Latest / Life with Bitcoin / "What Are You Building For?" | Journey Over Legacy w/ Adam O'Brien
Transcript
- 0:00We think about our emotions as if they're like this all-encompassing power that just has to be harnessed.
- 0:06But I would probably think we actually want and need our emotions to be driving us towards the vision we have for our life.
- 0:15And if they're getting in the way, and if you're that person that's like always losing his mind and no one can talk to you and no one can issue or offer you feedback,
- 0:23you've got to look in the mirror and at some point just be like, okay, what's the next most important thing that I can do?
- 0:30towards changing. Welcome to Live with Bitcoin, where we delve into the human set of Bitcoin by
- 0:45focusing on Bitcoiners' personal transformations and life stories. Welcome to another episode.
- 0:51My name is BTC Viv, and today joining us is Adam O'Brien. Adam O'Brien is a Canadian
- 0:56entrepreneur and early Bitcoiner who discovered Bitcoin in 2013 while researching for a more
- 1:03transparent and trustworthy financial system. He's the founder and CEO of Bitcoin Well, a company
- 1:08focused on making Bitcoin more accessible and helping people move towards financial independence
- 1:14through self-custody and personal responsibility. Beyond his work in Bitcoin, Adam often speaks
- 1:21about faith, family, and long-term thinking,
- 1:24exploring how Bitcoin intersects with personal values,
- 1:28sovereignty, and generational responsibility.
- 1:31As a husband and father,
- 1:33his perspective on Bitcoin is closely tied to questions of meaning,
- 1:37education, and the kind of world we leave behind for the next generation.
- 1:42Wow, that's a mouthful.
- 1:44Man, that's a really good intro.
- 1:46Thank you for saying all those nice things.
- 1:48I think it seems like you stumbled upon Bitcoin on the search of meaning, rules or something that's deeper before you even know what you were looking for.
- 1:57So just give us a little bit more context.
- 2:00Sometimes we only understand our motivations in hindsight.
- 2:04Yeah.
- 2:05And you discovered Bitcoin back in 2013.
- 2:08And tell us about it.
- 2:09Before Bitcoin entered your life, what were you searching at the time?
- 2:13That's such a good question.
- 2:14I don't know if, yeah, I think what you just said is such a good point.
- 2:18I was searching in hindsight because I was definitely not intentionally hunting for transparent financial.
- 2:26I don't think I even knew what a financial ecosystem was at that point.
- 2:29I think I was barely 20 years old.
- 2:31But I think my life has kind of been preparing me to find Bitcoin.
- 2:36I've always been contrarian.
- 2:38I've always been libertarian-minded.
- 2:40Even before I would have identified as a libertarian-minded individual.
- 2:44people called me libertarian. Like I was just very freedom, personal responsibility focused.
- 2:50And when I found Bitcoin, I don't know that I identified the mix right away. But when you find
- 2:56Bitcoin, you hear it's a scam. And then the contrarian in me was like, I have to disprove
- 3:02this scam. I have to prove somebody wrong. And so I started researching Bitcoin. And when you
- 3:07research Bitcoin, you learn about the history of money, you learn about cryptography, you learn
- 3:11about encryption, you learn about the money protocol, you learn about fiat and, you know,
- 3:15the Fed and the money printing and the debt and all this stuff. And I was just, I was all consumed.
- 3:20I couldn't stop. Eventually, it's like, oh, well, Bitcoin fails here. And then you're like, oh,
- 3:24never mind. It doesn't fail here. Our money system fails here. It's like, oh, Bitcoin is
- 3:27going to fail here. And it's like, well, that game theory doesn't work either. So then you went
- 3:31over enough time. And for me, it took, yeah, it was just a few weeks of just hardcore reading.
- 3:37I was like, wow, this is the future, at least for now. And I don't even know if at that point,
- 3:43I understood the freedom implications of Bitcoin, but I understood the economic. And so when I saw
- 3:50that, I started diving in. And then through my story of buying and selling Bitcoin for a few
- 3:57years, that was where I realized the freedom implications of Bitcoin. And it was at that
- 4:01point that I realized, if you don't own and control your money, somebody else owns and controls you.
- 4:05and I'm not a guy that likes to be owned and controlled.
- 4:08What?
- 4:09Was Bitcoin the first scam that you looked into?
- 4:12Because if that was your motivation,
- 4:14that's a scam, I'm going to prove them wrong
- 4:16or I'm going to be the conspiracist.
- 4:18That's right.
- 4:19So I can't imagine Bitcoin being the first one
- 4:23that you looked into if you had that mindset.
- 4:26Were there any other scams that you looked into?
- 4:28Not deliberately, but I would say that I've always been
- 4:32maybe not hunting to disprove scams,
- 4:35But I've always been very curious, very interested.
- 4:39And I drove my parents crazy.
- 4:41I was always, I have two things,
- 4:44like stories from my childhood are always around two things.
- 4:46One is just questioning everything.
- 4:48The other is selling everything.
- 4:50I used to love, my dad was a traveling salesman.
- 4:52He had like a big territory for like different products.
- 4:56And so he would travel around and he'd leave
- 4:58and I'd sell like our TV, I'd sell our couches,
- 5:02I'd sell golf clubs.
- 5:03Like I just nothing was safe if I was in the house.
- 5:05I just love the art of making a deal.
- 5:09And and then I also would like my mom worked.
- 5:12She was an account or she's an accountant.
- 5:13And so, you know, there's like a time I woke up early one morning and just took apart her computer.
- 5:18I just wanted to see the inside.
- 5:19I wanted to see like what how does it work?
- 5:22How does the mouse move?
- 5:23And you can see things on the screen.
- 5:24And I just wanted to see it.
- 5:25I was like, I don't know, eight or nine or something.
- 5:27I was very young.
- 5:28And so just always very curious and wanting to understand why and how certain things worked in certain ways.
- 5:35And so when my parents would tell me certain rules, I would say like, well, why? How come? This doesn't make sense.
- 5:41And my mom will remember like, yeah, when I was nine, 10 years old, I would like my logic center was was hitting a certain point.
- 5:48She'd be like, I actually don't know. Like, this is a great question and I have to do more. I have to think harder.
- 5:52And so I think it was that mindset that drove me to wanting to identify what Bitcoin was, why it was being touted as, you know, this cypherpunk future.
- 6:02I don't even know what a cypherpunk was at that point.
- 6:04I was I was so green.
- 6:05I was so, so fresh, you know, growing up in the prairies in Alberta.
- 6:09It was like, you know, oil, farm and hockey.
- 6:13Those were like, that's the culture in Alberta.
- 6:16It wasn't like cypherpunk, tech, liberty and all these incredible things that Bitcoin offers.
- 6:20And so it was just such a brand new world.
- 6:22I'm just so naturally curious and just, yeah, I was just diving into it.
- 6:26What made you wanting to look into Bitcoin?
- 6:29Because for a curious person, like were you already a tech savvy person looking into a lot of technology?
- 6:35Because for someone who's also curious, then they may not be looking into Bitcoin.
- 6:43Yeah, I was I've always been pretty technically literate.
- 6:46I was not and I am not a programmer or like I'm not I'm not a developer by any means.
- 6:52I had to learn a lot.
- 6:53You know, when I found Bitcoin, there was no there's no like hot wallet.
- 6:56There's no there was no no simple to use BitKey or Blockstream Jade or anything like this.
- 7:01Like it was like it was very much like run a Bitcoin node.
- 7:04I had to learn how to use the command line for the first time.
- 7:07I was like brand new to all this stuff.
- 7:09It was pet and lucky for me, like Bitcoin's got this funny way of naturally aligned incentives.
- 7:13So at the time there was Bitcoin talk for him at the time, of course.
- 7:16But the IRC chats was where was where all the good conversation was happening. And so I had to learn how to access the IRC chats. And lucky I had a buddy that kind of walked me through that. I met a I met a buddy at like a local Bitcoin event. There was like five of us in this little event. And I really him and I got along great. And so he kind of took me under his wing and walked me through. He showed me how to make a paper wallet. He showed me how to roll dice to roll a seed, like, you know, taught me about how to even print a wallet securely.
- 7:43Like, you know, we bought an old printer and it never touched the internet and bought an old computer.
- 7:49Like we went, it was, it was awesome.
- 7:50We taught me about PGP.
- 7:52And so it was like a really cool, I was just, I felt like for the first time I was just learning, learning, learning, learning, learning, not, and, and wasn't forced to take a test after.
- 8:01Wasn't forced to like sit in a, you know, read, read this boring textbook.
- 8:04It was just, it was just natural.
- 8:06It just felt normal.
- 8:07It felt good.
- 8:07And so, yeah, I think it was more out of my curious nature.
- 8:11and then the honestly the dopamine of learning about new technology is is always been amazing
- 8:18and so yeah well i guess not everybody get dopamine from that way true but i totally see it i totally
- 8:25see it being one route and i and i see the point of having someone to hold your hand
- 8:31walking it because it's very complicated it's very overwhelming yeah and even for seasoned
- 8:36Bitcoiners when you send a Bitcoin transaction.
- 8:39So get, oh yeah.
- 8:40Right?
- 8:41So it never goes away.
- 8:42So the fact that you had someone who were there for you and really walked you through
- 8:47that process would make the world's difference.
