Joel & Yerasimos Reclaiming Your Potential

[Speaker 2] (0:00 - 1:28) You are now listening to the Here for the Truth podcast hosted by Joel Rafiti and Yerasimos. All right everybody, welcome back to Here for the Truth. I'm Joel Rafiti. I've got my co-host Yerasimos with me as always. This is our 100th episode. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for your support. Thank you for allowing us to do what we do. Thank you for engaging with our platforms, with our services, and with what we're here to provide. So much gratitude to every single person listening. Today, this is an episode just us to have a conversation and to ponder on what it means to walk the authentic path that we've walked up until this and to provide you with insight from our experience as to what actually works and how to actually enhance the quality and the potential of your livelihood. So please enjoy this conversation. All right everybody, welcome to the 100th episode of the Here for the Truth podcast. No guests in the house today. It's just Yerasimos and myself. This has been a long time coming. The kind of format and the conversation that this podcast started with way back in May 2021 with episode one. And here we are, bro. [Speaker 1] (1:29 - 2:23) Yeah, it's pretty amazing when you think about it. A year and a half or a little over a year and a half. And like Joel was saying, this is exactly how it started. Some of you know our origin story. We met online. We connected via Instagram. We both realized we wanted to start a podcast and we had a little bit of a back and forth chat. And then we said, hey, next time we're online together, let's get on Zoom and let's press play. So here we are. Or record. Here we are doing the same thing for episode 100, the century mark. And it's pretty incredible, man. Like what's gone on the last however many months, the guests that we've had. And I just want to say, man, I'm so grateful to you. I love you, bro. You're a brother. It's pretty incredible that we have yet to meet in person, though. I think that day will be coming in 2023. And I can't wait to give you a big hug, man. I hear you. I feel you. [Speaker 2] (2:24 - 2:32) I love you too, bro. You know, whoever's listening to this, you know, it's pretty much going to be Grasmus and I jerking each other off for an hour. No. [Speaker 1] (2:34 - 3:11) Oh, man. But yeah, we want we wanted to have this episode just for us, episode 100. You know, I know we hold space for a lot of guests for you all to hear their story, to receive a lot of the insights that they offer in their respective fields and learn from their journey. And when we started this, our first episode was walking the authentic path. You know, what does it mean to walk an authentic path? And since we came together, a new authentic path, we took a different journey or let's say a different path for each one of us to create what we've been creating for the last year and a half, two years. And it's pretty, pretty special. [Speaker 2] (3:11 - 5:11) Yeah, well, I never thought I'd be here. I never thought that this would have evolved into what it has become. It blows my mind every single day. And it's still super surreal. But like I've said many, many, many times before, there was a point in my life where I didn't think that this level of authenticity was possible to me. But it just goes to show man like, choose truth. Like, the truth, man, is fucking powerful. You know, and I find that when you make aligned choices, when you follow your gut, when you follow your heart, when you follow your bliss, it's empowering. And this entire conversation for the last 100 episodes has been around this whole concept of truth and how do you discern truth. And for me, that barometer is like, does it inspire me? Does this truth empower me? And this is something I'm beginning to discover on a deeper level. But I don't think that reality is disempowering. I think what's disempowering is just all the lies and all the illusions that we've accepted about ourselves and about the world. And the disempowering process is shedding through that dissonance, shedding through the pain barrier between what's really happening, who you really are, and all the conditioning and all the programming that you've taken on board. But if you can push through it, if you can move those mountains, then I just, every single person listening, there's a place where you can get to where it's like, why the hell would I fake any part of myself or any part of reality for anyone when I now know I have the wisdom, I have the experience of recognizing how much fucking further authenticity and truth can take me in my life. And it's like, integrity at the end of the day wins every single time. [Speaker 1] (5:12 - 5:56) Yeah, 100% man. And the thing is, is that taking that step towards authenticity, towards truth, you got to rip off the band-aid sometimes. There's so many lies that you've told yourself. There's so many lies we've told ourselves throughout our life. And change can be painful. And so you have to be able to go through that process. So I actually want to ask you some questions. Maybe we'll ask each other some questions here and see what comes up. Joel, what has been the most challenging aspect for your journey or this element of your journey, stepping more into truth, coming to this realization, this is the life that I want to live. This is what I want to create. This is what I want to produce. I want to set the example for my family. What have been some of your challenges? [Speaker 2] (5:57 - 10:37) Oh, there's been many, many, many challenges along the road, particularly when it comes to truth and also navigating relationships, like the relationships that we have in our most intimate relationships with our friends, et cetera. People often come up against the barriers of losing such people. We're inherently scared of engaging in conflict. We're choosing our truth, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I think for me, what happened around 2020 is that a huge line was drawn in the sand, where it's like, I know abso-fucking-lutely what I don't want. You know, there's a certain boundary that became very, very, very clear. And the thought process that happened for me is like, if I know 100% that I don't want this life, you know, I don't want to enter in this agreement where I have to compromise myself on such a degree to appease people any further, then why can't I bring that boundary a little bit more further in and hold firm on everything I genuinely no longer want to compromise on? Why can't I only choose the things that I genuinely want and are genuinely meaningful for me? And at the end of the day, if the truth is going to bring it down, if something's going to burn as a result of me sitting in deep discernment and being like, no, this is right, this is wrong, then let it. And let's see where the chips land. And I think being in that place while still trying to maintain respectful communication with everyone who's affected as a result of an individual choosing to make such decisions has probably been the biggest challenge. The second biggest challenge, obviously, is just the fact that when you step into self-responsibility, when you step into individuality, there's a lot that you have to deal with. You have to literally be responsible for reality, for everything that's presenting itself, for the great challenge that is life. And life comes with many challenges. And I often look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And at the base of it, as we know, is security, right? And I think that's obviously still the most fundamental issue for most people, that is preventing them from stepping into full authenticity, from individuation, from self-actualization. Not that I'm there by any means whatsoever. But I think once you have that security and that stability, financially particularly, in being who you are, and you're being rewarded, and you're receiving now based on authenticity, and based on your innermost creative expression, it's a completely different vibe. Now you can really begin to explore who you are on a deeper level. You can really begin to look at the mountaintop and be like, I want to go that way, or I want to go that way. So getting to that point now where we've created a business here, being here for the truth, branching out into a group coaching program, into a membership, into whatever it might be. And now we're receiving based on, like I mentioned, that true creative expression. It's a feeling I've never experienced myself before. But it's incredibly relieving. And it's incredibly empowering. Because from where I'm looking now, we can go in any direction that we want to. Because we've built something without creating fake partnerships, without creating fake relationships, without compromising who we are. And we've proved that to ourselves through this process. It's amazing. We can go as deep as we want to into this conversation. But one of the other biggest things I've had to learn along this road is just the simple fact that you have to put in productive efforts to create something of value, to