Finding Purpose As An Entrepreneur : How Aubrey Marcus Is Creating An Empire That Makes An Impact

So, Aubrey, thanks for coming to hang out.

Yeah, man, pleasure to be here.

I was hoping we could take the first little bit. You and I have not talked since we got back from Burning man. And I pulled you aside real fast before we left, and I told you the talk that you gave, that impacted me and how much, but I could not emphasize enough how much that shifted my life probably forever.

And put me on, like, a very deep internal search that has really shifted a lot of things. And so, to put you on the spot.

Can you just give that entire talk, word for word, from beginning to end, exactly as you gave it at Burning Man?

Yeah. Well, that was a really special. Because that was two weeks after I got in that car accident. And for those of you who haven't followed my story, I've had a really strong and tenuous relationship with consciousness. And no matter what kind of psychedelics or alcohol or whatever, I've never had a period of blackout in my life. I've never fainted, I've never lost consciousness. I've been sparring against professional fighters, gotten hit hard, I'll get dazed, but I've never lost consciousness in my life. And I was going to do a podcast with one of my musical icons heroes, this guy Nako Bear. I don't know if anybody listens to his music, but, like, beautiful. He's incredibly talented musician, talks about, you know, sings about a lot of conscious things. And middle of the day, had a nice night the night before. Followed my kind of own the day routine kind of impeccably that morning. Had my, you know, salt water hydration, had my cold shower, got in the sunlight, moved around a little bit. I think I even swam some laps. And.

I got in my car. I remember I grabbed one of these things, one of these spin drifts, and remember pulling out of my driveway. And I woke up in the hospital and my face was split open. And it was a pretty gnarly accident where I veered off the side, lost consciousness, veered off the side of the road, a guardrail came in and split my face in half. And you can still see the scar and some swelling, some dead teeth, and a few other gifts that I got from that. But what was interesting is when I woke up in the hospital.

I knew, like, I knew that that accident, even however random it was, however, it was indescribable, how could this have possibly happened and why? But I knew that it happened for me and not to me. I just didn't know why yet. I didn't know why it happened for me. But I had this, like, overwhelming feeling that it did. And that feeling never wavered. Not through all the four hours of reconstructive surgery immediately in the hospital, and then that night, and then all of the things I had to do, I just knew. I just was learning. And I was waiting for the lesson about what it was. And all those lessons started to come. But by the time I was at Burning Man, I really feel like I got a lot of help through that process. Whatever consciousness was present and available to me at that point was still really with me two weeks later at that point. And I was just so sure and the lessons had started to come in to kind of validate this feeling. Like this was a gift. I just don't know why. But by Burning Man, I started to know why. And part of it was just that part of it was a reminder that everything does happen for you, not to you. And that's not some woo woo kind of spiritual teaching. That's a decision that we make, you know, because things happen and then we decide how we respond to those things. And that is our sacred choice. We can always learn from whatever happened. And in hindsight, we always see that, right? In hindsight, we're like, oh, yeah, I was grateful for that. Oh yeah, I was grateful for that breakup. Oh yeah, I was grateful for that thing. But in foresight, it's fucking terrifying. Like, if I was going to imagine getting in this car accident, like, whoa, I'm fucking scared out of my mind. What a horrible thing that would happen. But in hindsight, man, what a blessing. And that blessing to recognize, like, how beautiful it is just to breathe air. Because my face was. It pulled my nose off my face too. So they had to, like, stitch all that back down so I couldn't breathe out of my nose. I had these crazy splints in my face and it's hard to breathe. And I was on a lot of meds and how beautiful it is to taste your food. I lost all sense of taste because all the. The olfactory sensation was gone in my nose. And so I couldn't taste food. I couldn't kiss my lover. I couldn't breathe air. I couldn't train my body. I couldn't go swimming. I couldn't do any of the things that make life so rich and beautiful. And the deep appreciation that I still carry for all of those simple things that we all have available really has stuck with me and always will. And have a nice little tattooed reminder anytime that I forget and anytime that I project that there's going to be something is so important in this business thing or this relationship thing, or this thing is the end of my life, or the thing that's going to take me down into this spiral of my own personal mental digression, I can be reminded, like, oh, am I still breathing? Can I still taste stuff? Can I still make love and kiss and smile and laugh with my friends? So it's just a beautiful reminder of that. And really, at Burning man, it was one of the. It was a really special moment because I know that I bring my best when I really step out of the way of my intentions and my goals. And we talked about this on a podcast with JP that I released recently. When you have these objectives, then you can try and, with your mind, manipulate reality to create the objective that you're trying to create. But at Burning man, because of the location, because of the timing, because of everything, I was truly able to just.

