Entrepreneurship & Enlightenment: How To Find Peace And Happiness In Business w/ Mike Chang

We had about a 60 person company. You know, our average months was anywhere from 1 to 2 million in revenue recognized in every place that I walked into. So on the outside, it's like I. I made it.

Would you have described yourself as happy?

Well, see, that's the interesting question.

Hey, guys, this is going to be a different type of episode. It might actually be the opposite of all of the other content and all the other discussions that you're used to hearing on my show and@Capitalism.com because it's a discussion with someone who took the opposite journey that a lot of us are taking. It's someone who built a business, took it to eight figures, and was the envy of people in my industry for years. He was the guy that we looked up to.

He.

He was the guy that other people copied. He was the guy that other people mimicked and tried to be like. And he walked away from it all. He decided that it wasn't the life that he wanted. He decided that there was a different type of life that he did want. He decided that there was a different level of fulfillment for him if he were to change things up. One of my favorite quotes is from the author, C.S. lewis, and I'm summarizing my own words, but he says that when two men are walking down a road in the wrong direction, the one who stops first makes the most progress. That summarizes what Mike Chang went through when he decided to walk away from his business called Six Pack Shortcuts was a business with millions of YouTube followers, eight figures in revenue, and he had fame where he was recognized everywhere he went. He decided that he was walking in the wrong direction. He wanted to go in a different direction. I have wanted to hear the story about what happened with Mike for years. But after he walked away from entrepreneurship, he moved to Bali, and we had very little interaction. So nine years after the fact, we were able to bring Mike into Austin, sit down with him, and talk about his transformation. There's one more piece of context I want you to know before we dive in. Mike has gone through a spiritual transformation. He used psychedelics as part of that journey. This is not an endorsement or a recommendation for anything. He's also really into yoga and breath work. Everybody's gonna have their own journey. What I'm interested in this conversation is how he views life differently after being at the height of success and then going in a very different direction and finding fulfillment on the other side. And now he's coming back into business with a very different perspective, a very different mission, and very different goals. And the perspective, the energy, the passion that he has on the other side of that is something that I crave. And it is something that I think the entrepreneurial community is missing. Because often we are so focused on the numbers and the success and the money and the fame and the killing it that we miss the thing that we crave most rather than pursuing that and then building the things from that place that amplify that fulfillment. That is something I crave. That is a journey I'm going through myself. And it's something that I wanted to talk about and learn from in this discussion with Mike Chang. Mike Chang. I have wanted to have this conversation for years now. I feel like I have years of questions for you, but I kind of want to start with, here's what I know about the story. The story of Mike Chang, from my perspective was you were at the height, you were kind of the guy, the company in the Internet, marketing, fitness, Austin space. And something happened. You had some sort of insight or transformation. You realized that there was something greater out there. And from my perspective, walked away from the height of what the American success ladder looks like. And then you disappeared for a while and then kind of came out of this baptism in a totally different space where you seem to have found what's important in life. Is this a fair summary? From the little that I know about.

The story.

You know, that's pretty accurate.

Great. Well, it was a great episode today. Thanks for being here, everybody. Before we go into the details of it, could you share what the top looked like? I mean, and from the top, from like, you know, the western success perspective of what, what was the, the top of a ladder before you went through this transformation?

We had about a 60 person company. You know, we were, you know, we were doing well, growing, growing fast every year. We were increasing in revenue, increasing in, in growth of the business.

You know, our average months was anywhere from 1 to 2 million in revenue recognized in every place that I walked into. You know, I started to, I wanted, I started to hide. You know, I started to wear sunglasses and beanies to try to, to try to hide. But on the outside, everything was great. Seems like, you know, money was good, growth, fame. I mean, I was fit, you know, fit.

I think one of, one of our friends described you as a tank of a human. That was, that was how they described your physical stature. You were just, you know, a tank. You were, you were so. You had everything that most guys dream of having. Know, the mid eight figure business, a nice home.

This one reminds me of the home I had that was down the road. And so on the outside, it's like, I. I made it.

Yeah.

And I. And I felt that. But there was always more to do.

Always the next goal.

Yeah.

Always the next financial milestone.

Yeah.

Would you have described yourself as happy?

Well, see, that's the interesting question. The answer, yes.

And I could lift. Let's list reasons. I remember people would ask me, how do you feel about what you've built the last five, six years? And I'm like, I'm happy. I'm satisfied. I'm fulfilled. And I started listing reasons why I. I did that because many people asked. And that's the interesting thing about it, because I truly believed that I was.

But if you were to follow me around, for example, and you see my behaviors, you would see my habits. You'll see what I do and don't do. You may go, well, is this the behavior? Is this the way a truly happy person would act, feel, and be? And then if you want to go one layer deeper and you're in my head, then you would ask, is this the way a truly happy person would think? And if a person was to do that.

There'S a really big misalignment.

There's kind of a. A debate in some of my entrepreneurial circles, which is, should you optimize for happiness at all? Like, happiness is kind of elusive. That comes from being productive. It comes from being contributive. And I think being a contributing member of society is kind of a precursor to fulfillment. But there also seems to be this obsession with it to where the fulfillment never comes, because there's always a kicking of the joy or the fulfillment down the road. It sounds to me like you realize that there was a gap that was happening there.

I discovered it, but I didn't realize it at the time. I accidentally discovered it. But here's what. The thing is actually missing on the outside. It appears that that. Is that those things is what happy people are doing, or that's their life.

But they're. They're looking at it from the outside. A truly happy person. Those things are not. They're not absolutely required, but they tend to happen. But if you were to do those things and you don't. You don't accomplish the one thing I like to like. I always remember Gary Keller's book, you know, the one thing. You know, if you don't get the one thing, then none of those things matter. And most people have no idea what that one thing is. No idea. You know, I wish people are listening Here, maybe now they have an idea, but even with the idea, that's not enough. But at least it gives them a bullseye, a, a point to look at, a seed that's planted.

So the reason why people seem to be so happy when they're having purpose, they're, they're serving people, they're doing all this stuff is not from all of those things. The reason why they're happy is because they're not focusing on themselves.

They're not thinking about themselves. Here's another way to put it.

They're not constantly focusing on their Persona, their sense of self, their stories, what they like, what they dislike, what they feel like doing, what their preferences are, what their self judgment is around, around what they do. They're not focusing on it because they're focusing on their customers, they're focusing on their business, they're focusing on their wife, they're focusing on their family, they're focusing on, on a bigger purpose. And by focusing on those things, by default, they're not focusing on themselves. Kind of like we're here focusing on each other, talking about this conversation. So now all of the things in our life at this moment, we're not focusing on, they still exist, but they're not in our awareness. Just like our sense of self still exists. AKA ego, AKA you're from here, who done this, who done that. But at the moment when you're not focusing on it, those things don't exist. So if those things don't exist, then that means the core fundamental thing that creates all of somebody's problems.

Doesn'T exist at that moment. Which means if I don't have a preference of what I like or dislike because I'm not, if I'm not thinking about myself, then I won't have that preference because I'm not thinking about myself. And to have the preference, I have to think about what, what I like, dislike. But if I don't think about me, then there is no what I like or dislike. And if I, if there is no I like or dislike, then I, the likelihood of me being dissatisfied is less, right? Because I'm not even putting my preference, my opinion to things. There's only what's needed to be done at this moment. If I focus on you, what do you need? How can I serve you? So now I don't create this moment into a problem. I don't create this situation into a problem because problems are just a label that I put on situations in life. Things that happen in life, in life is always happening. They will always happen. They happened before we got here. They will happen when we're gone. It's just life, existence that happens. But then our brain, our, you can say our brain or our sense of self, our ego, our mind goes, I don't like this situation. And from there stress, worry, fear and all that can happen. So then when we go, let's go help a lot of people. So now if we go, let's go help a lot of people. So I can go ahead and gain this and I can get that, I can get that. So now this is. But I don't want to tell people that because, yeah, it's going to make me look bad. So hey guys, let's go help a lot of people. But let's make sure we are getting everything. Now, as entrepreneurs, we know you don't focus on how your conversions and how your sales are going to track back. Well, you're not going to have a lot of ability to support a lot of people. Nobody's going to be able to pay the bills on anything. But if you focus too much on that, well then that automatically means you're focusing on yourself by default. What am I going to gain? My, my, my. So then the magic here is to actually do kind of like an 80, 20, right? 80% on serving value, other people, the purpose, the bigger picture, and 20 or even less on personal gain. So then now if we focus only 20% on ourself all the time, then we only have 20% of the time in our life to create problems. Most people do the opposite, which is why they're always kind of frustrated about things. They always want this moment to be different, different than how it is at this moment because they're always thinking about themselves. So now at themselves they're like.

I feel bored. Bored. You know what bored is? That means there's nothing wrong right now, but you just don't like it. There's no real problem. So we call it boredom. So these are some of the realizations that's kind of like an overarching summary.

So tell me about if we go back to when you're at the peak of six pack shortcuts and you have a thriving digital product side, you have a thriving physical product side, you have a growing YouTube channel. I remember actually being at the first ever traffic and conversion summit and the one of the speakers, it was either Ryan Dice or Perry Belcher, pulled up you as an example and said, is this guy in the room? And you raised your hand and he was like, we are all trying to be you. Like we are all.

I remember that. Yeah.

And he pointed to you like you were the example.

Right. We were always all the way in the back of the room on the right hand side, and you hadn't even.