- 8:50Because now you approach Bitcoin in a different lens and you get practical learning of how
- 8:55to protect your coin, how to do self-custody.
- 8:59Those information in a private setting is very valuable.
- 9:03And I think this goes to show like why Bitcoin, wow, is sponsoring like meetups and bringing people together.
- 9:09And I see maybe that trickle through your experience being a Bitcoiner.
- 9:14And it seems like there was a process between you becoming really convicted after a while when you made the shift, when you truly realize what Bitcoin is and being early and realizing that, oh, we're early.
- 9:28Was there some sort of fear getting involved in Bitcoin early when you realize what Bitcoin really is and what you could do?
- 9:37No, for me, it's always been excitement. It's always been, thank goodness we're early. I like being on. And it's funny. I think from the normie perspective, I'm on the bleeding edge of tech most times. But I think from my perspective, I'm in the, you know, the early majority is how it feels to me. I never feel like I'm bleeding, bleeding edge. But I think in terms of the macro, I probably am.
- 10:03But it really excites me being able to look at a technology.
- 10:08And now that I've matured and I've learned more about how the world works and I have this
- 10:11repertoire of, I don't know, success or I'd say just experience broadly, I think I have
- 10:19a better ability to see technology and then understand how it can actually change the
- 10:24world for the good and for the bad.
- 10:26And then also, I think more importantly, weed out the things that won't.
- 10:31And funny enough, the technology that actually changes the world is actually things that I think look more like historical technology just, you know, brought to modern times.
- 10:40And I think that's a really cool thing as well.
- 10:42So, yeah, it's been a really fun journey to be able to look at Bitcoin for what it is, which is like it's not a financial instrument.
- 10:49It's so much deeper, so much more than that.
- 10:51And really, it's like a yeah, it's it's a it's a liberation tool.
- 10:55And I think that's that that realization, the conviction, the, you know, the evil forces that want to prevent that.
- 11:02They all they all look like obstacles to me.
- 11:04And I love obstacles.
- 11:06I love jumping over obstacles.
- 11:08I was going to ask you this question.
- 11:10When you realize the power of personal transformation, because on this show, we talk a lot about personal transformation.
- 11:14When you realized the personal transformation, the personal transformational power of Bitcoin, were you, did you catch yourself in a moment of being in fear of a this empowers me this much?
- 11:28Now I need to go do something.
- 11:30Yeah, great question.
- 11:32I don't know that Bitcoin itself has ever pushed me to a point of that.
- 11:37but bitcoin i would say has laid a foundation to be in the constant pursuit of personal
- 11:43responsibility and when you think about personal responsibility like with your you know with your
- 11:48money is one thing with your health is one thing but with your soul with your spirit with your
- 11:52morality this is like this is where things get very interesting and deep and convicting and
- 11:58and that's not i think i think bitcoin is a likely catalyst to get to that spot but it's not
- 12:03necessarily Bitcoin centered. It's I think it's much, much deeper, much more than than Bitcoin.
- 12:08But definitely the journey of the journey of personal responsibility is an important one.
- 12:12And it's a deep one. And I worry that we as a society have lost all touch with personal
- 12:19responsibility. And it's it's very traumatizing to see a world or to think about a world where
- 12:25personal responsibility is outsourced. And I'm hopeful I'm hopeful that Bitcoin will be a catalyst
- 12:30to that but ultimately you know it ends with with a relationship with jesus it ends in this way
- 12:37right and uh and i'm i'm pretty i'm pretty bullish on that right and speaking of um kind of
- 12:44finding finding jesus finding your path were you and personal let's talk about personal
- 12:51responsibility because this is something that big winners come to come to to realize and then a lot
- 12:58of us still haven't realized in different aspects of our life right now you have money where you know
- 13:04what some money is and you're saving in some money but that's a more big winner there's a lot of big
- 13:09winner right now are making it about stacking stats which is great and the the concern i have
- 13:14is that i see big winners also letting go of their life to do that in the sense that they have a
- 13:22mattress they have a chair and they're stacking stats good for you right good for you and i respect
- 13:27that. And I, you know, there's there's certain perks that goes into that. But I see people
- 13:31that give up on weddings, give up on honeymoon, give up on summer camps for their kids. And
- 13:38they're sacrificing on these experiential things for themselves on the lifestyle to say that I'm
- 13:46able to success. I'm building towards that generational wealth. And sometimes I ask myself,
- 13:51where is that balance? Where is that trade off? And so let's talk about personal responsibilities.
- 13:57In your view, like what are the most important elements of personal responsibilities?
- 14:02Like if we were to say we I want to be someone who take responsibility for myself, what areas should I be looking into to be that person?
- 14:11I think first and foremost, it's humility and rejecting any temptation to push the blame somewhere else.
- 14:19if somebody wrongs you and this is something that I think Gary V actually talks about and and I align
- 14:27with deeply I don't align with you know some things actually I don't align with everything
- 14:31anybody says and I think that's a really important thing to like forge your own path and slay your
- 14:35heroes to an extent but you know if if somebody wrongs you we have a natural inclination to and
- 14:41actually I have a personal story about this so somebody stole about just over five hundred
- 14:46thousand dollars from from Bitcoin. Well, we had to go to court. There was a big lawsuit. It was
- 14:51like it was brain damage. It cost us a bunch of money in in lawyers. It was just like it was no
- 14:56good. And it's very natural to be like, that guy sucks. And, you know, that's probably like the
- 15:02natural response to when any whenever anybody wrongs you. But I think the better, healthier
- 15:06attitude is to understand where did I go wrong that that person was in a position to steal from
- 15:12us in in that way. And when you have this mindset towards things, you can identify the gaps,
- 15:18whether it be security gaps, whether it be mindset gaps, whether it be philosophy gaps,
- 15:21whatever your gap might be, and get this incredible self awareness skill to be able to actually
- 15:27identify where am I acting unfavorably, because like it or not, the reason somebody can steal from
- 15:33you is your fault. You know what I mean? That's like, you know, if somebody if somebody breaks
- 15:39into your house and steals this this tree it's like why did you have a house that was so easy to
- 15:43break into you know what i mean not like that guy shouldn't have done that for sure that guy
- 15:47shouldn't have done that but you can only control you and so what this does is it simultaneously
- 15:51um it takes power away from the persecutor let's call them and it brings power back to yourself
- 15:59it's deeply empowering to think i can solve all of my problems and i'm and i'm talking you know
- 16:06more on like the metaphysical, like not the spiritual, right? Spiritually, we're damned and
- 16:10we need help to do that. But like, just actually, physically speaking, you can solve all of your
- 16:16problems. And sure, there might be some bad luck and bad circumstances and all this stuff. But how
- 16:20you respond to that is completely inside your control. And if you actually want to have a shot
- 16:26at being, you know, having this personal responsibility and actually increasing
- 16:30personal responsibility, you look in yourself and you realize, where did I go wrong? What can I do
- 16:35better in the future and then move towards that. And when you frame every problem in that mindset,
- 16:40then I swear you're going to have more opportunity for success and prosperity because you're going to
- 16:45actually be focused on your power and not focused on, you know, giving like you just when you blame
- 16:52somebody else, you give them all the power, right? Oh, I'm just helpless. I couldn't have done
- 16:56anything differently. And I'm being robbed. I've been stolen. I, you know, like in our case,
- 17:01two-year legal battle and all these legal fees and blah, blah, blah. And at the end, it worked
- 17:05out because we were able to suppress the emotion. We were able to understand what was at stake.
- 17:10We stayed the course. We stayed humble. And we just went through it. And we won. And it's like,
- 17:15we got all the cash back. We got legal fees. We got interest. We won. And that wouldn't have been
- 17:21the case if we were just playing the victim. And so when you get out of this victim mindset,
- 17:25and I think, by the way, the victim mindset that the world is, it's very intentional.
- 17:28It's very easy to control people that are convinced they can't do anything, right?
- 17:33Oh, I outsource.
- 17:34Like, we've all been outsourcing our money for a century.
- 17:37But we've also been outsourcing our education for a century.
- 17:40We trust, like, literally, we trust strangers to teach the next generation.
- 17:45And then we wonder why the next generation, and by the way, the strangers that teach the
- 17:48next generation, they're not like, that's not the pristine job.
- 17:52That's not like the highest salary.
- 17:54We don't have the upper echelon desiring to do that.
- 17:57And I think teachers are amazing and they think they work incredibly hard, but they're
- 18:01just, they're, they're not, they've not been put in a position to succeed.
- 18:05And then same thing, we outsource our medicine, we outsource our health, we outsource our
- 18:08food.
- 18:08Like we are walking through the world as outsourced machines.
- 18:13And when you look at that, flip that on its head, you take control of your money, you take
- 18:16control of your kid's education, you take control of your diet, you buy whole foods
- 18:20and not packaged foods.
- 18:21Like every single thing that we outsource, we are giving power to somebody else.
- 18:26And that a slow drip that very dangerous And I think that Bitcoin kind of wakes you up to that and then shows you that you can yeah that you can kind of take that power back How do you think about the personal responsibility on the mental spiritual side of things
- 18:40Like where right now you see people are not taking personal responsibility mentally, psychologically or spiritually right now?