Open my consciousness, have no objective other than to be of service to those who are listening. And as I told Ryan, he's like, yeah, I want you to summarize that speech. Well, I don't remember hardly any of it because I really felt like I stepped out of the way and whatever came through was exactly what needed to come through. And I finished that speech and I got back to my RV and I just started crying. You know, it was tears of, like, joy and gratitude because I just knew that that was the best that this vessel was capable of, because I didn't come to it with any kind of limited mental perspective on how I was going to give a good speech and what I was going to say and just allowed it to really flow. And I'm glad that it was so impactful for you. And as fate would have it, all of the audio, video equipment failed during that. So there's like one back room corner iPhone video of recording the event just to verify that it actually did happen. But, yeah, I mean, I don't honestly remember too much more of that speech. I remember some key moments. I remember some people who asked some questions and some really powerful, impactful things that happened.

I can remember three key points that I took away from it. And the first was your recognition of the small things that we take for granted and how much joy they create. I believe you're exact words were, think about the thing that is most stressing you out for a second. And then he said, can you breathe out of your face? Oh, you can.

Whoa, that's amazing.

Can you taste the food that you're eating right now?

You can fuck Two for two.

And that reframe of. Some people literally can't breathe out of their face or taste the food. And you experience that, and so it kind of reset what you're grateful for. It was like, wow, I'm so selfish are the things that I worry about and stress about. And sorry to go all dark and gloomy, but we were talking about an article about the biggest mass murderers in history, and I was just reading a story from Mao Zedong. Force that caught.

Caught a kid digging up grain, and he forced the kid's father to bury him alive. And I can never get that visual out of my brain. You're welcome.

Because every time I start to stress about something, I remember.

I'm being selfish if I. Comparing myself to whatever is making me feel this way. So point number one was.

Just the.

Recognition of how incredibly blessed we are at every moment. And then the second was.

I don't remember how you phrased it, but you were talking about that through the accident, you realized that you were attached to certain things that you can no longer be attached to. And I think you told a story about your fiance coming into the hospital room, and you apologized to her like it was your. Like there was some responsibility of what you had attached to. And what you discovered on the other side of that was that people loved you for who you were as long as you didn't get in the way.

Yeah, I think. Really? So the second lesson. So the first lesson was about that, oh, can you breathe through your face? Oh, things are really actually okay. The second was I really always justified my own worthiness of love based on what I could do. So when, you know, when I was in the hospital and my face was a mess, actually, Let me see if I can show you guys a picture just to give you, like, a little bit of perspective on.

On what that looked like. Okay, so this was. So this is what I look like.

Oh. First time I saw.

