♻️ Bending Reality To Make The Impossible Probable (Featuring Victoria Song)
16 Jul 2023 · 51 min
Victoria Song left venture capital to teach nervous-system work and creative problem-solving. She uses breathwork and emotional processing to move stuck energy, then applies expanded states to access flow and solve problems. Her book Bending Reality comes out in August.
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I think that some people get caught up in like, well, what am I good at? What can I do? And then they're like, oh, I'm doing things I don't love, but I'm really good at. And I afraid I'm not gonna get paid if I do what I love. But it's actually, you start to access your capacity of your full human potential when you're doing what feels like play for you.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. What's up, everybody? You're listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast with your boys, Matt Wolf and Joe Fear. Hey, welcome back to the Hustle and Flow Chart podcast. This is.
January rewind episode, and this is an amazing one. Today we're talking to Victoria Song, and before I get into what we talk about with Victoria, I want to actually talk about this past month, this January, where we've been pulling the most impactful episodes. And one thing you've probably noticed if you've been listening into these episodes that we've been sharing, is that they've all been about the mental game. They haven't been about marketing tactics or business tactics. They've been about things like really figuring out how much money you need and figuring out what your end game is and where you're trying to get with everything and, you know, how to negotiate. We talked about cryptocurrencies and what's going on in there and the foundational elements that you need to know there. But it's all been sort of mindset stuff and looking into the future, bigger picture, where the world is going type stuff. And they're really the sort of foundation, the baseline required to be successful, in our opinion. And our realization was that success comes from understanding these concepts that we discussed this month and not really any specific tactics. And now we're set to make some major direction changes with our business and shift into these new topics that are kind of uncharted territory for us. And I'll get more into what some of these changes are at the end of the episode, but the point is that this specific episode is a really good kind of turning point episode for us. I'm so glad that we decided to wrap up the month with this episode, because this one sort of encompasses a lot of the reasons behind why we're making the pivot, the mental, the mindset reasons, the. The passion reasons, the things that get us excited. A lot of that is uncovered in this episode with Victoria. So some of the things we talk about in this episode, we talk about things like feeling your emotions and really loosening up your we talk about how trauma from the past affects us and why we hold onto it and what to do about it. We talk about how to become antifragile and actually better ride out life's roller coasters of emotions. And another thing that we talked about is that as you get older, you start to realize that you actually do matter and you actually want to start to figure out how to make a bigger impact on the world. And that's something we talk about in this episode. And a lot of what we're trying to do in our business is focused on making a bigger impact on the world. And again, I'm gonna talk about this in more depth at the end of this episod, but it is a big theme of why we're transitioning our own business. We also talk about doing the things that feel like fun for you. When you're doing the things that feel like fun, that's when you have access to flow states. That's when you start to feel more fulfilled in your life and your career. And then we also talk about how do you actually earn a living while doing the things that you're passionate about? Once you find your passion, how do you make it so that you get to do that forever? How do you make that so that that's a career now for you? So lots and lots of ground cover. By the end of the episode, you'll understand why this one was pivotal for us. But I'm also going to explain a little bit more about where we're going in our business and really break down the pivot that you're going to hear from us in future episodes and on the YouTube channel, et cetera. So really, really exciting stuff. A lot going on in the business. This episode with Victoria is going to blow your mind. You're going to learn how to handle your emotions better, how to do more of what you love with life, and how to make a greater impact on the so listen to everything Victoria says in this one. And finally, a quick reminder, if you haven't joined us over in the Discord yet, we are giving away the notes to this episode for free. So just join our Discord over at hustle and flowchart.com discord. You will find the Cliffs Notes to this episode inside the Downloads section. Also, you can join the community, have conversations with us, chat with us directly. Discord is pretty much where we hang out these days and interact with all the listeners of our show. And also make sure you are following us on Twitter. I am Matt Rwolf on Twitter. Joe Joe Fear on Twitter. And then we've got our new hard fork media on Twitter. That's just ardforkmedia. So follow those three Twitter accounts. You'll stay in the loop with everything that we've got going on. And we're also providing a whole bunch of cool intel and exciting information about the worlds that we're diving into these days. So come chat with us in those two places and let's kick it over to Victoria Song.
All right, Victoria, how you doing? Great to have you on the show.
Thanks for having me, for sure. Excited for this.
You, Victoria, you have a really interesting background and, you know, all the way from, I know, your schooling time, you know, in university at least, and then getting into business and then this whole pivot into really learning from a bunch of coaches and therapists and all this stuff. But you, you wrap it into these massive companies. Like, we're reading some of the case studies of your work. Like Honey, for instance, that app that probably everyone's using now on the computer. And like, just the shifts.
Free money. Why not?
I know, right? It's a great company. But the fact, like, just these little pivots that you're. You're helping folks with, with their mindset, their nervous systems, the way they're thinking and how they can build some greatness, what, whatever they're doing. So happy to share all that here. Kind of want to see what your story was like before getting into the game. You have a new book also going to come out soon. I wanted to give that a shout out. Bending Reality in August, right?
Yeah, August 24th. How to make the Impossible Probable.
It's a cool book name. It looks very interesting. So take us back, though, to, I don't know, wherever you feel like. University, it sounds. Because you went to Harvard and Yale, right? Harvard Business School. So take us back to there. Because you say you learned a lot more from the coaches after school, right?
Yes, that's right.
Yeah.
I think, you know, without even realizing it, I was just so in the rat race. Just soon as I kind of left the family nest, I went to Yale College for. Yeah, for university. And then I went to Harvard Business School. And I very grateful that I've achieved a lot. But I think, you know, when you get into venture capital at 23 and you start having all these opportunities that are super rare at a young age, you also really quickly realize, like, wow, is there more to life than this, like, succeeding, achieving? And I, I felt like the more I achieved the emptier I actually felt, which was such a strange phenomenon. And for a bit, I thought there was something wrong with me because I was thinking, like, gosh, I should be grateful, I should be happy. So many people look over at me and think, I have the dream job being a venture capitalist. So, like, what's wrong with me? Like, why aren't I happy? And it took me a little bit to sit with that question and give it more weight than I think any of my peers were really, like, kind of making space for at the time. And the truth is, when I looked around at my colleagues and my classmates from Yale and Harvard and a lot of our clients who are successful entrepreneurs, who are billionaires, I realized, wow, everyone has this sort of empty success syndrome, you know. And so that insight really was an existential awakening for me where I realized, wow, I want to do more and I want to understand this better. Like, why is it this way? Like, what's keeping it this way? And how can anyone talks about it? And how do we go to work nine to five every day when, like, these are our family members and our friends who are really unfulfilled, but all kind of pretending like, we're all good, we're all really busy, you know? So that became the question that I was more interested in getting to the bottom of than just, like, how do we make you epically successful? You know, in vc, we're really focused on the business and, you know, the business model, scaling the business, making sure it's as profitable as possible. Really good exit. But for me, I was like, why are these entrepreneurs so empty even after they've made it? And how can we solve for that? Like, how can we be ethically successful and deeply fulfilled?