Peaked, even come close to peak. That was the early rise of it. So when you're at this peak of it, what was your breakdown of when you felt like you were being selfless versus thinking about what you were going to get? Because the business is growing from the outside, you're happy. I know at one point you guys are talking about IPOs or big acquisitions. So what would you say the breakdown was at the peak, when it was going best?

Well, the thing is, I never. I never came to these realizations that we talked about.

I would say not even. I would say not on my. Not in a normal terms. It was always the next goal, the next growth. Where can we go from here? It was always wanting to be the best. It's like, okay, we wanted. We had the goal of being the biggest on YouTube. Okay. Then the next goal was, I want to have the biggest fitness company in the country. So then we were looking. We're like, who's. Then. Who's the person to beat? That's. That was my old frame of mind. And who's the. Who's the biggest guys in fitness?

I'm so glad that you said what you just said, which is, if I want to be the best, who do I need to beat? And you're immediately at war, like, from the beginning. You're immediately playing against someone else rather than thinking about how to serve other people. And that is so normal in our culture. If I want to be the best, who do I need to be better than? And we start comparing ourselves and our style and our numbers to that person rather than going inward and saying, where do I have unique value to bring to someone else or a group of people? Which is actually how you become the best. You bring your best to a group of people and allow that to spread. At least that is what I think in my head. But please, please continue. You want to be the biggest fitness company in the world?

Well, not in the world, just in the country first, because milestones first.

Right? Okay.

First the country and then, oh, the world. That's a. Let's just see. In the country first. And at the time, it was Beachbody.

I was gonna say it was probably P90X at that time.

P90X. It was the.

What's his name?

Tony Horton.

Tony Horton. Shanti.

Yes.

You know, Insanity. And, you know, that was popular then And I remember we were. I think we were at like, like, maybe, maybe 5 or 6 million in, in revenue for the year, and they were at like, like 250. So we're like, okay, that's, that's a big climb. All right. What can we do to get to that milestone? And I remember when we got to, like, 13 or 14, I remember looking at the tax returns going, okay, this is how much we did. And then I found out they were at 500. And I was like, damn. I was like, how are we going to catch them? I mean, they're, they're, they're, they're going too fast, you know, and that I remember clearly thinking that, okay, here's how we're going to do it in this amount of time. And, and so that was my, that was my mindset. But then, yet people would ask me, hey, are you happy? Oh, absolutely. Night lists. You know, money wasn't an issue, and business is thriving. I've got the perfect business. Business and fitness combined. My office was like, you know, it's like a gym playhouse. It's like Gold Gym meets Boiler Room meets, like, you know, Wolf of Wall street, you know, a whole bunch of Jack dudes walking around with headsets, you know, drinking protein shanks and chasing down monsters and doing sales calls, and everybody's about fitness. We got a gym there and food delivery. It's like this, you know, little ecosystem of its own. It was, it was great. You know, I show up to work in sweats and. In a tank top of sweats and T shirt. Sometimes the half of the day I don't have a shirt on. This is like a legitimate business. I'm walking around shirtless. But I'm not the only one. I'm like, so. So to me, it was like, yeah, this is fun.

It was stimulating. It was growing. It was all the surface level things you would want.

You know, what else would I would I want? You know, I've been in a, in a suit, you know, in other roles before. I'm never going to go into that monkey thing again. You know, like, I love this. I had all the reasons. But then again, if you go into my head, you go behind the scenes, then you'll go, well, if you're happy, why do you do this? Why do you act? But I didn't do that for myself, so I didn't have that level of awareness.

So you. You were thinking about yourself most of the time. Is that fair to say?

Yeah, yeah, all the time.

And I'm curious now that you've I had enough experiences to know that when I am in full service or focus on someone else, my problems just melt. I had an example happen just this past week where I was so caught up in my head, stressed about the day, thinking about this problem and this problem and then my son threw up and immediately all of my focus went to take care, taking care of my son for the next several hours. And it was like someone slipped me something. You know, I came. It was like I came out of myself and my own problems and I was only focused on my boy. I don't care what's going on at work. I don't care what is, you know, what the, what the download numbers are. I don't care what's happening in this brand over here. I'm only thinking about my boy. And that was kind of startling for me. Almost like what was that difference? And it was because I was just focused on someone else. I'm curious now that you can reflect on the time when you were thinking about yourself and everything's going well from the surface. What do you think would be different about a business if you could go back and operate from more of that 8020 perspective? Do you think you would still have the growth? Would you still have the exciting boiler room activity where, you know, things are fun? What would be different about a business, specifically the business you were running, if you could have that 8020 balance, the.

Exciting like that environment? Definitely for sure. You should see my house now. We just reposted a video. We got 11 pull up bars. I have 11 pull up bars in the house. You know, it's still. That would definitely be okay. People walking around, you know, chasing down, they probably won't be chasing down monster drinks as much, you know, but that matchas. Yeah, matchas and you know, banish no mushrooms. Yeah, that energy, that vibe will still be. But the way we would, the way we would grow the business, that would change. We would focus more on.

More on how to bring better content, how to create, how to create more value, how to go and not just look at traffic and converting and then send them into an LTV funnel that it's like we will look and go, okay, what are people needing and what type of things can we create to give them more, give them more, give them more following the law of reciprocity that we know it's going to come back somehow and not. And not so much in the direct response model. The direct response model works, but there won't be so much energy just poured into that. And also another thing I was getting a lot of opportunities like to, to expand the brand beyond just having it to be this, this fitness Internet marketing company. There were all these requests to be on all these shows and shows and shows and the, and the level of reach was expanding. I was. Now when I look around, there are times I'm surrounded by like, you know, maybe C list, B list actors. You know, the, you know, the fear of people are changing. You know, I found myself having an agent, you know, who would represent me now. And this guy represents a lot of people in Hollywood.

And just, just for reference, what was the, the subscrib or you know, we were. What a video do in terms of views just for reference.

When I was, when I was active, you know, before I had my experience. When I was active, we were at about 3.2, you know, that it grew.

You know, this was back when 3.2 million subscribers was a lot of subscribers.

It was, it was the most.

Yeah, you're a huge channel views.

We were anywhere from. Some would have 200, 300, some would take off more with like, you know, a million plus and some were 10.

Plus, you know, 10 million plus views. Yeah. I, I want to ask you about the, the transitional moment, but I, I just need to stick this question in here. We can come back to it. But I will, I will, I will be very regretful if I don't ask this question, which is this state that you're describing of infusing energy into what it is that you're doing on behalf of someone else. This 80, 20 balance. I've experienced that, but accidentally.

I've experienced it on psychedelics. I've experienced it with my children. I've experienced it on vacation. I've experienced it when I've slipped into it.

Have you found that that is a state that can be accessed and maintained? Because I know I would give all my money, all my success away if I could be in that state all the time. And I think that is actually what Jesus describes when he talks about seek ye first the kingdom and everything else will be added unto you as well. Bingo. That is what I believe that. Have you found that that is a state that somehow can be found and accessed and it be. I don't want to say permanent, but experience 80% of the time, Yes, I.

Figure it out because that's my life now.

Okay, we are going to go there, but first.

Tell me about the inciting moment. I know you had some sort of either transcendental experience or awakening or meditation or ayahuasca or something. That made you realize that you did not want to continue building this company and you wanted to do something different. There was something more than what was on your checklist up to this point. What was the moment?

So you want the long version or the short version or the mid version?

Give me. Give me the short version for now.

Okay.

I had a. I went to a four day event and. And on the last day of the event.

I went, I sat through two talks. That kind of opened up the idea that I wasn't authentic. And that was realized by.

Having the definition of authenticity, meaning that I don't care about what other people think of me. And I thought I didn't until I started reviewing my life and realized I did a lot.

A lot. And so much so that it was very, very shocking. Like, oh, my God, I didn't realize this. Wow. Oh, I'm. I care so much, you know, I'm not authentic. I'm so fake like that. And that was not okay. Because it's one thing to go, I know I'm not authentic, but, you know, but I'm gonna show this front. But it's another when you truly believe you are and you realize, nope, yeah.

I relate to this 100%.

Yeah.

I mean, even in the last year, I've looked back at some of my old content and thought, this is a character. This isn't me. This is a character I've constructed in order to get a result. And I do not like him. And so it was starting to peel away that. Like, what's underneath that. So it sounds like some talk awoken something similar in you.

Yeah. And at that moment, I decided, I'm gonna not care anymore. I need to be authentic. I need to strip it away. And then later on that night.

Psilocybin and mdma. First time on both.

Oh, first time on both.

First.

And you went, you went straight for the hippie flip.

Okay, straight for it. Didn't even know it was called a hippie flip. The way it happened was interesting. Somebody offered me the. The chocolate and I go, what's in the chocolate? You know, you don't just go, hey, you want some chocolate?

No.

It's like, no, not at an event like that. It's like, yeah, what's in the chocolate? And so it's like, oh, magic mushrooms. And I didn't want to take it at first because I thought, I'm going to hallucinate.

By the way, whatever is about to be said next may not be a recommendation by capitalism.com. you are watching this in your own volition. And these views will not reflect the. Whatever the disclaimer is. Please continue.

Yes, and by the way.

Not recommending people to do this, this is purely to share information. People need to decide on their own what they want to do.

But I can only share what happened to me, which people usually try to copy. But there's. It doesn't happen. We all have our own path, right?

That's right. Copying someone's spiritual path is like some copying someone's sales letter.

Yeah, it, it, it, it doesn't work.

Hoping to get the same results like you might, you might end up somewhere in range, but it's going to be unique to you. So it just popped you open?