create something meaningful. So often in the past, I was sitting there, just creating tidbits, little bites, little sound bites, so to speak, whether it's just a tweet, whether it's just a post. But to create something of long form content continuously, that always has that reciprocal value. Yeah, beginning to discover my true creativity in that sense. When we truly focus on something. That was a bit of a ramble. But anyway, that's where I'm at. [Speaker 1] (10:37 - 14:12) I love the rambles, man. We're gonna keep rambling, I think, back and forth for sure. I want to go back to something you said. And we've highlighted it before, I think, on episodes. And we definitely talked about it in the work that we do with our group coaching program. And it's something that I've said for years, that I think two of the most important letters in the English language are N and O. And so the ability to know what you don't want, the ability to set no, the ability to say no, the ability to set boundaries, is so important to get you closer towards the things that you want. You know what I mean? In that sense, I've found that when I'm clear on what I don't want, what I do want is more available to me. Because I have the energy. Yeah, it becomes more obvious when I have the energy because I'm not giving it to things that I don't want. And so when I think about my life journey, you know, I've mentioned this before, like I grew up in a Greek family, you know, first generation. And it's very like, it's important for you to kind of follow a certain path. And there's something within me, I don't know what it is, that was just like, no, I want to do what I want to do. I want to do the things that light me up. I want to do the things that that fill me with joy, and that excite me. Doesn't mean I always have, you know, life is filled with trials and tribulations, and the hero's journey is going to face obstacles. But when I think about my life, when I think about the choices that I've made, when something didn't feel right, and again, this is where intuition comes in, you know, and that's individual to each person. I just, I had to make a change. I had to shift. And, you know, you close one door, another one opens, and then you get a different kind of life experience. And then maybe that door closes and another one opens, and you get new life experience. And so nothing's going to happen if you're just staying there, twiddling your thumbs, wishing that things would be different. You have to do something. You have to take action. You have to say no. You have to say yes, whatever that is. And that's been the story of my life. I had no idea if you told me five years ago that I would be here right now with you, talking to you, and we'd have a podcast that was in the top 1% shared globally, according to Spotify, and in the top 5% followed, you know, 18, 19, 20 months in. That being said, so much of my life has been focused around truth, gaining knowledge, health, healing, personal development. And so different things led to the next thing. But then all of a sudden, I knew I needed to be in partnership when it came to business. I'm not the kind of person that's just going to like go at it alone. And so when that DM came into Instagram, and I was like, who is this fucking dude, Joel Rafiti? You know, I went on your Instagram page. I was like, oh, cool. He's into some divination practices. He's a conscious hip-hop artist. He's involved with the Sydney Freedom Community. I was like, all right, let's see what this is about. And we had this amazing conversation and realized that we were aligned in so many ways. And so when I say this is a once-in-a-lifetime partnership, I mean that, man. You're a brother to me. So I'm just grateful for it. But that came out of being clear as an individual what it is that you want, and honoring that. [Speaker 2] (14:14 - 15:17) I hear you, bro. There's so many threads to pull on just from that, man. But yeah, like we've said many times, the hardest part really is just creating that space. And you create the space by clearing away the things that aren't meant for you that you don't actually want by using that sacred word, no. And like I mentioned, in 2020, many people learned how to say no to keep the evil at bay. But what if you continue to say no to all the falsities, to all the fakeness, to any level where you're compromising yourself, to any degree where you have to force a conversation with someone you don't really want to have? What if you just continued to do that until all that remained was either space or authenticity? And that's the power of it. Self-knowledge and self-assertiveness are two qualities which anyone needs to carry with them for life, in my opinion. [Speaker 1] (15:18 - 18:06) Yeah, man. I agree with you 100%. This is where you have to look in the mirror. You have to literally look in the mirror and come to the deepest place of self-acceptance with yourself as possible. You know, where you're looking at yourself, oh man, like I'm bullshitting myself. Like I say these things and I want these things, but what am I doing? You know, I say I'm an amazing, you know, whatever. You could say a partner, a son, a brother, whatever the case may be where we're rationalizing and justifying or we're ignoring the ways where we are coming up short. Like you have to be real. You have to be real with yourself, you know. And on both sides, like honor your gifts, own them, be proud in your accomplishments. Okay, this whole idea like, oh pride, you can't have pride, it's this evil thing. It's like, fuck no. If you've put the time, the energy, the effort to work hard, to create something, to produce something, to achieve a certain level of success, like feel that. Sit with that. Allow yourself to like know what it's like to be like, wow, I did this thing. You know, I experienced something. This is powerful. So, you know, I just come back to that, man. It's just how real can you be with yourself and in your relationships? And by no means am I perfect. I'm not sitting here saying that I'm perfect, but I strive for it as best as I can and I own up to shit. You know, if I do something with, if I say something to my wife that, that, you know, is disrespectful or hurts her feelings, maybe in the moment when I'm self-righteous, I'm like, nah, fuck that. I'm right, she's wrong. But then when I take time away and I reflect and I feel into things, I go, you know what, that wasn't cool. And then you then take ownership and have a dialogue and have communication. And this goes for any relationship. This isn't just about primary relationships. This is within the workplace. This is within friends. Can you take ownership? And we're experiencing over the last few years where lies are coming up to the surface. So many people that just want to sweep things under the rug and not take ownership of what they said, what they did, how they labeled certain people in their life that they said they cared about. And people want to forget that that happened. What does that do to your self-esteem? What does that do to your self-knowledge when you're just like, let's sweep this under the rug? The violence, you can even say, you know, like the verbal abuse that people put on others. And then a couple of years go by and, oh, it's okay. Let's just move on. [Speaker 2] (18:06 - 18:15) No. Do you feel like you need that level of acknowledgement from everyone who questioned you? [Speaker 1] (18:16 - 18:43) I don't need the acknowledgement because I'm living a dope life. That's what I mean. I don't need it. But if an individual wants to come back into my life or wants to reach back out and pretend like the last few years didn't happen, then, you know, that's on me to make a decision if I want to continue any type of relationship. But I'm not going to continue any kind of relationship unless there's some kind of reconciliation. [Speaker 2] (18:44 - 18:44) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (18:44 - 18:46) That's how I operate. [Speaker 2] (18:46 - 19:26) Yeah. See, like if I was just, you know, sitting in my hands in apathy, twiddling my thumbs at the state of the world for the last two and a half years, I feel like I'd give a lot more fucks about who's going to give me an apology than, you know, if we weren't creating what we were creating. Because at this point, it's like the decisions that I've made, that we've made, to me, without a doubt, they've proven themselves to be the correct decisions, to be the right decisions. So it's like I'm not seeking anything from you anymore. You being, you know, the other. [Speaker 1] (19:27 - 22:01) Yeah, no, I agree, man. I mean, again, this is where the focus comes on when you talk about walking the authentic path. Great. There's so much shit going on in the world. Anyone that considers himself a truth or whatever that even means, like, great, you've realized that the power structures on this planet don't care about the common person. You know, the pharmaceutical industry is not there to make you healthy. The mainstream news is not there to provide you with a real assessment on what's going on in