Yeah, so, yeah, so this was. This was me here, and they had my phone, and they said, who would you like to contact? And, well, first I needed the code to unlock my phone, and I was like. Gave them that. And I was like, contact my fiance, Whitney. And so they called her up, and I remember saying, like, hey, babe, I'm so sorry. You know, I'm so sorry that I got in this accident. It's one of the more emotional things for me, even still. But. And part of that was just I always have felt like I needed to do and provide and be strong and care for somebody, and that's what made me worthy of being loved, even being loved by my fiance, right? It was that I could do things and I could provide things, and I could care for her, and I could be a man in certain ways. And I was not able to do that at that point. And I knew that would all have to reverse, and she would just have to be home and take care of me. And I couldn't really do anything. I couldn't work. I couldn't perform in any of the ways that I was used to performing to justify my own worthiness of love. And what I found was that everybody, including my fiance, loved me just as much. Just being alive, just being. Being. Being who I was. And that wasn't just her. It was everybody. All my friends, and even. Even Knockobert, the guy I was going to do the podcast with, you know, didn't worry that we missed the podcast, came in to my house and got on the piano and started playing the piano and singing songs. The next day, as I'm recovering from my accident, you know, like, this idea that you have to do to actually justify your worth was something that was deeply, deeply ingrained and deeply ingrained in my fear of getting. Why am I so. Why have I been so afraid of getting a cold? Are the sniffles that painful? No, the fucking sniffles aren't that painful. It's not like that's the hardest thing I have. But what I'm afraid, because it hurts my productivity, and if my productivity is hurt, then I'm not as worthy of my own love, and I'm not as worthy of love in the world. And it helped me kind of reframe that, like, being forced to take time off. I couldn't go to work for, you know, 10 days. I couldn't do anything, really. I couldn't work out. I couldn't do anything. And that was a huge reframe. And another one of the big lessons from this accident was that it's okay. It's okay to just be and not do and allow the other people to really support you and know that just being is enough to be worthy of all the love.

And that part, it felt like somebody shot me with a paintball gun right here. I have actually a spot where when emotions almost get caught, I can feel like a spot. And it's like somebody hit me with a paintball gun in a spot. And I was wrestling around this idea. Does that show up for me? Is the thought that came in my head was, does that thought of not being enough in some capacity, does that show up for me, that just kind of spun over and over and over and over doing this. How does that show up for me? If it did show up for me, how would it show up if I didn't have that thought? Well, what would be true? And I kept playing with this idea and I. I remember writing a journal entry just to kind of get my thoughts out. Like, if I'm totally enough, then I already have enough money. If I'm already enough, then I don't need to stress because that's just resistance to what is and what is would be enough. And all these kind of thought almost just as a thought exercise to get my thoughts going around this idea where I felt like it was kind of is stuck. And then I started looking through my journal at my goals and they were all numbers. Like, I will make this much money. I will have this percent body fat. I will have this many followers. And it was the first. Is the first time I realized that I was trying to scale unhappiness.

Where I was, I looked at it and I was like.

All of these are so that I'll get to a certain point and when I get to a certain point, I'll feel like I'm satisfied. Now I feel like I have enough. And what will all those things do for me? It'll allow me to scale whatever wound that's coming from. And I dropped my journal and I looked at the person ahead of me. I was like, this person is sad. Whoever wrote this is sad. And that was like my first kind of epiphany of, oh, that is like that, that is in me.

I think it's. It's a universal thing. I think it's something that's so prevalent. It's this idea that's so deeply embedded in the zeitgeist, particularly on the masculine side, but also just universally, you know, different applications. But, you know, I think you'd be hard pressed to if all of us here acknowledged, you know, all of the things that we need to have to validate our own worth, right? Like, are we really fully content just being who we are and feeling worthy of the love of ourself, of those around us from just being or is it the doing or some attribute or some quality that we have to earn that, you know, because we're taught conditional love, we're in a conditional love paradigm universally, and I think so. It's really interesting. And this was like this eye opening epiphany surrounding that for me, even though I'm always aware of it, you know, I could see people like, you know, I could see people who kept chasing and never succeeded. You know, like, they got their first Bentley and were really excited, and then they kept buying another Rolls Royce and another Bentley and then bigger house. And another thing. Did it ever. Was it ever enough? No, you just push the. You just push it a little bit farther and trick yourself a little bit longer without, like you said, getting to the core issue at the very root of all of it. And I think that's the invitation that we all have is like, yeah, sure, have all those things, like, go for it, but do it out of love and out of service and out of fun and out of enjoyment of this experience and this mutual enjoyment. But not to justify and validate something to the ghosts of our past, you know, which is all of the conditioning that we had. Everything that has been told and taught to us by parents, by society, by everybody that gives us conditional love. Oh, we do this cool thing, we get all this love and praise. We do this thing, we get all this in return. All of this when really just being is enough. And then all the other stuff actually becomes easier and way more fucking fun. Way more fun.

I have a pretty religious background, and.

The.

Thought that kept playing over my head was the.