That's awesome.
And so that was 2016, and I left VC without really knowing exactly what I was going to do about it, but was just clear that part of my journey and exploration was going to be figuring out how I can support in some capacity around this question. And then that led me to getting certified myself, because as you read, I've worked with over 24 coaches. And these kind of answers didn't come from, you know, institutions, even the finest ones. They really came from studying with healers, therapists, coaches, from leaders, life coaching, business coaching, to sex coaching. Truly, like the whole gamut. So, yeah, that's what I realized after investing hundreds of thousands of dollars and a decade working with these coaches. And I'm hoping to save my readers the time, money, and energy that I did in giving everything, really, in this book, one of My superpowers that has translated to my work now is I've always been a really good read of people, which at the early stage, investing, when it's just a pitch deck and a founder is really the idea and the person that you're betting on. And that was the stage I was investing in, was early seed, like, first institutional money into a company. And so the average check size was like 250,000, $500,000. And so one of my first deals called Crashalytics, I put in about a million dollars, and we returned over $40 million from that one company investment. And so I have made a lot of people, lots of money, angel investors and VCs alike. And that's actually what allowed me to be named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for venture capital investing. And so I. And really grateful. And I think part of my journey was faded this way so that I could do what appeared to be accolades and success to the outside world. But then feeling that disconnect on such a deep level, and it's one thing to say, like, oh, I feel empty. But then people are gonna be like, what have you achieved? And so I feel like coming from my background, like going to Yale, going to Harvard Business School, doing the things that everyone thinks are the obvious things that are successful, and feeling the way I do, I think really lends me a real perspective on, like, it really is. There's no pot of gold, the end of the rainbow. And it really is like the blind leading the blind, you know, like, I've been there and truly, like, this is how it feels.
Yeah, no, it's almost like the moon landing effect. You've gotten this accomplishment and you're like, what now? Sounds like you've hit a lot of the markers. I mean, even on the education front, the success or the business front, even the accolades, like, 30 under 30 for Forbes. So, yeah, I mean, it sounds like it's more like a compounded thing for you to realize. Like, okay, there's like a deeper thing here I got to dig into and figure out for myself pretty much. I mean, right. So I'm curious about the 24 coaches. Like, you mentioned, all these therapists and whatnot. Like, what'd you start doing? Like, did you just start practicing a whole bunch of stuff yourself? Like, were you a guinea pig or. I was.
I do feel like I was like one of those, like, Skinner rats, where I was like, I don't know if this is it, but I'm gonna keep hitting this button. And, like, seems to work, you know, I Definitely went down the rabbit hole in coaching. And you know, I'd say that I got something out of everyone I've worked with. And truly the thing that most significantly I got was just seeing all the, and the dots that were kind of connecting and being able to light up that picture of like, wow, there's actually a meta framework underlying peak performance, therapy, coaching, meditation, spiritual work. There's actually this cohesive framework that is one that I talk about in the book in Bending Reality. And it was actually one of my goals was to empower the reader who's interested in this to know truly what, what is everybody actually teaching? Like what does everyone have a different way of getting at so that they would feel more empowered when they hire people to know, like what am I, what am I really signing up for versus like feeling broken, feeling lost, feeling that you have to fix yourself, which I think can send a lot of people down a rabbit hole of sorts that can feel very painful because it feels like no matter what they do and how much they learn, they never are healed. And so I really wanted the reader to have this bigger picture so they can be more self empowered on their path. And then as far as the coaches I've worked, I got into it mainly because I, let's see, I was in business school at the time and what I thought I needed. It's very common for people to enter coaching because they have like a tactical problem. Like for me it was like, oh, I want to be a better public speaker and I want to improve my speaking skills. And so I started asking around for a coach that could help me with that. And before I knew it, another friend who's a VC over at 4Runner Ventures, Yuri Kim, was like, oh, I don't have one of those but I have a life coach. And then I was like, what's a life coach? And this was back in 2013. So yeah, eight years ago I didn't know what a life coach was. And then I quickly learned what they do and I started hiring. I had like four at a time. Sometimes I got so into it I became obsessed, honestly, such a power user of coaches and it changed my life. I really think that my life can be almost like divided up into pre coaching era, you know, like me kind of half asleep, autopilot, walking through life and then getting all this amazing insight and wisdom from coaches. And now I'm living such a conscious chosen life of like designing this incredible life and work and it really ripples out into my clients and just such huge up leveling around you know, everyone around me that I get to work with. So anyway, yeah, I think coaching, I recommend it for everyone listening and. Yeah, so I'll let you know. Dive in. Sorry, I'm like, I could take this anywhere.
You're good.
No, we could do.
I'm curious, you mentioned there's kind of like a framework that sort of underlies all the different modalities, I guess you could call them, of therapeutic education. What are some insights around that framework that you can share? What were some of the patterns, the overlaps that you noticed between all of those different things?
Okay, so first I'll ask both of you to do this. Just imagine in the last week what something that may have happened that didn't feel good. You know, maybe it was a mistake or brought up some sense of fear or sense of failure or something that just. Yeah. Could have gone better. Okay. And when you tune into that event, I want you to just feel into the sensation your body, like, what do you notice happening when you recall this unpleasant event?
I think I tense up a little bit. Yeah.
I get kind of more of a tightness in my stomach, I would say.
Okay, good. Yeah. So this state is one that I call contraction. So this constrictive energy pattern. And for me, I talk about in the book how this activates our fight flight response. So we're in this state where tense, our breathing is shallow, our options narrow, our perspective narrows. It's hard to see solution set. We feel very stuck in a perspective. And this without realizing, is how a lot of people walk through the world without realizing it. If you're thinking about the next problem to solve, if you're catastrophizing or thinking about worst case scenarios in your head. So often my clients are like, I'm just imagining kind of the worst case scenario happening. Like all of it's like it's not in the event. It's like after the event, they're still thinking about it and spinning on it. Right.
What could have happened? Yeah. So they're even stressed about what could have happened that didn't happen.