Yeah, I took those and, and afterwards I'm having conversations and I was able to recognize how my sense of self, my identity, my Persona, my ego, I was able to see how that was built, how that was created. From way in my childhood days all the way to that moment, all the major events in my life, I was able to see what drove it. What were my beliefs, my fears, my desires, what were the things I thought like that I believed about life that got me to want to do this, that got me to work so hard and.

Recognizing that all of it came from this need to be better, this need to prove.

But here's the. You saw how you constructed the character.

I saw how I constructed the character. But that wasn't even the, the pinnacle. What started that, even that made that even matter was that I shared a, a grow up story of myself that was very different than one that I've ever shared in my life. You know, people have asked you too many times, account, hey, tell me about how you grew up. And you can easily go ahead and say that with your eyes. You don't have to think so for me, somebody asked me that night and I shared a totally different story, one that I never shared in my life. And it was completely 100% true. But from a different perspective. Yeah, a perspective that wasn't about fear, wasn't about victimhood, wasn't about struggle. There was none of that. It was the complete opposite. It was like fun, it was loving, it was exciting. And when I shared it, not realizing that share something different. Then we moved on to other parts of life and you know, next milestones. And then when they, people, when people started asking me what drove me, I then talked about my drive, which was all of the fear stuff that happened in my childhood. And at that moment is when I realized I stopped and I said, wait, I just shared A story that didn't have any of it. And now I'm saying that this time in my life, the reason why I worked so hard was because of these childhood, you know, events. But I just shared how my childhood was authentically and there was no drama. So I just had this little epiphany that, oh my, I have two childhood stories. And then I just kept going. And then one by one, through the milestones of my life, they were all driven from the victimhood, fear based story.

So as you're telling, retelling the childhood story for the first time from this new perspective, you're talking about a joyful state, you're talking about ease, talking about excitement. But when you had told your rehearsed story.

My whole life, yeah, it was always very different.

Okay, so this is, this is what life looked like. And this is how I learned how to work hard. And this is how I learned to walk more.

And I felt dry, picked on. I grew up in the ghetto, you know, I got, I got beat up, I got looked down. We were very poor. You know, I need to work out, to be strong, to defend myself. You know, that was the premise. You know, I've said this story too many times. So that's why I now work harder to prove themselves. That's why I build the body so this way I can be, try to be perfect in every way. Build the body, make the money, have the girl, have the house, have the life. Because I was looked down upon. And now I need to show them that story has been said too many times. That was the story. But that night, that wasn't the story. And that's why I had this epiphany.

What would have happened if.

Throughout my life I looked at the other story, the happy story, which was like, because people ask me, how did I start working out? What drove you? You know, you're like really fit. Like, what drove you to start exercising at the age of like 11, you know, and I used to say all the pick, you know, all that victimhood stuff. But that night I said a totally different story. It was like I had neighbors across the street, three brothers. One of them was really, really fit, really jacked. We would exercise. I'd watch Arnold Schwarzenegger movies with my mom. And it was really inspiring to see this guy and, and all these kung fu movies and a list of actors, you know, that Chuck Norris, the Bruce Lee, you know, the Donnie Yan, Jet Li, you know, and I'm like, I want to, I want to be like them. That's so awesome. Right. I practice martial arts and I train with these little weights. That was a whole different story. There wasn't no need to prove. Right. It was all kind of inspiring. And then I thought to myself, as I started to. To go through the other milestones in my life and seeing that every milestone was driven through fear from my childhood. Old story. And I thought to myself, what would have happened if I. I focused on this happy story my whole life if that was the part that I focused on? Like, I wouldn't have been driven to prove myself. I wouldn't have been driven to show them. I wouldn't have been driven to go ahead and be afraid that I'm not going to have enough money. So therefore I just work till the death. Because nothing is. Is worse than just being so poor. And. But that wouldn't have been the motivation.

Yeah.

So I probably wouldn't have done that. I probably wouldn't have done that. Which means that would have led to that and that wouldn't have happened. It's like. So I started looking at my life and realized nothing would have been the same. Everything would have been different if only I saw that perspective of my childhood.

But because I didn't, my life turned out the way it was. And it wasn't about good or bad. It was just about the idea of if I saw this news story, I would have had a different life. I would have been a different person just because I had a different story about who I was.

The difference that I'm processing between these two is one is competitive or combative, and from a feeling of not enoughness. It's like I'm trying to be like this person. Similar to, oh, they did this much revenue. I need to be like them. And another was from more of a place of inspiration was, that's really cool. Look at how this person moves. Look at how this person performs. I want to be like this.

Yeah. But not.

I want to beat this.

Right.

There's more of like an internal calling versus an external showmanship.

Fun. It's enjoyable. It looks really fun and cool to do. Yeah, I want to do that. That looks exciting. You know, this excites me. I want to run towards it instead of. I want to run away from that thing in the back. Yeah. And that's why I'm running this direction. Yeah. It's totally different.

Yeah. I'm thinking about the difference in my life of I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I mean, since from 4 or 5 years old and at the beginning. And when I think about it, in this Context. It's like the excitement of creating something and watching it exist in the world. And then from more of a scarcity mindset, I could tell the story of my parents split. I was on my own and I needed to get money. Both of those stories are true. They're both 100% true, but they're completely different energies. They're completely different sources of drive. And one is intrinsically motivating and one is always a feeling of not enough. Is this, this is what you experience or what you processed about your drive?

Yes.

So what do you do with that, Mike?

Well, you know, at that moment I said, if I, if I had a new story in my head and everything in my life would have been different and I would have been a different person. Because they go, who are you? And you go, well, here's who I am. I did this. I did this.

This, here's my list of accomplishments.

I said, well, if I had a different story, and then suddenly I'm a different person.

No, because I'm telling a different story at that moment. But I'm still here. I didn't grow a third arm and just change. I'm still the same person. So then that means the stories in my head isn't. Doesn't define me. It's not. I'm not the stories because I'm still here. I haven't changed. So then if I'm not the stories, then that means the story is coming from my voice or the voice in my head. Then what the heck is this voice in my head? Yeah.

Are you still processing all this from one, you know, one chocolate that somebody slipped you, or was this enough of an insight that you said, I want to dive deeper into this. I want to read, learn, study.

This is all within a six hour period.

My goodness.

Wow.

Okay.

Six hours of non stop. So as I'm realizing it's one thing at a time, one thing. It's just like a continuous event that was happening for me.

I mean, most people have to do like 14 trips to have all of that process and no for them.

So that's why I said right in the beginning hours, the drive of, of not wanting to be fake anymore. I wanted to be authentic, but not knowing what that, how they even do it. What does that really mean? And then once I started realizing that there was this drive to want to find out more, because I realizing that. And then when I asked myself the question, if I'm not the story in my head, then what the heck is his voice?

And then, and then I had this Inner knowing, this inner voice that I heard that says, you're the soul. So I go, oh, crap, right? I'm the soul. So I'm not this voice in my head. And then I go, well, this voice has been in my head my whole life. And this voice tells me a lot of. And I believe it. What the heck have I been believing my whole life? His freaking voice is always there. I make decisions in my life based on this voice that's not even me. So the idea that the voice in my head wasn't me was kind of shocking for me. It's like just, you know, one of those. My reality is kind of being shattered then.

So, Mike, being at this point in the, in the story, it's kind of tempting to say, okay, you were on drugs. So how do you reflect on this now and make sense of it? Is there sense to be made of it? Meaning did you have an insight that allowed energy to flow? Did you just get things from a different perspective that shifted the trajectory of your life? Did the drugs just do their job? Like, how do you make sense, how do you describe this moment now? Because it, it sounds kind of like a panacea, like you took you, somebody gave you something, and everything was fixed. How do you make sense of this now?

So there's many people have taken all kinds of substances.

And, but they don't have this experience.

And that's because what actually happened took me many years to understand. Now I, I, I, I understand what actually happened was my, the chemicals in my body change from the substances, the energy change because they're all aligned chemically. We change energetically, we change. And when that happened, I was able to look at all of the programming in my mind and was able to rewrite them, which is what I did over the six hours. And when I rewrote those and changed my energy, all of the fear, anxiety, all those things that was gone, all of the ways, old ways of thinking I was not attached to anymore. And also my mind that was constantly running became quiet. Because our mind runs based on the energy in our body. When our energy changes, our mind changes because they are one. The mind is just a reflection of the energy. It's, it's the same thing. And so it's just like the water on the top and the water on the bottom is the same water. But if you look at from the top and you don't see the bottom, you would only see the characteristics on the tops, and you would only ever describe the water from the top. But if you go into the Water, It's a totally different thing. Seems like it's a different world, but yet it's the same thing. Our mind and body works in that way. Energy change, mind changes. So when all of this happened, if we had to sum it up, we would say I had a Kundalini awakening, okay, which some people say I've had that, had that many people experience it in different ways. And by the, by the way, it's not something that I would recommend everybody to experience because if you experience.

Could wipe your identity away. And if your identity gets wiped away on, you will feel a level of bliss beyond understanding. But practicality wise, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm, I've, I've got, I've got, I don't, I don't have to worry about going broke and not having any money. So if I was to step away from life, it's like not the world doesn't fall apart, but if somebody is needing to go show up and do work and work and they got to pay bills and I do all this stuff and they suddenly just go inwards, everything in their life could crumble and they, not, they may not be able to survive. They like, they can't maintain their life if they got kids, if they got a wife, they can't connect to them, they can ruin relations, break all that away. And by the time they actually figure out things, they may have destroyed everything in their life already. So it's not something that is right for everyone. I've been coaching people for a lot of years at that time already, which is how I was able to coach myself. And even so, still at that time afterwards, I was feeling the best I've ever felt. But at the same time, I've erased all of my programs. We all have ways of thinking, ways of doing this is right, this is wrong, this is what I like, this is what I dislike. All of those programs, I erased all of them.

