the Saudis say this
• 46:28
  like that. Yeah.
• 46:29
  But like, it's the pursuit of truth and the lack of humility
• 46:32
  of that process and arrogance to say something is like, like, we
• 46:38
  know that this is the truth. It's like, do you do you know?
• 46:43
  And we constantly are reminded of the fact that we don't know
• 46:46
  by new discovery is coming in all fields or some fields more
• 46:50
  than others. And we just still arrogantly
• 46:53
  believe that this is how it is. Well, it's there's a lot more
• 46:57
  comfort in in giving yourself that internal narrative.
• 47:02
  There's a lot more comfort in saying like we have figured it
• 47:04
  all out because it's back to political parties.
• 47:09
  It's the reason why people have more comfort being either
• 47:14
  Republican or Democrat. There is actually a natural
• 47:17
  level of discomfort in being an independent.
• 47:21
  The level of discomfort is you have to hold 2 ideas as true at
• 47:25
  the same time. And if I may can't continue on
• 47:28
  to your previous question, what do I believe?
• 47:30
  I believe that the the fundamental challenge we have is
• 47:33
  that we know this physical form will die.
• 47:38
  And there are people that don't believe in that, you know, the
• 47:42
  extreme biohackers. And maybe they will eventually
• 47:45
  be right. But throughout human history,
• 47:47
  we've had this knowledge of physical death.
• 47:51
  And because of the fear of the physical death, I feel like
• 47:54
  there are these ways how people deal with that fear.
• 47:58
  Right. And not everybody tries to
• 48:02
  respond to that fear with love and surrender and non
• 48:06
  attachment, but they respond with, call it dogma or structure
• 48:13
  or rules that are very rigid because it's how they control,
• 48:20
  try to control that emotion of and of fear.
• 48:23
  Instead of like surrendering to the fear, leaning into the fear
• 48:28
  and pushing through that fear into the other side.
• 48:31
  They try to build a wall, a shelter of rules and things,
• 48:36
  which works initially it's easy, but like it's not bulletproof as
• 48:40
  time goes by. So that's a belief of the world
• 48:43
  and life that I've seen both with myself and people around
• 48:46
  me. Right.
• 48:47
  Yeah. I mean, it's, it's because the
• 48:51
  weird amnesia that we get from being reincarnated, like a lot
• 48:59
  of people will challenge me on disbelief and reincarnation
• 49:03
  because they'll say, well, why would we have this amnesia?
• 49:07
  Why would we not know about all of our past lives, etcetera.
• 49:10
  And the way I try to relate it to them is if you went to
• 49:15
  college and you had every professor say tarot, don't worry
• 49:21
  about studying that. Here's the answer key.
• 49:23
  You're going to make an A+. You would be like, hey, I'm
• 49:27
  cheated, like I'm paying all this money for college and I'm
• 49:29
  not even learning. And you would especially be
• 49:32
  offended if it was classes that you actually really wanted to
• 49:35
  do, classes that you were you were like, I love this subject.
• 49:40
  Like I really want to have that beautiful journey of exploration
• 49:45
  and so that my thesis on the reality we're living in is that
• 49:52
  this is a school earth for our souls.
• 49:56
  And ultimately we are constantly rediscovering how to manifest
• 50:01
  love, how to grow our own consciousness, how to have more
• 50:08
  experiences in consciousness to really absorb come the totality
• 50:14
  of the experience to the best ability which God is
• 50:19
  experiencing all the time or consciousness.
• 50:21
  However you want to say that is experiencing all the time
• 50:24
  through US and that the purpose is to constantly expand the
• 50:33
  capacity for love. And I actually believe that
• 50:37
  that's why the universe continues to expand.
• 50:40
  Like there was this belief for a while that the universe was
• 50:43
  collapsing back in and now we know no, it's just continues to
• 50:47
  expand. We've never spoken about this,
• 50:49
  but did you ever read or enjoy Hitchhiker's Guide to the
• 50:54
  Galaxy? One of my favorite series of all
• 50:56
  time. One of the best experiences of
• 51:00
  my life as a dad, you know you you know this from being a dad
• 51:04
  is that it's so much fun to relive some things from your
• 51:07
  childhood and and see it through your child's eyes, right.
• 51:11
  This these beautiful beings who have just this fresh slate to
• 51:17
  receive. And reading the Hitchhiker's
• 51:21
  Guide to the Galaxy, the series to our youngest child was an
• 51:26
  absolute joy. And it's really profound because
• 51:31
  Douglas Adams had so many things figured out for the time we're
• 51:37
  living in in 2025, including AI and you know, Marvin the
• 51:42
  depressed robot, etcetera, who would become self actualized.
• 51:46
  And this is like, OK, I'm vastly more intelligent than these
• 51:50
  human beings, but yet I'm just stuck in this, you know, box and
• 51:55
  so, you know, wandering around depressed all the time.
• 51:58
  And maybe this is, you know, just way how I process things
• 52:02
  and it's not perfect for others, but there are these windows like
• 52:05
  babies, psychedelics, but also humor that just allow you to
• 52:11
  grasp things that are otherwise like words are so limiting form
• 52:14
  of expression sometimes that it's like hard to put into
• 52:17
  words. And I've always found joy be
• 52:19
  like the George Carlin or the Anthony Mello, but also Douglas
• 52:23
  Adams. And like, it's just like the
• 52:25
  humor and it's so outrageous, but it's so accurate.
• 52:29
  Like in a way it is. And also like the earth being
• 52:33
  this computer. All right, you know and I and
• 52:38
  like. Processing the answer to the
• 52:39
  universe. Yeah, which we already know.
• 52:42
  It's, you know, it's 47. 42. 4242 sorry I got to read it,
• 52:47
  reread it 42 but what is the question?
• 52:50
  You know, it's like, So yeah, I, I, I, I.
• 52:53
  Don't know what the question was when the computer finally spit
• 52:57
  that one out. No, I don't.
• 52:59
  Is this like 6 * 7? Oh OK yeah, after another 10,000
• 53:04
  years of waiting. But yeah, I, it's, it's, it's
• 53:09
  just, it's, it's, yeah, we're in this like experiment laboratory
• 53:14
  in a way. And I, I do believe in that.
• 53:16
  Again, I totally could be wrong, but it doesn't make me think be
• 53:20
  it again, God, universe, vibrations, aliens, but it's
• 53:24
  it's feels like this little this little computer here going.
• 53:29
  Yeah, I mean, on the aliens front, like I definitely think
• 53:33
  that my my thesis is there's one prime creator that has created
• 53:39
  all life in the universe and that two things can be true.
• 53:44
  You can have natural selection and evolution.
• 53:46
  Totally. It was divinely triggered and
• 53:49
  divinely guided. One thing that I learned
• 53:53
  recently, I don't know if you know this, I'm just sharing
• 53:55
  knowledge. You probably already know this,
• 53:57
  but but I found it pretty fascinating is that the water on
• 54:01
  earth is actually older than the age of the sun.