Totally. And there's almost a sense of like a safety that comes with such vigilance of like, oh, as long as I'm preparing and impending doom generator, trying to in advance guess what might happen so I don't look stupid, you know, like, this is where a lot of our minds are. And so this is the first state that a lot of clients find me and I find that all of their self solutions like boot camp, coach in their head or gosh, I can't sleep. I'm constantly thinking about the problem, and then maybe I'll, like, go drink ton wine. Like, all of these things actually just create poor health, poor sleep, more contraction in their system and like a tight nervous system as we talked about. Right. So Matt Kahn has a great, great quote that the ego is an imaginary identity of an overstimulated nervous system.
I love that. That's a very real. Yeah, I can embody that. I've lived that many times over.
Yeah, exactly. And so this is like, what characterizes, I think, kind of the state of the world right now, especially in the COVID period, especially in the uncertainty, especially in the unknown. Like, we're all like, kind of walking around super tight, like, oh, no, is the other shoe gonna drop? So that's the first state. And as you can imagine, there's thoughts that create the state, there's emotions that create the state, and there's all sorts of limiting beliefs or shame stories or guilt or proving one, you know, like your Hustle and Flow. I appreciate more of the flow piece of your title because, you know, the Hustle is really like, oh, I need to prove that I matter. I need to prove that I got something to give and offer in the world. Right. There's this constant urgency. And truly, like, when we have that time urgency, it really gets us into the scarcity mindset which creates this contraction. So. Okay, now I'm going to talk about the flip side. I want you guys to imagine an event this past week that really lit you up where it felt like, calm and amazing. Happy. Maybe you were grateful that it happened. Okay, great. And when you tune into your bodies and your nervous systems, what do you notice?
I just noticed a smile go across my face as soon as I thought of the moment.
Same. I just felt lighter. All overall, it's like nervous system, like you said, it's just chilled out. Yeah.
Good. Awesome. Anything else? Like, with your breath or how do you know when your nervous system is calm? What does your body feel like?
So for me, definitely it's a breath thing. So if I'm short on breath, it usually, you know, I stay chest breathing and less belly breathing. So, yeah, when I'm chilled out, it's definitely like a lot deeper breath and I feel like just everything is a lot more relaxed. Like, shoulders aren't as tensed. Yeah, I'm not as just like, maybe I'm not like my legs aren't crossed. And, you know, there's like a lot of things that are, like tension like, that are just like yeah, exactly.
I notice I carry tension up in my shoulders and neck. So if I'm like, you know, anxious about something, like, I get real tight up here. And then when I'm, you know, happy about something, I feel these kind of areas loosen up and just kind of drop a little.
Yeah, you both feel more grounded. You both feel lighter. Good. Yeah. So this state is one I call expansion. And so one of the first questions is just, do you feel contracted or expanded right now?
And right now? Expanded. Yeah. So basically you're kind of teaching folks how to feel their emotions, right? Like feel their internal states so you can kind of figure out what your brain is doing and maybe look at things slightly different. Right, right, right.
So one of my beliefs is that our subconscious really lives in the body and our nervous systems. It's not just like in our mind. Right. And the body remembers what the mind may forget. And so I think a lot of books out there are really focused on creating a great mental discipline. And let's uncover your limiting beliefs and let's clear it all and, like, tell yourself positive affirmations. I believe that if you have these deep beliefs that are held in your body level, sensations of insecurities, sensations of shame, sensations of fear, you can tell yourself, I'm amazing all day long. And it will feel like you're lying to yourself.
Right. Who's that voice in there barking at me these lies? That's not true.
It doesn't pass your own bullshit detector of your body. And so what the work that I do with my clients is like, okay, the mind's really important, but that's the tip of the iceberg. Let's also get you connected to the ideal optimal physical state to be in the right emotional state to be in so that you can really be in what we call peak performance or flow state, or access to your supernatural abilities, or in what I say really the state from which you can bend reality. And so in the state of expansion, how much access do you have to creativity, inspiration, solution, set?
I think it's pretty much unlimited.
Yeah, infinite. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so in this state, we feel really good, we're inspired, we feel great, all these things. We trust more, we feel abundant, you know, and therefore we're also thinking about, like, win, win, win solutions. So I really believe that one of the key meta frameworks, you know, I talked about is just being to recognize where are you in this current moment? Do you feel contracted? Do you feel expanded right now? Are these thoughts creating momentum for contraction or expansion? Are these emotions creating Contraction in my body, you know, just starting to really understand the mind body connection. Because a lot of clients, and I'm sure in your world too, in the marketing world, are really analytical, very left brain, really intelligent, but because of that they live in their head and they don't really feel much going on in their body. Right. So it's amazing that you do breath work. It's amazing when people do yoga, like all these things that allow us to connect more into our body. And so that is one of the key things. So I really believe that the more you spin in your head, the more is an indication that it's time to get out of your head and into feeling the sensations in your body and like you said, the emotional processing. Because a lot of us, we don't realize, we like to pretend like emotions were really stable and irrational and emotions aren't getting in the way. But the truth is whenever there's conflict, whenever there's failure, whenever there's a difficult conversation, it is about your emotional intelligence and how well can you be with the emotional pattern that comes up, whether that's fear, insecurity, anxiety, stress, you know, and I really believe, and I'm sure you do as well, which is emotion is just energy in motion in the body.
A hundred percent. Yeah.
And that's why you can't selectively numb negative emotions to only feel positive emotions. And so when my clients find me, they often are quite numb and like living in a very narrow bandwidth of reality where they're like, gosh, I have everything I ever wanted, but I don't feel it. Like, I don't feel happy, gratitude, sort of a mental concept in my head. I don't really feel it in my body. And they don't realize that, you know, they've been preparing themselves for the ups and downs of startup world by thinking that it's a superpower to be completely numb. Like, oh, I want to protect myself from the super low low. So then I also don't really let myself celebrate when the highs are highs and then they're kind of mildly depressed and they start to tell me like, I think I just don't have much dopamine. And they, you know, their mind wants to come to these scientific conclusions for what's happening. And I'm like, no, you just need to feel your emotions. Like you need to process your emotions, you know. So the huge part of what I teach in the book and what I teach my clients is how can you use all emotions, even the unpleasant ones, as fue for expansion.
Yeah. No, I think it's interesting because I know for a lot of times I have walked through life, I mean, where there might be a trauma and it's like, oh, I'm resilient. Or, you know. Yeah, like you said earlier, affirmations. I'll tell myself these things. We actually had a buddy of ours, Kamal Ravikant on, who is another VC up in Silicon Valley area, and he has the whole book, love yourself like your life depends on it. And I'm sure he experienced much of what you are saying here in the VC world, but any entrepreneur, any high achiever, it's like, I can get through this. I could bust through this wall of whatever. You know, it could be like a death in the family or just like maybe a project just bombed a product launch or something. So.