the world. And we can go on and on and on with these different industries. But what's in your control? Yeah. What's in your control is you and how you relate to yourself and how you relate to others and what you choose to do with the limited time that you have on this planet. That's what it comes down to. Like, yeah, I could sit there and I did it for years, like pointing the finger at all the bad actors and this is happening and that's happening. And again, this is a part of who I am. I like researching. I like looking into things. I like having awareness and being informed. But it's shifted as of late. My energy is much more focused towards what we're creating together in this partnership and the value that we're providing to people through having these incredible human beings that have had different life experiences that are coming onto this platform to share their stories and to share their knowledge and the ways that we can support others to step more on that authentic path and take their life into their own hands and take more ownership and dissolve away some of the programming that has been fed to us our whole lives. Even going back millennia, you want to get real deep into the programming. What value are we creating? That's what I care about. And also, what value am I creating in my life? The life I'm building with my wife and our community that we've built here in Topanga in Southern California. That's what I care about most. So these individuals out there that people want to point the finger at and say they're evil or whatever the case may be, great. That's true. And what are you doing? What are you doing when you wake up in the morning? How are you communicating to yourself? How are you communicating to your loved ones? How are you showing up? How are you taking care of your body? How are you creating a healthy environment for yourself? These are things that are really, really important. [Speaker 2] (22:03 - 25:16) Yeah. And if it's, you know, if it's change that you really want to help enact on this planet for humanity, whatever you want to call it, then ultimately they are the most powerful questions you can ask yourself. And taking action in service to the answer of those questions is the most powerful thing that anyone can do to make things better, to move things forward, to change the paradigm. And personally, in my own sense, I see it happening every single day all around me. I see more and more people stepping onto their authentic path, choosing to live more aligned lives, choosing to control what they can control, you know, paying less attention to the constant circus and the constant noise on both sides, left and right, truth community, not truth community. At the end of the day, there's noise in every single one of those realms. And the fact of the matter, and I think, you know, what we've discovered throughout this, through our own process as well, is that it's difficult for most people to step into individuality, to step into creation, because they've never really been taught a rational philosophy of what it means to be a human being or of how to understand the world. For most people, our entire lives, we've been conditioned and programmed to believe that everything is random, to believe that everything is irrational, to believe that all the power exists outside of you. And you have to ask authority every single step of the way, whether you're doing the right thing or not. So people aren't getting that information. They're not getting the right nutrition for their mind, for their life. And this is something which we've tried to help with in regard, particularly in what we do in Inside Rise Above the Herd. But think about it, man, just the whole school system in general, it's generating confusion on top of confusion on top of confusion. But as we're seeing now, man, there's more and more people again that are even waking up to that, to that degree of the illusion, right? Am I really going to hand my kids over to the government for 15,000 hours to have their minds molded when now I've seen very objectively what the government is willing to do and the extent that they're capable of going to against me? I don't know. It's been a crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy two and a half, three years. And it's been amazing to see, man. It's honestly, it feels sometimes it feels like the twilight zone. It feels like a timeline jump. Thinking back to pre-2020, the kind of lives that we lived, even the kind of thoughts that I had, even the kind of person that I assumed myself to be. You know, all these things, bros, like you can label it whatever you want. [Speaker 1] (25:16 - 30:43) You don't even know me pre-2020. You don't even know me. Damn. What was that like? The doctor. Yeah. No, man. But it's crazy to think when I tell people this, that everything that I learned, that I think was really meaningful and has had the biggest impact on my life and who I am and the work I do and the ways I've supported other people over the years and my different practices that I've done and the different services I've provided. I learned after I left the academic, the conventional academic world, after I left university. And, you know, it blows my mind when I think about the amount of money spent in college in the USA. And at the same time, I'm grateful for the path that I took. But here we are, and many others as well, and many others that are more expert in these fields that speak out on it. And what you said before, it like hits the nail on the head when you think about it. And I'm not a parent, so I can just speak hypothetically. But this idea that we just, we hand over our kids. Now, I'm not saying every parent is fit to educate their child, but there are other modalities, other systems that are being built where the education is different than what's being provided in the public level. But I want to actually, when you were talking before, it made me think of something I shared with you earlier. It was from a post on Instagram today. It was a human design page. And it said, the world is changing fast. Every structure, every business, every institution that is built on low consciousness will crumble. Only integrity and alignment will survive. So investing in your own integrity will be your biggest bet for success. And this is everything that we're talking about here. You know, what we talk about on the podcast, the guests we have, and our coaching program is just like, can you live in integrity? Can you burn away the lies within yourself and choose to do something that you really want to do? Especially for all the generators out there. You know, we're going to pop in a little human design here. You know, talking about 70% of the population. So many people living in the shoulds. Oh, I should do this. My mom told me to do this. My dad told me to do this. Oh, it's the family business or culture is saying I should do this because if I take this job or I go down that road, I'm going to be in the steam of my peers. And I get to, you know, wear a suit or, or, or wear a white coat. Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with wearing a white coat or a suit. I'm just saying that if it's not deep within you, if this isn't something that you want, if this isn't something that lights you up, that excites you, then what's the point, you know? And I get it. Like it's, it's going to be very challenging and hard for people to go, especially if they're raised in a certain way. Oh, I don't know what I want. I don't know what lights me up. I don't know what I'm passionate about. Well, that's a good place to start. Then you have to walk, walk the, take the road, less traveled. You have to take those difficult steps of going, well, let me figure it out. Maybe that's taking a course. Maybe that's leaving your job. Maybe that's, you know, traveling for a couple of days or a few days or six months or a week, whatever. You know, I've met people backpacking around the world on, on no money, rarely any money. So there's different ways to go about doing it. But this is up to the individual. It's not something I can say, or Joel can say, this is where you look in the mirror and go, whoa, this is who I am. No one is like me. No one has ever been me. No one will ever be me. I am a unique expression. And what a miracle that is. I mean, what a freaking miracle. Anyone listening to this, that you're here, that you're alive, that you were born. What did it take for you to be born? All your ancestors that had to connect and meet for you to be born. All the choices that your mom, all your choices that your dad had to make that led them to one another. I mean, it's, it's mind blowing. And this is what we say when we use the word like being in awe and awesome, like, how awesome is it that you exist? I mean, how awesome is it that I exist? I love that I exist. It's crazy. And yet we throw it away like, okay, life. What's the next thing? What's the next episode on Netflix? Oh, life sucks. What's the next drug I could take? You know, again, not saying that you can't enjoy yourself once in a while. You can't enjoy Netflix. It's