• 54:04
  Did you know that? I did not know.
• 54:05
  That yeah, so. So the sun was born 4.6 billion
• 54:09
  years ago and the Earth was born 4.54 billion years ago and life
• 54:15
  has been here since 4 billion years ago.
• 54:18
  Hominids have been here for 4,000,000 years and we derive
• 54:22
  from them and Homo sapiens, you know what?
• 54:24
  We are been here for 250,000 years.
• 54:27
  So yes, we should be very humble cause in geologic time, like we
• 54:30
  haven't been here all that long, but water actually came from
• 54:38
  somewhere in interstellar space to Earth and is not all of our
• 54:44
  water, but a very big portion of our water came from space.
• 54:50
  And we know that life started on Earth from water.
• 54:54
  We know that's where it began and or at least that's the
• 54:57
  theory. We don't, I can't say that we
• 54:59
  know that for sure because we don't know that for sure because
• 55:03
  we won around 4 billion years ago to know that although God
• 55:07
  was consciousness was. So maybe we do know that we're
• 55:10
  deceiving ourselves right now, but but somewhere in inside of
• 55:14
  our souls, it knows. And that that life probably
• 55:20
  started from some water that came from somewhere else, which
• 55:25
  is pretty fascinating, right? Yeah.
• 55:26
  Was that was that was that was that God divinely guiding some
• 55:33
  aliens to say, hey, this this, this planet has the capacity for
• 55:38
  life. And so send it this or was it or
• 55:42
  or are. Aliens ourselves from the
• 55:45
  future, you know, as we've evolved.
• 55:48
  Or is our experience with angels actually experiences with quote
• 55:55
  UN quote aliens and like seeing a spaceship or some sort of
• 55:59
  creature, they both can be true. They both.
• 56:01
  Can be true. Probably are, but it's just
• 56:05
  fascinating to think about it at times, but then also come back
• 56:09
  to the present moment because you can get like really lost in
• 56:13
  that that world of yeah, it's like how deep you want to.
• 56:20
  Yeah, I mean, that's it. And, and there's a lot of, I'm
• 56:22
  sure bullshit in that world, a lot of conspiracy theories and
• 56:25
  stuff like it. Like in every world, including
• 56:27
  in religion. Yeah, there's a lot of.
• 56:30
  Or new age spirituality or there's AI know so many.
• 56:35
  I know the so much I know so much horrible stories of abuse
• 56:40
  of people in the name of, you know, in theory beautiful and
• 56:45
  you made spirituality psychedelics.
• 56:47
  There's a lot of I've heard. I've actually I've heard some
• 56:49
  more. Yeah, I know.
• 56:51
  Especially for women, I mean. And I know first hand.
• 56:53
  Just both. Yeah.
• 56:55
  Financial abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse.
• 56:59
  I mean, I know so many bad stories.
• 57:01
  So, you know, I guess like where there's darkness, there's light
• 57:05
  and vice versa. And and and and and they live
• 57:09
  together. So, well, in the, in the world
• 57:11
  of form, when people are called in that world of form, including
• 57:15
  if they are kind of professing to be very spiritually
• 57:19
  developed, they, the ones that I think are taking advantage
• 57:25
  actually aren't that developed. They're, they're saying they're
• 57:28
  developed. But I'm glad you pointed that
• 57:32
  out because, you know, for people watching this, if they
• 57:35
  have an interest in something like psychedelics, they have to
• 57:37
  be really careful where they go and who they go with and what
• 57:41
  type of intentionality. And for me personally, I don't
• 57:46
  use psychedelics at all as a party drug.
• 57:49
  I only do it for spiritual reasons.
• 57:51
  And I, I, you know, I only go around once a year and it's to
• 57:57
  have that communion with my soul.
• 58:00
  And it actually led to me to not drink alcohol anymore.
• 58:05
  I mean, now, now I don't want to give alcohol this power and say
• 58:09
  like, I'll never have alcohol because that's giving it a power
• 58:14
  over me instead. Like, look, I'm not going to be
• 58:18
  taboo about alcohol and it like Passover or something like that,
• 58:22
  you know, I'll have it for a ceremonial purpose.
• 58:25
  But I did find out through a journey that I was, I had
• 58:32
  transcended the need for it, if that makes any sense.
• 58:34
  Like, you know, I, I grew up as a programmer.
• 58:37
  That means I mostly grew up behind a computer.
• 58:39
  Alcohol was a catalyst for me to come out of my shell a little
• 58:43
  bit at some parties and like, be a little bit more social and not
• 58:46
  be as awkward, like, as a deeply, you know, introverted
• 58:50
  nerd at the time. And, and, you know, it helped
• 58:54
  our founding fathers have the gusto to sign the Declaration of
• 58:58
  Independence. They toasted it with Madera, but
• 59:03
  it really is a just a poison. I mean like you can't show me a
• 59:07
  study that has any efficacy at. All for alcohol.
• 59:11
  I mean, well, it's a, it's a Dom molecule, right?
• 59:15
  If you want to consume. I heard this.
• 59:17
  I, I, I don't know who to credit it to.
• 59:19
  So it's like humans have basic needs.
• 59:22
  And when we list those basic needs, we often leave out one
• 59:26
  basic need just because it's socially not always accepted is
• 59:31
  need to alter our state. And so, you know, food, shelter,
• 59:35
  love, but most mammals, but definitely humans, Homo sapiens
• 59:40
  have had this need for a long, long time to take something to
• 59:44
  have an altered state. And you can have the altered
• 59:48
  state and so many different tools, right?
• 59:50
  And for some reason, alcohol has become, I guess, pretty
• 59:54
  convenient to ferment beverages. But compared to some other tools
• 1:00:00
  and it's just it's, it's a pretty dumb molecule.
• 1:00:03
  It is a pretty dumb molecule. I mean, it is interesting though
• 1:00:06
  that in the Muslim religion they're anti alcohol.
• 1:00:10
  I mean, I think that's fascinating.
• 1:00:12
  So they're not succumbing to this dumb molecule.
• 1:00:16
  There is this fringe of the Muslim religion, though, that is
• 1:00:20
  succumbing to rationalizing radical jihadism, whereas we've
• 1:00:25
  transcended that in Christianity.
• 1:00:27
  There's no longer the Crusades to violently try to convert
• 1:00:32
  people and save their souls from eternal hell in Judaism, you
• 1:00:39
  know, I'm Jewish. We don't burn animals at the
• 1:00:42
  altar anymore. That was pretty stupid.
• 1:00:46
  It's crazy that we ever did that.
• 1:00:48
  But we evolve, right? And religion is something that
• 1:00:53
  have all. Yeah, I struggle with that one
• 1:00:54
  because I sometimes I feel like that and sometimes I look at I
• 1:00:59
  open social media and I feel like we've devolved.