- 18:48Yeah, this is a hard one.
- 18:49you know, mentally, especially I have yet to find a problem personally that I couldn't just
- 18:55brute force through habit. I don't drink alcohol. I don't, I don't, I don't take substance. I drink
- 19:02caffeine through the form of coffee and green tea. And I probably eat too much sugar. But other than
- 19:07that, I'm like substance free. And that hasn't always been this way. I have a, I have an extremist,
- 19:13high energy, addictive personality. And so, you know, when I participate in substance or gambling
- 19:18or any type of like dopamine activities is like, whoa, it's hardcore. And so, you know,
- 19:27running through that track, though, I kind of realized that and then, you know, take the
- 19:31responsibility to like to stop that. And I think it comes from having personal responsibility for
- 19:37the purpose of having an external responsibility, meaning like I can't be a good husband if I'm
- 19:43chasing dopamine hits. I can't be a good father. I can't be a good businessman. I can't be a good
- 19:47a good I can't be a good boss I can't be a good son like and when you start to actually want to be
- 19:53whatever a good leader a good father a good husband a good friend a good son a good nephew
- 19:59when you actually want to be those things then it's just very easy to make decisions but you
- 20:04need to actually want to be those things and I think that we have this world of apathy that just
- 20:09doesn't really care help me understand here because I totally agree but there's so many people
- 20:15they would say the same thing.
- 20:16Oh, I want to be good, right?
- 20:18Like I want to do the right thing.
- 20:20That's what most of us would do.
- 20:21We would want to do, right?
- 20:23And then we say we want to do our best
- 20:25in a family setting.
- 20:28We want to do our best in a professional setting.
- 20:30We want to be the best daughter, son, husband,
- 20:33father, mom that we ever want to be.
- 20:37But they don't go there anyways.
- 20:39They break people's heart anyways.
- 20:41And then they slack off anyways
- 20:44or don't take care of their children the way they do anyways.
- 20:47Like, where is that gap coming from?
- 20:51Yeah, so probably two places.
- 20:52At the root level, it just comes from the human condition.
- 20:56It comes from the fact that humans are rooted in sin
- 20:59and we are not capable without a savior to climb out of that.
- 21:04I don't believe anything that I have done or anyone can do
- 21:07from like a salvation or like a self-help perspective.
- 21:12I don't think you can achieve maximum self-help without Jesus.
- 21:16That's kind of, that's the only logical decision
- 21:20that I think exists in the whole world.
- 21:21But on the physical or on the direct level,
- 21:25you can see that in a person and identify that in yourself
- 21:28in how you receive feedback.
- 21:30If somebody tells you, if you say,
- 21:32hey, I want to be a good person.
- 21:33And they're like, then how come you're always doing XYZ bad thing?
- 21:38And like, whoa, don't tell me about that.
- 21:39I don't want to hear that.
- 21:40That's what you're talking about.
- 21:41You're rude.
- 21:41How dare you bring that up?
- 21:42I'm offended and I'm out of here.
- 21:43And I'm never talking to you again.
- 21:44If this is your response to feedback,
- 21:46then you have to like really think to yourself,
- 21:49oh, like nobody can really say anything to me
- 21:52that offends me.
- 21:53If you tell me I'm a bad father,
- 21:55I will ask you why.
- 21:57How I want this insult.
- 21:58Where's my blind spot?
- 21:59Like I'm deeply interested in learning
- 22:02why anyone would perceive me to be a bad father.
- 22:05I want to be a good father.
- 22:07And if you think I'm not,
- 22:08please tell me why.
- 22:10I'm starving for this feedback.
- 22:12If you say I'm a, if my wife, if my wife were to come up to me and say, hey, I don't feel
- 22:17loved.
- 22:17I wouldn't be like, how dare you say that?
- 22:19I do this.
- 22:20I do this.
- 22:20I do this.
- 22:21I do this.
- 22:21I'd be like, okay, let's fix this.
- 22:24Like my job is to make you feel loved.
- 22:27How do I fix this better?
- 22:29It's not some personal attack on me.
- 22:30It's some like, it's like if anybody in your life loves you so much to give you direct
- 22:35insights, direct data into how you can improve, take it.
- 22:39And understand that, you know, you can take that data in without any emotion and then analyze it and just be like, do I agree or disagree?
- 22:47And it just becomes easy.
- 22:48Of course.
- 22:49But you have to understand this is easier said than done.
- 22:51Oh, yeah.
- 22:51So my next question is, are you always, have you always been like this?
- 22:55Do you feel like you have just this lucky gene that nobody, you don't take anything hard to hard and always at ease?
- 23:05Or it's a really learned behavior?
- 23:08Learned behavior.
- 23:08It's definitely, it's learned behavior.
- 23:10It's difficult.
- 23:11It's a muscle you have to.
- 23:12And again, the single greatest thing that has helped me here is reading the Bible and
- 23:17understanding prayer relationship with Jesus.
- 23:20Like, you know, if you read the Bible, we're like, we're shown these examples.
- 23:24We're shown this stuff.
- 23:25And so the prayer, I went through a season of praying a prayer of change desire.
- 23:32Don't help me through situations.
- 23:34Change my desires so that I can adapt to situations.
- 23:37And that's such a such a different.
- 23:40And like, I think it worked.
- 23:41Praise God.
- 23:42I'm like, I'm a changed man.
- 23:44And and I think that that's not by my doing.
- 23:47So maybe it's maybe it's lucky gene.
- 23:48But I think it's deeper than that.
- 23:50I think that I've got this.
- 23:51Yeah, I'm I've got this desire to truly follow Jesus.
- 23:57And I feel like I've got a relationship with him that I can ask questions, ask for change,
- 24:02desire, ask for humility, ask for grace.
- 24:05You know, I can ask to love my enemy and my heart has changed.
- 24:10That's and that's where I think things get really fascinating is we we think about our
- 24:15emotions as if they're like this all encompassing power that just has to be harnessed.
- 24:20But I would probably think we just we actually want and need our emotions to be driving us
- 24:28towards the vision we have for our life.
- 24:30And if they're getting in the way, and if you're that person that's like always losing
- 24:34his mind and no one can talk to you and no one can issue or offer you feedback. Like you got to look
- 24:39in the mirror and at some point just be like, okay, what's the next most important thing that I can do
- 24:45towards changing that? And maybe it's just you go through a whole week and you write down every time
- 24:50you lost your temper externally. And then for the next week, you just attempt to just don't even,
- 24:56just don't lose your temper, right? You can feel all the bad feelings, but just don't give into them.
- 25:01And then the week after that, you think, OK, I want to cut the amount of times I feel bad in half.
- 25:06And then over the course of a month or a year or a decade, like you're just going to you're just going to have different thoughts, different feelings.
- 25:12See, that's an important switch right there to the point that you're asking for a change of desire.
- 25:17You're asking for help. You're asking for strength and whatever to help you with the situation.
- 25:24And I think this is where most people are still stuck is that we don't want change.
- 25:31yeah right we don't want to change and that's the personal responsibility come into play because
- 25:36if i admit i truly want this then we're like smart individuals so you see the path to go there
- 25:46yeah and then it's like i have to do that yeah that's a lot of work i think that's the that's
- 25:51the even more important and hard hardest part for people to to get over so do you feel like
- 25:58Do you always like what is this? What is your relationship with Jesus coming from?
- 26:03Were you brought up as Christian or or you brought up religious?
- 26:08Yeah, I was brought up in I was brought up when I was 12, maybe 10 to 12 ish.
- 26:14My mom started bringing me to church and I got super lucky, plugged into an amazing church, found a really good group of friends.
- 26:20Over the next kind of few years, got baptized into my teenage years and yeah, fell in love with the church, I would say. But then as I grew older, kind of got just had other priorities. No longer. It was less of a priority for me. Stopped praying, stopped reading the Bible, stopped attending church, started partying, started enjoying the fruits of the world, if you will. And then I got super lucky. One day I just woke up and I was just like, want to go to church.
- 26:49and so I just went back to church and then the next week it was just like I guess we'll do that
- 26:53again and then kind of over this time over this this you know couple year period started getting
- 26:59more and more invested in what the church was but still I would say it was pretty pretty lukewarm
- 27:04it was there to serve me I wasn't there to serve it but then my wife who wasn't brought up in a
- 27:10like overly Christian environment never went to church or anything like this she's obviously
- 27:14coming with me. And she now, when we, I think just after we get married or just, yeah, right
- 27:21after we get married or right around the time we were getting married, she gets baptized,
- 27:25you know, she gives her life to Christ and same thing. Her and I are kind of at the early stage
- 27:29of our relationship. But then through, it was really through COVID, my wife started really
- 27:35diving into the Bible, really understanding like, what is all of this? Why are we like this? So,
- 27:41You know, why is the government just capable and able and willing to shut everyone down
- 27:48and keep everyone away?
- 27:49And like, so she starts diving in.
- 27:50And then I started, so she starts this kind of deeper journey into the Bible and stuff.
- 27:56And I'm quasi interested, but I'm also kind of like, yeah, it's great.
- 28:00Like high level, surface level.
- 28:02And then I start researching for a talk that I was giving called
- 28:05Time Preference with Orange Pilling Your Friends.