Idea of, seek ye first the kingdom, and all these things will be added as well. Yeah, it's like the kingdom is like the.

Being of enough, and then anything else is just choice. Yeah, anything you want, you can choose to pursue that thing. You can choose to buy the car, you can. You can choose to build the business, you can choose. But none of it is coming out of a place of.

Angst. And what I communicated was after having that realization, I felt like the angst that was always following me around. Have to get somewhere. Have to get somewhere. I would have called it Hustle, but it was actually angst. Like, we're not there yet. Not there yet. Not yet. Like a constant unhappiness of, like, I'm not there yet. Wherever yet is. I'm not there. It just went away. It's just gone. It just disappeared. And now everything was just choice. And it was.

A real. Like a. I couldn't put into words how freeing it was to be. To be of that. So thank you for that.

Of course, brother. Yeah. I mean, and it's something that, you know, once you get that, you'll have your constant reminders, you know, you'll have moments where you'll catch yourself in the old patterns, because those old patterns are deep. You know, you can't. You've had your Epiphanous moment. I had my epiphanous moment. But I can track, you know, even this past coaching weekend where instead of just completely releasing, you know, I had a big coaching weekend where I brought. There's 110 people out in Santa Monica and we're going through all these practices. And I remember, you know, there was those beautiful moments where I was able to release like I was at Burning man, but there was also moments where I was trying to create an outcome and an expectation and judging myself as I was speaking or creating something or looking to somebody in the crowd for validation that, you know, was. I wanted them to notice what I was doing or. And all of those things were the things that were causing unhappiness and actually limiting my ability to give to the fullest extent that I was capable of and also enjoy the experience to the fullest extent. Because it's fucking exhausting to be kind of constantly judging yourself based on whatever outcome you're chasing, whatever goal you have, whatever, you know, effect you're trying to have, rather than just making sure that you're being and trusting that that's enough. Like doing your best trusting and having radical faith that the universe will sort the rest, you know, and whatever, whatever that thing is, will be the optimal thing. And just the exhaustion, as I look back in my life, like the exhaustion of worrying so much about outcome rather than just having the faith in being and the process of being.

You know, it's a huge, huge way to recalibrate as I look forward to the, you know, next 50, whatever years left I have in this life. Like that's the goal is to just surrender to the kingdom. And the kingdom of heaven, which is here, which is all around us, which is that state of being where just being is enough. And then some old teachings like the Toltec philosophy. So the great Toltec masters, I don't know anybody here familiar with Don Miguel Ruiz and Toltec teaching? Well, they talk about it and I've seen Don Miguel Ruiz and it was one of the most recalibrating moments. He's a Toltec master, wrote the Four Agreements, Mastery of Love, Toltec art of life and death. One of my great teachers. And when I met him and I had a week with him down in Mexico.

He was one of those people that the way he was, like, every time he hugged you, it was like the first, best hug of a long lost friend that you've ever had. Every time, like the next morning it was the same hug, like I hugged you Yesterday, man is gonna hug me like this every day. And like, every day he'd have a glass of red wine at sunset, and he would sip that wine and look out at the sun. And it was like, oh, man. I was like, goddamn, every day. Every day you're gonna be like this, you know? And they talk, they give this teaching, and this teaching is also in Castaneda's work. It was not like Don Miguel, I think he was a visionary, but had, you know, his own personal challenges. But they talk about controlled folly, right? And they recognize that part of life is to play the games of the world, to buy the Bentleys, to do the things to you, wear the fancy clothes. Like, I got this fancy ass watch on my hand, you know? But, like.