When a person does that, they need to rebuild the programs within a very short period of time. If they don't, they don't know what to do. They become lost. But here's the thing, they're happy that they're lost. They don't care that they're lost. It's like, it's like meeting somebody who doesn't care anything about life. They're happy with having nothing, doing nothing and having the, the time of their life. So now you can go, well, that's great. Well yeah, that's great. But let's just take a moment, think about the practical Things, you know, you. If you got responsibilities, you got a family, how are you going to provide for them? How are you going to be there for them? You don't even care about them. You don't want anything bad for them. You just don't care about anything. Because to care, you got to have your sense of self. So this is why, you know, looking back, it was a very unique experience that not. It's not right for everyone. But it happened to me and that was my. That was my path. Because fast forward nine years later, I had to rebuild all of that and understand how it all worked. So now I have the understanding and the experience to. To have this type of conversation and to guide people through. Okay, if you. That happened to you, I can help you. If that didn't happen to you, I can help you reconstruct things without having to go ahead and break down everything. Because some things you can't rebuild.

And you did have to kind of let things crumble. You walked in and said, I can't do this anymore. At the old company, if I understand correctly. I mean, you don't want to be. You don't want to be famous on YouTube anymore, right?

You.

You have no attachment to the business success anymore, and that affects other people.

I wanted to figure out at the end of that six hours, I wanted to. I had two promises that I made to myself. Number one, I'm gonna figure out what happened.

Whatever it takes. I'm gonna sacrifice everything. Doesn't matter. I don't care if I can hold on to this state, this feeling. I'm the happiest man. I knew that deep in my core, because I'm experiencing at that moment. And number two, once I figure it out.

Once I figure it out, I'm gonna teach everybody, Everybody, because everybody wants this. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you know, you want it, you want it. Y. That I knew. So from then, days later, we're. We're. We're back at home here in Austin, and I'm talking to my partners. I'm like, hey, you know, here's what happened, and I'm going to figure this out, and we're going to change the world. I'm going to teach everybody. Just give me some time. I got to figure out what happened, but I'm going to figure this out. I mean, guys, I'm. This is like the feeling. I mean, I couldn't really describe it well because I don't know what the heck happened, right? So can't even Blame them for going, yeah, we can't just, that's, we can't just pivot into that, whatever that is. You know, we're a fitness company. Like, we've got salaries and bills to pay. Like, you know, we can't just kind of just venture off into whatever that is. And. But to me, it was very clear because I'm experiencing, I'm like, yeah, we can, you know, we can still do the fitness thing, but we'll do this as well. You know, it's our company. We do whatever we want, you know, but, you know, but they couldn't see it because, you know, they're not having the experience. And. But I wasn't attached, so I said, okay, I'll do it by myself, then I'm out. And they're really surprised. You know, it was the first time I've, I said that. You know, it's just like I never talked about ever leaving. It wasn't like a discussion. There's no, I'm not gonna leave. This is like, I put everything in my life for this. I'm gonna take this to the grave. But suddenly I'm out. You know, don't worry, I'll. I'll maintain whatever I need to. We'll figure out my exit. I'm out. And so they were like, oh, okay. Very surprised. From then on, it become. I was just focused on figuring this out. I did the bare minimum that I did at work. I was. That's all I really focused on figuring out what it is, what happened, how does it work. And coming from absolutely having no understanding of what it was. It was just like the needle in the haystack. And every day I'm learning a little more and a little more and a little more and fast forward, you know, three months from there, three months later, everybody around me understands these type of things. I entered into like another world and it was so interesting.

I remember like peer group changed your.

Everybody. I mean, I stopped going out, I stopped hanging out with all the same people. I just went in and then as I started figuring things out, I started making new friends. And then suddenly everybody around me don't care about entrepreneurship, you know, nobody, you know, you know how that that type of environment is. You're talking about conversions, you're talking about new softwares. That this person is doing this to scale those conversations non existence. Like I clearly remember, it's always. It's like I entered into Harry Potter land. It's all right here, but it's just another, another community that's all existing. Right here, right under my nose. Never knew it was there, you know, so fascinating the way people talk, you know, all so fascinating. It was just like I'm like a kid again, just like a sponge, learning conversations with everybody. And I just kept learning and learning, and this was going on for years and years. And my understanding, I just totally unplugged from the business world and just totally immersed into everything that has to do with spirituality, has to do with enlightenment, has to do with personal growth, emotions, mind, consciousness, life, and everything intertwined in between.

Was there never a moment in which you wanted to go back to crushing it in business?

Two and a half years from that moment, which is February 8, 2015, I was about to go back and I had these two partners that are going to help me. We're going to do this stuff. And I started making some videos. And I remember feeling.

Unauthentic, which was kind of the reason why I left. And I remember telling them, hey, guys. I just don't feel like I'm saying these things, but I'm not fully realizing these things. I'm not fully haven't accomplished these things fully. I can talk very intelligently about all of it. You know, two and a half years of non stop diving in. I built a solid understanding, but I'm not fully experiencing it. And it doesn't. I feel like.

You mean, you mean this, the state, like the state of oneness or detachment that you experience?

Like, I talk about inner peace, but I'm not feeling fully peaceful. Like, I'm not. I didn't quite find it, but I'm, I'm more peaceful than most people around.

You had learned a lot about it. Yeah, but you were no longer experiencing it.

You know, it's like, it's like marketing. You go, hey, you're gonna get into this nice peaceful state. But let's say if a person's like, well, I'm not fully peaceful, but I'm more peaceful. But you wouldn't write in the copy, hey, just, you know, become right. It's like if you were to say 100% of what it is, it may not be compelling copy enough. So you have to make it into this absolute, you know, like that. So if I was to go and say how I'm really feeling, it probably wouldn't work. So I had to, I had to go ahead and speak in more absolutes. But it didn't feel right because I wasn't fully embodying it. And I'm like, I walked away from everything to go and really dive in and Learn and to. And to connect, all of it. And now I'm coming back just because. The only reason was. Wasn't because I was really running out of money. I sold my share. So I had enough savings for a little while, but it was only because. Momentum, right. Everybody knew me on the Internet, you know, I'm like that guy. And now every day that passes by that I'm disappeared, people forget. Everything that was built kind of just washes away. I knew that. I understand. So these guys were like, you got this window. You need to come back, and two and a half years of just disappearing, I mean, that's long enough. I'm like, right. But then I had to choose then because I knew I wasn't fully ready to come back. And I only did because of trying to maintain what I built.

There's still an attachment to that old version of yourself that is starting to whittle away, float away. And right at the tail end, you're like, maybe I can grab this and hold on to this. That's how I'm processing what you're describing.

Yeah. Yeah. So then I said, no, guys, I'm gonna. I gotta go do more work. I gotta figure out more things. So they're like, you. You sure, Mike? I mean, that means you're gonna. You know, you're gonna lose out on a lot. They were right. But I said, you know, what am I afraid of? I. I already let go of the biggest thing that I've ever built up to that moment. What am I afraid of? You know, it's already gone. Like, I don't. I don't care. I'm gonna figure this out. I didn't. I didn't walk away from all of it just to go halfway.

And financially, what was your status at this point? Are you. You know, you're good for a couple years. You're set for life. What. What. What. What's your financial status at this point?

Well, I guess it depends on how much money, like. Well, sure, you know, you know, so, I mean, I. I was. I had. I. I was bought out. You know, my shares went to the. Went to my partners, you know, so I got paid out enough, you know, if I. If I live frugally, it can last for a long time. I. I wasn't, you know, but it wasn't like I was just buying random things. It's just, you know, just so you're.

Not rich, but you're comfortable for a while.

Yeah.

So you have a cushion, but it's not like you can do nothing forever.

Yeah. Not. Not forever, no. No. But I had a cushion. I was. I was good for. I knew I was good for at least, you know, another five years, seven years. I'm fine.

So then I went back in and I just kept going.

And what does that mean, to go back in? What does that exploration look like? I'm tracking with everything that you're saying, and I've experienced enough of it. Times where I can relate to certain, like, I know what you're saying, even if the words are different, but I still feel like the needle in the haystack.

So, like, imagine, you know, like a normal workday. You know, somebody works 8 hours, 10 hours, 12 hours. So imagine all of that time where somebody's focusing on work. All of that is focused on understanding, experimenting, training on.

Accomplishing that goal, which is trying to maintain that state that I experience.

Doesn't making it a goal make it kind of elusive in the first place?

Six years later I found that out.

Which is why I couldn't get it until. Fast forward. Six years later, I entered into another stage. But yes, you're right to, to try to make it into a goal, therefore stops a person from actually accomplishing it. But they can. But they can understand a lot. They can figure out a lot of things. We're talking, looking at thought patterns, belief patterns. We're talking about learning how to let go, programming the body, you know, feeling energy, feeling vibration, and, and having a bigger understanding of life and connecting dots to things. There's a lot of things that can be done. But that, that final piece, And I say final just because that's, that's the piece that I've got to. So I don't know the, the next. So I. I can't talk about the next. But that final piece to where we're really in this state of, of selflessness or flow that requires us to let go of the goal. It requires us to not want to go accomplish it anymore, which is. So.