Right. Yeah, let me stay numb. So I don't say too impacted by anything. But then when they do get the success, when they do get the wealth, when they do have the impact, they're like, oh, I don't feel anything about it. Gosh, like, yeah, that. That sucks. I guess I need to make my goal bigger. I have to go after the next thing.
And that's probably a recipe for disaster. As well said, it's like busy, busy, busy. More momentum, but not tapped into to here, I guess. Now with people with that realization. Are there any suggestions on how someone. Because it sounds like you've helped folks identify the feelings in their body. I think I've read in multiple places. It's almost like depending on where you feel things in your body, it kind of means different things. I think it's your chest. If it's tight, it's kind of like afraid or a fear kind of state, I believe. And I don't know. Yeah, I mean, there's. Do you know any way to identify things that way? Like after you kind of start to figure out how you're feeling?
Absolutely. So one of the first things I encourage people to do is to not get caught up in the story behind the emotion and to not even worry if you can't label it correctly. Because sometimes people are like, ooh, there's tightness in my chest. I don't know what it is. And then just trying to label it kind of confuses them and takes them out of the experience of it, because now they're back in their head, you know, So I know that like. Like, it feels good. Like you get a dopamine hit for figuring something out. So sometimes therapy can be very rewarding when you're like, oh, yeah, it is like that time when I was five, you know, but then you're like, oh, but I can't change it. You know, I've been talking about this for years, and I understand it, but how come it's not embodied? And there's another great quote of knowledge is only rumor until it lives in the body. And that's what I think. So, getting to your question, when you feel your emotions, it's just important to drop into the energy pattern of it, you know? So right now, when we were talking, you were like, yeah, I feel tightness in my chest. I feel, like, my shoulders rising. So first we just. We allow ourselves to just feel that fully. And I actually encourage people to turn it up so to go into it and, like, almost dial up the intensity of it. Because what happens is sometimes we're trained, you know, to feel uncomfortable when we feel these emotions, and so we pull back or we try to override them, or we try to rationalize them away or, you know, try to mitigate them. And what happens is, I think that when we don't allow ourselves to fully feel an emotion, it doesn't go anywhere. It's frozen in the system. And that's why breath work is really effective, you know, as well, because it's like, how do we actually just move these energy patterns through? They don't get stuck in our bodies. And so the first key thing is just relax your body, find your breath. You can close your eyes. You could be sitting or lying down, and you just start to tune in and say, okay, yeah, I'm feeling like it's kind of hard to breathe into my belly right now, you know, and then you just get curious, and you be with the discomfort, and you imagine yourself going into the center of it. Kind of like when bulls. No ox. Is it oxygen. Go into the eye of the storm.
Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. They are bison, right? It's.
Yeah, bison. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bison will go right into the eye of the stor, knowing that that will help them get out of it faster, you know, and all the other animals are really swirled up and impacted because they want to run away and outrun the storm, you know? So one of the first things that I really encourage my clients to do is when they. When they have the emotion, counterintuitively go into it, like, really surrender into it and trust that, like, you can be with it. And the reason why these emotions can be very triggering is because, as you said, sometimes it's tied to a trauma. And when I say trauma, I don't even mean, like, capital T trauma of, like, this really horrific thing happened. It could just be. I believe trauma is like, anything felt too overwhelming at the time for our nervous system to process. So that oftentimes when we're kids, right, Things happen, and we're like, oh, my God, that was really shocking. Whether it's news from a parent, or sometimes it's like an accident or maybe actually being hit, whatever it was, it just was too overwhelming for the nervous system's capacity to process it in that moment. And then what happens with trauma is that it doesn't get coded to past in the history, which means then that anything that happens today that kind of reminds us or touches that trauma activates it as if it's still happening. So it's almost like this memory that's on feedback loop that keeps running, for instance, just to ground as an example. A lot of clients, they have a fear of being out of control, not having control of your situation. They need to control and predict. That's their safety zone. Really true. For a lot of founders, when you dig into why this control and predict is so important, you start to realize, okay, the nervous system doesn't feel safe, and there's a reason for that. And then they drop back. I've heard this many times, which is that they were bullied when they were kids, and there was something really terrifying that as an adult, they're like, it wasn't a big deal. You know, it was things. Worse things happen to people. But as a kid, it was really intense, and it did feel traumatic as a child. And so some. I have one client, particularly that I referenced in the book, who noticed that whenever he doesn't get his way in an agreement or in a meeting or with, you know, strategy, he gets very angry. And then the angry turn. Anger turns into stress and anxiety where he's worst case spinning, and he's imagining the conversation going really badly. And we realize. And tied it back to, well, yeah, because when you were a kid, you were bullied, and there were these incidences where he was really scared for his life. And so now whenever he feels a loss of control, it's connected to the sense of unsafety. And feeling unsafe can feel too vulnerable to admit to ourselves. So it usually manifests as, like, a secondary emotion, like anger, for instance. So it's easier, men who associate with, like, the masculine to be like, I'm angry versus, like, oh, that hurt my feelings, or, like, that scared me, you know, and so his instinct was to always get angry. So anyway, I. I Bring that up because I really want to, I guess, make clear to the listeners that more often than not, what's actually happening is tied to an emotion that we're not willing to acknowledge. And that emotion is coming up because it's, it brings up an uncomfortable memory that we've been avoiding processing. And it's like our, our bodies still REM and it's still held in the nervous system, it's still held in the subconscious. And anything in our life today that reminds us of it is going to set us back there. And the analogy that I like to give, which I reference in the book, is it's almost like when we're born, we have access to a castle with infinite rooms. But then because we don't want to feel certain emotions or certain scenarios or certain situations, we end up living in one room that we have complete perfection, mastery over. And so we've just shut off this whole diversity of life to live in this one perfect room. That's what it looks like to choose to actually create your own little cage or your own prison where it's a very conditional, fragile existence. And so one of the things I really teach is like, how can we make you antifragile? Where it's like your emotional system is so resilient that you can ride the ups and downs of life and you're not trying to control and predict life, but you know how to stay calm in uncertainty, your nervous system unraveled in any unknown so that you can see and access creativity and solutions where other people are so uncomfortable sitting in that uncertainty, they're kind of grabbing for a false sense of certainty and control. That is why I believe the clients I work with get these phenomenal outcomes. Like, you know, one of my clients, he said, honey, they just got sold for $4 billion. And it's like the ability to keep your nervous system expanded and calm, to access solutions that your competitors don't see, you know, or another client. Helix Nano, they just developed a next generation COVID vaccine that is evolutionary resistant, so it doesn't have the problems the current VACC have with the evolution of COVID So they were able to create like an amazing next generation vaccine without having worked on vaccines prior. And it's because they're able to sit in a level of uncertainty that I think most of our nervous systems are not wired to handle.