Knowing that this is folly, knowing that this is silly. And then if I wanted to, I could just give this and throw it. I'm not gonna do it, but I could just give this and throw it in the car and laugh and just laugh and laugh at the hilarity of giving my best. Watch up just for the shits of it, like, just for the. Just for the laugh. You know what I mean? Cause it's your controlled folly. And they encourage you to play, like, play all the things, play all the games, all the sexuality you want, all the physicality, all the wealth, all the. But know that it's folly. And so if it ever gets challenged or taken away from you, you just laugh because you got everything that you need. You're full. You're really full, and there's nothing that can take that from you. And even when death comes, you know, that thing that we are. And this is obviously bridging into some my own spiritual beliefs. So follow me if you want, or ignore me if you want. But that thing that we are that I've experienced is a force of consciousness, an expression of life and love somatically expressed through our cells and through our body. And that can't be taken. As Rumi said, that which strikes the shell does not harm the pearl, right? Like that which strikes the shell does not harm the pearl of the oyster. And the pearl of the oyster is our consciousness, is the love that we have expressed through our body. And so realizing that all of this can be viewed as our controlled folly, a way to learn, a way to play, a way to be with our brothers and sisters and help them learn and love and play and enjoy life to their fullest extent. And that's really the purpose here. And when you start doing that, you can laugh and you can enjoy those Sunsets and enjoy the wine and enjoy the kisses and enjoy all the things. Rather than living in the past, in the future and just truly be present. Which is the fundamental spiritual teaching of all spiritual teaching is live presently, you know, but it's harder for some thick headed people like myself to actually understand why and what that means. And so that's, that's kind of the way that I'm learning now.

I kind of after this realization for myself, I started playing out the scenarios in my head. Well, if this happens and this happens and this happens and this happens, like if I want to get somewhere, then I'm going to accomplish this so that I can do this, so that I can do this, so that I can do this. And at some point it's like, at what point? What's the thing at the end that I'm looking for? And I was like, oh, just so I could be at peace.

That doesn't make much sense now, does it? And then the other side of it was, well, if this happens then I'll lose this, then I'll lose this, then I'll lose this and then the ultimate destruction and I won't be at peace.

Or I could just be at peace with either one and carry that throughout. And it never occurred to me that I was walking around with this kind of unconscious.

Resistance to that. I do self development work. I think of myself as more aware than most people and it was like somebody hit me with a two by four and showed me that I had been lying to myself for all that time. What do you think draws us out of.

That awareness?

Well, I think the other idea is what we see around us. We're people who learn by watching other people and by observing. How does any child learn? Well, they learn by seeing those around us. How do human beings, social proof and the prevalent ideas of the time become adopted? And we learn and adopt those and that's to our advantage and to our detriment because there's good ideas that are out there and then there's bad ideas that are out there. And then the people you surround yourself with will immerse you in those good or bad ideas. And I think, you know, as more people become aware, it opens up the possibility for other people to become aware because they'll see it, they'll be like, they'll have those Don Miguel Ruiz moments where like, man, that guy can look at a sunset every fucking day and get that happy. Like I get that happy like once out of every 500 sunsets, you know, and all. Everything just kind of works out, but it's possible to be that present, to enjoy that.

At that moment, just like that. And I think that recalibrates you. But of course, you know, I have a couple days with him and then I'm back to ordinary life where everybody is chasing something, whether that's validation from your partner, validation from your bank account, or validation from your 6 pack ABs or whatever the thing is that you're chasing, you know. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's that balance of, you know, the understanding and then also witnessing others in the being of that understanding. And I think hopefully, you know, that's something that will become more and more prevalent.

There's a third part of your talk and that was realizing that everything's a blessing.

Yeah.

And I was hoping you could recap your thoughts on that.

Yeah. And that was a little bit. What I started this with is, you know, in hindsight, there's literally nothing about my life. Like people used to ask me, like, what would you go tell old Aubrey? Well, I used to always answer that, like, oh, I tell old Aubrey stress less and worry less and enjoy life more. It's pretty good advice for old Aubrey. But now I look back and I'm like, nah, just like, maybe give him a hug, Tell them about a good food that you didn't know about yet or something trivial like that. But I wouldn't want to change me because that suffering that I went through, the depressions, the anxieties, all of that, that allows me to look out at people. I meet, people here who have depression and anxiety and go, oh, I see you. I see me as you. I see you as me. I'm same. I've been through that. Years, years of it. I've created all of these elaborate places and ways that I could suffer. And there's another way. And so would I change that? Would I give myself the shortcut? No, I wouldn't. Because then I wouldn't be able to be of service, which I think is my truest calling, is to be able to have been through all of this shit, at least my share of it. There's other shit that other people are bearing and alchemizing as well, of course, but that I've been through it and then I've grown and learned from it, so that anybody else who's experiencing that can do the same and recognize that no matter where you are, no matter what you've been through, no matter what challenges you've had or what deficiencies you think you carry, like, this is all part of your Journey towards learning and your ability to, to alchemize that and grow from that in your own unique way. So it's all part of your medicine. It's all part of the medicine that you're able to eventually serve. So whatever your unique circumstances, maybe it was a fucking super rugged childhood. Maybe it was mental patterns, maybe it was, you know, shame that you cared. Whatever, whatever doesn't matter. Whatever that was, as you overcome that and as you get the strength and the wisdom from overcoming that, not only will that propel you to your greatest heights, it'll also open up the possibility for you to share that with other people and other people who are going through that same thing. You can look at them and be like, I see you, brother. I see you, sister. I'm you. I've been through that.