• 1:01:03
  Is that, do you ever read Renee Gerard or.
• 1:01:07
  Yeah, So it's sometimes I feel like we have this human need to
• 1:01:13
  sacrifice something or someone, and often it's done in a violent
• 1:01:19
  Bay or aggressive way. And as the West have removed the
• 1:01:23
  actual physical violence to some exploit, I I think we've added
• 1:01:30
  other forms of violent excommunication.
• 1:01:34
  And I think that's like a pendulum that swings and now
• 1:01:37
  it's swinging back to the physical violence and some of
• 1:01:41
  these horrible things that are happening around the world at
• 1:01:44
  different cultures. And so I sometimes I'm not
• 1:01:50
  convinced that we have evolved. It's we've just transferred that
• 1:01:56
  natural instinct because we don't know how to deal with it
• 1:02:00
  into other forms of violence and sacrifice.
• 1:02:03
  And, and we are sacrificing it in and in different ways.
• 1:02:09
  And then now again, I feel like riots and physical violence are
• 1:02:14
  coming back, especially in like Europe.
• 1:02:17
  I'm, I'm, I'm not bullish on Europe at all as like culture, I
• 1:02:21
  feel like there's a lot of cleansing of the past few 100
• 1:02:25
  years that need to happen. And I I think the the radicalism
• 1:02:31
  left and right both ways is going to amplify in the in the
• 1:02:35
  upcoming decades. Yeah.
• 1:02:37
  I mean, I partially agree with that.
• 1:02:40
  I mean, you've made some really good points.
• 1:02:42
  So parts that I definitely agree with is for sure there's
• 1:02:46
  violence in the algorithms of social media that they're
• 1:02:49
  constantly trying to keep us engaged.
• 1:02:52
  They're hijacking our niggdala to sell us more, to basically
• 1:02:58
  capture more of our attention, to sell more ads.
• 1:03:02
  And it's big business. I mean, Facebook, Meta made 45
• 1:03:05
  billion in free cash flow last quarter.
• 1:03:08
  Yeah. That's why someone like Mark
• 1:03:09
  Zuckerberg can say I'm going to spend $600 billion on building
• 1:03:14
  AI data centers by 2028. He said that at the recent White
• 1:03:18
  House dinner with President Trump.
• 1:03:21
  So I I that is a form of violence.
• 1:03:24
  It's a form of mental violence. And it is hijacking us and it's
• 1:03:28
  hijacking our kids. And that's part of the reason
• 1:03:31
  why it's so important to read books like Anthony Melo and try
• 1:03:34
  to practice awareness or how to surrender to God to try to make
• 1:03:40
  yourself more immune from that type of programming.
• 1:03:44
  We're also hijacking ourselves through food, you know, as I
• 1:03:48
  cover with Jason Carp, he, he's a real expert on that.
• 1:03:52
  I'm sure you are too. And that is a form of violence.
• 1:03:56
  It's violence against our bodies.
• 1:03:58
  It's it's, it's really hijacking our bodies to keep us addicted.
• 1:04:03
  To food and I think the the balance there is that
• 1:04:07
  unconscious nature of that sometimes you know if to your
• 1:04:11
  point about alcohol, if you're very like conscious and
• 1:04:13
  thoughtful and you don't lie to yourself and you have a class of
• 1:04:17
  wine, you don't give it the power, it's actually probably
• 1:04:20
  probably fine you. Just if.
• 1:04:22
  It passes through you. It's a thing.
• 1:04:25
  Maybe not the best molecule, but it's you're not attached to it
• 1:04:28
  versus. It does make you feel like shit
• 1:04:30
  though the next day. Yeah, so like.
• 1:04:33
  You know, whereas for stigmatic mushrooms, I never feel bad.
• 1:04:35
  Totally. I'll give a more innocent
• 1:04:39
  example. Is like processed sugar is is
• 1:04:44
  pretty poisonous. It is and it's bad for a gut
• 1:04:47
  Biome, this and that, but it's also context related.
• 1:04:49
  And so like, let's assume you go, you know, you're in a
• 1:04:54
  beautiful Italian villa. You go to, you know, go to Italy
• 1:04:56
  and, and you visit someone's grandma and they make you a
• 1:05:00
  little panna culta. And it's definitely made into
• 1:05:03
  processed white sugar. And you have a meal and the meal
• 1:05:06
  is surrounded by love and communion and this.
• 1:05:09
  And then you have the panna cotta that's made with love.
• 1:05:12
  And it's what you are poisoning yourself technically, but then
• 1:05:17
  you're not so tied to that feeling.
• 1:05:19
  Yes. Another way to say it is I have
• 1:05:22
  been spent my last 20 plus years in the health and Wellness
• 1:05:25
  community and I've met some of the quote UN quote healthiest
• 1:05:28
  people on earth. Many of these health experts
• 1:05:30
  don't look or feel that healthy, with couple notable exceptions.
• 1:05:34
  I meet them in person, I spend time with them and they're like,
• 1:05:37
  yeah, yeah, you have, you have all kinds of issues here.
• 1:05:41
  And they often actually use it to sell it.
• 1:05:43
  Like they have this dramatic weight loss story or whatever
• 1:05:46
  healing story and it's, it's like, I think you're still sick
• 1:05:49
  even though you lost 60 lbs or something.
• 1:05:52
  It's like you don't that's not that balanced.
• 1:05:53
  And then I go hang out with, you know, one of my friends who is
• 1:05:56
  just the surfer who eats like burrito with tater tots
• 1:06:00
  afterwards. And they're just glowing of joy
• 1:06:03
  and energy. And the diet is so so you know,
• 1:06:07
  but there is other factors that tie into I agree.
• 1:06:13
  And the intention back to these poisons and moments like it's
• 1:06:20
  it's contextual. And I think it also comes down
• 1:06:22
  to how often you do something and like at what context?
• 1:06:28
  And people who are very attached to be it a religion or be it to
• 1:06:32
  a belief, they have to get very tight and this tightness becomes
• 1:06:38
  their prison, right? In a way that's right.
• 1:06:41
  Again, words don't explain things well and I'm not probably
• 1:06:45
  not doing it justice. There.
• 1:06:46
  Is a freedom looseness in love? That's right, celebrity.
• 1:06:53
  It's, it's a levity, an outward energy versus the fear hasn't
• 1:06:59
  kind of inward tightness that I've experienced with myself
• 1:07:04
  having fear or people around me having fear.
• 1:07:07
  And usually it does end up in a worse place, even though on
• 1:07:11
  paper, intellectually it's like, well, I eat this clean and I do
• 1:07:15
  this yoga and Pilates and practice and meditate and breath
• 1:07:18
  work. And, but like you're sick all
• 1:07:20
  the time and you say it's because of this gut parasite
• 1:07:24
  that you're now cleansing in India for this thing.