not about that. But where is the majority of your time and your energy going towards when you look in the mirror? How do you feel about yourself? And if you're not feeling good, then use that discomfort, use that pain to propel you to motivate you into moving closer towards that person you do want to be. Whether that means you got to pick up a book, whether that means you need to leave a relationship, whether that means you need to take a course, whether that means you need to be like, F you to your family and take a little break and be like, I need to go on my path. Only you know. Yes, teachers out there, mentors, people can give you some ideas of what to do. But you have to make the choice. Each individual. [Speaker 2] (30:46 - 34:40) I feel you, bro. I love being alive. I love my life. I love my creative faculties. You know, someone messaged in Telegram the other day saying, you know, implying that I don't understand spirituality because I don't want to escape my meat suit. You know, so they called it. Why the hell would I want to escape my meat suit? And just think about even in the spiritual communities and truth communities, these fucking inverted philosophies which are festering at the base of most people's psyche, where from the get go, they're in an antagonistic relationship with life, with themselves and with their potential. So while that programming is in play, what do you think is actually possible for that person and their life? Anyone, this is very simplistic to understand. What do you think is the trajectory of their life? What do you think is the likelihood that they're going to receive fulfillment as an embodied human being? It's not likely. And millions and millions, if not billions, obviously, of people are conditioned in this way, one way or another, in many of the disguises and forms that it comes up in, whether it's religion, whether it's New Age spirituality, whether it's Gnosticism, whether it's atheism, whatever it might be. People believe from the get go that this is some kind of fallen realm on one way or another, whether they're using that deep terminology or not, whether it's just one day I need to get to the afterlife, one day I need to get to heaven, and this is some kind of secondary experience, this is some kind of stepping stone. If you're treating your current life as a stepping stone, what do you think is possible for you? If this is just a stepping stone, if that's the way you're viewing reality from the outset, you're going to get exactly what you asked for. And all of this ultimately falls under this umbrella of Gnosticism, which has different interpretations to other people. But when I talk about the greatest evil on the planet, when I talk about the greatest threat to your life, to your potential, this is what it is. It's these inverted philosophies which have caused more dreams to die than anything that you could possibly imagine. It's caused more people to lose touch with the deep mystery of who the fuck they are than anything else. And there is nothing sadder on this planet to me than wasted potential, than human beings who live their lives for 80 odd years, never getting to that place of deep gratitude for who they are, and of deep recognition that they have within them flowing bio-energetic creative potential to be made manifest in a unique way, which only they can do, which only they are capable of, without recognizing that they are one of one, that they are not a commodity, that what's possible to that human being is not possible to any other human being on this planet. That's special. And for that to get poured down the drain, because we continue to buy and eat hook, line, and sinker these bullshit ideologies which make you, at the end of the day, hate yourself. [Speaker 1] (34:42 - 40:20) Well said, man. I can't stand that shit. Yeah, I don't have anything to add, except I agree with you. I mean, the idea of lost or unlived potential, you know? Everyone has that unlived potential. Yeah, and I want to take ownership for myself, you know? I like who I am, I like the life I'm living, but there are areas in my life where there is unlived potential, you know? As someone who has health as their highest value, I take care of myself and how I eat and all that, and studying different ideologies and systems around health, but my physical practice is something that's lacking a little bit, you know? And it's something that I need to take to a whole other level. Being an athlete growing up and experiencing things as I've gotten stagnant in life through time, it's like, okay, well, what am I going to do about it? This is the next step. And every person listening to this, you have that thing in your life, you have that area in your life when there's that part of you. There's that part of you that knows you're not doing what you need to do to be who you want to be and experience the life that you want to experience. And do you listen to that voice? And does it motivate you to make the changes that you need to make? This is where self-awareness comes in. This is why it's so important to slow down, to not be distracted all the time, to spend quality time in nature where you can listen to yourself, when you can hear that voice. But we live in a society, we live in a culture that doesn't celebrate excellence, that wants people to be mediocre to a certain degree, that wants to keep people down, obedient, following the rules from those within the collective that exert the greatest influence and make the rules. And so what do you then do about it? You need to push hard. You don't want to be that crab in the crab bucket as you're trying to make a change in your life. Most of the people around you want to keep you down. They want to keep you in the same place where they are at. I mean, watch that. Anytime any person wants to be better, wants to stop drinking, wants to take care of the health, wants to go against the crowd, against the norm, what do you see happening? This has been going on since the beginning of time. And that's what each individual needs to fight against and strive for and move beyond, is there is that pressure to stay down, to conform, to go along, to get along. But this is the heroic path. This is what we talk about on so many occasions in the podcast. What does it mean to be heroic in your own life? This isn't about being a Hollywood, Marvel comic superhero, whatever the case may be. And you don't even need to be this great hero that we've read about in literature that has inspired us. I mean, yeah, sure, it's great. But in your day-to-day life, what does it mean to be heroic? And this is something that each person needs to really look within and go, how can I maybe experience discomfort or fear and move and act in spite of it? To make difficult decisions, you know, to challenge conditioning, to go against what authority figures want for you when deep down inside you know it's not something you want. And what is worse than self-betrayal? And this is where shame comes into play. People talk about shame. Shame is that state of being that presents itself when you are living an inauthentic life. So when we talk about pain as a great motivator for change, the first step is to allow yourself to experience it, to feel it, to be in the discomfort. Now, I understand it's difficult for a lot of people. They're running on programs. There's a lot of trauma. And can you sit with it? Can you do what you need to do to get the support you need to allow yourself to have these experiences? But if you're constantly medicating the discomfort and the pain away and the lies that you tell yourself away and just being like a hamster on a hamster wheel that's just going along, going along, going along, you're not going to get what you want in life. And this is where you have to allow that pain and discomfort to come up to the surface and feel it. This is why you hear so often that people make huge changes in their life when they're at rock bottom. That's because there's nowhere else to go unless the life ends. So they move their way up. And so do you need to allow yourself to get to rock bottom or can you allow yourself to really feel the anxiety, feel the discomfort, feel the pain, feel the frustration, feel the shame and use that to propel you forward towards something greater, something that that voice that's with you before you go to sleep or when you wake up in the morning is knocking on the door of your psyche, whispering to you to be more authentic. Truly. That's important and needs to be listened to. [Speaker 2] (40:21 - 46:10) And you're not going to solve it all at once. You're not going to solve all the inauthenticity in your life in one occasion. So don't listen to this and think I'm drowning. This is impossible because it's not the case. But what it takes is like Erasmus said, for you to truly listen to that innermost voice because it's signaling to you the next thing that you need to address in your life. The one thing that's on top of the dump heap that you need to remove first and foremost and start removing it bit by bit by bit by bit. And of course, in life, we have to