And here's what I've learned and here's where I've come from and here's what I've gained. So, I mean, that's the, the opportunity that we have is to know that everything has happened for us and for us, for everyone as well. Because whatever we have, as we get comfortable sharing that, then we can show others that we can. How we be, you know, how we are, and that will help them be able to shift as well.

Last night at dinner, we shared with our. With last night at dinner, we shared a thorn in our past that turned into something great. And.

A lot of people opened up about reflecting on something that they resisted that became something great. Except V, he was like, well, I was really afraid to leave my seven figure, cozy corporate job, but now I'm crushing it.

But what I shared with my group was I had so much pain over leaving my faith and it's. I was, I was so often accused of just wanting to like thumb my nose at God and drink and sleep around. And it's like it was such a painful thing to walk away from, from my faith. But I felt like that put me on a different journey. And the kind of weird thing that happened after this transformation, partly and thanks to you, was.

I almost felt like I healed all of that because I experienced the. I experienced the kingdom, if you will, the total peace with what is. The total. The removal of the angst, the need to get anywhere, the total happiness with just. And gratitude for what is. And as a result, it was. I felt like it almost reawakened my spiritual journey. Like it put me on a different spiritual journey that I had. I had walked away from it and played around in a bunch of different spiritual ideas, but kind of Once I experienced like, oh, this is. This is beingness. This is what it feels like to.

Not have want for anything because.

Everything'S enough. And to experience that, it was almost like it opened up a new spiritual path, like a new spiritual journey. And where I'm taking this is you have done a lot of spiritual work in your life.

I think you've been to other planets, all over the universe on a lot of journeys. I was wondering if you could share. We gotten some deep conversations about the nature of consciousness and all that is and what matters. And I'm just curious what your perspective is.

Well, so my spiritual path has been an experiential one. I didn't come from a background of religion.

Like Ryan did. I came from actually a background of atheism for the most part. My father was a materialist reductionist, for the most part, who went on his own experiential spiritual journey, at least got his feet wet in it. Through holotropic breathwork, he worked with Stan Grof, and then he went on to start experimenting with psychedelic medicine and guided medicine journeys.