• 1:07:27
  But like, I think it's probably something emotional or spiritual
• 1:07:31
  that it's blocking this energy versus this person who is like,
• 1:07:36
  not even nearly perfect, but they have love, you know?
• 1:07:40
  Yeah, I that's extremely well said.
• 1:07:43
  And I think I think people will exactly know where you're coming
• 1:07:46
  from with that. And one that one of the things
• 1:07:49
  that made me think of is, you know, one of the guys that's
• 1:07:53
  really rising in the health movement right now is this guy
• 1:07:56
  Brian Johnson. And he's this, he's the pioneer
• 1:07:59
  of this don't die movement, right?
• 1:08:02
  And he's giving a lot of power to not dying a lot of power.
• 1:08:08
  And I knew him actually before I don't know him now.
• 1:08:12
  He would know me and I'll, I'm sure I'll invite him on the
• 1:08:14
  podcast. But but he he probably would
• 1:08:17
  Remember Me, but I knew him back before he became this kind of
• 1:08:22
  health aficionado. And what I remember of him is he
• 1:08:29
  had sold his company. He was very wealthy.
• 1:08:31
  He did not seem happy. He seemed like he was suffering
• 1:08:37
  and had and was kind of seeking like what is his next cause
• 1:08:41
  going to be and had realized, I think, hey, the answer wasn't
• 1:08:46
  money. It never is that that that's not
• 1:08:49
  like the the path to your happiness, as we've already
• 1:08:53
  discussed. And my only concern about that
• 1:08:58
  his current incarnation of what he's doing is he's given a lot
• 1:09:03
  of power to not dying as is, you know, we've discussed with
• 1:09:08
  spirituality. He's given a lot of power to
• 1:09:11
  kind of like you only live once and he's making big trade-offs
• 1:09:16
  as a result. Like he goes to bed, I think at
• 1:09:18
  6:00 PM at night, maybe it's 8:00 PM.
• 1:09:22
  He doesn't eat, I think after 2:00 PM every day.
• 1:09:27
  So he kind of jokes around that he's being serious that he's,
• 1:09:31
  he's going to be a difficult person to find a mate now.
• 1:09:35
  You know, you got a divorce and he that he's because you know,
• 1:09:39
  he, he's, he's not going to be the one eating the panna cotta
• 1:09:42
  at 8:00 PM. It's a beautiful place in
• 1:09:45
  France. And he's not going to do it
• 1:09:49
  because as humans, we can fall on the trap of having
• 1:09:52
  consistency bias where you go, you give, you know, like me
• 1:09:57
  declaring like I don't drink alcohol.
• 1:09:59
  If I give so much consistency bias to that that I never will
• 1:10:04
  drink it, then I'm giving you a lot of power.
• 1:10:07
  And that power will control you and consume you as opposed to,
• 1:10:14
  you know, being free about it and just saying, look, I'm going
• 1:10:17
  to choose most of the time never to drink alcohol because I know
• 1:10:20
  it's poison. But if I was at that French
• 1:10:23
  woman's dinner and she offered me a glass of wine, yeah, I'd
• 1:10:28
  have a glass of wine, and I would definitely eat the panna
• 1:10:30
  cotta, and I would enjoy the moment.
• 1:10:34
  You know, I mean, those types of moments are honestly what life
• 1:10:37
  is all about. Like when I think about the most
• 1:10:40
  important moments in my entire life, they have been the moments
• 1:10:45
  where I'm in the most loving state that I could have possibly
• 1:10:49
  been in. The birth of our children, you
• 1:10:51
  know, that was like a communion and that was unbelievable.
• 1:10:55
  You know, my roadshow for Bizarre Voice and all the people
• 1:11:02
  that I knew that was going to impact.
• 1:11:04
  And now there's been more than 60 companies started by former
• 1:11:07
  Bizarre Voice people. And I set this goal.
• 1:11:09
  It was the wrong goal. It was, it was a I'm embarrassed
• 1:11:13
  to say this was the goal, but I set this goal when I was 25 that
• 1:11:17
  I'd found a company and take it public by the time I turned 40,
• 1:11:19
  I turned 40 on the IPO roadshow. But it was, but it was a
• 1:11:23
  euphoric feeling. And then I realized after going
• 1:11:27
  public, it was the wrong goal in the 1st place.
• 1:11:30
  Well, and but but but but the impact it had like the more.
• 1:11:33
  Than well, that's The funny thing is let's you know, be
• 1:11:38
  Brian or someone else. There's often like a hammer
• 1:11:41
  looking for a nail and then they move from material accumulation
• 1:11:46
  or professional success to in this case, like biohacking.
• 1:11:51
  And they're very valuable to society to progress.
• 1:11:55
  Like we can learn a lot from the longevity experiments that Brian
• 1:11:59
  are making Absolutely. And same way as build, he build
• 1:12:02
  a company that like I use daily, I think, but like regularly has
• 1:12:07
  helped people transact with each other.
• 1:12:10
  That's right. So he has when you are a hammer
• 1:12:14
  looking for a nail, you build a lot of houses.
• 1:12:16
  That's right. And you provide other people a
• 1:12:18
  lot of shelter. That's right.
• 1:12:19
  But it might leave you as the hammer a little empty unless you
• 1:12:25
  realize that, like, you don't always need those nails.
• 1:12:29
  So in the case of like him or others, like, I respect those
• 1:12:33
  people because they provide a lot of value, like humanity.
• 1:12:37
  Without knowing him personally, I do worry.
• 1:12:40
  Is like, is he OK? Yeah, Doesn't.
• 1:12:44
  Yeah. Anyway, Yeah, that's that's his.
• 1:12:46
  Thing no, I agree. I mean, I, I, I do want to make
• 1:12:49
  the point that I think he is doing a lot of good and that
• 1:12:53
  there are people that need the kind of shock treatment that
• 1:12:59
  he's proposing because it is a shock treatment.
• 1:13:01
  I mean, it is a radical change. And, and one of the things about
• 1:13:05
  dieting in general is it is a radical change.
• 1:13:09
  One of the things I, I learned recently, you know, my friend
• 1:13:13
  Byron Reese, who I've had on this podcast, one of my best
• 1:13:18
  friends, you know, incredible author.
• 1:13:21
  He was the one that taught me that we have the second most
• 1:13:25
  neurons in our body, in our gut. And one of the things I learned
• 1:13:30
  later is that when we change our diet, let's say that we change
• 1:13:35
  to become a vegetarian, like a vegetarian for for 15 years.