Interesting. Yeah, because it's like if you stay in your perfect room, your self designed room in your mind, or your prison. Yeah, yeah. You have blinders, of course you're going to get rattled if maybe you're business got shooken up a little bit during the COVID thing, or maybe there's an opportunity over here that's calling for you. Like this company with the COVID vaccine, it's like now they're able to be like, okay, well maybe I can pivot and or like kind of tweak some of my resources over here to identify that need or do some of that.
Yeah, well, I'm curious, what do you do with the information when it comes to things like therapy and even sort of psychedelic experiences and things like that? You might get like a flood of insights and ahas and like, oh, I'm like this, this because this happened in my past. And you kind of get these like ahas and insights of information in your brain. But, but then the integration portion, like after that experience, like what do you do with the information that you've just uncovered about yourself in your past that you know is now holding you back? Like what, what would be the next steps after figuring that stuff out?
Absolutely, yeah. I think that these insights, I, I like to say that it's coming up to your awareness because your nervous system is now expanded or relaxed enough that you're willing, you're able to see that truth. Because I do believe, like when we talked about the ego being an imaginary identity of an overstimulated nervous system. When our nervous systems are tight, we don't see these insights, you know, all these blind spots and like we're just like ouch, ouch, that triggered me. And like there's like a landmine of triggers that we're so unaware of. And then when we get upset, we point our finger out there and we're like, I'm going to blame that person or that situation, I'm unhappy because this event happened. And then to your point, you start to realize like, oh, I should point myself finger inward and realize that like I'm co creating this or I'm showing up this way because of this. And so first I think it's super important to one just actually celebrate and acknowledge and have a lot of acceptance and compassion to like, wow, this was me when I was doing the best I knew how. You know, like this used to work for me because of whatever my situation was. This was a great coping mechanism that I'm hitting like a ceiling with now. And I think again, like when you feel it at the emotional level, it really does get released from your system. So I think when we. So a lot of the clients, you find me, they, they're actually Deep in therapy, they've read all the books, they've talked about their problems, but what they're missing is they haven't yet felt and released the emotional energetic patterns at the nervous system level. And so to answer your question, I think once you start to process and feel it to completion in its entirety, because what happens is if our nervous system is tight, we're almost afraid to feel it because we're afraid it's going to be too much. We're afraid we're going to short circuit. We're afraid that we can't handle it. It just feels like it's going to be too uncomfortable. It almost feels like suffering on. Of feeling it like before you feel it. It feels like the idea of feeling it would be like suffering pre suffering. When you feel. How do you guys feel after you've like felt an emotion in entirety? Maybe you cried, maybe you screamed. How do you guys feel after it's a total release?
I just did that yesterday. I mean, I feel like I try to do that often, but yeah, like with a modality, you have to like lean into that and it's, it's fucking hard because like it's uncomfortable. Your body might be even freaking at. Or you might have reflect like reflexes in your body. Even that.
Yeah, you might feel nauseous. You might be like, oh my God, I want to throw up.
You know, that's, that's literally like something that happens to me is like if I feel like. And I don't think I've ever really talked about this on the podcast, but like I'll do breath work and think about something specific and maybe lean into that thing and visualize it like yesterday. Like it was, it was kind of being seen was like the thing for me for some reason. But it wasn't a conscious thing. It was definitely deep down somehow. And it created this kind of, of almost like a gag reflex in a way. I mean, it was just like letting go and that was off of breath work. I mean, I've had the same experience with psychedelics too. So it's like, it's interesting how it. I think at the end of the day, like what you're saying is your, your nervous system slows down, or my mind in that case, to a point where some underlying stuff just rears its head and comes out if you let it.
But it's like the bandwidth is expanding. So I think like literally our nervous system, when it's tight, it's like I can't download files of information. It's like, oh, My God, it's too. But when our band widen, we can receive more information in form of insights or memories or like, oh, that's that problem that I now realize it's connected to. And what also happens when you widen your bandwidth is that your consciousness is expanded as well. So now, like, you're not just seeing reality for. Through the lens of your fears or what you're afraid will happen, but you start to see reality clearly for what it is, you know, and you're less stuck in what Cartman calls the drama triangle. You know, where you look for a villain, you look for a victim. You often feel the victim, and then you blame someone as the villain, and then you look to be saved from your situation. And that's the kind of black and white thinking or binary perspectives that we have access to when we're. Our nervous systems are tight. So really, it does come back to, you know, to your question of, like, well, if we can calm our nervous systems, expand our nervous systems, then we can release these out of our system. And then that's when we don't actually have to do anything. And, like, there's a coach, Kyle Cease, that's used to be a comedian, do you know him? And he has this funny joke where he's like, you don't have to analyze it. It's kind of like when a cavity comes out. It's not like you're like, wait, dentist, can I see the cavity? Like, let me look at it. Let me analyze it. I wonder what sugar or food it came from. It's like, no, it's coming up to go out, right? So when you're feeling the emotion, just trust that it's on the way out. You don't have to grab onto it and be like, wait, wait, wait, let me understand it first.
Yeah, yeah. So it's almost like the realizations themselves, like the fact that you realize, okay, this is attached to this. This thing. And now that I realize it, it's almost like the power is taken away. It's like, okay, I get why that is happening now. And then your brain just starts to eventually phase it out, unravel, unravel it.
Or at least that part of it.
It's like this trust that, like, wow, my nervous system expanded enough that I was able to receive that new insight. Like, this is a new. So I really feel that every time our nervous system kind of uncoils, we have access to new insights that we couldn't see before, you know, so just trust that. Like, oh, this is all signs. And I'm Continuing to expand, you know, and where it gets. Where we get hung up on it is when we get really hard on ourselves, right? We catch something really, oh, shit, I'm doing it again. I thought I grew past this. What's wrong with me? I keep repeating the same patterns and like, that relationship to it is actually what's keeping it holding it on.
So how do we stop that? Because I feel like, yeah, the analytical brain is always going to fight that.
The analytical brain wants to make it complicated.
Sure, of course, yeah, it shouldn't be complicated, but we're just so damn resilient or driven somehow. Like, have you found ways to just. Is it just repetition and just keep doing the work and then slowly, that analytical side maybe to like, some underlying thing just quiets down more? Do you have a. Do you kind of have an approach to that?