It'S a. It's a paradox. So you can't start the journey.

I just didn't want to share one, One thing for context, Mike, because where I'm at, like, if I were to contextualize where I'm at in the journey you're describing, I'm one step before what you just described, that awareness of letting go of the goal, because I still have this thought train. And I know that this is paradoxical. I know this is a paradoxical thought, but I want to achieve this state because I know in that state I can accomplish anything that I Want this idea of. I know that when the flow flows and you're in this state of selfless service.

I really believe that's when everything else is added onto you as well.

The amount that you give, the detachment from trying to take just gives you so much momentum, and it's blissful. And I know that then you can accomplish everything else. And I'm aware that it's paradoxical to say I'm going to let it all go so that I can get it all, but that's kind of the thought train and the awareness of where I'm at in this. And it sounds like.

If we were to mentally put it into stages, the next stage is to really just let it go.

Four stages.

You're holding up four. There's actually four.

Okay, tell them to me we can divide it up into 10 as many. I divide it up into 4 to make it. To bring more context.

Guys, if you've made it this far, you've heard this theme of this selfless pursuit and the selfish pursuit. And this is why I think it's so important that when you start a business, you start it with another person in mind. Most of us get into business because we want to get something, and so we pursue all of these different strategies and all these different tactics. But when you start with a person in mind and you're in service to that person, I find that everything just works better. When I'm working with a new entrepreneur or an established existing entrepreneur who's already making millions of dollars, when they get stuck or burnt out, it often comes back to, how are we serving the person? And they're not. They're thinking about the tactics and the strategies that will create growth. If you're new on your journey or you need some help, the best place to get plugged in here is to download our free resources@capitalism.com playbook. And it will show you how we build brands and businesses around one person that we serve, creating a community of people that you go all in on. And then we create a business that serves them. And a byproduct of that is that you end up building a successful business that you can scale and sell. You can get those resources@capitalism.com playbook.

Stage one. I'm a victim. Life is constantly.

Happening to me. I feel powerless. I can't do anything. I want to do it, but I can't. You're stopped me. Government stopped me and my mother stops me. Right. My genetics stopped me. Right. So I'm not able to really create the life I want. Stage two, many entrepreneurs are there. I have the power. I am making this happen. It's me. I created this. I create this. I control this. I control this, right? But I'm a. I'm attached to these things.

And.

Now the good thing about it is that they're creating things, getting the successes. The bad thing about it is they're not fulfilled or happy. Always worried, always stress, always fear, always chasing, never fully satisfied. So then stage three, person goes, I want something different. Let me go ahead and unplug. Let me go ahead, unplug and walk away from all those things. And when I say walk away, it doesn't have to be like not having a business, but there is a level of unplugging that has to happen. All right, stop juggling all these balls. And now when a person stops, they can connect back to themselves. They can start to feel, they can slow down. They can start to see all the contents in their mind, all their behaviors and habits. They can see their belief systems. They can see what drove them. They can see all this stuff. And now that they can see it, and they can start to connect deeper. And they can start to connect to this sense of calmness and peace that wasn't there. And when they think they got calm, there's deeper calm. And then when they connected a deeper calm, there's deeper calm. So then at some point, they're like, huh? It's like, we just wipe the slate clean. So now they go, this is what it feels like to be calm. This is what it feels like to be peaceful. Now, they can't stay here forever because ain't getting done.

Yeah.

So then now. And they only know how to do that by stopping everything, which is good, because if you try to do that without stopping everything, it's tough because you're having to juggle these things. But then at the same time, you can't. You want to feel. You want to connect deep, but to connect deep, you have to focus on here inside. But to live life, you have to focus on the outside. Two different things. You see, when you're doing work, you can't go ahead and connect to how you feel if you did. You can't connect the dots that you need to. When you're writing copy, when you're paying attention to somebody, you don't go and connect to the way you feel. Right? You connect to them outside. So there are two presence that's happening simultaneously all the time. There's a presence inside when we bring our attention inwards, and there's presence on the outside. When we take our attention outwards, if we want to go ahead and create our life, we take our attention outwards and we build things. If we want to know what the heck to build, we take our attention inwards. If somebody doesn't do this, then they can build castles and mountains and they have no fulfillment. They don't connect to it. It doesn't do anything for them. They can just burn it down. They don't care because it wasn't what they really wanted, because they never connected inwards. If they only connect inwards, then they can't build nothing. Yeah, they just know exactly what they want, why they want it, how they feel about it. But nothing's happening on the outside, so there has to be this balance. So stage three is all about going inward so they can reestablish how they are, what they really want, how it feels like to be connected themselves, how it feels like to be more calm and still. Now stage four, they come back out. They come back out and they start to build. They rebuild their life or they continue to build what they have in the past, but they have an anchor point. So when they start to do things and it starts to feel very uncomfortable, when they start to see old behaviors and habits that. That they don't really align with, they recognize it because they created enough space. If they never did stage three, then they. They aren't able to recognize when they're feeling agitated until they're really upset, really afraid, and they go, yeah, I'm a little stressed. No, bro, you're like really, really afraid. You've been making decisions of fear for like a while and now you're just sensing it because they don't have the sensitivity with their body. The body is like this device that we connect to that allows us to know how we feel about things, how we. The level of awareness, the like, the way that we actually believe about things. The body lets us know. If we don't connect to the body, we don't know. We have no idea. We're just randomly making up shit in our head. But it's not even real. So then when we connect to the body, now we know. When I go, I like this place, and the body feels really good. I really like it. Now if I go, I like this place and the body is like really stressed, I can't really feel it. I really don't know if I like the place because there's nothing that is.

Actually totally get that.

The conscious mind just makes up stuff all the time.

I totally understand.

So we Got to connect to that. Stage three is connecting to that. And then once you connect to it, you'll know if you lose connection. That's the thing.

This makes a ton of sense to me. I mean the I. My personal work has been actually feeling in my body, the sensations of emotions, even this just the benign sensations in my body. And the more that I do that, the more that I mean it was a month or six weeks ago, I looked up and I was like, I hate where I live.

I do my podcast recordings in the same place where I sleep and my children sleep in this room and we have dinner at the podcast. This is ridiculous. This isn't what I want. We are deconstructing this, moving things around. And it was. But up until that point it was. This is so functional. It's so convenient to have this, all these calculations. But I felt I didn't even know that I was dissatisfied with it. And so there has been this conscious allowing of things to break down.

While.

I'm feeling more in my body and in my experience. So I completely relate to, to what you're describing now. It sounds like at least in your experience there is a.

There is an experiential presence, joy, enthusiasm that you got a glimpse of through an exogenous substance and through a one time experience that at least the way that I'm hearing you is now more of a permanent or conscious state. Is that the case now?

Yes. The old state never came back, ever.

What do you mean by the old state?

Before I had that experience.

I thought I was happy, right? Listed all the things. But then when I was, when I had that energy run through me, when I felt so light, when I changed my energy in my mind, I recognized what I was really feeling before.

And.

Descriptive that I always remember this image. It was like being in a hole in the ground, chained up, blindfolded and covered, mouth covered and no sun. I mean I was like trapped like that, that level of like suffering and closed physically. I was very heavy, like physically sluggish, very dense, low in energy. Which is why I was chasing so many monsters and energy drinks constantly.

Physical pain, physical pressure in the head, wasn't able to pay attention.

And you were not aware of this in your previous.

I. I was aware of it, but there. But I thought that it was me or normal. It was normal. It's just the way it is. It is happening. You know, it's like, oh, this is happening, this is happening. This is what I'm thinking. And then I believe that I believed everything I was thinking These are the problems. This is bad. This is bad. We need to do this. And when I look, I don't see what's in front of me. I see through the filter of my thoughts.

That never came back. My state that I had was on a really. Was a very high energetic state. It dropped about 50% after two weeks. In two. For two weeks, I stayed that way. The level of bliss was just next level. From there, it dropped about 50%. So I was more grounded then, but not like before. Still, I mean, still I felt amazing. And then throughout the years, it would fluctuate. I would have states that would feel lower. Never like before, but lower. And they'll come back up and lower and come back up. And this is where the experimental and the learning and the training really started to come in place. What do I. When I did this, how does it change this? When I say this, when I do this, when I meditate, when I don't meditate, when I do this exercise, when I'm around this person, how does it change my consciousness? And I would measure this, and I would practice this, and then I'll figure things out. Then I would talk to people, and I'll train other people. Does it happen for them if I try it that way with them? And I did this for years and years.

It feels like effort when you're just trying to practice those states. That's my experience. Yeah.

Well, that's not how you get to those states. You can only always pretend, but you can't ever get there. Somebody can pretend to be loving, pretend to be grateful, pretend to be thankful, and they can act till the end of the day and as long as they want, but they're always pretending. So there's always this effort, like you mentioned, and that's because all of those states is a. It's an effect. When we remove what's blocking it, it's already there. Everybody's heard this, you know, oh, you have all this love inside of you. Love is what you are made of. But people don't really cognitively understand. What does that really mean? Here's what it means. I like to use the analogy of a canvas. Imagine canvases, most of the time, I think they're white. We always start off and they're white. And from there, we put all this paint and colors on it. So then someone goes, I want to go back to white. So then they paint white over all the paint, but all of those layers of other paint is still there and still affecting this canvas. The canvas will never be the pure White that it was. So people keep painting it white and going, look, it looks white. Now it's back to normal. No, just remove all of the paint that you ever put on there. And now by default, when you remove it, it becomes white. The white is the love, compassion. The white is the gratefulness. The white is that sense of innocence and bliss and fulfillment. Babies is like a white canvas and then when they go through the world, they get all this paint on it.