- 28:07And the thesis on the talk was basically like,
- 28:09look, you don't need to orange pill your friend in one hour or one dinner. You need to just
- 28:14give them the data and then slowly nurture them and live your life. Exactly. And like when they
- 28:20ask questions, you got to be there. You got to be humble. You got to, and I'm, I'm reading,
- 28:23I'm like prepping and writing this talk. And I'm like, man, this sounds a lot like when you're
- 28:28trying to tell someone about Jesus, like this sounds a lot like the journey to Christianity.
- 28:33And so I was like, this is my wife is diving in to the Bible. I'm starting to see this like
- 28:38kind of connection between orange pilling someone and like Jesus pilling someone.
- 28:42And I'm like, hmm, I wonder if there is more to that. And so I started diving in a little bit more
- 28:48to the relationship between money and the Bible and then how Bitcoin principles and Jesus's
- 28:55teachings might align. And it was like, you know, in the Matrix, when he like wakes up, he's like,
- 28:59I know Kung Fu. It felt like I just had all these like, like this whole thing just aligned. And I
- 29:04I was just like, my goodness, like the relationship, like your Bitcoin journey leads you to Jesus.
- 29:09And like you can you can really like this path just became so clear to me.
- 29:12And so, you know, it was at that point where I was like, holy smokes, if the Bible and at that point, I was kind of just like I'd never really read the Bible intentionally.
- 29:20I was kind of just thinking to myself, it's there.
- 29:23It's a good book.
- 29:24We should probably read it when we're feeling sad or scared or if we need a little bit of like encouragement, you just open it up.
- 29:31but it's, it's, you know, it's there when we need it, but it's not. And then I started really
- 29:35intentionally reading it. And I was like, whoa, it says this about money. It says this about
- 29:40government. It says this about like, you know, I was shocked to hear that God's original vision
- 29:45for the world was with no king with no, with, it was decentralized. And, you know, when you think
- 29:49about the story of Jesus, how he comes and then he decentralizes it, he says like, you know,
- 29:54Hey, you guys go and spread and make disciples of all nations. And, you know, there's like this
- 29:59historical element to the Bible that I hadn't considered before. And it just it all got so
- 30:03interesting and so fascinating. And then, you know, if the history of the Bible looks accurate,
- 30:07then what about the spiritual side of the Bible? And it was at that point where the prayer of
- 30:12change desire and, you know, like God opened my eyes, show me what you've got. And yeah,
- 30:18that's kind of where how I ended up there. Wow. So and you've been in Bitcoin since 2013. So
- 30:25So that's been a long time.
- 30:26And it seems like during and your personal journey with Bitcoin coincide with your journey of basically growing up,
- 30:34like becoming an adult and having relationships, becoming a father, homeschool and starting a company.
- 30:41Like there's this life path just completely changed because of it.
- 30:46But it seems like you as a person was already quite aligned with a lot of the Bitcoin ESOs on your own journey.
- 30:54So I'm interested in learning in this period, like 13 years almost.
- 30:59How have you changed?
- 31:01What did you have to do to become this version of you that really felt uncomfortable?
- 31:08Yeah, certainly there's been periods of time where like just not jumping into my emotion, my emotional response.
- 31:16And that was the biggest transition, I think, was being able to identify the emotional response against the logical response.
- 31:23and then understand that both are probably not correct
- 31:25and finding the balance based on my end goal,
- 31:28based on my mission.
- 31:29And so I think the hardest thing was and is,
- 31:32and I should preface this with like,
- 31:34I'm generally an optimist.
- 31:36I rarely, like I'm the guy,
- 31:39like I'm thankful that that guy stole money from us
- 31:41because it showed me a gap in how we create partnerships
- 31:43that we can like fix in the future.
- 31:45Like it's like, I'm just naturally optimistic.
- 31:47And so I probably have, you know,
- 31:49there are a large group of people
- 31:50that would probably be like,
- 31:51like that sucks like poor you and I'm like I'm just thankful it wasn't five million bucks like
- 31:55it was only you know it was 500 not only 500k but like it wasn't more it didn't cripple us we were
- 31:59able to survive and we got through it and like no problem right so I just generally have that like
- 32:04happy-go-lucky optimism I suppose and so I don't feel like I can't unfortunately draw into any like
- 32:12really tumultuous period except for in hindsight the period before diving into like I feel like my
- 32:19path like diving into Jesus. I feel like my path is clearer. My mission is clearer. I'm having more
- 32:24fun at work. I feel like I'm doing more more so than ever. I feel like all of my efforts are
- 32:29converging into what Adam was created to do. And the journey to get here was effectively just one
- 32:37of constant evaluation against myself, like, which is like, not always pleasant, right? Getting,
- 32:43you know, I sit here and I'm like, just make sure you take feedback. But like, I didn't use to take
- 32:46feedback pretty good. I used to be the defensive one that was like, no, you're wrong. Like I'm
- 32:50doing things better. And realizing that actually another good book that I read was Never Split
- 32:55the Difference. If you, if you look, if you read that book by Chris Voss, it's like, you know,
- 33:00he looks at all conversations as just data. And when you can identify what, if you get all the
- 33:06data and then you get to identify which data you want to use based on your, on your missions and
- 33:11on your purpose for life, then I think you win. And so I don't know if that was necessarily a
- 33:17painful journey, but certainly like reconciling the problems I've had in the past was not,
- 33:22was not super easy. But yeah, I think looking, looking at life as a journey and as each day is
- 33:29you have at the end of the day, whether you like it or not, you're going to be better or worse than
- 33:32you were yesterday. And if you're just constantly pursuing, just getting a little bit better every
- 33:37single day then that compounds like crazy right right and there's two two concepts in spirituality
- 33:44and bitcoin that having that seem to have a little bit of a trade-off or contradiction in
- 33:53bitcoin we talk about sovereignty we talk about take responsibility to be sovereign
- 33:57becoming sovereign individual that's the whole narrative and then in spirituality you have
- 34:02surrender yeah of letting go and you have like losing yourself in the act of service and being
- 34:10like ego desks and community and service like all these things like how do you see the connection
- 34:18where the where the difference between being sovereign as a bitcoiner and being a surrenderer
- 34:27to God? Totally. This is such a good question. So when you when you start your Bitcoin journey,
- 34:33it almost always starts for fiat gains, right? You find Bitcoin because number go up,
- 34:38and you want your number to go up. And so you buy Bitcoin. And then you research Bitcoin because now
- 34:44you're financially invested. And you realize there's more to money than just number go up.
- 34:48It's mostly about freedom, actually. And then in that journey, the like, I'll give you a first
- 34:53example again i put away one bitcoin in 2017 and i said when this bitcoin can buy me a mclaren 720s
- 35:01i'm gonna get it like when one bitcoin is about 400k this is my this is my bitcoin for that car
- 35:08that that same you know it's it's it's it's one utxo in a in a cold card like locked away
- 35:16clean and square clean and square but that is now for my grandkids i don't want a mclaren anymore
- 35:22I don't care for one, you know, I and I think that that that mindset, it's like you get into something.
- 35:30And when you get into Bitcoin, you do want that, you know, and then so your Bitcoin journey, then it ends up on sovereignty.
- 35:35And sovereignty is like, you know, the McLaren, let's let's everyone's got their McLaren, right?
- 35:40Maybe it's a house. Maybe it's a vacation. Maybe it's a car. Maybe it's maybe it's whatever.
- 35:44Maybe it's a painting. I don't know. But everyone's got their McLaren that they're saving for.
- 35:48And then you realize like through your Bitcoin journey that McLaren doesn't really matter.
- 35:52I'm not that interested in a McLaren anymore.
- 35:55And so then you're all about personal freedom, personal responsibility.
- 35:59And this, I think, is where it gets interesting.
- 36:02And if your journey, you know, brings you to the Bible, you start to understand that God actually wants you to be liberated.
- 36:09God, there's a whole history of God liberating slaves, of God liberating oppressed people from a tyrannical government.
- 36:17That's like, I think that's the entire Old Testament.
- 36:19It's like the history of the Old Testament is literally just that.
- 36:22It's like humans gain power, humans enslave sub, you know, like this, this subclass of
- 36:28society.
- 36:29And then God intervenes and like breaks the chains.
- 36:32And then we just repeat, repeat.
- 36:34It's like, it's just this story of constant liberation of slavery.
- 36:38And I think that our money system is a form of, of slavery.
- 36:42And so you can kind of see this example in the Bible.
- 36:44And then you understand that there is something greater than you on the earth.
- 36:50And your hunt for sovereignty turns into a just a biblical version of yourself.
- 36:57And you understand that being sovereign from humans is a lot different than being sovereign from your creator from your God And the surrender to God is actually only like the only thing that matters
- 37:10And, you know, if I felt like we see throughout the Bible, God asking difficult things.
- 37:16We also see him.
- 37:16I love this quote.
- 37:18God doesn't call the equipped.
- 37:19He equips the called.
- 37:21And I love that, you know, and I don't know where I land on this.
- 37:24I would like to think that if God called me to like start from zero, I'd like to think that I would.
- 37:31I have no idea.
- 37:32I don't feel that calling, thankfully.
- 37:34Yes.
- 37:34But like your relationship needs to get like to the spot where because the lowest time preference, which is what we learn in Bitcoin, learn about low time preference.