Yeah, I do think it comes back again, like, well, one can we do the things that make us entrain our nervous system to expansion? So I, I touched on the framework, but what I'd love to do is tell you a little bit about, like, what gets us to expansion and how can we start to live from there, you know, because this will answer your. So one of the first things, like when I see hustle, I think about, okay, our first jobs at a school are we're trying to prove that, like, we've got something to offer the world, you know, so there's a lot of proving maybe in our 20s. And then when we get to the next phase, you realize, like, oh, I do matter. I'm not asking do I matter anymore. I realize I do matter. And then when we realize we do matter, the natural extensions, we want to start working on something that matters, right? This is when we get into impact and contribution. And for some of us, it takes a whole lifetime to figure out that, oh, okay, once I'm secure in myself, the question is, like, how do I serve? And so one of the things that I talk about in the book is the difference in toxic fuels that are really driven by this need to prove something that is based in contraction. And I believe that we're motivated by a need to prove something. It's when we burn out, right? It's a very, like, unsustainable fuel that poisons you and your environment and your teams. When you get to more sustainable motivating fuels, one of the first layers of that is when we connect to our sense of mission or our sense of. Of purpose. And so when we start to connect to our why, we start to be able to Pull ourselves out of any small limiting belief or story and like, really stand in. Wow. Like, this is what I'm here to do, you know, and that feels really expansive to stand in your mission statement. Another thing that every coach learns, whether it's business or life coaching, is like to uncover your values. Right. It's almost like your inner compass for what matters most to you. And you know what, your values are going to look different from someone else's. And I'm not talking ethics. I'm talking like, maybe beauty is one of your values or fun is one of your. And so the more you can live out and honor your values at like a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, the more you're going to be motivated and driven by this more expansive, sustaining fuel of motivation. And then the other thing that I think really allows you to access expansion, to live from here is to choose the things that feel like play for you. You know, I can tell with how much like, laughing you're doing here and like your relationship that this is fun for you.
For sure.
Right?
Good. Yes.
Yeah. And like kids, you don't need to motivate children to play, you know, so as an adult, if we find the thing that lights us up, like, it's play, that's when we access like our flow state or peak performance or it's like zone of genius, really. And, you know, I think that some people get caught up in like, well, what am I good at? What can I do? And then they're like, oh, I'm doing things I don't love, but I'm really good at. And I afraid I've, you know, I'm not going to get paid if I do what I love, you know, but it's actually, you start to access your capacity of like, your full human potential when you're doing what feels like play for you. And so these are some of the things that, that I help my clients really access and delegate anything that they don't love. And something that your listeners can do right now is to actually make a list of the things that feel like a 10 for you. Very life giving, very fun. They feel like play when you do them. So that could be like sports. If you enjoy certain sports, it could be a podcast host, you know, that's on the activities you love to do. It could be biking, you know, whatever it is. I encourage all of your listeners to start to cue in on, like, what lights me up, like, what are the things that I'm doing that I feel expanded when I do it. And there are 112 waking hours in a week. So it's important to ask yourself like, oh, what percentage of my waking days am I spent in expansion? And so the more we can entrain our nervous system to operate from here, doing what we love, doing what feels like play, the easier it is to start to operate from our zone of genius, from our flow state, whatever you want to call it. And this is the state that I really believe is where people start to access things like psychic downloads, the unity consciousness. Overall one being able to really read almost like densities invisible to the naked eye in terms of information or manifest visions instantaneously. You know, all these spiritual concepts that I think sound a little woo. I really do believe that when you can start to live from the state of expansion, you access the zero point field of, in quantum physics. It's, you know, the, the fields of infinite possibility and probability from which physical reality is, arises from. So anyway, those are some of the things that I talk about in the book because I really do think this meta framework that we're talking about is what's behind not just peak performance, not just self development, but it's also behind real magic. As long as you, if you believe in that, it is about. Yeah. The mystery of the unknown.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what if you make a list of all of the things that you're passionate about and you're really excited about and you look through it and none of it feels, for lack of a better word, monetizable. Right. None of it feels like, okay, I could make a career out of this, you know, what would you say to, to somebody who has that experience?
Yeah. So I would say the first thing is to get your state, your energetic state, to be living more of your hours and more of your days from expansion. Because again, like it feels very black and white when you're in contraction. When you're contraction you're like, oh, I have to stay at this job or else I will, you know, I won't have a paycheck. Or like it's either quit or stay at my job. You know, you don't even see the other possibilities of like, maybe I can change to a different job at my current company. Or again, infinite possibilities are only accessible when you start to feel more expanded in your nervous system. So my first really like when the clients come find me, none of us can guess who they're going to become on the other side of the work. You know, it's almost like you don't actually know who you are when you're Living under the limitations that you don't even see because you're living this contractive, narrowed option of reality. And so it's almost like you're living in black and white and not realizing that. And, and then when you do this work and you expand your nervous system, you all of a sudden have access to all those colors and richness. And so, yeah, I think there's people who come to my work who don't realize that the most empowering solution for them would be to shut down their very successful company that they've built. And so it's often like a really non obvious answer that might not be like, either stay or quit your job. And so the first key is really like unravel the nervous system. Start living your days from a place where you have more access to this inspiration, creativity, more possibilities, disability, not this black and white thinking. And I believe once you do, it becomes very obvious where these anchors are in your life that need to go. You know, it's when we're you, when we're conditioned to being in contraction, that we don't see the relationship that's not, that's not healthy. We don't see the job that's hurting us or whatever, how we're showing up, our family dynamics. It's, it's almost like we're just so used to being contracted that we're like, that's just how life is. And whenever you see someone breakthrough, you're like, oh, that person's life lucky. Like I can't happen for me. But you know, for that person, they're lucky that it worked out for them. And that's the consciousness of, you know, coming from the state of contraction. And once you start to live more of your days where you're like a 10, whether it's, it doesn't have to be what you do for a living yet it could be like I start my days and I go for a swim or I wake up and I go, you know, I go for a hike on my break or I just start to eat like things that make me feel really good when I eat them. And it's almost like just starting to access the state of abundance, of wow. Like I'm investing in me. Like I.
At the end of the day it all comes back to I'm the investment and start to treat yourself that way. Then it becomes really crystal clear when something needs to go. And that's really the main piece is making it start to create contrast in your life so that those rubs become really apparent and then those friction Points while they seem kind of annoying. Like we don't like friction or like to really trust that all that friction is really your curriculum for your growth. You know, like it's all your soul curriculum. It's all meant to happen for you so that you can uplevel. Yeah, like all the friction in your life is just showing you where your next up level is going to come from.