exert our will. We have to act. Because if we don't, cobwebs form. Cobwebs form on your psyche. Cobwebs form within your reality. If you leave a house, it's going to collect dust. It's no different for you. It's no different for your psyche. It's no different for life whatsoever. Every single thing in nature is flowing. It's growing. It's moving. It has life force. Or it's dying. To me, stagnancy is death. Yeah. And nature signals the same thing. So to me, ordinary, whatever that means to you in relation to your life, to me, that's personally as good as death. I've got no interest in living an ordinary life. We are not different from nature, right? But it's like, one flower doesn't look at the other flower and think, oh, I'm going to grow exactly the same way as that flower. It's like, no, there's this concept called entelechy. There's this unique seed of conscious within you that already has the unique blueprint that is yours. But it's us that gets in its way. If we just align ourselves with nature, with truth, and act in that regard and let things unfold as they're designed from within your consciousness, that's liberation. And this is where the huge importance of divination in my personal journey comes into play. I walked away from a family business in 2020. I was like, what am I going to do? I remember it vividly. I was literally sitting there alone in my living room thinking, what am I going to do? And then I remembered, I was thinking on a podcast I listened to, Michael Deserian was talking about periscopes, his mystery school. I don't know. I just honored that little voice. I'm like, let me find out what this is about. I watched a YouTube video, Michael's introduction to periscopes mystery school. It freaking blew me away, the information that he was sharing. It ignited something in me. It lit me up. I remember the next day I signed up. I started reading all about it. I started diving deep into this knowledge, immersing myself into these things which really excited me. I learned about myself. The first thing that I really came to understand was my numerology. As a seven, I read everything that it meant to be a seven, to be a seven of cups, which is my specific periscopic card. Talking about literary gifts, creative expression, etc., etc. But also highlighted and made clear to me what my shadows were as well. But that was the first glimpse I got where I was like, I am a unique being. I was born to be a certain way. These gifts and these challenges that I have, they're mine alone. It's not random. The person that I am, whatever's this potential that's yearning to unfold from within me, it has a design. There's something to it. I dove deeper into the astrology side of things. I connected with you. I learned human design, which blew my mind in a whole other way. I learned what it means to be a generator, what it means to respond to life, what it means to not have to force things, but to simply honor my response in the things that come to me. I learned what it means to have emotional authority, something I've always known. But now that I knew it as a fact, I was able to actually apply it. I'm not someone who's meant to make decisions instantaneously. I understand that now. So my decision-making process has improved. There's far more clarity available to me. There's far more discernment on what the most ideal decisions are to me by me being able to pull from all these different sources of information, which mirror back to me, who I really am, how I'm meant to live my life, which is not like anybody else. So I don't need to seek approval from people who aren't me on how to be me any fucking longer. You're welcome, bro. This information, this knowledge, what did you say? I said, you're welcome. It's grounding. Divination isn't woo-woo. It doesn't pull you out of your body. It is embodying in the deepest sense. Yeah. And it feels so good. I don't want to be anyone else. [Speaker 1] (46:10 - 47:42) I'm not interested at all. Exactly. And what I love about these systems is that they allow you to stake your flag on the And yeah, I love it, man. That's why I'm a huge fan of human design and the other systems, the card system. We had an episode with Alexander about the card system, a whole nother thing based on a deck of playing cards, which will blow your mind. Check out that episode. And yeah, it's so cool to know that you're here, that we're here as individuals. You know, the great mystery again. Why are we here? Who are we? Lots of people are out there for years and years and years and decades and centuries over the over since the beginning of time trying to answer these questions. You know, and that's also pretty cool when we go down these rabbit holes of what is it? What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to be human? Why are we here? What is going on? What is what is life? I don't have all the answers and I and it's okay. And I'm never going to have all the answers. But that mystery, that mystery, I think, is lost. You know, that wonder, you know, this is this is why when this is why when you look at children, there's this magical quality within them. They're connected to something. [Speaker 2] (47:43 - 48:50) They're connected to their own curiosity. They're connected to realizing there's things that I don't know. But that's so exciting because I get to go discover. They're in a playground of discovery. Like, oh my goodness, there's so much for me to pull on. There's so much for me to learn. This thing's really cool. This thing's really exciting. Let me go find out more about that. I wonder where that's going to lead me. Imagine seeing the world, seeing knowledge with fresh eyes like that. Imagine not believing it's too difficult. Imagine not believing it's too hard. Imagine not believing it's all written and set in stone. Imagine having that level of freedom. Because you do. And that's what intuition is. Where is that leading you? Where is that curiosity leading you? But as Henry David Thoreau said, the mass of man lead lives of quiet desperation. Because that curiosity has been numbed. [Speaker 3] (48:51 - 48:56) It's been squashed. There's no space for it to exist. [Speaker 2] (48:56 - 49:43) So what are they desperate for? It's that. It's that mystery. It's that curiosity. It's that wonder. It's the awe of potential. The reality is, is that yeah, the systems and power structures on this planet, they're not ideal. They're not perfectly conducive for human life. But it's still the reality. Can you accept that fact? And if you can accept that fact, what do you do in spite of it? How do you behave in spite of it? The answer to that question, to me, is what implies heroism. [Speaker 1] (49:45 - 53:02) Yeah, no one can give it to you except yourself. I can't tell you how many people, when I think about the last 20 years, where I feel like I went on to more of my, you could say, hero's journey and kind of went against the norm and lived a more alternative path. There are people that thought I was fucking crazy for leaving a job or traveling around the world or doing X, Y, and Z. Because I would hear from other people, there'd be gossip like, what is your awesome doing? Blah, blah, blah. Okay, great. I'm still going to do what I'm going to do. See where it leads me. Because at the end of the day, you're left with yourself. You're with you. You can have friends, you can have a partner, you can have children, you can have parents, but you're with yourself. And when that time comes to transition deeper into another mystery, which we don't even really know about, you're with yourself. You're not taking anything with you. You're not taking anyone with you. So how do you look back on your life? Isn't that what self-esteem is? Yeah. And that's why when I think about that time, I want to be able to look back whenever that day comes and be like, well, I'm happy with how I live my life. I'm happy with the lessons that I learned. I'm happy with the choices that I made. Maybe they didn't all work out, but I learned a lot. You know, just think about our last episode with Paul Cech. I mean, that man's story, you know, growing up the way he did and what he ended up doing with his life. I mean, he's lived such a full life and it still continues. And again, it's not a comparing, compare, contrast game. We can look at other people and we can gain inspiration. We can gain knowledge and we can gain some wisdom. But again, ultimately our path is our own. My path isn't going to look like yours, Joel. It hasn't looked like yours. It's mine. No one could take that away from me. And if people don't like it, so be it. I have lovely parents. I'm so blessed for my mom and dad for what they provided for me and a foundation of love. And yet my dad has no clue what I do. He's 92 years old. He came to the US with no money in his pocket and worked and worked. I mean, he started working at six years old and provided. And yet at the same time, he doesn't know what I do. If I told a podcast, he doesn't even know what a podcast is. And yet that's okay. They're doing their thing. And so, yeah, would he like my life to maybe look