I had seen, you know, I had seen things that had turned me away from organized religion. You know, I went to the dungeons of the Inquisition in Italy when I was 15, and I saw these most mind boggling, bogglingly horrifying torture devices that were used in the name of what they called God. And I said, well, that. Fuck that, you know, like, this is bullshit. And then moving to Texas from California, where faith is in. In that type of religion is a deeper, is deep, more deeply embedded. I saw the guilt and the shame and the fear that was present in so many people around very natural things like their sexuality or their expression or all of these things. And so I was ready to just discard the whole thing and just be like, nope, just a body. Well, that kind of changed when I did my first vision quest and went off in the mountains with a shaman and they gave me a brew of psychedelic mushroom tea. And I felt my entire body evaporate completely. I didn't even. Couldn't even recognize that I was breathing. And this force, this feeling of this infinite, indestructible force came and was still there, untouched. Again, that which strikes the shell does not strike the pearl. I experience myself as the pearl, as consciousness. And then I was like, oh, shit. Like I've. I can't discard this understanding that there is a soul or a spirit or a consciousness or something deeper than that. And that thing is connected to all other things, and all things have that and so that was when I was 18, I'm 37 now. So it's been, you know, nearly 20 years of experiential spiritual journeys where many times I've felt myself evaporate in that consciousness, that pearl, you know, which expresses as love and as, you know, fearlessness, you know, emerge and at sometimes, you know, from there even, because there's still this kind of distinctness of that space where you still feel yourself in identification as a soul contained. So like imagine you're in an ocean, but you're like a water balloon in the ocean. So you still have your kind of edges, you still have your personality, you still have who you are, even beyond the body in the ocean of God, you're still this little water balloon that's kind of contained. But then I've also felt the balloon burst and just become the ocean. And when you become the ocean and you become all of the feelings and emotions and expressions and all of the possibilities all at unicity, so there's no differentiation then you understand God in totality and what that's like and whoa. I mean, that is a recalibrating experience. Now of course, you could disclaim all of it and say, ah, Aubrey's just tripping balls, you know, like that does. That's not real. And I accept that. And I don't expect anybody to just take my word for it. I mean, again, it's a good experiential spirituality, right? This is what I've experienced. So do I know it. I know it. I know it because I was there and I felt it and it's, you know, so do I know these things? I do. But do I expect you to know? No, no, it does. I mean, the words in themselves aren't enough to really know, but I encourage you to just open the possibility to those ideas depending on what you're, you know, regardless of what you're ideas about spirituality might be, but the idea that we are, you know, we are, we have a spirit, we have a soul, we have consciousness that is indestructible, infinite, extends beyond this life. And that, that is a piece of the greater collective force of life that you could call God. And some great teachings too, from, you know, a friend and mentor, myself and JP Paul Selig.

Who states very eloquently that regarding God, all is of or nothing is expressing that totality itself is God, like everything is God. And this idea that certain things are God and certain things are not, and this is, this, this is all just a progression of that judgmental patriarchal, kind of idea of like, okay, this is worthy of love. This is worthy of heaven. This is. This is blah, blah, blah. Really, there is God and then our own belief that can power the denial of God in other people. And so that's kind of the spiritual path that I've been on. And.

It'S been challenging at times, been really beautiful at times, but ultimately gives a perspective that I can hold and carry with me that helps eliminate this fear of death and helps recalibrate some of these concerns and worries that that one might carry, and also helps you to see people in a different way and have a deeper compassion, knowing that we're all made of the same stuff, just expressed differently, just different prisms and cuts on the same infinite diamond reflecting in its own colors and its own ways and its own thing. But not to be in judgment of that, because as Selig says, all is of or nothing is. So that's been kind of a synopsis of that. And I can kind of break it down into some more dimensionality and some other things that I've extrapolated, but that's the fundamental teaching of it.

For.

Me.

I feel like I just got this kind of peek into.

I don't even know how to describe it. I just feel like I had an insight that really, really changed my perspective on myself and how I plug into this world and where I'm going and what it all means. And what I experienced was when there's like this satisfaction with all everything's enough, then I no longer have the.

I'm no longer threatened by other people's success or experiences because I'm just connected to it all. Like, it's all. It's almost happening for my benefit. And the thought that led to was. And this is what I do in my spare time. Thinking about physics would tell us that the universe comes from a point. Before the Big Bang, it was a point of infinitely dense material. The hell does that mean, infinitely dense? And then the Big Bang happens, and there's expansion. So with that, what I have thought about is that if nothing else, like assume all religion is BS and nothing matters, at its very core, all of it comes from the same source. In physics, everything that is and all that happens comes from the exact same source. And all that makes up my consciousness and awareness and makes me me, comes from the same source. If nothing else, it's all connected. Because at one point it was, according to science, infinitely connected. That made me go, okay, so at the source of it's all. It's all Connected. And so if nothing else.

And that was a big aha.