- 37:42You learn about you don't want the McLaren.
- 37:44You want your great granddaughter to have a good life.
- 37:45Like this is the this is the tradeoff that you kind of that you kind of make.
- 37:48But the lowest time preference is not really physical assets on Earth.
- 37:51It's glory in heaven.
- 37:53And so, yeah, as your time preference
- 37:55gets lower and lower and lower
- 37:57and you suppress these like high time preference
- 38:00earthly desires,
- 38:01you naturally end up in a state of surrender
- 38:03because last time I checked,
- 38:05I have no influence in heaven, only God does.
- 38:08If my low time preference is mission,
- 38:10is glory in heaven,
- 38:12then my inputs have changed.
- 38:14The way that I act changes naturally
- 38:17because I no longer want the Lamborghini or the McLaren.
- 38:19I now want glory in heaven.
- 38:21And so when our desires change, your actions just naturally follow your.
- 38:26Right. And if you look at the young generation now, like from a global scale, but I guess mostly in countries where it was previously Christian, that the ratio of people believe in God and their behavior after that becomes there's consequences.
- 38:44Right. So what do you think is standing between like for those of whom who are struggling a little bit, because right now everybody is a little bit like with the society, like with, you know, like our mental state and everybody's traumatized and everybody has generations of generations of trauma coming, trickling down from history, from from the individual families and everybody carry all these wounds already within them.
- 39:13and we can all benefit from God's teaching.
- 39:17So what's standing between individuals
- 39:20finding their relationship to God?
- 39:23Probably humility,
- 39:25which is probably why Bitcoin leads you to Jesus
- 39:29is because we've got this,
- 39:31we grow up being told that humans are the apex.
- 39:34We're the top of the food chain.
- 39:37We're the only ones that were smart enough
- 39:39to be able to communicate with our voice boxes.
- 39:41We're the only ones that figured out the industrial revolution.
- 39:44We're the only ones that can build buildings.
- 39:46We're the only ones that have evolved.
- 39:48We completely take God out of this equation.
- 39:51For our entire formative years, we're taught, you are the luckiest.
- 39:55You know, the consequence of your ancestors' evolution has made you the apex.
- 40:01Congratulations.
- 40:01This is what it is.
- 40:03And you just naturally have this kind of ego and pride.
- 40:06And so now what does that ego and pride manifest?
- 40:09Well, if I'm the apex and we're just a happy accidents of molecules colliding, then I'm going to take what I want.
- 40:15I'm the apex.
- 40:16This girl looks good.
- 40:17Let me have her.
- 40:18Right.
- 40:18This food looks good.
- 40:19Let me have it.
- 40:20It's like, you know, I'm the apex.
- 40:21It's full of seed oils.
- 40:22Who cares?
- 40:23I'm the apex.
- 40:24There's a pill that can help me get skinny.
- 40:26Let me have it.
- 40:26I'm the apex.
- 40:27And then the Bible tells a different story.
- 40:29The Bible says you were knit together in your mother's womb.
- 40:33that something, someone, the creator made you for a purpose and made the earth for a purpose and has
- 40:40a plan for the earth and has, you know, loves the earth so much. It pains him so much when the earth
- 40:46goes into turmoil that he sent like his son to be perfect and then die. And like there's this
- 40:53spiritual warfare. And like the Bible tells a completely different story where you're part of
- 40:58a plan, you're not some apex creature that just gets to do whatever he wants. And, you know,
- 41:04when you become, when you become part of a plan that you don't really have much control of,
- 41:09we have free will, but we, you know, at the end of the day, the plan's going to happen with,
- 41:14with or without you. The plan is in motion. You're deterministic. No, I'm not a, I'm not a,
- 41:21I don't believe that the Bible is, is, is, I'm not like a Calvinist. I'm also not an Armenian
- 41:26or Armenian?
- 41:27What's the,
- 41:28what's the,
- 41:28have you heard of this?
- 41:29Like the other side?
- 41:31Yeah,
- 41:31the other side of it.
- 41:32My question here is,
- 41:34usually are you
- 41:35a probabilistic person
- 41:36or deterministic person?
- 41:37What's probabilistic?
- 41:38What is,
- 41:38how do you define this?
- 41:40What do you think
- 41:41is the nature of reality?
- 41:42Like,
- 41:42do you think the nature
- 41:43of reality is determinism,
- 41:45like deterministic,
- 41:46or is probabilistic?
- 41:48I would say probabilistic
- 41:49just because I hear that
- 41:50to be the opposite
- 41:51of determinist.
- 41:52I believe that
- 41:53God has given us
- 41:55free will.
- 41:55This is such a good question, actually, because we've been diving into this in our church series this last month is around like the it's called Behold Your God.
- 42:05And we talked about the sovereignty of God, which kind of like there are certain, you know, if you look at the story of Jesus, what the Bible says about the story of Jesus, it says that God planned Jesus's death, which is crazy.
- 42:17That's like, that would, you know, hint towards a determined society.
- 42:21However, it also says that the Roman Empire that killed Jesus acted in their own free
- 42:26will, which is like, what?
- 42:28You know, it's like God's playing chess with pieces that can move on their own.
- 42:32It doesn't make any sense to me.
- 42:33And so I think the Bible tells a very clear story that God has a plan.
- 42:38God has a plan for us and for our lives.
- 42:42But it also shows that we have free will to choose.
- 42:45God didn't just make a bunch of morally autonomous drones that just, you know, he's selected people to just be with or not.
- 42:54You know, look at like one of the most famous verses, John 3, 16.
- 42:57God so loved the world that whoever believes in him, it's not like it's not who God has chosen to believe in him.
- 43:03It's that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
- 43:06This is the promise of God, that we have free will to find, to believe in, find, love, and then serve Jesus to have eternal life, glory in heaven.
- 43:16Cool note about glory in heaven, too, is that Jesus, there's a story of Jesus in the book of Matthew, where he's talking about his disciples ask him, who's the greatest in heaven?
- 43:24And he says, whoever humbles himself like a child will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
- 43:28It's like, it's all these Bitcoiner things just wrapping up into the Bible, which is amazing.
- 43:34But I think that we have free will to operate.
- 43:37But I also believe that God is sovereign
- 43:38and that his plan will prevail.
- 43:40God knows us better than we know ourselves.
- 43:43I think he can probably anticipate our instincts.
- 43:47And, you know, you obviously,
- 43:48you don't have any free will over when and where you were born.
- 43:51And so maybe God, maybe that's God's orchestration.
- 43:54And he puts the pieces in place.
- 43:55He knows how people act.
- 43:57And so does he predetermine it?
- 43:58Or does he just rely on our free will?
- 44:01I have no idea.
- 44:01These things are way above my human brain.
- 44:05I feel sometimes like when I read the Bible and have these big thought provoking discussions,
- 44:09I feel like an ant trying to read blueprints for like the greatest building on earth.
- 44:14Like, you know, I just, I just can't, I can't fathom.
- 44:16I can't understand.
- 44:17But what I do know and have faith in is that there is God's macro plan in motion.
- 44:23And I deeply want to participate.
- 44:25I deeply want glory in heaven.
- 44:27And I deeply want to let Jesus's kingdom be on earth and to participate in that.
- 44:32And so I think I'm using my free will to, you know, to do that.
- 44:36Maybe I'm not.
- 44:37Maybe this is just like, well, you know, maybe not.
- 44:39But it feels free because I feel like I can stop at any time.
- 44:42I don't feel like I'm being manipulated or controlled.
- 44:46And so, yeah, I don't align.
- 44:49But I actually have a problem with these camps.
- 44:53Everything has a camp now, right?
- 44:56Are you, you know, are you predeterministic or are you probabilistic? Are you a libertarian or are you a socialist? Are you a Democrat or are you Republican? Are you a big blocker? Are you a small blocker? Are you a knots, core knots or core or are you a knots? Like we've got humans just love to get into camps. And really, this is, you know, are you a financial engineering fiat bro or are you a sovereign bitcoiner in self custody?
- 45:21Like we just put ourselves into these camps.
- 45:24Usually these camps have leaders.
- 45:26And I think we just need to do away with that.
- 45:27We need to get back to basics, back to like first principles thinking, you know, like
- 45:31Saylor does a lot of good things and he does a lot of bad things for Bitcoin, Michael Saylor.
- 45:35And it's like, that's okay.
- 45:37You can, you can, you don't need to be all in on MSTR to like, you know, to, to, to own
- 45:43the stock.
- 45:43Like, you know what I mean?
- 45:44Like you can just, you can just, the Bible doesn't show us a world of just dualism.
- 45:49It actually shows us a world of like multiple different paths converging into one creator's
- 45:56desire.
- 45:56And I want, if I could leave the earth, I would just get people out of their camps, slay
- 46:02your heroes, follow Jesus and get out of the self-identified politics or religion or like
- 46:10other things.
- 46:10Even, even within the church, you know, you look at Jesus comes centralized, then he decentralizes
- 46:15it, which is amazing.
- 46:17We have all these different, but then, and this is the problem with decentralization,
- 46:21we've got the Catholic church that kind of forms a few hundred years later.
- 46:25And then we've got this Protestants protesting what the Catholic church was doing.
- 46:30So we have to split.