• 1:13:40
  We, when I made that change, like my, I had to have a
• 1:13:46
  digestive reset and it's because the Biome had the restart in a
• 1:13:52
  way. And because you have so many
• 1:13:54
  neurons in there, they will scream out and send pain signals
• 1:13:58
  to your brain. And so, and I don't care what
• 1:14:01
  your diet is, if like all you consume is fast food, If you
• 1:14:04
  change from a fast food diet to Whole Foods diet, you're going
• 1:14:08
  to have that pain for a little while because your gut Biome has
• 1:14:11
  to reset. And, and they're, they're
• 1:14:15
  people, I'm quite sure that Brian Johnson is helping that
• 1:14:20
  need that intervention. They need a pattern interrupt
• 1:14:24
  because they know inside like every year they're becoming more
• 1:14:29
  sluggish, fatter, you know, more unhealthy.
• 1:14:34
  You know, my case, my dad died from a single heart attack when
• 1:14:37
  he was 63. It's part of the reason I'm a
• 1:14:39
  health nut is because, you know, I both miss him, but you know,
• 1:14:47
  he, he did. I will say that that he did for
• 1:14:53
  sure live a life that he loved and he for sure had a lot of fun
• 1:14:58
  in his life. Like when he passed away.
• 1:15:01
  The only thing that we could say about it is that he lived his
• 1:15:06
  entire life like he was on vacation.
• 1:15:09
  In the book I just finished, which I recommended to you
• 1:15:11
  before we start this recording, and I'd recommend to everybody,
• 1:15:15
  is a book that was introduced to me in August, which is called
• 1:15:18
  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
• 1:15:22
  And in many ways, it's the story of my dad.
• 1:15:26
  And I think that there's a reason that I literally finished
• 1:15:30
  reading it the minute before you walked in our house to do this
• 1:15:33
  recording. Yeah, related to that theme.
• 1:15:36
  A trippy thing I somebody told me as I was starting this
• 1:15:41
  journey of unlearning deprogramming, was that like,
• 1:15:44
  hey, what if everybody regrets something on their deathbed?
• 1:15:49
  So for, for a moment, I'm not saying that's true, but let's
• 1:15:51
  assume it's true. You will regret something when
• 1:15:55
  you're going to die. That's not optional, but what
• 1:16:00
  you regret is up to your free will.
• 1:16:03
  That's right. And that was an interesting like
• 1:16:04
  thought that I spend years thinking about is like, wow,
• 1:16:09
  what if that's true? What if I will regret something?
• 1:16:13
  Maybe what do I don't want to regret?
• 1:16:15
  And I think there's a lot of value in thinking about death,
• 1:16:20
  either physical or spiritual death, if there's many kinds of
• 1:16:22
  death. But like, it's like, what do you
• 1:16:25
  want to stand for? Not everything is possible.
• 1:16:27
  And I think to put people will come to different conclusions,
• 1:16:31
  but I personally, I don't want to be trapped in fear and I have
• 1:16:38
  fear all the time, everyday. But like, it's, it's a feeling
• 1:16:41
  I, I hope to like lean into and go push past through it that if
• 1:16:46
  possible. So I want to, I want to shift to
• 1:16:49
  talk about AI and this age that we're living in, You know, that
• 1:16:55
  I'm operating from this place that I think humanity has the
• 1:17:00
  next 10 to 15 years to ultimately use our free will to
• 1:17:06
  decide to make it to what I'm calling the age abundance for
• 1:17:09
  all, which is really using this exponentially accelerating
• 1:17:15
  technology of AI, quantum computing, robotics, brain
• 1:17:20
  computer interfaces to manifest abundance that we can't imagine
• 1:17:25
  today. And I think you would agree that
• 1:17:30
  today, humanity, for the most part, this isn't true across the
• 1:17:35
  world or even across the United States, is living in abundance
• 1:17:40
  that we could not imagine 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200
• 1:17:46
  years ago, that most of humanity has been lifted up out of deep,
• 1:17:53
  deep poverty and starvation. It still exists in the world.
• 1:17:59
  Most of humanity has overcome slavery.
• 1:18:03
  It still exists in the world. You know, one of my friends
• 1:18:07
  who's going to be on this podcast is going to be talking
• 1:18:11
  about sex trafficking, which is a very difficult subject.
• 1:18:15
  We'd mostly transcended that. But it still exists in the
• 1:18:17
  world, right? So there's still like really
• 1:18:19
  some dire suffering, but the age of abundance for all what I'm
• 1:18:26
  talking about is being able to create abundance in the most
• 1:18:29
  poor parts of the United States, the most rural parts and the
• 1:18:32
  most rural parts of Africa, you know, across the world.
• 1:18:37
  And I'm just curious how you personally think about that in
• 1:18:41
  this AI moment. You know, your kids are young.
• 1:18:45
  They're never going to know a world that existed before AI.
• 1:18:49
  They won't, they won't remember that world.
• 1:18:52
  You know, you and I cannot. We can still think about what
• 1:18:59
  the world was like before the Internet, but we're part of the
• 1:19:03
  last generation that will ever know that world in our oldest
• 1:19:10
  child is part of the Gen. Z, and we're talking about Gen.
• 1:19:14
  Z yesterday and the difference between because she got offended
• 1:19:17
  because I accidentally called her a millennial.
• 1:19:19
  It's like, Dad, I'm not a millennial.
• 1:19:20
  And I'm like, well, let's look at the differences.
• 1:19:22
  And I was like, wow, you're right.
• 1:19:24
  You know, this Gen. Z is like so different and it
• 1:19:28
  really nailed, nailed her. And she said, see, I told you
• 1:19:31
  every generation just gets better and better.
• 1:19:34
  And she was right, you know, like it is a much more
• 1:19:38
  purposeful, much more meaning seeking generation.
• 1:19:42
  This Gen. Z and your kids, I'm sure will
• 1:19:44
  be a better generation than her. And, and I'm just curious how
• 1:19:49
  you think about this moment, you know, for for your kids and for
• 1:19:53
  humanity. I oscillate between like this
• 1:19:57
  whole full and slightly the negative fearful part a lot in
• 1:20:01
  this specific area and depends on the moment.
• 1:20:05
  So there are moments when I'm detached from it.
• 1:20:12
  So back to George Carlin. He has the joke about like, why
• 1:20:16
  are we here? It's because of plastic.
• 1:20:19
  Earth needed plastic. Didn't know how to make it.
• 1:20:22
  So it had to create us to make plastic.
• 1:20:24
  Now that we've created plastic, Earth doesn't need us anymore.
• 1:20:28
  So like, pack our packs, we're ready to go.
• 1:20:31
  And my love for fungi, the fungi have been here.
• 1:20:35
  The first thing to come out of the oceans to dry land.
• 1:20:38
  You know, they are in every level of the atmosphere for us.
• 1:20:42
  So they probably came from space on a meteorite.
• 1:20:44
  Maybe they spurred culture and but us, you know, Homo sapiens
• 1:20:49
  were pretty fragile at the end of the day.