The way that I've heard you describe this reminds me a lot of Michael Singer's work. Michael Singer's.

I studied a lot of his work.

Okay. He's probably my, my favorite philosopher, spiritual teacher. That this idea of underneath all of the blockages, there's a level of joy and enthusiasm that surpasses whatever the ego mind has experienced. And I've always wondered, like, is it.

Like really, like, is it there?

Like, is that what's under there? So this is me asking you, is that really a state that is possible?

Yes.

Tell me more.

When we do the work, and that's where the. That's where it comes to. We don't know that it's there. Someone says it's there, but how do you know? Right? So then when you go and go deeper and deeper and put in all this effort and put in all this effort and all this time and all this energy, doing the practices, all this stuff, you don't know if you're going to find it. And as you're starting to feel better and then suddenly you fall out of it, and then suddenly you get agitated. It's like, oh, did it not work? I thought it was working, but maybe it doesn't work. Oh, maybe, maybe it just doesn't work. Maybe I'm not doing it right. Maybe I need to change it so somebody can go through that. I did years. That's why it took so long. So, yes, it works. And all somebody has to is stick to it and go through the process. But just like entrepreneurship, the process isn't just win, win, win. They go through all. It's up and down, but it's always there. All a person has to do is let go of all of the emotions of fear. All the emotions, not just fear, all the emotions, period. That when we let go of the emotions, not to get rid of emotions, but stop holding on to them. There's a difference. Getting rid of emotions means, like, you can't access emotions anymore. Getting rid of it, you're getting. But letting go of the emotions is like you're not constantly emotional.

So now, when you're not constantly emotional, then the state that we experience is peace. And from peace we can be loving. From peace, we can have compassion, we can have gratefulness. But if you don't have peace, you cannot access any of those real states. You cannot fully experience it. You can pretend to act loving, pretend the best you can to be grateful, which is better than nothing. But for those that really want to access it effortlessly and just be, they have to get rid of everything that's covering the peace. The piece is that white canvas. The piece is the baby that's born. And we all know how that's like. And they're so innocent. It's inside every one of us. All we have to do is shed everything that's covering it. That's all. How do we gain more energy in our body? Do this, do this, do this. You know what we're really doing? We are just clearing the blockages inside because, you know, where's energy? Everywhere. Everywhere. You know that massive light above us, that freaking sun. Oh, there's a lot of energy. You think that sun doesn't have enough energy for the whole planet? Not just this planet, many planets. Yeah. So what is us? Oh, I don't have better, bro. You know how much energy is up there.

Right? You know how much energy you're standing on? You think there's. There's not enough energy down here. You see where everything is growing? That's a lot of energy.

That is such a great point, because we are biological creatures that, you know, made from the energy that existed billions of years before us.

It's existing and right now.

And we complain about no energy.

Why don't you have energy when energy is everywhere? Oh, well, maybe because you're blocked, you don't have to try to grab the energy that's around. It's always around. It's like a fish. It's like we're in water all the time, but we always have wetsuits on, and we're always in a tank in a bubble, and we're not wet, and we're going, how can I get wet, bro? You're in water. Get out of the fricking things and you're going to get wet.

What would you describe what is. What is being blocked mean to you?

So blockage can show up in many ways physically. Tension. Tension is blockages. This is why all sickness. Anybody that's sick, their body is not loose, their body is tight. Tension is one of the most universal ways to look at blockages, but that's on the physical Level energetically, we can say blockages is when there is strong emotion that's inside. Now emotionally blocked. I got hurt, so now I'm emotionally blocked. And where do I feel the. The hurt here? Right. Heartbreak. So then now emotionally I'm blocked energetically, this part is tight. Not. Sorry, not energetically. Physically, this part is tight. So physically I have heart problems because physically it's tight. And the doctor goes, oh, it's because you know you're blocked right here. Well, yes, emotionally, it's because you are hurt with love and emotionally. And is also in the mind of this person. Hurt me and now I can't trust anybody. And etc that maintains here in the mind. Energetically, it's blocked here. And then physically there's the blockages in the vessels and the tension here.

So you have, you have a, a physical explanation, an emotional explanation, a mental explanation, you might even have a spiritual explanation. But it means that there's energy is not flowing. That's a blockage. And it could be caused by physical, emotional, mental, any, any of these.

They're all happening simultaneously all the time. We just, we can look at one or look at the other, it doesn't matter. We can look at it energetically. And if it's blocked energetically, it will always be blocked physically, vice versa. If it's blocked chemically, it's always blocked physically and energetically because we're encased in multiple bodies simultaneously all the time. So there's never one thing is happening, not the other. So no matter which one that person is interested in, they can just look at that thing. I'm a fitness guy, I like to move. So I look at it more physical and slightly more energetic. And slightly energetic. Somebody's a lot more energy. So then they're a Reiki hero. They're all energy. So they look at energy. Right. And you got people like Dr. Joe and they're like chemically. Because they're doctors. Right. They look at chemically and brainwaves and. But yet everybody's saying the same thing, Looking at the same thing, but from different perspectives of the same thing.

Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. So.

How does one practice removing blockages? Because if I'm hearing you say, and you're not the first person that I've heard say this, that on the other side of connecting to whatever that is, that state, that energetic flow on the other side of that is everything that we want to experience. And the only thing standing between our way is removing the blockages. What is, what is the practice of.

Clearing so Connecting to energy. Connecting all this. I like to speak in practical because nobody can go connect to energy.

Have a good day.

Go connect.

So what should I do? So this is what you do, right? So that's what. All we do is take our attention and bring it inside and feel the sensation inside. What sensation? This is sensation. Okay, take your hand away. Now take your mind, your attention and bring it here. Do you. Can you feel inside? Some people can. Some people like eh. A little bit. Some people like very. Okay, now put your sensation. Bring your attention here. In this part, right? In this part. In this part. Can you feel inside? Okay, now do that constantly. That is connecting to energy.

That's connecting to energy. See that is more practical. Now somebody has a more clear direction. That's connecting to yourself that cuz that. So that is attention. And attention brings inwards feeling the sensation. Why does that happen? What's actually happening? When we bring our attention into the sensation inside the sensation which is our body that's creating sensation, the nerves. Right. So now how's that sensation feel? That's a little more uncomfortable. How's the sensation feel? What's better? All right. It's all sensations nervous system. Right. When we bring our attention here, we're present because the attention is here in the present moment. The body is present because it's here. So therefore our. Our attention is here in the present moment. If our attention's in the present moment, it's not in the mind as much. Now if we're all of attention is here, then that means our mind is shut off. If partial attention is here, then we have partial mind. So now if my mind is saying man, I'm really stressed. I got these problems and all of my attention's in my mind. Then I believe that this is the world like that is reality. Now If I have 20% in my mind and 80% here, then even though I am aware that I have problems, I'm aware that there are some struggles in my life. But because I'm my attention is here, I am more at ease.

So it's all about direction of attention, where we put our attention. The more our attention is here in the present moment, the deeper we can access minds. Because we have our conscious, subconscious, unconscious. Our level one, two and three. Level one loud voice. Level two knowingness, awareness, consciousness of level three self. So when our level one, the noise, when we shut that off, we are now more present. How do we shut it off? Take our attention, bring it here? If we get in, if we bring our attention to our mind, My Mind is talking right now, and I want to shut off my mind. Okay, mind, go ahead and shut off. Come on, shut off. Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking. So this way I can bring here. Just wait. I'm waiting for you to stop talking, right? It's going to keep going. So then we take our attention and then we bring it here. And now by default, if I do this by default, I'm not paying attention to you. I don't have to go, hey, bro, I'm not going to pay attention to you anymore, okay? No, bring your attention somewhere else. So we do that with our mind. And now that first layer starts to shut off. Now, what's present? Remember, there's two presents here. Inside, feeling everything on the outside, you, and everything that's in front of us. Pick your choice. But out of these two, do you want to connect to yourself? Okay, go inside. You want to be present to build things, go outside.

That's it. Either way, we're not in our head. Now we do that, partially conscious mind shuts off. We become present, more subconscious mind shuts off. We do that entirely. No sense of self.

So the amount of attention that we can maintain here determines how deep we can access in our mind. So now if you go, I want to go, okay, well, I'm going to connect really here, because I want to get connected. Okay.

So now let's say you have a lot of pain in your body. You're not healthy, you don't exercise, you eat bad food, you feel your body, your body doesn't feel good. So now is it going to be comfortable to constantly feel pain and tension and feel the heaviness and feel the pressure that constantly, just pressure, constantly. Oh, I don't want to feel this anymore. I can only handle for so much. I don't want to feel it because it's really uncomfortable. So it becomes harder to be present in your body because your body's in a lot of pain. So now we need to be healthy so that it becomes easier, less effort to take our attention and bring it here in the body. And when we do, our mind starts to become more still. We access lower states or deeper states of mind, which gives us more information. We can access more information. Conscious mind, words. Right now, the words that we're saying, right? I don't know how long we've been talking. Now imagine. Imagine you walk into this room. When I saw this place, when I pulled up and I saw this place without a single word in my head, instantly, I know this place. I see the characteristics, I see where we're at instantly when you see an attractive woman, before you can have any thoughts of, I like this and this, and this before that, instantly you look at her, you know she's attractive before even saying all those things. Words are too slow in the mind.