- 46:31And now you're a Catholic or a Protestant.
- 46:32You're no longer a follower of Jesus.
- 46:33You're a Catholic or you're a Protestant and you're getting this camp.
- 46:36And now the Protestants are unhappy with each other.
- 46:38So now we've split there too.
- 46:40And now you've got these different denominations.
- 46:41And these denominations have happened a bunch of different times.
- 46:43And it's just like, come on.
- 46:44Like, are we arguing about Catholic or Protestantism?
- 46:47Or are we arguing about like, what does the Bible say?
- 46:49And how does Jesus look?
- 46:50And I think that we try to get back to those basics.
- 46:52If you think about it, it's about the teaching itself.
- 46:54It's about the wisdom.
- 46:55It's not about who said what, when, how, you know, like, it's not about who is fighting,
- 47:01who is about the word being said.
- 47:03Are they wise?
- 47:04Can you learn something from it?
- 47:05And that's the most important thing.
- 47:07And I have a slightly kind of different experience with God, I guess, my path to spirituality.
- 47:14And this relationship came from, was a Bitcoiner actually.
- 47:18We had this discussion and I brought up in an ACS society, I brought up from an ACS family.
- 47:25I was always into spiritual things without pointing fingers at it.
- 47:31I was always into psychology, human minds and all, which kind of led me to Bitcoin in a way.
- 47:37And then I had this conversation with a Bitcoiner and he was talking about this peer-to-peer relationship with God.
- 47:42And then I was, it got stuck with me somehow.
- 47:45I was like peer to peer relationship with God.
- 47:47I was just contemplating that word and going through my life challenges, right?
- 47:51And then I was like, okay.
- 47:52And then I started to think about it in the back of my mind.
- 47:56And then I start to have experiences that are random.
- 48:00I would have random conversations and they would say things to me that are,
- 48:06you can tell that are really, really genuine.
- 48:08They're really, really genuine.
- 48:09and then they would be like jesus loves you god loves you and they would be like as they would
- 48:16show up as messengers and give me fruitful thoughts and then i developed i started to
- 48:22develop this relationship because i didn't grow up with jesus teaching like i'm not literal in that
- 48:28sense in a religious sense so i just going through my life and and basically have an open heart
- 48:35wanting to learn because I was lost. And then last summer, I had this experience where I was just by
- 48:43the beach and I was sitting on the bench and having a moment and not in a good mood, but I was just
- 48:48whatever. And then this random guy came over and sat on the same bench with some distance and started
- 48:53to eat his sandwich with no words being spoken and all. And then I just felt this whatever and I
- 49:00start crying whoa i just started crying on the bench and then i started like the the tears trickled
- 49:05down and then and then like two minutes later i couldn't contain and i was like started to make
- 49:11sound and then he was just sitting there eating his sandwich just sat there right and like no no
- 49:16contact or anything no no words and then when he was finally done he looked at me and he said jesus
- 49:23loves you and then he walked away wow that was it like no name no nothing and he walked away and
- 49:31he was a little bit limping and i was like what and then i i was looking at him walking away
- 49:36and as he was walking far enough for one second he was almost stopping to limp like he was like
- 49:44walking as normal wow and two days before that two days before that another incident
- 49:52different location by myself, by the beach, on the bench.
- 49:56And there's this guy walked past me.
- 49:59It was like this seawall.
- 50:01So they're walking, walking, walking.
- 50:03And he was looking at me when he was approaching me.
- 50:06And our eyes crossed.
- 50:08He slowed down as he was walking.
- 50:10And we were just looking at each other.
- 50:11And he walked, he walked, he walked.
- 50:13And he finally, just before walking away,
- 50:16he stopped and he sat down next to me.
- 50:18On the seawall?
- 50:19Yeah.
- 50:20Okay.
- 50:20And he sat down next to me.
- 50:21And then he said, he said, I'm sorry, you have to go through this.
- 50:24He basically sat down next to me and prayed for me.
- 50:28He was like, can I pray for you?
- 50:30And then I said, OK.
- 50:32And then he prayed for me next to me, had like a one minute long prayer for my health, for my mood and everything.
- 50:40I wish you a great life.
- 50:41Goodbye.
- 50:41And then he walked away.
- 50:42This is two days before the stranger on the bench.
- 50:45Holy smokes.
- 50:46What a week.
- 50:46So I have some of these experiences, like random conversations.
- 50:50and then I learned to develop this relationship with God
- 50:53where if I need, I don't pray often.
- 50:58And when I pray, I'm usually in deep shit.
- 51:00Like I feel like I'm in deep shit and I'm like, I need to pray.
- 51:03And I always have one prayer, just one.
- 51:06And I would always say, thank you.
- 51:08I would only say thank you.
- 51:10Because I know there's, I'm personally deterministic
- 51:13and I think there's a reason why I'm here.
- 51:16And my faith in this is that everything happens for a reason.
- 51:20for the better. And if I can't see it yet, that's fine. I already know. I just need to trust. I just
- 51:28need to have faith that it is for the better. So I'm in these moments, I'm saying thank you because
- 51:34I know it's better for the better. I don't know it yet. You know better and you put me through this.
- 51:39So thank you very much because I know the best is yet to come. That's a cool mindset. There's
- 51:44biblical evidence of this in the, I think it's the book of Corinthians. The author is called Paul
- 51:49and Paul's writing a letter to the church of Corinth.
- 51:52And he, I think as Corinthians,
- 51:53I'm gonna make me wrong on this,
- 51:55but he basically says that it is only because of Jesus's death
- 51:59that Jews get to be in heaven.
- 52:03And that's such a crazy like mindset,
- 52:06Jews and Gentiles, both Gentiles being non-Jewish people,
- 52:09both get to be in heaven.
- 52:12And so to your point, like taking this horrific evil
- 52:14that was able to, you know, change the world.
- 52:19And so to your, you know,
- 52:20to your kind of like deterministic mindset,
- 52:23it's like, and this is where I get stuck
- 52:25in this determinist versus free will piece is,
- 52:29you know, we're taught, we're told
- 52:31there's biblical evidence that God will use all things
- 52:35for his glory and our good.
- 52:37And that's a really important deep faith and trust
- 52:40that you need to have to, you know, say thank you.
- 52:43It's challenging to do.
- 52:45What to act after that, right?
- 52:47Like we always have to,
- 52:48I think the biggest difference that I had
- 52:51after being in contact with God
- 52:53and having this relationship
- 52:54is really having the higher self
- 52:56stepping in way more.
- 52:57It's really having embodied the God consciousness.
- 53:00Like what would Jesus do?
- 53:02What would the God do in this situation?
- 53:05And then you remove yourself, right?
- 53:07To the point that it's God acts.
- 53:10Yeah, yeah.
- 53:11And having the humility to pursue that.
- 53:15But at the same time, if you say that, God act through you.
- 53:18That's a tremendously, seemingly egotistic thing to say.
- 53:22So my next question is, what is your relationship with ego in the context of spirituality and Bitcoin?
- 53:30Because we say, we say, stay humble, stack sets.
- 53:33But we see Bitcoiners or just people around us in general, sometimes not humble, sometimes not stacking sets.
- 53:40where sometimes that can't match that.
- 53:44What is the, like, where do you think the ego comes in here,
- 53:48like, to play a part?
- 53:50And how can we, like, what is your personal relationship with ego?
- 53:54And what is the transformation you have to go through with ego
- 53:57to be where you are, be the person you are?
- 53:59Yeah, I think my ego is an interesting one
- 54:01because I definitely really like speaking.
- 54:05I like, I love influencing and inspiring people.
- 54:08I mean my personal mission is just to inspire the next generation I just I just deeply want the next
- 54:13generation to thrive and I believe in generational wealth and prosperity I believe in generational
- 54:17faith I believe in generational trauma like I believe that I mean even the bible like we're
- 54:21called to leave an inheritance to our children's children like that's the calling of the bible
- 54:26which I align with yeah I think that means set set the next generation up for success and I think
- 54:32that ultimately comes from thinking about somebody else before yourself is kind of like the definition
- 54:37of a cooled, of a chilled ego.
- 54:40And I think that I'm probably getting it wrong
- 54:43in a lot of spots.
- 54:44And I'm definitely hoping that I'm able
- 54:46to take the feedback when someone points that out.
- 54:49And I think that ego, ego is such a,
- 54:52without ego, with no ego, you're apathetic.
- 54:55And that's not good.
- 54:56With too much ego, you're prideful.
- 54:58And you're the driver.
- 55:00And your desires trump everything.
- 55:02And that's not good.
- 55:03And so like everything, it's just balance.
- 55:05And it's having having Alex Formosie says this thing about like entrepreneurs.
- 55:11He says entrepreneurs have have three traits.
- 55:14One is this this delusional confidence that they can do absolutely anything.
- 55:20Two is this horrific fear that they'll never be able to do it.
- 55:26And then the third is this like I don care attitude and that nobody can get in their way And I think that those three things pulling and pushing all together it just equilibrium and finding the equilibrium between those three forces
- 55:40the confidence, the fear and the like attitude, I guess, where there's yeah. And then obviously
- 55:48all of that driving you towards towards a purpose towards God's plan for your life.