• 1:20:51
  So there are moments where it's like the only way out is through
• 1:20:56
  consciousness, loving ourselves and others.
• 1:20:59
  And there's this, this feeling at times, then there's the
• 1:21:02
  practical feeling of of like, hey, well, how does this look
• 1:21:06
  like? And every generation has been
• 1:21:08
  better than the previous in some areas, in some areas, it's not
• 1:21:12
  like right now in the past few years, life expectancy is
• 1:21:15
  declining. So we are devolving for the
• 1:21:19
  first real time physically, reproductive health is in a
• 1:21:24
  rapid decline and for a bunch of reasons.
• 1:21:26
  And it might be actually worse for girls, women, we just
• 1:21:30
  haven't measured as long. So in certain areas, Gen.
• 1:21:34
  C or Generation Alpha will make us look so stupid.
• 1:21:39
  And then in other areas they might have their own problems
• 1:21:42
  that we're facing, similar to us and baby boomers and the Great
• 1:21:46
  Generation. So the answer is probably a
• 1:21:49
  little bit black. You know, it's not like black or
• 1:21:52
  white, but it's. Gray.
• 1:21:53
  Gray is like in in what areas? And I think this interaction
• 1:21:57
  between AI and and humans and AI and our kids will be an area
• 1:22:03
  that will be so drastically different.
• 1:22:06
  When my oldest kid was like 4 1/2, just 10 years from now, I
• 1:22:12
  can't even imagine what his life is going to be.
• 1:22:15
  I literally cannot. The interactions and the
• 1:22:19
  creativity and the use cases and robotics.
• 1:22:21
  I can't even. I yeah, I don't, I don't know.
• 1:22:25
  And but it will. I what I feel fairly confident
• 1:22:28
  is that whatever it is, it will come very naturally to them
• 1:22:33
  because they've grown up with it.
• 1:22:36
  And even though maybe technology evolves much, much, much faster
• 1:22:40
  than humanity, I still believe that the children will adopt
• 1:22:46
  different unique ways really quickly, whatever the technology
• 1:22:50
  is and the outcomes of that. I, I can't even extrapolate.
• 1:22:54
  I can't even extrapolate a couple years now.
• 1:22:57
  But I feel like a lot of goodwill come out of it and a
• 1:23:01
  lot of bad things will come out of it, but they might be in
• 1:23:04
  different areas of of of the lived experience.
• 1:23:09
  You know, the the book LSD in the Mind of the Universe by
• 1:23:13
  Chris Bosh, chapters 9 through 11 of that, I've reread several
• 1:23:18
  Times Now. I've read the whole book, but I
• 1:23:20
  reread those chapters several Times Now.
• 1:23:23
  And I was having this conversation with John Mackey,
• 1:23:26
  who starts out his book, the whole story, you know, founder
• 1:23:30
  of Whole Foods. You, you psychedelics.
• 1:23:31
  Yeah. And that was the psychedelic
• 1:23:33
  journey that got him over the hump, the fear to start Whole
• 1:23:37
  Foods. You know, it's a real tell all.
• 1:23:40
  It's a great book. I mean, it's one of my my
• 1:23:42
  favorite books, but one of the things that that he talks about
• 1:23:48
  in LSD in the Mind of the Universe is how we're built for
• 1:23:51
  evolutionary speed. You know, think about the fact
• 1:23:54
  that we've only been here on Earth for 250,000 years and it
• 1:23:58
  was almost over during the Ice Age.
• 1:24:01
  Like we almost were extinguished by the Super volcano event that
• 1:24:06
  made us suffer. We got down to somewhere between
• 1:24:09
  the 800 and several thousand Homo sapiens and the human
• 1:24:12
  experiment is almost over. You know, we, we, we are
• 1:24:15
  fragile. And the thing that fascinates me
• 1:24:20
  about humanity is how fast we can adapt.
• 1:24:23
  Like, like I use AI many times a day.
• 1:24:26
  I use all the major models at this point and I get this awe
• 1:24:33
  and delight of the first time I used AI agents.
• 1:24:38
  The first time they used the comment web browser by
• 1:24:40
  perplexity and went to Amazon and pull up an AI agent on the
• 1:24:44
  side of the browser and had it just do the shopping for me.
• 1:24:48
  It's pretty wild to see it take over the browser and do it, but
• 1:24:52
  then you very quickly just get used to it as the new norm.
• 1:24:56
  I mean really, really fast actually and.
• 1:25:00
  And probably even faster for children or teenagers.
• 1:25:03
  Very for us, even if they might not be technologically as savvy
• 1:25:08
  in certain areas, they're faster, they don't have the
• 1:25:11
  baggage over the past habits the same way.
• 1:25:14
  Yeah, Yeah. So I mean, you know, just plain
• 1:25:17
  futurist hat here. I'm curious.
• 1:25:19
  The tarot futurist. Yeah.
• 1:25:21
  Hat where do you think we're out in 10 years with with with this,
• 1:25:26
  with this movement? Another quote that I don't know
• 1:25:28
  where I got whoever accredited, but like the drugs, our future
• 1:25:34
  computers and computers are future drugs.
• 1:25:37
  And I do think that is a path where we're headed towards like
• 1:25:41
  to Brian Johnson's and others. Like I do believe that we can
• 1:25:45
  use computer or AI to solve a lot of problems, including
• 1:25:51
  health, disease, diseases, but there will be a level of the
• 1:25:55
  mind that you're going to need psychedelics.
• 1:25:58
  In this case, drugs refers to in my head as to psychedelics that
• 1:26:01
  the computers can solve. I guess the best the closest
• 1:26:05
  anecdote I could give is from the Dune book series of like
• 1:26:11
  that. There is a point when computers
• 1:26:13
  become very strong and there's this going to be this Butlerian
• 1:26:16
  jihad, a clash between thinking computers and humans.
• 1:26:20
  And I hope humans win. But at the same time like we
• 1:26:25
  have to evolve through the past species so the the Guild learns
• 1:26:31
  to evolve certain human species to use high doses of
• 1:26:35
  psychedelics to fold space so they can do interstellar travel
• 1:26:40
  without thinking computer. That's the spice and doom, yes.
• 1:26:45
  I don't know if it's like that extreme that's specific, but I
• 1:26:48
  do believe that there is something around our minds, and
• 1:26:52
  particularly minds on psychedelics that weirdly is the
• 1:26:56
  thing that the thinking computers cannot do.
• 1:27:00
  Well, but that's because I think that we have a soul and that
• 1:27:05
  we're having a communion with our soul or with heaven or
• 1:27:08
  source or consciousness, whatever you want to call it.
• 1:27:12
  God, when you do a journey and you're seeing this reality
• 1:27:19
  beyond, and once you've seen that, you can't Unsee it.