You know the whole thing of like feeling like you're under this veil of whatever. Like it's once you do the work, once you do some of it, some of the woo woo ness of the sounding of, you know, some people might be listening and be like oh my God, I don't get it. Like, you know, like you said, like some people are just like they're lucky. Like they're into the woo woo stuff. I guess they, they drink the Kool Aid. But it's like no, it's real because it is all energy. I mean it's science. And once you chill out your body and your emotions, you really do feel like everything's brighter. Like there's like this bigger perception of the world and what's possible and it's so damn hard to describe that. And yeah, like things like drugs can help you, but also just your personal breath, the thing that we all have for free. I love Wim Hof. His saying is just breathe motherfucker. We all have breath, so do it. Totally.
The reason why breath work is trained yoga trends, meditations, training, self care trending is because the world is so wound up. Our nervous systems are so wound up right now, especially during the pandemic, you know, and that's what we need is to relax our nervous systems is really step one. And you know, to your point about it sounding woo woo this was the key challenge and really I think why I do what I do because the clients I work with are very analytical. They tend to be engineers and they are in their caught, they consider themselves agnostic, atheist, nihilists. Like they're not spiritual, they don't have a yoga practice. You know, they don't meditate before we work together. So being able to meet them with language that resonates. And as you as you've heard me talk about this contraction versus expansion, you notice that like I'm not, I'm not talking about anything that takes a leap of faith. You know, it's all stuff that can be felt in your personal experience. And I do believe that that is the deepest way to learn, you know, is through people's personal experience. And so the Book is designed to really like exercises and tools that give you this personal experience of what it's like to start bending your reality.
Yeah, no, I mean the book's going to be really. It sounds amazing. The fact, just the title alone, you know, Bending Reality is like, yeah, there is a different reality if you choose for it, you know, choose to lean into that and work it. What are some other things that folks will get out of the book? And I know you also offer training and some other stuff on your side. So I'm just kind of curious like what's the future look like for you in this work?
Yeah, it's a good question. So you know, you talked a little bit about psychedelics for instance. And so on my website you can actually find my live recorded audio guides of me taking people through their journey on psilocybin. So those are available online. Those are really fun. The topics range from I release control to it's never too late to have a happy childhood to remember your future and becoming your highest self. So those are sort of the topics for those three to four hour audio guides that people can find on my web website which is www.victoriasong.me. and then I really think of the book Bending Reality as how do we really do the work between these peak experiences to integrate what we've learned and touched? Right. I really encourage my clients not to just chase the next expansive experience, but to really start to ground and stabilize and integrate this new nervous system awareness so that this is okay, this is a new baseline, this is my new normal. And so the book really teaches that without any, any use of substances, the only thing that is a little bit altered state is the breath work that I teach in the book. But I do think there's so much we can do to again bend reality that is through our truth, our essence, who we are. We really don't need much. The book is really designed to almost be like your self healer. It's empowering everyone to know how to empower themselves to do this work. And then if you do choose to bring on a guide, I always encourage people to find people whose life shows they know it's know. You might think you know something but if your life doesn't show it, you don't actually know it, you know. And so it's all about embodiment and finding teachers who, yeah, who really reflect what you're, what you're trying to learn. So yeah, the book is again bending reality and it is a tool that is used by billionaires, tech founders, truly the World's most successful individuals who are left brain analytical and have been able to find results that start to make them question, like, do we live in a simulation? Like, this is strange.
Yeah. If you're excited for a journey like that where you can start to access your own supernatural abilities that I believe only appear supernatural from a certain, you know, level of consciousness, like on this side of consciousness. It seems crazy, some of these topics that we've been talking about, but again, once you taste it and experience it yourself, you're like, wow, okay. Yeah, I don't believe anything. It's just my life right now.
Yeah, just accept it because there's more to it that you haven't seen yet or experienced. Yeah, no, it's cool. We all have the tools for it too. It's not like some expensive endeavor, you know, to experience some of this.
For sure.
This is really cool. Victoria.
Breathwork is free.
It is very cool.
Well, the book is coming out August 24th. This episode will be released before that. But it looks like you can pre order it on Amazon already.
So actually, yeah. Where is the best place to. For people to grab it? Like, is there a. Yeah, you can.
Get it on Amazon. You can get it on my website. It's being distributed by Simon and Schuster. So really, wherever books are sold, you can pre order it on their site. And I'm also encouraging people to pre order now. And I'm giving all sorts of free techniques like guided breathwork is one of the free techniques that you get now. Also, in 15 minutes, you can create your own mission statements. I have a guide that helps you connect to your purpose, helps you connect to your values, as we talked about today. And then also there's a technique that helps you release any stress or anxiety that you're feeling in a moment. So if you notice any contraction in your nervous system, there's a guided technique. These are all audio guides, by the way. So they're all as a thank you for pre ordering now.
Sweet. Well, thank you, Victoria. Thanks for doing this work and sharing it with us today. It's been fun.
Yeah, thanks for having me. This was so much fun.
Yes.
See you later. All right, Bye.