- 55:52And that's probably where where I align. So yeah, what do you have to do? I think it's just
- 55:56constant feedback and fix it. Right, right. What does that balance look like for you?
- 56:02Um, I think it's running towards pain, running towards discomfort. It's probably seeking out
- 56:09feedback, right? Reducing yes men and driving towards actual betterment, actual improvement.
- 56:18Yeah, I think for me, it's just being really open to pain and discomfort.
- 56:25And then, yeah, I think ultimately it's just like faith and faith and understanding in God's sovereignty over the world, I would say.
- 56:35Interesting. You say your answer is running towards discomfort when the question is how to balance the ego, right?
- 56:41because that means because that's actually spot on.
- 56:45If you think about it, you have to be able to just brush it off
- 56:50when your ego is hurt and stand up and go on to do your thing
- 56:55and move towards your mission instead of saying, oh, my ego is hurt.
- 56:58Yeah, yeah. Crying a hole. You get all sad.
- 57:01Yeah, right. So I think that's a really great way to put it.
- 57:04Let's talk about love because when we get into the Jesus lessons
- 57:08and God's teaching, like a lot of it is love.
- 57:11God is love.
- 57:12And to this day,
- 57:15when you're just wandering around,
- 57:17interacting with people,
- 57:18can you tell just by brief interactions
- 57:21or just by looking at them,
- 57:23their relationship with God?
- 57:25You know, I'd like to think so,
- 57:26but I also...
- 57:28Have an educated guess.
- 57:29I probably have an educated guess.
- 57:31And probably, you know,
- 57:32I mean, really, when we interact with someone,
- 57:34we're having one of two responses.
- 57:36I want to be like that person
- 57:37or I don't want to be like that person.
- 57:39And so, you know, in my mind, there's objectivity in that.
- 57:43I think that objectively speaking, we're not all the same,
- 57:45but we all should want to be like God.
- 57:48And I'd like to think that I have a good understanding
- 57:50of, you know, what, who God is and what he calls us to do.
- 57:55I think ultimately what that comes down to
- 57:57is a level of humility that is unmatched,
- 58:00coupled with this servant leadership,
- 58:02which probably stems from humility, but like, you know,
- 58:05the servant leadership is, I think, the big one.
- 58:07Can you die to your ego and serve someone that you perceive to be lesser than?
- 58:11And, you know, if someone's not willing or able to do that, then, you know, I don't want to be like that person.
- 58:16I'm inspired by people that are by all worldly metrics superior.
- 58:21Right. This apex kind of concept that we talked about earlier, but that their actions don't display that.
- 58:26I think that's really cool. So, yeah, that's how I like judge.
- 58:28But then we're called not to judge. So it's tough.
- 58:32I'm asking about ego in that context is because I've been I came up with this question and I asked myself and I have a guess.
- 58:40So I wanted to hear your answer on that.
- 58:42Like I was wondering to myself, if God has God complex, would it make God less God?
- 58:49Good question.
- 58:50I don't think God can have God complex because he is God.
- 58:55I think that God, you know, when you read the Bible, like God gets to be egotistical.
- 59:00like we are we are called to worship we're called to praise him and only him like god's got god's
- 59:09got all these characteristics of like uh you know like a terrible narcissist so god don't have to
- 59:16stay humble well no because he he's here because of him and i think the humility that we have
- 59:22we're we're humble before god because he's our creator right because he chose to put us here
- 59:29because he could take it all away in a second.
- 59:32And we're petrified.
- 59:34Like that's too much glory.
- 59:35That's like, whoa.
- 59:38No human can make that claim.
- 59:41And so because God is outside of time,
- 59:44God created time.
- 59:46God is timeless.
- 59:48God is formless.
- 59:49God is everywhere and nowhere all at once.
- 59:52Like God snapped his fingers and made the sun,
- 59:55the ball of perma energy.
- 59:57Like God is everything.
- 59:58Anyone less than everything doesn't get to make that claim.
- 1:00:02But because God is everything, made everything, can take everything away.
- 1:00:06I think he gets to be.
- 1:00:07If God is everything, aren't we part of that?
- 1:00:11Yeah, so this is the right question.
- 1:00:13So there is a, there's some logic that can get there on the like, we are all,
- 1:00:19this is like the universalism type of theology, right?
- 1:00:23I don't align with this ideology because I can't get to the natural heaven.
- 1:00:32Heaven becomes earth.
- 1:00:34And the Bible tells us very clearly that heaven is perfect.
- 1:00:37Heaven is without pain.
- 1:00:39Heaven is without suffering.
- 1:00:40Heaven is really just eternity with God.
- 1:00:42And it's very clear that it's eternity with God, not as God.
- 1:00:45And I think that for that reason, I probably don't align with the idea that we are, that God is in us, that we need to like find him.
- 1:00:59I think that the Holy Spirit is in us and that's from God, not by God in us, if that's making any kind of sense.
- 1:01:08Yeah, I see what you mean. Speaking of love, God being love, if we were to tell you, where do you find the difference of decisions where it comes from love or where it comes from fear?
- 1:01:23I mean, is there a difference? Both those are just emotions that I think fear comes out of the idea of losing something. Love comes out of the desire of building someone else.
- 1:01:38up. And so it just probably depends on your motive. I think that that's actually a really
- 1:01:42interesting thought to dive down is like, and really only you get to, you know, only you get to
- 1:01:47kind of decide that like, you can arguably give your wife the best possible life on paper,
- 1:01:55and it be wrong, because you only did that to be able to say that you did that, or, or because
- 1:02:01she'll, she'll give you what you want, right? Like, are you willing and able to love someone
- 1:02:06so much and ask for nothing in return is really what the deepest form of of acting out of love
- 1:02:12would be and i think that we'd all like to say yes but like you know test it like you know just
- 1:02:18be self-aware and and test it uh can your you know can your wife just be miserable and not do
- 1:02:27anything and you know you guys don't have intimate time and like none of this stuff and you still
- 1:02:32want to serve her can this happen for a day for a week for a month for a year for a decade and can
- 1:02:37like and like the funny thing is if you were just relentlessly trying to serve your spouse you know
- 1:02:43they will just want to serve you back like you know we we get what we want by serving the other
- 1:02:48but only if it's genuine and yeah you know i would argue that your servant leadership stops when you
- 1:02:53start asking for something in return right right and what is how has kind of spirituality or bitcoin
- 1:03:00to have impacted your relationship because you've really matured in that process, right? You've
- 1:03:05become a husband, you've become a father. And how have these kind of ESOs that made you adapt
- 1:03:10certain behaviors or values in your relationship that you probably wouldn't have? Yeah, I think
- 1:03:15it's low time preference and humility. And actually, like, pragmatically, my wife and I,
- 1:03:21about a year ago, maybe a little bit longer, actually, yeah, longer, maybe a year and a half
- 1:03:25ago now. We sat down. So we've been planning and running a system called Traction at work at
- 1:03:32Bitcoin Well, and we run it at GetBased also. And it's basically this concept of like having this
- 1:03:36insane 10 year BHAG and then just working backwards from that. And it's going so well at work at the
- 1:03:43companies that I was kind of just like, we should do this at home too. So my wife and I sat down
- 1:03:47very intentionally. We said, okay, our youngest was or our oldest was about seven. We were kind
- 1:03:51I'm like, all right, 10 years from now, like he's adult, right?
- 1:03:55What does our life need to look like for us to be considered,
- 1:03:59for us to be like, we did it.
- 1:04:01Like we're happy with where we ended up.
- 1:04:04And it was like us and the kids are in love with the Lord.
- 1:04:07That's first and foremost.
- 1:04:09Her and I have a tremendous relationship.
- 1:04:10The kids all have the idea and the understanding of,
- 1:04:14you know, what a healthy relationship looks like.
- 1:04:17you know we have the we're stewarding God's resources appropriately you know we have lots
- 1:04:23and lots of kids the kids themselves have their own relationship like so we started having
- 1:04:28just this amazing brainstorm of what is does 10 years now look like and they're like okay that's
- 1:04:34true in 10 years what is has to happen in three years for us to be on track and what about this
- 1:04:39year and then what about right now and since doing that that single very intentional and you'll learn
- 1:04:45that you and your wife
- 1:04:47or you and your husband,
- 1:04:48you're probably wanting different things
- 1:04:51and you get to come together
- 1:04:53to now have one single family mission.
- 1:04:56You have, and now when her and I make decisions,
- 1:04:59it's just like, how does this help?
- 1:05:00How does this hurt, right?
- 1:05:01There's the 10-year vision.
- 1:05:03There's the goal.
- 1:05:04Are we closer or further away?