• 1:27:21
  Yeah, it's not like you can go back and just pretend like that
• 1:27:24
  didn't happen. You're like, no, I saw that and
• 1:27:27
  it was real. Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 1:27:30
  And I do think there is history. I don't think it repeats itself
• 1:27:36
  per SE. I actually don't believe in that
• 1:27:38
  saying that history repeats itself, but there are patterns
• 1:27:42
  of particularly human ex lived experience that manifest in
• 1:27:45
  different ways. So maybe it rhymes, maybe that's
• 1:27:47
  a better. So I do think there's going to
• 1:27:50
  be a clash. And then at some point, I don't
• 1:27:52
  know if it's in five years, 10 years, probably polarity, like
• 1:27:58
  there will be more tension between groups of humans too,
• 1:28:03
  amplified by technology. And we need to go through this
• 1:28:06
  rebirth. And I think it's very normal to
• 1:28:09
  go through these cycles of rebirth.
• 1:28:11
  And I think AI will evolve a lot more, like a lot, lot more.
• 1:28:16
  And we're going to try to hang on.
• 1:28:17
  And then it needs to be like a reset.
• 1:28:20
  And often the resets are some sort of wars, you know, the
• 1:28:24
  World War 2 or whatever. And then you hope you come out
• 1:28:28
  better on the other side. Ice Age, you know, the polar
• 1:28:32
  shifting, magnetic reversal of the poles or some other
• 1:28:38
  catastrophes. Some are created by ourselves,
• 1:28:41
  some created by something else. And then we rebuild from that.
• 1:28:45
  And that's normal societies. Cultures have been born and
• 1:28:48
  died. And I think AI will follow that
• 1:28:51
  pattern. How unfolds, it's completely
• 1:28:54
  beyond my intelligence and comprehension.
• 1:28:57
  I'm not even guessing but what I for example with my kids like I
• 1:29:01
  really don't care about like formal education at all.
• 1:29:06
  Like I have no even language. Like I I had to learn 6
• 1:29:10
  languages and people always ask me like do you know Finnish?
• 1:29:15
  Like my kids know Finnish and I like teach them some words, but
• 1:29:18
  they're far from fluent. I also don't care.
• 1:29:21
  Like today, you can go to Amazon and buy for $20 a little
• 1:29:24
  earpiece that will translate 50 languages.
• 1:29:26
  Or Pearl and Apple just came. Yeah.
• 1:29:28
  So now, so then that's not even AI.
• 1:29:30
  That's like a little physical engineering.
• 1:29:33
  We're in the Babel fish. Yeah, that's nothing.
• 1:29:35
  So like what is like language even matters.
• 1:29:40
  So there's some things I really don't care.
• 1:29:42
  I like, I'm much, I much more care about them learning other
• 1:29:47
  things like I, I don't care about their profession.
• 1:29:51
  Maybe it's very like white privilege way to think about it
• 1:29:55
  too. But like I I really think by the
• 1:29:57
  time there are even teenagers, most of that is in the past.
• 1:30:02
  Yeah, I mean, people ask me right now what should their kids
• 1:30:06
  study, and I always say whatever they want.
• 1:30:08
  Yeah, I, I, I mean, like, I, I have a friend who about 20 years
• 1:30:14
  ago, the book The World is Flat came out by Thomas Friedman and
• 1:30:18
  he stopped his son from programming.
• 1:30:20
  And I said, I'm so glad you weren't my mom because what
• 1:30:24
  you're doing is idiotic. And he was like, what do you
• 1:30:27
  mean? He's like, there's not going to
• 1:30:28
  be any jobs in this field. Everything's going to go to
• 1:30:31
  India. The other world is flat.
• 1:30:32
  Now they'll just, they'll just do all the programming jobs.
• 1:30:36
  And now we're in this age with AI where people are like, Nope,
• 1:30:39
  that's it. AI is just going to do all the
• 1:30:41
  programming. Just stop and it's so stupid
• 1:30:43
  because to to think like assistance level thinker.
• 1:30:49
  You'll actually be way better with AI.
• 1:30:52
  And if you actually understand, it's the arrogance that we
• 1:30:55
  talked with the about the scientist that like, it's like
• 1:30:58
  you lose your curiosity. So with my kids, I care more
• 1:31:01
  about things like, do they know how to swim?
• 1:31:04
  And like, do they? When we spend a lot of time in
• 1:31:07
  forests in the summer in Finland and we pick mushrooms and
• 1:31:10
  berries. And I believe that there are
• 1:31:13
  things they're learning that will transfer to any society
• 1:31:16
  much greater than then memorizing something unless
• 1:31:19
  they're really into, like, one of them is like, really into
• 1:31:21
  like, right now memorizing certain things.
• 1:31:24
  But it comes intuitively, like nobody's really pushing him to
• 1:31:28
  memorize anything. He's just like he's into it
• 1:31:30
  right now. Yeah.
• 1:31:32
  So where where do you think? Well, let me ask you it this
• 1:31:37
  way. How do you personally think
• 1:31:40
  humanity's going to make it to this age?
• 1:31:43
  Like, where do you think will crossover the Rubicon?
• 1:31:45
  Yeah, the positive vision of how we'd make it.
• 1:31:49
  Like how do you think that happens?
• 1:31:51
  Yeah, like I said, I oscillate between the positive and I do, I
• 1:31:56
  do on most days. I feel that we will make it and
• 1:32:00
  why I believe we'll make it is not.
• 1:32:02
  I don't know what the map will look like to making it, but I
• 1:32:06
  feel like we are very adaptable as a species and we do believe
• 1:32:12
  in it. And I do think the map will have
• 1:32:14
  some elements of increased consciousness, love to yourself
• 1:32:20
  at least like loving yourself. And I don't think like material
• 1:32:26
  for example, is like a solve for it.
• 1:32:28
  And I think going through that path too deep, we'll end up in
• 1:32:32
  bad places. Now hard work and
• 1:32:34
  entrepreneurship are important. Like I do believe in those like,
• 1:32:38
  and sometimes people think, no, you can't have one way or the
• 1:32:42
  other. It's like, I do think they can
• 1:32:43
  coexist. So I, I, I think the path is
• 1:32:48
  around slowing down. I think there are a lot of
• 1:32:52
  physical gateways that can help us reach.
• 1:32:57
  So it's like the physical elements of our form are like
• 1:33:01
  the white belt or the blue belt of karate.
• 1:33:03
  The black belt is like the sole and like the brown belt.
• 1:33:07
  Is that like the mind or whatever an anecdote you want to
• 1:33:10
  say? But you cannot get the black
• 1:33:12
  belt before you have the blue belt.
• 1:33:15
  And I think the big unlock for a lot of people is their physical
• 1:33:18
  form and that is the food they eat, that how they breathe.