differently? Sure. But if I spent energy, too much energy worrying about that or needing my father's approval, I mean, I'd be stagnant. I wouldn't be where I am. I want my own approval. I want to feel good about who I am and the decisions that I'm making and what I'm doing with my life. That's what I care about. [Speaker 2] (53:03 - 53:17) That's the deepest yearning of every single individual on this planet. Whether they know it or not, whether it's conscious or unconscious, it's to have their own approval. It's to be in a friendly relationship with themselves. [Speaker 1] (53:19 - 53:19) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (53:20 - 53:42) It's when there's nothing left, when there's no one there, when you're alone, standing in front of that mirror, do you like who's looking back at you or not? Are you proud of the decisions that that human being has made? Are you happy with what that person has accomplished up until this point in time? [Speaker 1] (53:44 - 53:47) And if you're not, what are you going to do about it? [Speaker 3] (53:47 - 53:47) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (53:49 - 54:32) I mean, we literally live in the information age. We have so much available to us in a little device in our pocket. Where are you putting the energy? How are you using technology? The technology is not going away. You know, there's blessings to it, of course. Look at us here. Look at what we've created. I love technology. I spend a lot of time on my phone, sometimes more than I'd like to. But again, how are you using these tools? Or are you allowing them to use you, to get sucked into the matrix, the compare and contrast game, into ideologies that don't serve your greatest potential? [Speaker 2] (54:34 - 55:09) And the kind of value that your life is to you will determine your relationship with all those tools, with everything that's external to you, how you use it, the way in which you use it. Every single choice that you make is determined by the value you have for yourself and for your own life. That is the driving force. That is the motivating factor in every single decision that you make. It's how you feel about you. Yeah. [Speaker 1] (55:11 - 55:39) And what you value. Yeah, what you value, internally, externally, is going to inform your decisions. And I shared this clip the other day on Instagram. It seemed like it was a round table of some kind of podcast. And there were all these women being asked the question, would you rather have a long-term partnership with a man or Instagram? And each one of them answered Instagram. [Speaker 2] (55:41 - 55:43) Instagram is pretty cool. [Speaker 1] (55:44 - 57:58) Instagram is cool. You know, it is cool. You know, but it's interesting when you have people saying, oh, there's no good man out there. Oh, I can't find a man. And yet when they're asked a simple question, would you rather have a long term partnership with a man or Instagram? And all these people answered Instagram. Now, I also think there was a little element of, for anyone that has seen the classic psychological study, the Ash Conformity Experiment, after those first few people answered Instagram, I felt like there was a little bit, even if maybe a few of them might have wanted to say that, they were feeling pressured to go along to get along. I got that sense as well. But anyways, I bring that up just, I mean, it's a funny little anecdote. But again, for some people, they may value things I don't value. Now, if those values aren't leading them to contentment, to fulfillment, to happiness, then they need to get clear that these values aren't leading them to where they want to go. Okay, this is where self-knowledge, self-awareness come into play. You know, you can have whatever values you want. I like my life. I like what I value. But if you're someone who's complaining about your life, about where you are, about the lack of quality men or women out there, whatever the case may be, you need to get clear with yourself. Simple, and not so simple. It takes work, and honesty, and radical self-honesty, and sitting with those icky like, oh, fuck. You know, those aha moments you have when you're just like, oh, fuck. You have that realization of a part of you that you don't really, you don't like that it's driving the car, driving the wheel. It doesn't have, like, it has control over you in some degree. Or maybe you made a decision in your life that you know, like, oh, that was out of integrity. Like, can you, instead of rationalizing and justifying it away, can you sit with that and go, oh, that doesn't feel very good. How can I do something different next time? [Speaker 2] (57:59 - 58:09) Yeah, or even how can I take responsibility for it now? Oh, yeah, that's where it starts. Self-acceptance, self-responsibility. That's true, bro. [Speaker 1] (58:10 - 58:14) Yeah. How long have we been talking? I don't even know. An hour, 75 minutes? [Speaker 2] (58:15 - 58:16) I'm not sure, man. [Speaker 1] (58:16 - 58:19) I'm not sure when we started. I'm not sure when we started. You got any questions? [Speaker 2] (58:22 - 58:37) Sure. I got a question. You don't have to. I was just throwing that out there. I'll ask you the same question you asked me. The last year and a half since we've started this podcast, what's been your biggest challenge? [Speaker 1] (58:38 - 59:22) I think my biggest challenge is that you're in Australia and I'm in the USA. You get to start your day at like eight, nine o'clock, where again, we start, I start with you, it's like two, three, four o'clock my time. So we go into the evening. So I think that might be my biggest challenge. But that might be changing soon, I think. No, I'm being serious. Hey, it's a valid answer. No, no, I mean, it's definitely, it's definitely up there because it's different. But then again, I worked nights, I worked in the restaurant business. So it's not like I'm kind of being a little like tongue in cheek when I say that. But yes, it is a little different because our rhythms are different. Like, yeah, waking up in the morning, getting ready to go. I've already had kind of a full day of doing things around the house and other stuff. And then it's like, okay, now we got to get on. [Speaker 2] (59:23 - 59:34) And like for those listening, like we don't just sit down once a week and record a podcast. Like we sit down every single day of the week for, you know, four to five hours and do what needs to be done. [Speaker 1] (59:35 - 1:00:30) Not every single day, but every single day of the, you can say the work week. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And with seven days a week, that might be a little much, but sometimes we get on, but we're always in contact. We're on contact. You know, when you're an entrepreneur and you have your own business and your business partners on the other side of the world, and you're working in different schedules and calendars, like I wake up to texts from Joel, you know, I wake up to messages, um, because you know, when I'm sleeping, he's like, in his like late afternoon, evening, but no, I mean, that's definitely a little, that's, I mean, yeah, it's a little bit of a challenge, but I think the other challenge is someone who, who doesn't like routine as much having a little bit more of a routine, but it's been good for me too. It's like what I said earlier on this podcast is I know when I think I learned this, even through divination practices, like the card system and gene keys and et cetera, is that like working in partnership and working in a small team is good for me. [Speaker 2] (1:00:31 - 1:02:00) Yeah. Well, I want to comment on that quickly too, because when we first started this podcast, there was no intention for this to turn into, you know, what it's become in terms of this platform that, you know, now has a group coaching program attached and a membership attached. And it's a whole business, so to speak in itself. Like initially, if you listen to those early episodes, like I was simply doing divination, I was, you know, starting a company called Grounded Alchemy. I was, you know, I'm doing tarot readings, giving astrological readings based on the tarot scope system. But there was a point, I think maybe it was 20 odd episodes in where it clicked for me as well, because in my sixth house, which is ultimately how you are at work, the working house, I have Libra. And that was a clear sign, an indication, aha moment to me, where I'm meant to work in partnerships as well. Because ultimately, that's what Libra represents. And even in our own process, there was times, you know, it was like, wow, should I just go all in with Erasmus? But yeah, I know. Yeah, we love hanging out with each other. You know, it's like, why wouldn't I just do the thing that lights me up more? This would be nowhere near as fun. If I was doing this by myself, you know, or if there was branches outside of this kind of thing that required my attention, where it's like we couldn't have this back and forth. It's powerful, man. [Speaker 1] (1:02:00 - 1:03:20) Yeah, I wouldn't want to do it solo. And the thing is, we have different