Bye. Okay, so that was amazing. And Victoria is a total rockstar. She definitely changed our thinking on a lot of things, as you probably heard throughout that episode. Now what I want to do at the end of this one, since this is our last January episode, our last kind of kind of recap, rewind, biggest aha moment sort of episodes, is give you a little insights into where we're going with the show next. So starting next week, starting in February, there's going to be a few little changes with both the release schedule and the kind of stuff we're talking about. So we are going to have new episodes starting next week. However, today, if you're listening to this, on Thursday, January 12th, 27th, 2022, the day that this is coming out, we are actually doing a live podcast with Nick Peterson today over on our YouTube channel. Over on HustleandFlowchart TV, we are live streaming with Nick Peterson. We had him on as one of the recap episodes earlier in this month. Everybody loved that episode. Everybody talked about how we had to get Nick back. Nick is in the crypto world now doing a lot of stuff in the crypto world. So we wanna talk to him about his trans transition into this world and some of the stuff that he's building in this space. So that is happening live today, the day that this episode is being released. But also that is going to be a podcast episode. So I will release the recording of that episode next week for next week's podcast episode. So the one we're doing live today is actually next week's episode. So either listen to it live today on YouTube as it goes live, or you can listen to the recording now. If you watch it live, you will be able to interact in the chat and ask questions. And you know, we're going to try to make it a very interactive thing and we're going to do some of our interviews in that style going forward. Not all of them. I would say it's probably going to be 25, 75, where 75% of our interviews are pre recorded, just like what you're used to, where we can really kind of polish them up and, and dive deep with our guests. But about 25% of them, about one in four, we're going to go live with a guest and do them straight on our YouTube channel where you guys could interact right there in the chat, ask our guest questions, ask us questions. So we are going to do that for a percentage of our shows over on the hard Fork Media YouTube channel. For the time being, we are going to back off to just one episode per week. Now that's just for now. While we're really focused on laying the foundation for this new company for Hard Fork Media. We really, really, really need to continue, continue to put a lot of time and focus and effort there right now in these sort of foundational building phases. So because of that, we are going to sort of back off to one episode a week. We will ramp it back up and be producing more content. And there will be more videos on YouTube from both US and guests. You've probably already seen Fun uncle on there. There's going to be episodes with Crypto Buffalo, Jason Moffat, me and Joe. We're going to make individual videos outside of Hustle and Flowchart. Plus the Hustle and Flowchart interviews are also going to continue to live there. So a lot of action is going to be happening over on the hard Fork Media YouTube channel. Now, we do plan to continue to talk to leaders in marketing in web 3 and the creator economy. However, we're going to actually start putting a ton of emphasis on play to earn gaming. I know this might come out of left field for people who've been listening to us for a while, but I think as we start to go deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole, I think you'll understand why we've transitioned so hard into discussing gaming. And I know this seems very bizarre to A couple years ago we were talking about Facebook ads and Google Ads and SEO and podcasting to now we're talking about video games. So it's a very, very weird transition. But follow along and it will make sense. You will understand why we are pivoting into this so hardcore and why the opportunity is there. If you follow along, it will click and there's a very, very, very good chance you'll see the opportunity to really create generational wealth in this new space. So hopefully you'll come along with us now. Why gaming? Well, there's a ton of reasons and they will sort of be fleshed out over the episode so you'll hear us as we talk about them in the episodes. But honestly, gaming is just fun for us. Both Joe and I love video games. The circles we run in, we're all kind of gamers. This is the thing that feels like play to us. Remember, Victoria was talking about like, you got to figure out how to do the things that feel like play if you really want to get into those flow states. Well, focusing on gaming is play. It's literally play. And so that is one of the reasons we're focusing on it. But also, gaming can have a huge impact on the world. That was another thing we talked about with Victoria on this episode, was finding more impact when it no longer becomes about the money, it becomes about how you can make an impact on the world. And play to earn gaming allows you to do that. Play to earn gaming allows people who can't or don't know how to make money or don't have regular jobs. It allows them to actually earn an income by playing video games. And we're going to build a business that actually facilitates people's ability to play video games and earn a living without upfront cost to them. We're building some really, really, really cool stuff behind the scenes that we haven't totally pulled back the curtain on. And to be honest, the curtain will be kind of coming back slowly over the course of the next few weeks as we drop some of our newer episodes, it will start to make sense. But we do feel that we can make a big impact in the gaming world, but also in a lot of people, people's lives. Both listeners of our current show, who we're going to open your eyes to a whole new opportunity that's really exciting and will generate a lot of wealth for a lot of people. But we're also going to create income streams for a lot of people that struggle to create income streams. So this will have a really, really big impact. Hard Fork Media is basically going to be a marketing company, an investment company, and a gaming guild all built into one business of Hard Fork Media. So there's a lot of moving parts with this new business. But honestly, it's where we see the most potential and it's the place we feel we can create the biggest impact on the world. Now, not every single episode we do forever from here on out is always going to take you behind the scenes on Metaverse and play to earn gaming and things like that, but it will be an area that we put a ton of focus on. It's the industry that, in our opinion, will be the largest industry in the entire world within a few years. And, and I don't say that lightly, I honestly think that there will be more money in the gaming industry than any other industry on the planet within a few years. All right? So the implications on marketers and entrepreneurs is monstrous. It's huge, it's massive. It's going to impact everyone, whether they know it or not. This gaming industry and this revolution that's coming with gaming, it's going to impact you. Now, we also plan to continue to focus on the foundational ideas behind cryptocurrencies and blockchains and Web three and the greater creator economy as well. You've sort of seen that pivot over the last year or so of our show where we started talking more about blockchain technology and the creator economy and things like that, building media brands, that sort of stuff. We are still passionate about that. We are still going to talk about it, but the gaming stuff is going to be just such a big focus because it's where we see that biggest opportunity. What you likely won't hear from from us anymore, if I'm being totally honest, are those tactical topics, things like SEO and Facebook advertising and Google Ads and funnel building and all of that sort of stuff. Now we still think that stuff's important. We don't. We're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater and saying that you shouldn't put focus on that stuff. We will continue to immerse ourselves in that world. It is still something that we're interested in. It's just not what lights us up to talk about on the podcast anymore. To be honest. There's about 300,000 other podcasts that cover the same topics. It kind of got to a point where we would bring, you know, a Google Ads expert on. And that Google Ads expert had also been on 30 other podcasts saying the exact same stuff. So that kind of content on the podcast sort of started to feel like a commodity. It just kind of felt like we were a small fish in a big sea. And in the gaming world, in the especially blockchain play to earn gaming world, we feel like we can be a bigger fish in what's currently a smaller pond. So that's also part of the reason that we're transisting. So if you're looking for those Facebook ad tactics, the SEO, the Google Ad tactics, I still think they're important. You should still be learning them, you should still be studying them. But it's probably not what you're going to hear from us on this show going forward. All right, so get ready to go down some unique rabbit holes with us that you've likely never expected to go down. In fact, friggin five years ago we never expected to be going down these rabbit holes. But this is going to be the stuff that we highly recommend every marketer and entrepreneur at least keeps an eye on over the coming years. So we're super excited to travel down this new path with everybody and hopefully you're strapped in and ready to go for the ride with us because it's going to be a fun one. And also don't forget, we are going to be putting more effort into that YouTube channel. That was our game plan. We talked about it so much last year and nothing's changed there. We're putting a ton of focus into the YouTube channel. There was a rebrand. It is hard fork media now with multiple shows instead of just hustle and Flowchart, but make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel over at HustleandFlowchart TV. And again, we took notes on the episode you just listened to. You can find them inside of our free Discord channel. Go to hustleandflowchart.com Discord. You'll find those in the Download section. It's a complete CliffsNotes of everything we talked about. Those will be available for you in the Discord. And finally, don't forget to follow us over on the Twitters. I am Matt Rwolfe. Joe is Joe Fear and Hardfork Media is ardforkmedia. We share a lot over on those places. Discord and Twitter. That's where you can get us these days. So if you're not following us on those two places, make sure you are. And we love you. And we'll see you next week when we start kicking off some new stuff. See you then.
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