- 1:05:07Then my question here is this,
- 1:05:08it's about commitment
- 1:05:09because right now,
- 1:05:10like there's a lot of big winners maturing
- 1:05:12and going through,
- 1:05:13going to the season of,
- 1:05:14okay now it's time to now i have some money yeah and good for you right good for you and now now
- 1:05:20what right and they're thinking about building a family and then they're thinking about starting
- 1:05:24or maintaining their long-term relationship and doing something with it and what you said was
- 1:05:29deeply touching and was really reassuring from a female's perspective because i know that girls
- 1:05:36aren't like this right if if they're treated nicely if they're they're treated fairly and
- 1:05:41they're loved and nurtured then they have a lot of emotional energy and nurturing energy for their
- 1:05:49spouse for their kids because they're that motherly from instinct right so but it was a lot
- 1:05:56sometimes for men to say i want to be serving my wife because they are thinking i have a wife and
- 1:06:03she serves me yeah so so for those of whom who are looking for love who are looking for starting
- 1:06:08a family both men women because we have this saying as post-modern individuals i guess like
- 1:06:14all together that oh what can i get out of this so how can we what is something that you can say to
- 1:06:21single folks out there who are looking for love looking for relationship something that they can
- 1:06:26shift their mindset and they could really benefit their relationship in the long term
- 1:06:30find someone that you are very very happy to serve it's just like you know like and think of it
- 1:06:37honestly, you know, when you, we at Bitcoin Well, we've, I've probably hired over the span of
- 1:06:44Bitcoin Well, over 250 people. And we have a much smaller team than that. But, you know,
- 1:06:49the rotating door and the upswings and downswings and all this craziness. And I love the interviews
- 1:06:54where I'm interviewing them. What can you give to me? But they're also interviewing me, right?
- 1:06:58How is the company? What is the pay going to be? Is there incentive? Is there work life? You know,
- 1:07:02we don't have any work life balance, but it's like, you know, do I get vacation? What is the
- 1:07:07culture like? What is the leadership style like? And I think that for, you know, we should approach
- 1:07:12our relationships the same way. I am simultaneously asking the team member, what can you give me?
- 1:07:19And I'm showcasing what I can give to you. And that's actually how we start all of our job
- 1:07:24descriptions is here's what Bitcoin Well can offer you. Now, here's what we need from you.
- 1:07:29And I think if we approach relationships the same way, you know, hey, beautiful lady,
- 1:07:33here's what I can offer you, right?
- 1:07:35I'm not perfect, right?
- 1:07:37And that's a Bitcoin wealth.
- 1:07:38We're not going to pay the highest salary.
- 1:07:39We can't afford it.
- 1:07:40We're not, you know,
- 1:07:41we're not going to fly you all over the world
- 1:07:43to go to every single Bitcoin conference.
- 1:07:44We can't afford it,
- 1:07:45but we're going to change the world.
- 1:07:46We're going to enable independence.
- 1:07:48We're going to pursue the Bitcoin standard relentlessly.
- 1:07:51This is our promise to you.
- 1:07:52Do you want to be a part of that?
- 1:07:53Okay, great.
- 1:07:53If so, here's what we need from you.
- 1:07:55And so it's like, hey, beautiful lady,
- 1:07:57here's what I can give to you.
- 1:07:59Here's all of my best qualities.
- 1:08:00And here's my flaws.
- 1:08:01You know, here's what I'm looking for.
- 1:08:03Are we fit?
- 1:08:04And now it's bullshit.
- 1:08:06Yeah, that's right.
- 1:08:07Just like, just get to the point.
- 1:08:09It's like, there you have it.
- 1:08:11There's this amazing thing that I saw about the man-women roles.
- 1:08:16And a man's job is to like make or buy the house.
- 1:08:21But a woman's job is to make that a home.
- 1:08:24And women think like men can go from zero to one and women go from one to 10.
- 1:08:29And they they take all the resources like, you know, and I'm not saying this in like the like I'm just saying they bring such an amplification energy to a man.
- 1:08:42And it's such a beautiful harmony.
- 1:08:45It's amazing.
- 1:08:47It's both ways.
- 1:08:48Absolutely.
- 1:08:48Well, if there's nothing nothing to amplify, you know, and and at the same time, if you know, if the man can't appreciate the amplification, then that's also a problem.
- 1:08:57And I think that, you know, we misquote the Bible so frequently.
- 1:09:01The Bible says that women are meant to serve their husbands.
- 1:09:05And lots of women have a hard time with that.
- 1:09:07And men ignore this part.
- 1:09:09The Bible also says that husbands are supposed to love their wives as Christ loves the church.
- 1:09:15And when you look at Jesus's life, you look at someone who literally suffered the most painful death in the pursuit of the church's prosperity.
- 1:09:24And it's like, you know, okay, women, serve your husband.
- 1:09:27husband, you know, get whipped and lash and crucified and take the burden of the world
- 1:09:34for your wife. And that sounds like a two way street to me. That's not a one way street. That's
- 1:09:40like, that's not women serving men. That is a partnership. It is a partnership. Yes. Going
- 1:09:46going towards. Yeah. Going towards Jesus. And I think that's cool. I think this is great because
- 1:09:51number one thing people need to understand that it is a partnership. It's not a it's not necessarily
- 1:09:56about infatuation or passion or all these jazz.
- 1:10:01Yeah, yeah.
- 1:10:01Marrying for love is such a modern, like, nonsense concept.
- 1:10:06But you need love.
- 1:10:06You definitely need love as a foundation.
- 1:10:08And you would say, as a man, you just go out there and say,
- 1:10:11these are what I can offer to you.
- 1:10:13And that is a lot.
- 1:10:15Because that is a personal responsibility.
- 1:10:17Right.
- 1:10:18In this world, right?
- 1:10:18That is personal responsibility at Disney.
- 1:10:20You have to take the responsibility to improve yourself
- 1:10:24to the point that you have the foundation
- 1:10:27and then the confidence to say something like,
- 1:10:30this is me.
- 1:10:31This is what I'm looking for.
- 1:10:32No bullshit.
- 1:10:33And it takes a lot of honesty and humility
- 1:10:35to be minimum bullshit.
- 1:10:39Yeah, big time.
- 1:10:40Well, because we all are worse than we want to be.
- 1:10:42And we all want to show someone
- 1:10:44a better version of ourself.
- 1:10:46We're worried that no one will take us at face value.
- 1:10:48And so we lie about who we are.
- 1:10:52We lie about the face value.
- 1:10:53and then we're surprised that when someone figures out the face value that you know they leave yeah
- 1:10:59totally and we didn't have time to delve into the the um the homeschooling part but i but i have to
- 1:11:05do it again yeah we'll have to do it again but i i can totally see how the idea of personal
- 1:11:10responsibility and and love and warm relationships it's it's something that's deeply fundamental to
- 1:11:17And I'm sure it's going to trickle down to your education, to your family.
- 1:11:23Generations of principles, I guess, is in the making.
- 1:11:27So we'll have to definitely do this again.
- 1:11:29So we'll dive into more on the education and homeschooling side.
- 1:11:32And I'm interested in learning more about the practicality and the day-to-day because it's such a myth.
- 1:11:38There's not enough resources, not enough people who are doing it, who are sharing their stories.
- 1:11:42So we'll be having a different conversation hopefully very soon on that front.
- 1:11:48Last question here.
- 1:11:49What if someone feels lost right now, financially, spiritually, or personally, what would you want them to hear?
- 1:11:56I mean, what you heard from the stranger is pretty good.
- 1:11:59Jesus loves you.
- 1:12:00I think that that can feel, though, unfortunately empty.
- 1:12:04That's a nice thing to hear.
- 1:12:07But it kind of sounds like, you know, Santa Claus is going to buy you a gift.
- 1:12:10It kind of sounds...
- 1:12:12And then it happened when I already had this relationship.
- 1:12:15So you had the impact.
- 1:12:16So the phase was pre-existing, right?
- 1:12:18So for someone who's lost and looking for guidance,
- 1:12:22they're looking for guidance.
- 1:12:24What is something that you...
- 1:12:25So I would encourage you to read the book of John in the Bible.
- 1:12:32The book of John.
- 1:12:33John was like, he was this young guy full of riz.
- 1:12:36He was, I think he was like 15 when he joined Jesus' discipleship.
- 1:12:41He's super charismatic.
- 1:12:43He's like this young alpha male.
- 1:12:46And you read, when you read the story of Jesus
- 1:12:50through that perspective, you just cannot help,
- 1:12:53but it's gonna light you on fire.
- 1:12:54And it's gonna like, you just want to learn and learn more.
- 1:13:00And so I would read that book like a book.
- 1:13:03Don't read it.
- 1:13:04Don't piecemeal it.
- 1:13:05Don't like just chair, like I cherry picked verses today.
- 1:13:07Don't just do that.
- 1:13:08Read it from start to finish.
- 1:13:09Read it as if John is writing you a story about a man that came to save the world.
- 1:13:16And then just get on your knees and pray for guidance.
- 1:13:20I mean, that sounds like a weekend job.
- 1:13:22Monday morning, you should be good.
- 1:13:24You should at least have the next step towards...
- 1:13:27And if you don't know what to say, just say thank you.
- 1:13:29That's it. That's it. Yeah.
- 1:13:31All right. Thank you so much, Adam, for joining me.
- 1:13:34It's a really pleasant conversation.
- 1:13:36I love diving into these topics and always appreciate it again.
- 1:13:40So we're willing to talk about God.
- 1:13:42And I hope this happens again.
- 1:13:43I'm really happy to have you and have this opportunity to meet you and learn more about your principles.
- 1:13:50And I've learned a whole bunch and I'm sure our audience have too.
- 1:13:55Thank you so much for joining us.
- 1:13:57And thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Live with Bitcoin.
- 1:14:01Thanks so much for having me.
- 1:14:02Cheers.
- 1:14:03And we'll see you in the next one.