Right? So when we speak, it's slower than thinking. When we think, it's slower than knowing.

So if we can access knowing, then we access more information simultaneously at any given moment. If we think, then it's slower. If we can only speak, it's even slower. So the idea is, if we can access more information by simply becoming more present, everything we do levels up. As an entrepreneur, you gotta know. You gotta know what to do. You can't just go, da, da, da, da, da. What about the infinite moving parts? So by the time you try to go and calculate everything, you forgot the first thing because you're on number 25. Number. You forgot those things. You got to go back.

I know so many entrepreneurs who know everything that they've forgotten books about entrepreneurship, but they don't know what to do because there is a missed connection there. And this reminds me of something I heard you say once about when you were first trying to slow down your mind and going in this direction. You told this story of washing a dish and plowing through washing the dishes, just going as fast as you could, and at some point being like, what am I in such a hurry for? Like, I walked away from my company. I don't need. Like, I'm not on any deadline to get these dishes washed.

I got nothing to do after these dishes.

But you're like, plow, and you're the most productive dishwasher ever. And that was a moment at which you caught it. I'm being driven by something that isn't presence.

My. My level two thoughts, my knowingness was getting it, get it done, get it done, get it down, get it down, get it done right. It needs to get done now. Needs to get done now. Or we can say, that was my programming. That wasn't consciously. That was in the level two thoughts. I was in my subconscious. Why did I think that way or why did I know that? Because my body was tense, and so therefore, I was feeling stressed.

You know how we create stress? Just tense up? Just tense up. When we tense up, we just create a pressure. Pressure is stress. Just put pressure on yourself. Like physically put pressure or tense up your body. Either way, now there's pressure. Pressure feels stressful. Pressure now creates frustration. When we're angry, we're tense. We're not Relaxed. So when I was washing those dishes, I was tensing up more than what was needed, which then created the stress, which then got me to become aware. The knowing of. Hurry. Knowing of, I guess needs to get done. Needs to get done. Now there's no time. There's no time. But then when I became aware of that and I recognized, wait, I. I became. I was present enough to see how I was washing my dishes, and I recognized there was no reason to do it that way. That way was the program because my body and my knowingness all respond in that way. Body not relax, knowing this, hurry, hurry, hurry. So then when I recognize that, I consciously slow down.

Breathe. So this way I can relax more and slow it down. I would do this with washing dishes. When I fold laundry, it's like I'm a speed so fast when there was no need. So I purposely slowed down everything so I can know how it's like to be calm. And that's the stage three. I was in stage three for a while.

Yeah, I. I sometimes will think about this as, like, I remember. I remember that quote because I think it reminded me of a time I must have been at Burning man and I thought I had nowhere to be, nothing to do. And I. I found myself washing dishes really fast and then be like, how much can I enjoy this?

Is there a way that I could find a way to just really enjoy washing these dishes? And I don't know if it was before or after I had heard you tell this story, but when I'm conscious of it and aware of it, I can really enjoy washing the dishes. Now, most of the time, 98% of the time, I'm like, I can't fucking enjoy washing the dishes. I have to do. There's no way I can ever enjoy washing the dishes. But if I actually get really calm and present, I can enjoy anything.

Well, so that's the thing to want to enjoy it.

Your sense of self is present. You're basically saying, I want to. I want to make this into something I like.

Yep.

So now you change the way you wash your dishes to make it happen. But let's say if you were to have that approach with other things, what happened? If you can't make something enjoyable.

You try. I mean, dishes. It's easier to make it enjoyable. But there are some things that is more challenging. And if your goal is, I want to make it enjoyable. Want to make things enjoyable, you're bound to fail. You will succeed at some, but you will fail for sure in the things that are more challenging so therefore the act of wanting to enjoy, you've already created problems for yourself. You've already created things that you're not going to enjoy. And what happens when you don't enjoy.

Could be stress, could be fear, could be anxiety. Depending on what it is, you've already created that the moment you even had the intention of wanting to enjoy things.

So what do you do?

That's exactly where my going. Well, are we, then we're kind of.

What do you do? Yeah, look at this way.

Do what is needed. Let go of the enjoyment.

Do what is needed. You got to wash dishes. Okay, do I need a wash fast right now?

No. Then don't. Do I need a wash fast right now? Yeah, yeah, because I, I gotta wash, so I gotta get that thing. Then wash fast, do what's needed. You're hungry, eat. If you eat what you need, you're healthy, you're strong, you're revitalized. If you don't eat enough, you're low in energy. If you eat too much, you're low in energy. Do what's needed. You exercise, you exercise too much, you over train and you pull something. You don't exercise enough, you're low in energy and not healthy. Do what you need. Nothing more, nothing less.

Have that to be a universal approach to everything. Work, same thing. You do what you need and work and you succeed. You do too much and you create too much imbalances with the other parts of your life or you get burned out, you don't do enough and nothing happens.

What is work for you now? Like you, you've. You've built a company that was leader in the space. You go through this transformation, you're still an entrepreneur now. So what is work and business to you now? What does it mean to you and what is your relationship with work and what we might call effort?

I need to spread this message and teach people how to do this, how to do what it is that I'm saying right now we're talking about the idea, the concept, getting some, getting some ideas around it. Then there's the practical part, then there's doing the practices there. Then there's dealing with this challenge and overcoming that. My work is to make sure people know how to do that. So I need to get this information out to everybody, as much people as I can, before I'm gone.

So it is more of a allowing it to flow out than a going out and trying to grab in.

This moves into the question of like, purpose for people. You know, what do I do? And this is A really big question. When people are starting to.

They'Re starting to see their ego, they're starting to see the belief systems and go, I want to create a different life because I don't want to create the same life as before. And they start to question all the things that they do.

Something universal to, to know is that we.

We already have all of the experiences and all the knowing for the things that we need to do at this moment. We already do. We're never set up with not having the right tools, not having the right experiences. So when someone experienced some really crazy stuff in their, in their earlier childhood or in their life, bad or good, those experiences, those skill sets allow them to do the thing they need to do now.

When a person knows this, they don't have to have doubt that I don't know how to do it, just go ahead and do it. But I'm going to fail. Right? And then you're going to get up and do it again because you're supposed to fail nine times so you can get the 10 time right. So just start failing now so you can get to that 10 time faster. Right. One out of 10 succeed.

So then the problem is not that people don't know what their purpose is. The problem is not that they don't know what their passion is. That's not the real issue. People think that's the issue, but that's not. The real issue is that people are afraid of getting it wrong.

They're afraid of wasting time. They're afraid of these things because the outcome of what they do that they need that outcome so much.

Yes. It matters so much.

It makes them feel so good about themselves. Yeah.

Or they think that by achieving it there will be a different state on the other side of it.

A higher sense of self. I'm more, I'm more valuable, I'm more special, I'm smarter, I'm better, I'm more improved. And because of that, now everything matters so much. And now the moment that everything matters so much, they just put a monkey wrench in front of everything. They just went ahead and put a hurdle in front of everything. Now you can't go ahead and be in flow. You can't just do the thing. Now you have to worry about every single thing you do.

Everything has to be right. Everything has to be exactly how it's supposed to be because there's so much bound up energy in getting it correct so that we get to the state. And the irony of that is that you're just like cutting it all off from the get go. When if you were to just be relaxed in it, first of all, it would probably go better. And second of all, you're more in that state through the process, not just when you get to some arbitrary goal or when you beat some person.

Like we talked about earlier.

There is a, I, I remember this quote that I read with, with Bruce Lee where he talked about, there's no man throwing a punch. There's only punch.

If we're there in a fight and we're thinking, okay, I'm gonna throw this punch and this punch, you're already too slow. You don't have time to think. You throw a punch, there's only a punch, there's only kick, right?

So when we're doing things, what happens is that people always bring themselves into the action. They keep thinking about themselves doing the action, but there's no need for this. When they bring themselves into before the action. Now, they are always creating a hurdle because it's our action. We're always part of every action that we always, that we do because it's our life. It's every time when you do something, it's you doing it.

So to think about you doing this action is to create an extra step because it's always you. So if it's always you, then why would you think about you doing the action? What's more important, the action or you? What's your intention? To get good at the action or to somehow make yourself feel better? Well, action. Great. Then focus on the action. Yes. Don't focus on you.

That makes a ton of sense to me now.

In every single action that we take, do do that. Stop thinking about me doing the thing, me drinking this cup. Just drink, just walk, just punch, just write, just speak.

Mike, my final question for you, we have peers, you've probably heard this a bunch of times where people say, I don't want to do personal discovery because I think it would lessen my drive. If I find out what's driving me and I heal that or connect with that, I'm afraid that that part of me that has created so much will go away. What do you just, what do you say to somebody who has that concern?

Then don't look at the drive. Keep doing what you're doing. Nothing's wrong with that.

You know, people will.

Somebody will do that. The reason why people question these things is because they experience.

Suffering. If you haven't experienced enough suffering, keep doing what you're doing.

There's no need to go ahead and convince people to look this Direction. People will automatically look to look this direction when they have enough suffering. When they look at their life and they realize I don't like what I created, they will start to challenge and question everything. Desire, my beliefs, the way I do it. They don't need to be convinced. You know how it is when we try to convince somebody. People look at you like you're trying to change me. I want you to just accept who I am. Great. So I wouldn't even, I don't even try to convince people. I just share. Here's my insights and here's what I know. And the people that go, I'm interested, they come. The people that don't, they go. When I sit at a dinner table, I don't even talk much. I just sit there. Somebody asked me, I'll talk until they, they get everything that's they needed. And I just sit there afterwards and just do nothing. I don't even care sometimes just to talk about things.