skills, different gifts, different abilities, different things we bring to the table, which this is where I feel like the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, that statement. I think that's the right statement. And yeah, so I would say that, I mean, that's kind of my biggest challenge. There's a lot of things that kind of, I mean, I think staying disciplined and focused in some ways has always been a little bit of a challenge. I tend to be a little scattered and I love being pulled in different directions and learning new things and doing new things. But so I think that definitely helped, like, have a grounding, like, hey, we're meeting every single day and I just have to show up. To show up, be myself, do what needs to be done, offer my gifts. I know there's other areas that I know I can improve on, for sure, in a business partnership. But yeah, other than that, a lot of my life has kind of led me to this, if I'm being honest. All my one-on-one work with people and the bodywork and the human design and all my training and all the studies have led me to this. And this is ultimately what I'm meant to do. And even if you look at the card system, my two main cards, which are the King of Clubs and the Jack of Diamonds, it's all about creating value through truth and knowledge. [Speaker 3] (1:03:21 - 1:03:21) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:03:23 - 1:03:24) That's part of my purpose. [Speaker 2] (1:03:25 - 1:03:31) And I mean, even your human design life theme, you know, Gate 12, you know, it's a theme of education. [Speaker 1] (1:03:32 - 1:05:50) Yeah, that's my life theme, the life theme of Crossed Education. And so this is what I try to get out to people all the time, is like, education is your birthright. Self-knowledge is your birthright. You know, seeking beyond what you were taught as a kid from parents and school and culture, to move beyond these fixed ideas within society, you know, to open your heart and open your mind and be curious and excited about all the stuff that's out there. It doesn't mean you need to study all of it. You need to know what you value and who you are, what interests you and do that. And so I love when people are living their bliss. I love when someone is so fired up doing what they're doing. That's been part of my mission, is to support people in that. Like, what lights you up? What excites you? What do you want to do? What the fuck do you want to do with your life? That's where it starts. And if you need a little kick in the butt, you need a little guidance, you need a little support, you need some healing, you need a more regulated nervous system, you need to start eating better foods, you need to start talking to yourself better, all the different things that you can do. What is it that you need to do to move closer towards that? And do it. If you don't know, find a mentor. Maybe they'll guide you. But you still have to take that, you still have to walk that road. You have to make those choices. And that's another thing I want to talk about too, is this idea of mentorship, this idea of teachers. If any teacher is not bringing you closer back to yourself, to more self-responsibility, then you need to be mindful of that. If they want you dependent on them, that's a red flag, in my opinion. 100% it is. And I've had those teachers. I've had those teachers that they see you, they see you have a gift, or whatever the case may be, and they want to keep you by their side. They want to maybe keep you small, or they want you to grow what they're doing, as opposed to build and cultivate what you want to do. Now for some people, being in support in that way is their life journey. But if you know that's not for you, you need to be mindful of some of these individuals that I think like to have control over you. So get the knowledge and do what you need to do. [Speaker 2] (1:05:51 - 1:06:05) Definitely. You don't want to stay stuck in one place for too long. Take what's useful, discard what's not, add what's uniquely your own. Bruce Lee. Oh, it's a Bruce Lee quote. It's a great quote. It's a great quote. [Speaker 1] (1:06:05 - 1:06:05) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:06:06 - 1:06:07) I love Bruce Lee. [Speaker 1] (1:06:07 - 1:07:48) And some things you discard on your path, later on you might realize, oh, I probably shouldn't have discarded that. But that's part of it. You were meant to discard it at that time. And this is where self-acceptance comes into play. You have to accept, great, okay, all this shit happened before, I made these decisions before, but this is where I am right now. This is who I am. And I'm accepting that. And by accepting it, then you can take the next step. I'm moving closer towards those changes that I keep talking about. But it has to start with a hating on yourself, nonstop. If that's the default, it's going to take you nowhere. You need to take that discomfort, take that frustration and use it as motivating fuel to inspire you to do something different. Okay. And I look in the mirror, I got to look at my little, a little bit of a little, a little belly, a little gut that I have right now. I got to feel it. I got to go, okay, I'm 42 years old. And right now I'm, I don't really, it's not the ideal. When I think back to my years of athletics and sports and how I moved and how I looked, now there's something that's just eating at me. I got to use that. I can't run away from it and pretend that it's not there, which I have. I got to just look there, stand there and feel that, accept myself for who I am, where I'm at and go, okay, I need to make a change. I need to go for a hike. I need to do what I need to do. Now I say that as someone who's been saying this for a very long time. So I don't have it all figured out, especially in this area. [Speaker 2] (1:07:49 - 1:08:16) But you're not deluding yourself from it by any means whatsoever. You are, you are vividly aware of the reality and, you know, of your own personal perception of where you're at in that regard. So, you know, even if you simply, I found this true for myself in the past as well, you know, just by simply reminding myself of that reality, there's going to come a point in time where it's going to be like, all right. [Speaker 1] (1:08:17 - 1:08:35) Oh yeah. It's already, I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it just the way everything's shifting in my life in a lot of different areas, like where I'm at now, even after our talk with Paul last week. Okay. Time to take action. Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:08:36 - 1:08:55) Anyways. You know, I firmly believe that the universe is constantly conspiring in my favor. It's constantly working in my favor. But like we've mentioned from the get go, you know, you have to act. You have to allow that to be the case. You have to give it the chance. [Speaker 1] (1:08:56 - 1:13:05) Yeah. Every time you say something, it makes me think of some amazing quote that I remember. But this whole idea of, I love it. I want to find it. The idea of when you make a choice, when you act, when you decide to move closer towards the things you value, and when you're in alignment with yourself, those unseen forces come to support you. Whatever that is. When I think about the synchronicities, when I think about the magic that has occurred in my life, it's happened after I have made a clear decision to move further away from what I don't want and closer to what I do want. And this is where people will throw this term out and we could have a whole other podcast on this term. Anyone who knows me well knows it's not a phrase that I align with. It's this idea of luck and that you're lucky. Okay. People that are lucky are usually people that act according to their highest values, that act and live in alignment with who they're meant to be. And when you're making those choices that are aligned with the person that you know deep down you're meant to be, that's when magic happens. As Alexander always says, when you play your cards right, magic happens. And how interesting that cards have been associated with magic for so long. So I love these phrases. And it is true. When you play your cards right, the world opens up to you. Opportunities present themselves. Some dude from Instagram will send you a message on DM. And then you have the opportunity to be like, oh, cool. You know what I mean? This is when the phone calls come in. This is when the texts come in. This is when the chance encounters come into play. When you're just like, this is crazy. Oh my God, how did we cross paths? Because you're living in an environment of potential, of excitement. You're not living in this environment of like, what the fuck am I doing? This sucks. I'm miserable. I don't know what's going on. You're like, no, there's magic out there. There's awesomeness waiting for me. What's around the corner? So just think of those two different things. It's like that one meme where you see the person on the bus and they're looking on the one side and it's dark and there's clouds and lightning. And then the other person, it's like sunshine. It's