• 1:33:23
  A lot of people don't know how to breathe, detachment from
• 1:33:27
  nature. And these are not the be all end
• 1:33:29
  all, but by focusing on the physical form, we'll unlock the
• 1:33:33
  next levels of us as humanity. And I'm really worried about the
• 1:33:39
  increases of illnesses and obesity and gut Biome and and
• 1:33:45
  many, many things like they're they're all these kind of
• 1:33:48
  symptoms that I could list for hours.
• 1:33:50
  You know, I know you and Jason talked about some of the issues,
• 1:33:52
  but but I think the way out is the basics in the time of crisis
• 1:34:00
  don't like over complicate it. Don't overthink it.
• 1:34:03
  Focus on the basics like breath, you know, slowing down.
• 1:34:09
  I think we need most of us need a dopamine reset.
• 1:34:14
  We we are over addicted to to dopamine.
• 1:34:18
  I think we don't get the nutrients.
• 1:34:20
  We get excess calories, not enough nutrients and we're
• 1:34:24
  constantly deprived of sleep, nutrients, connection with
• 1:34:28
  nature, love. And that is not the way through
• 1:34:33
  this revolution. It's the opposite.
• 1:34:36
  Yeah, so. I think it's back to the basics.
• 1:34:39
  Yeah, it's, it reminds me of the Dell Duchene.
• 1:34:41
  Yeah, it's walk in the way. Yeah.
• 1:34:44
  And it's, it's some of the elements are so unpredictable
• 1:34:48
  and so uncontrollable. Even if you're the leading AI
• 1:34:51
  expert in the world, you have no clue, I think what's going to
• 1:34:54
  happen. And we see this with stock
• 1:34:56
  market. The incentive is that they're
• 1:34:57
  the best stock market investors to always know the right answers
• 1:35:00
  and they don't, right. So I think control what you can
• 1:35:04
  control, which is literally like chopped wood and carry water and
• 1:35:10
  that and then be curious about the rest, but like stay focused
• 1:35:15
  on the day-to-day. That's kind of how I look at it.
• 1:35:18
  Buy them. But there's will be a lot of
• 1:35:20
  opportunities for great things for humanity.
• 1:35:24
  I just don't know what they are, but it's it's also very
• 1:35:27
  exciting. It is very exciting and this is
• 1:35:30
  probably a layup for you based on everything we just talked
• 1:35:33
  about that What are you personally doing to make sure we
• 1:35:35
  make it to that age? I've the last couple years, I've
• 1:35:40
  become much more inward. Before I had kids, I would go to
• 1:35:45
  all these events and conferences and, and like give speeches and
• 1:35:50
  talks. And it was very like outward to
• 1:35:53
  this personal brand. And ever since having kids, I
• 1:35:58
  spent time with a lot less people and it's, it's more
• 1:36:03
  inward. So I just mostly, maybe it's
• 1:36:08
  selfish, but I focus on a very small group of humans and trying
• 1:36:11
  to help myself and those people around me.
• 1:36:15
  I know there's probably an opportunity to do good podcast.
• 1:36:19
  I have a YouTube show I'm relaunching.
• 1:36:22
  I did it for a year, it grew to 140,000 subscribers and now I'm
• 1:36:26
  kind of real doing it. What's what's that called?
• 1:36:29
  I'm actually changing the name. It's called the Spore, but OK.
• 1:36:32
  But yeah, the spore. But yeah, I'm, I'm, I think I, I
• 1:36:38
  once read. How do you say this in English?
• 1:36:42
  St. Francis, the CC.
• 1:36:44
  Right. That's right.
• 1:36:44
  Yeah. The more he learned about God,
• 1:36:47
  the quieter he became. Stopped talking about God and I
• 1:36:51
  think. Anthony Mello talks about that
• 1:36:53
  too. And awareness.
• 1:36:55
  But I'm pretty focused on on, on like being present with my kids.
• 1:37:02
  And I don't know if I have that broad of an impact right now.
• 1:37:05
  But I mean, I build companies and I do things and they have
• 1:37:08
  there's impact beyond my horizon that I can't comprehend.
• 1:37:12
  But compared to what I did five years ago, I'm living a pretty
• 1:37:17
  inwardly focused life. Yeah, well, I can at least give
• 1:37:21
  you credit for changing my life and all the people I know that
• 1:37:26
  are fellow 4 stigmatic friends. And I think I've gotten you a
• 1:37:30
  lot of business because yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:34
  Like, do you want me to make a smoothie?
• 1:37:35
  And they usually say yes. And they're like, wow, this is
• 1:37:37
  delicious. They start buying your products.
• 1:37:39
  Yeah, I guess 4 Sigmatic is now launching at Costco.
• 1:37:43
  So a lot of Americans go to Costco, so giving them we're.
• 1:37:47
  Costco fans cup of consciousness.
• 1:37:50
  So Costco is one of the best run American companies.
• 1:37:54
  Pays their employees very well. Very strong culture.
• 1:37:59
  And actually one of the things I know from Costco is I'm pretty
• 1:38:02
  sure their margins are tied at between 5 and 13% on all
• 1:38:07
  products. They never allowed more than
• 1:38:09
  that in terms of margin. So you really know you're buying
• 1:38:12
  it. I can tell from first time
• 1:38:14
  experience selling to them versus selling to others.
• 1:38:17
  They basically just the margins they take is their logistics,
• 1:38:21
  warehousing and people cost they, they they don't make
• 1:38:25
  really money selling for Sigmatic.
• 1:38:26
  That's right, the money they make is in the membership and
• 1:38:29
  the rest is given as value to the member.
• 1:38:31
  I think 75% of their profits comes from the membership.
• 1:38:34
  Yeah, it's 75%. Yeah.
• 1:38:37
  But hey, I love this. I really appreciate it, my
• 1:38:39
  friend. I'm really thankful to have you
• 1:38:42
  as such a good friend. For having me on and I'm.
• 1:38:44
  I'm excited to where this goes and the project and the business
• 1:38:48
  that will be birthed from this. I'm excited.
• 1:38:49
  You bet. You bet.
• 1:38:51
  Yeah. Hello.
• 1:38:51
  The Journey. It's it's it's a pleasure.
• 1:38:53
  Well, thanks everybody for tuning in to another episode of
• 1:38:57
  Love Conquers fear. Stay tuned.
• 1:39:00
  Lot of incredible people coming up, some brilliant scientist
• 1:39:05
  investors. I'm going to be recording soon
• 1:39:10
  with Mike Maples junior who wrote one of my favorite books
• 1:39:14
  called Pattern Breakers. He's been a long time investor
• 1:39:16
  in me and is one of the all time legendary seed investors and
• 1:39:23
  lots of other amazing people. So look forward to to continuing
• 1:39:29
  to put these out there and hopefully it's making a lot of
• 1:39:32
  impact in your life and, and, and hopefully you're sharing it.
• 1:39:36
  I would really appreciate you getting the word out so that we
• 1:39:39
  can get this knowledge to more people.
• 1:39:42
  Thanks again.