So, yeah, I mean, and I call that moment the unicity, you know, like, where God was just God. There wasn't the infinite levels and intricacies of expression where we all get to experience our own, take a piece of that source and then manifest it in these unique ways. And, oh, look, I got tattoos on this source, and I did all these things, and. But we're all still a piece of that moment where it was just light, energy, God as one expression, one note. Not a symphony, not this incredible orchestra that we're all collectively playing, all the plants and animals and humans, but one note of all the sound, all the sound, every instrument, all the sound expressing as one note. And we all come from that, and we all carry that, and we all have the ability to tap in to that note, you know, that one single chord, which is the everything, the all. And when we can do that, you know, we. We have a different way that we can view everyone. We have a different compassion. All of these games of identity we play. Oh, he's a liberal, he's a conservative. He's this race, he's this gender. He's this thing. Okay, yeah, sure, at some levels, but they're also all source. And when you look at that, then it just changes. Your orientation, changes the way you look at everything, because you can truly see same in everybody, just expressed differently. And I think that's a really important kind of recalibration of how we look at the world at large.

Hey, Albert, can I get you some sunglasses?

I actually don't mind. I have these squinty eyes anyways. I actually don't mind it, but I appreciate that. Thank you.

A question that has come up a couple times over the last day and a half has been.

What exists on the other side of achievement. I think entrepreneurship is kind of a really fast way to hack personal growth, because.

First you uncover all your junk that's holding you back, and next, once you make it, all your junk comes back or is amplified until you work through that. And.

So the question, like, once you have the money, once you have the girl, once you have the abs, once you have the car, well, what's next? And so. Well, let me ask the guy who has all those things. Let me ask Aubrey.

What comes next is you run out of things that you can chase to actually find your happiness. You know, it's like, for me, my learning process. And I'm glad and I'm grateful for all those things and all those things have been enjoyable. But the big lesson is like, okay, you want all those things? You can have all those things. Go for it. Get them. You happy yet? And I would answer, and I really answer that like, no, because of the revelations that I've talked about here, which is, you know, the accident was about three months ago, and the deep learnings about being enough without all those things. So there's ways, you know, part of what you learn is, okay, those things are awesome, cool, and I'm glad I played the game that way, and I appreciate that I'm in the place that I am. But they didn't give me the happiness that I was chasing. They didn't release the anxiety that I carried. They didn't buffer me from the depressions that I had. So it had to be another answer. And that's been one of the great gifts of that process. And so as that has forced me to look for what those other answers are, what the universal things are, then I've been able to start to find those things. And I didn't have to move into a monastery and give away all my belongings and give away all my things. Like, that's a very physical representation of the release. But you can do that with your head. Maybe you need a few reminders. Maybe you need to smash into a guardrail every now and then, or something needs to, like, jolt you and wake you up.

But, yeah, I mean, ultimately you realize that those things are part of just how you're playing the game. You know, it's like. It's like playing. How many of you guys played, like, Monopoly?

Pretty much everybody, right? Like, you can play Monopoly, and there's some people. Do you. Anybody ever play with someone who played Monopoly? Like, it was for reals. Like, it was like this really fucking mattered. And it would put them in a funk, you know, if they didn't win, or they would get, like, super emotionally invested. Well, that's. That's cool. But ultimately it was a game of Monopoly, you know, and, like, part of the fun was getting your emotions involved. And part of the fun of life is, you know, dealing with the emotional dance. And that's all cool, but, like, to really be able to look and say, like, yeah, I'll play Monopoly to win.

But if I don't, that's cool too, because we're all the different pieces on the board and we all have access to the properties. Maybe it's not ourselves, but it's somebody else who's also of source who's achieving that. So it can also just reframe your perspective. So then instead of being in that toxic emotional environment about the Monopoly, you just are able to laugh and joke with each other and have fun throughout the whole game. And when you, you know, land on that luxury tax and have to pay and you land on that hotel and out and your buddy gets in there hooting and hollering and, you know, doing their little dance, like you can laugh too and just. And play the game with that kind of joy. And I think that's the invitation that we all have, is to be able to, yeah, fucking play Monopoly, like, go try to get all the properties, build all the hotels, like do all that. Sure. But no, it's still Monopoly, you know, like, know that you're still playing a game. It's just actually the game of life. And I think that's really the thing that achieving all of these external validation symbols and still not finding my peace and happiness is showing me, because I don't think I've learned all the lessons, but that's what it is showing me.

Sa.