like, what is your state? Are you living in this place of acceptance and joy and excitement and wonder and awe and gratitude? Or are you in the opposite? Now, that being said, I'm not saying you live in a one season world 24 seven, but what is the general state that you're in? I have blue days. I have days where it's I'm not feeling well and I'm down and depressed. I feel like I had a little bit of a funk like the last couple of days that I feel like I came out of this morning. But being an emotional and human design, I understand that I'm going to go on these waves and allow them to just kind of sometimes pass that wherever I'm feeling during that wave of emotion or discomfort or just feeling a little heavier, dense. I don't I don't identify and go, oh, my God, this is my life. This is my reality. This is I'm always going to be. I know, again, through self-knowledge, through experience like this too shall pass. And very often when I am in that place, I go, well, what do I need to do? Maybe there's something I need to do or sometimes there's nothing I need to do. Sometimes I just need to do nothing and be in that state and have it be OK. Which I think is the flip side also of a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about today, where we're very action oriented. Sometimes the greatest action you can take is not doing anything. I know that sounds crazy, but it's just sitting with yourself and being with yourself and going, I don't need to rush to make a decision right now. [Speaker 2] (1:13:05 - 1:16:15) Thanks, bro. Anyway, I got some I got some news for those listening. As you know, I'm currently based in Australia, but me and my family have made the decision to move to Mexico next February. We found a place that is really resonant with what we want, with our values. I get to be within a two and a half hour direct flight of my brother over there, Yerasmos. We'll probably get the chance to meet for the first time in the flesh next year, early next year at some point when that aligns. And it's just amazing to recognise that you have options, that I have options, that we have choices available to us. If one thing no longer feels right, we can choose another thing. And we get the chance to put ourselves in the position to have more options and to have more freedom by doing all the things that we've spoken about for the last, I think, around 80 minutes, 85 minutes. And that's what the magic is. The magic to me is, like I've said many times in the past before, I don't give a fuck what the world does. I don't give a fuck what the crowd does. I don't care what Fauci, Gates or anyone else is doing. Because my life is in my control. Because I have power over the things that are in my control. Because whatever's happening around me doesn't make the outlook that I have for myself, for my family, for my potential, any bleaker by any means whatsoever. It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, you alone have to answer for your life. I love you, bro. So fucking grateful, man, for everything. So grateful that we connected. So grateful that we're so aligned. I'm so grateful that you see me, that you recognize, you know, and that you were able to allow me to recognize some of the gifts that I didn't see at certain times. You've given me so much knowledge, so much love, so much friendship, so much acceptance, so much generosity. Those listening wouldn't even know. You were the brother, you know. You are a brother in every sense of whatever that word means. This is what a brother is. I didn't think a relationship like this was possible. I didn't know it existed. You've given me so much, bro. I can't even begin to tell you. So thank you. [Speaker 1] (1:16:19 - 1:18:11) Yeah, man. You're welcome. And thank you for everything you do, man. I mean, you're incredible. You're a creative genius. Your heart, your hard work, this entire platform, this entire project, what we're doing would not be what it is without you. And I appreciate you, man. I love how you show up. We're just ending this episode with a little love fest here, so I hope you guys are okay with that. And I can't wait to meet in person, man. I can't wait to give you a hug. Can't wait to meet your family, to meet and listen to kids. And the thing I'm most looking forward to is an actual backgammon game in the flesh. No more online backgammon. We're gonna play on a proper board. Yeah, bro. We are. For all of you that don't know, Joel and I are avid backgammon players. And only recently did we realize that. And so we treat ourselves occasionally after a good week of work and we play a few backgammon games. We've had some battles. I just have to let you know. But yeah, man, I love you, bro. I appreciate you. I'm so grateful. I can't even believe we're at episode 100. And our episode one was May 17th, 2021. I remember that date because it showed up every time I went to YouTube, which we're no longer on YouTube because we got deleted off of YouTube, which I'm actually happy about. I think that means we're doing something right. But yeah, man, I love you. Thank you for everything. I can't wait for episode 200. I can't wait for episode 300. But what I'm most looking forward to is what's going to happen along the way. Getting to those points. 200 and 300. You know, so. [Speaker 2] (1:18:12 - 1:18:14) This is just the beginning, bro. This is just the beginning. [Speaker 1] (1:18:15 - 1:18:15) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:18:15 - 1:18:24) This is the first step. I think, you know, I used to think that like we're still in the process of taking the first step. Now I feel like we've taken the first step. [Speaker 1] (1:18:25 - 1:18:41) We've taken the first step. Yeah, I think we've taken the first step for sure. And we've got another amazing episode for you next week with someone who's been a mentor to us in many ways. And he's coming back on for the second time. So we're looking forward to that. [Speaker 2] (1:18:42 - 1:18:42) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:18:42 - 1:20:03) And just to everyone out there, you know, there's been a love fest between us, but I'm gonna bring it out to all you for everyone who listens to this podcast, for everyone who shares this podcast, for everyone who supports what we're doing and supports the guests that we have on and has learned a lot. I'm so grateful to you. Thank you for being open to hearing what we have to say. Thank you for being open to hearing what our guests have to say, because what goes on in this platform, on this podcast, these aren't things that are really taught to you in school. These aren't things that are going to be delivered by some anchorman on a mainstream news channel. This is information that's just different, that's alternative, I guess you can say. And so for everyone that has been willing to question what they've been taught, has been willing to question the power structures, I just thank you so much, like really. And I say this, but please reach out on Instagram, say what's up to me. If you're on our email list, respond to one of our emails, let us know where you're calling, where you're emailing from, where you live, where you listen to our podcast. We really want to get to know you. And yeah, just thank you again. [Speaker 2] (1:20:04 - 1:20:51) And even the Telegram chats open again. Are you here for the truth? You can chat to us there too. And also thank you to every single person over the past year that's engaged with Rise Above the Herd, that's engaged with our membership community, Friends of the Truth. You guys allow us to build upon this. In the exchange of value for value, you allow us to continue to do what we do and to make it better and to continue to think greater and do greater things. So such deep gratitude for all you guys as well. I've got nothing else to add to this, man. This has been episode 100. Yeah, thanks, everyone. I've loved having this conversation with you. I'm looking forward to doing it again. And peace out. [Speaker 1] (1:20:52 - 1:21:43) What's up, everyone? Yes, it's just us still. Thank you so much for listening to the episode. We really appreciate you. Just want to let you all know too, we have our monthly membership community called Friends of the Truth. We'd love for you to join us. Membership includes three calls a month, one live teaching from Joel and myself on a different topic each month. We have one live guest expert interactive Q&A, previous podcast guest, and we have a community call. So if you're out there seeking truth, and you want to connect with other like-minded people around the world that share your values, consider joining our community. You can go learn more about it at friendsofthetruth.co. Yeah, absolutely. [Speaker 2] (1:21:43 - 1:22:04) We'll put the link in the bio too. Next month's guest expert is the incredible Ariane Lyon. Our members will have the chance to interact directly with her and ask her any question when it comes particularly to the nervous system and her expertise in that area. We'd love to meet you. We'd love to be connected with more members. So hit us up, and thank you once again.