The right people will always show up because they're ready. And if they're not ready, it's no big deal. I had these things happen when I was 32 years old. For, so for 32 years I wasn't ready. So that's not to say that somebody can be 60 years old and they're ready or somebody can be ready at 15. I don't write the rules. They don't write it either. These things happen. There's no ever need to force people. When they're ready, they will go ahead and ask those questions and look in. And when they're not, just keep living the way you are.

What's ironic about that is I find that to be an applicable rule for business as well. Where my most stressful months or quarters or years are when I am trying to force something to work, run more advertising.

Push this thing harder. But when I just have the thing and let it be, the right ones pop. And then advertising is effortless and then talking about it's effortless and it just starts to roll. But the minute that I think I, I need to get this thing, this product, this campaign moving, so I'm going to throw more energy behind it to try and make it happen. I feel bound up and stressed and I have no creativity. But when I just think this is for a person and it's for this group of people and if they like it, they resonate. And when it starts to pop, then we can drive it faster. It's like rolling things downhill instead of trying to roll them uphill. And so I didn't know if there would be business lessons in this conversation, but I'm right at that point where it's all connected for me and I get little glimpses of it. So I'm taking inspiration from your journey. Do you have any requests of the audience, any resources that you want to draw attention to?

Well, I want to say one thing about the business lesson, you know, and then, and then I'll share some resource. The business lesson would be this.

When you write an email, if you know what to write, it may take you 10 minutes to write. But if you don't know what to write, you may not even write it at all. It may take you three days or a week or two weeks.

Can confirm? Yeah, been there.

If you're writing sales copy and you know what to say, you may knock it out in 90 minutes. If you don't know what to say, you may pay $20,000. Yep. So.

If you know the information that you need to know, you will increase your business on all folds. You will increase in your performance. You will be able to have better strategies, you will be able to have more creative ideas simply because you know the things you need to know. And here's the interesting thing. We all know much more than what we are accessing. Like we all have a thousand terabytes there in the cloud, but we don't. We're not share the passwords, we can't access it. So the idea is spend more energy accessing what you already know instead of trying to learn new things. Because learning new things, you have to connect it to your life, your project, your business. But there are so many things that we already know. And when we can access that, everything increases in our performance. And to access that, meditate every morning and every evening. Had that to be a Standard. The goal, 20 minutes every morning, 20 minutes every evening. You can't meditate because you feel like you're cramped up, you got ants in your pants, your mind is constantly racing. Great. Welcome to meditation. Here's what you do now. Go do some practices. You can follow some of my practices. You can go to Instagram, my chain official or you can go to YouTube and you can just type in mike chain. You'll see some free practices. You can follow those. What does it do? Help you be able to meditate. You do those practices, you'll sit there and meditation will be so much easier. You don't do the practices. You can still meditate, but it might be a little more challenging. Either way, get it done. And everything levels up. Every single thing from the way you speak, your tonality. Everybody knows not just what you say, it's how you say it. All of that has to do with your state, your energy, your mind, your level of clarity. We can all level up our business if we level ourself up. And to level ourself up, simply go ahead and start to silence our mind and go deeper and we'll access more information, the information that we need to take our business and our life to the next level.

Mike, I wanted to have this conversation with you for many years. It's great to see you. Thanks for being here.

Very welcome.

If you follow this show closely, you may have noticed a theme emerging over the last few months. My conversation with Billy Murphy and getting quiet enough to be able to make the bets that create unbelievable returns. My time with Mike Teku, where he Talked about building $100 million vision in a few hours a day because he has the space to be able to do that. My conversation with Eric Farewell or Amber Sears about authenticity and building connections, and now this conversation with Mike Chang all kind of paint a story for me that flies in the face of the way that I see most people in entrepreneurship operating. I don't know if you need to go make the money first so that then you have the space to think about fulfillment. I don't know, maybe that. Maybe that is a 1, 2 transition. I'm not sure. But it's a transition that so few people talk about in the entrepreneurial space and that I think so few people have found. I think Gary Vee has found it. I think Gary Vee genuinely lives from a place of fulfillment and crates from that place. There's a few people that I think focus on what I want to bring and infuse the world with and build from that. And I think that those are the people who end up amplifying the good that they want to bring to the world. I aspire to be like that. And when I hang around with people like Mike who are willing to just walk away from it all in pursuit of a higher level of fulfillment, it gives me permission to put my pen down for a second and think about, huh, what's the unique value that I want to bring? Where can I show up differently and actually have the ripple effects in the direction of impacting a community and impacting a group of people and impacting the world in a way that feels like it matches how I want to show up in the world rather than just pursuing the next financial milestone, the next win, the next amount of money, and hanging out with these People has given me the space and the encouragement to do that. Hard in practice is actually really hard as hell in practice, but it's a journey. Some people might say that entrepreneurship and spirituality are antithetical, but I think they're a marriage. I don't know that there's anything more spiritual than creating a business that impacts a bunch of people. Who you are, who you believe yourself to be, shows up in your content, which gets seen by hundreds, sometimes millions of people. It shows up in how you infuse your energy into a product. It shows up in how you write your copy, how you treat your customers. And so I think these two journeys of the entrepreneurial journey and the spiritual journey might even be the same journey. Now, I don't know for sure that pursuing fulfillment will make you more money, but I do know that most people pursue more money so that then they can have more fulfillment. This is what we define as freedom. Freedom, we believe, is the pursuit of fulfillment or the living in fulfillment. Don't we all want to be creating from a place of needing nothing? If you've ever experienced that before, you know that you wouldn't trade that for nothing.

That feeling of, I just want to create this thing because I want to create this thing, or I want to help this person just because I want to help this person, I want to create from a place of abundance. That's the purest form of freedom. When you're in that zone, you don't care about money, you don't care about what you get. There is no extraction, or as Mike put it, there is no self. We're not worried about what we're going to get because we're not thinking about ourselves. That selfless way of showing up and creating, ironically, is often how some of the greatest things end up being created. But if you do it so that you can have the biggest building, so that you can have the most money, well, now you're in a paradox because you're trying to create something so that you can get something, and you're out of the mode that you want to show up in anyway. So could there be any more related conversation than the spiritual journey or the fulfillment journey or whatever you want to call it, and how that shows up and how you serve a great number of people in the most powerful vehicle that's ever been invented and is called free market capitalism? I mean, if you can find that zone and participate in entrepreneurship, you might end up being one of the most powerful people that ever existed. Jesus didn't have free market capitalism. Ghani didn't have free market capitalism. Maybe they didn't even want free market capitalism. I don't know. It depends on who you ask. But if you are like me and you're just wired to be a creator and you're just wired to build businesses, but you start with the fulfillment piece first, man, I can't imagine a more exciting life. Maybe you won't make as much money, but I can't imagine a more fulfilling, a more exciting life. I aspire to that. I am not there yet, but I aspire to that. And people like Mike or other people that have been on the show over the last few months, like Billy Murphy, Mike Teku, Amber Sears, Eric, farewell. They all kind of have this theme that is starting to emerge and I hope that it gives you permission to put the pen down for a second and think about if I wasn't trying to build for my own ego, if I wasn't trying to extract from the marketplace, what would I infuse into the world? Because I think that might be the best possible way to live. I'm Ryan. Daniel Moran with capitalism.com. isn't it ironic that I own capitalism.com and I have this weird spiritual bend? Super weird and ironic. Sure is fun, though. See you on the next episode.

Take care.

And now a quick word from Tristina.

Timm, one of our members from the capitalism.com community.

We joined the incubator because we knew the things that we didn't know. So we didn't know e commerce at all. And we needed that. We needed somebody to tell us where to go and what to do. Right now we are on track to hit the 3 million mark this year. However, I think next year is just going to double that. We have so many plans for the future and just executing the plan that the incubator brought us, it was fantastic. It was step by step what to do, how to execute it. And then if we did fumble the ball, we we had somebody there to help us through it and walk us through our plans for the future. Of course, this year we have 3 million and then next year 6. And we're hoping to get to 10 million within the next three to four years. Freedom is everything to our family. I homeschool and I love that our family can wake up together every morning. Nobody's running off to school, nobody's running off to work. If I had to work, work at like a 9 to 5 job, there's no way that I could also homeschool. I get to set my own hours and they're not as many hours as a normal job would be. So that's really fantastic. But again, freedom is everything for our family and I don't it's strange that our kids don't know any other way. Mom and dad are home every day. I would describe the capitalism community as family. When you go get some many tips from people, we give tips and I think that we're going to start to work with a lot of our fellow community members and everyone really is rooting for everybody else. Nobody is like in competition at all. Like everyone is everyone's biggest cheerleaders.

If you found value in this podcast and you're ready to go deeper, here are three resources where we can help you. 1. You can grab my book 12 months to 1 million on Audible or Amazon. It has over a thousand reviews and it's the playbook to building a seven figure business. Second, you can join our community of entrepreneurs who are following a plan to build a 1% net worth by building businesses and investing the profits you can get plugged in@capitalism.com 1. And third, if you're looking to go deeper and build a seven figure business that you can sell, you can work closely with us inside the Capitalism incubator and you can get on the waiting list and find out what we do over at capitalism.com Inc. That's capitalism.com Inc.