99% of People Are Doing This Wrong: The Truth About Overcoming Trauma and Addiction

When we talk about drama, I don't even like to use that word anymore. Because you look outside the window, you look at this tree. It has a unique shape of its branches and leaves and whatnot. It's been shaped by how the sun, the structures, the wind. The same with the human being. You cannot just take away one neuron and say, oh, this is a bad thing. This is my addiction pattern. And I can somehow get rid of this because your ambitions and your achievements, they're there in that neuron as well.

Great to be here with you, man.

Yeah, Good to be here with you.

Yeah. Thank you. So we, we met in 2017, I think it was the. What, Singularity Global Summit? I don't think so they called it. And, and you had come up to me and you had introduced yourself and you had heard my podcast, which I.

Yeah, I listened to your stuff quite a bit.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah.

And I looked and you had this shirt that said Ethereum. And I remember, I go, what's, what's that? Oh, my son created it. And you didn't say too much about it. And of course, like an idiot, I didn't really quite, quite understand. And you had explained it a little bit. But what I want to talk about is the thing that was most interesting to me was your just the way you think about just the human mind and about meditation, about what life is all about.

And so it confuses a lot of people. The way I think about stuff.

Yeah. So I want to confuse people even a little bit more.

I love confusing people. Well, first off, you know, when we know stuff, we are so set, we feel confident, we feel like we know stuff, we're moving somewhere, and it's very like, you know, it's very easy. Like, we're easy to be blindsided. Right. Because then life always blindsides you, you know, one way or another. And when we're confused, then we can become a little bit more open.

Right.

And, you know, take a different perspective.

Well, you know, like, the first chapter of my book is about be a pain detective. And I actually think pain is a. Is a. Is life's way of giving us a wake up call or say, pay attention to something. And I think as humans, we really do so much to try to avoid uncomfortableness. And granted, I'm not trying to say pain is a good thing. Pain is just something that exists and suffering. And some of it's real. It's physical, and then there's mental and emotional. I mean, certainly with your views of the war in Russia and Ukraine, right now. There's a lot of probably mental anguish that you're experiencing and how you think about that, however, like this. People do everything to try to avoid uncomfortable feelings.

I mean, that's pretty much human life is all about, right? It's about us trying to be more comfortable and survive and have resources. Like, it's all about survival and comfort.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So your life, I mean, how do you. How do you feel about your life now? You vacillate between joy, happiness, peace. I mean, how are you today?

I don't feel anymore that it's my life, if you will. But it's life, right? And life is always full of stuff. There is always nice weather and then there's some physical pain and there is some fun stuff happening. Somebody sends me a picture of a cool cat or something. Like, I have a friend who does that every day. Like, you know, I send pictures, I take pictures, and like, you know, my daughter's birthday and like, there's so much going on all the time. Right. This war and, you know, like, we focus on stuff and then it's like, okay, this is how life is. Right. But it's. It's just current focus. Right. It's nothing more than that. It's just like one tiny aspect of life.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, first off. So explain this shirt. This shirt that you're wearing.

It's a fun shirt. I love cool, colorful stuff. It appears to be a buffalo ethereum. So this is from East Denver, the best ethereum event. Annual event. And they basically have fun and they enjoy colorful, fun images. So this is a buffy corn, which is a cross between unicorn, buffalo, A buff, of course. Wow. Maybe Pegasus. Whatever.

So, so, so what is your typical outfit when you go out and about? That.

Whatever. I'm comfortable enough. I do like colorful stuff.

Yeah.

Like, you know, or colorful imagery and whatnot and other. I'm comfortable with. You know, I don't like formal wear that much. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in general, I don't like trying to be formal.

When's the last time you wore a tie?

Oh, man, I don't know.

Yeah, it's been years.

Years ago.

Really?

Yeah. I didn't remember. But I mean, the whole idea of being formal, it's like, you know, humans try so hard to pretend. Right? Right. Like, we are this, we are that. You know what? Like, yeah, we are silly. Silly goo.

Exactly.

Human goo.

Exactly. So. So people. So people present themselves to the world in a particular way versus who? Yeah, yeah.

And they're so scared. Right. Like, everybody's so scared to, you know, they trying to present a certain picture. Right. It's actually interesting that when you meditate, oh, you take magic mushrooms, you connect with that, with the fact that as we interact with people then typically automatically there's this, we have a certain presentation that we present to certain people. Oh, this is my presentation for my significant other, for my kids, for the world and so on. Right. And it's fine. People like to be on this journey to authentic self. It's a fancy way to, to, to, to be this days. Right. But I actually, the way I look at this is like there's no such thing as authentic or inauthentic self in every given moment. You're absolutely 100% authentic to this moment. And you know, and you're striving to look important maybe or striving to whatever or not striving to. That's, that's your current authentic self. You know, the self is not a fixed thing. It's like constantly, you know, move in shape.

Yeah, absolutely. I, I think that there's times in our lives where we're selfish, we're self centered, we're desperate, we're greedy. There's other times that we're so, you know, we're, we're caring, we're compassionate, we're serving. And it depends on, it depends on the life circumstances. Yes. So talk about, I guess, are you, are you in a stage right now in your life where you consider yourself striving?

Explain that to me.

Well, you use the word striving, so it's a, it's the pursuit of going.

After on the stage of my life where it's not my life and it just flows.

Okay. Okay. So how ambitious would you consider yourself?

Absolutely zero ambitions.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, I'm assuming you work out, you exercise, you take care of yourself.

All kinds of stuff. Yeah.

Okay.

I don't, I don't spend my time on laying on the couch, but have.

You, have you ever, have you ever been like, has ever been like really.

Had the opportunity to do that, like building businesses, having children, all kinds of stuff and. No, not really. I mean, now I actually have the opportunity, but somehow it just doesn't. I mean, sometimes I do like, you know, watching some Netflix and you know, my cat is beside me and whatnot.

What sort of. Do you only have a cat? Do you have any dogs?

Just a cat. Just a cat which was left from my girlfriend.

Oh, okay. Okay. So. So the cat really was the girlfriend. Okay.

Yeah, it was hers, but.

But you.

And she left Me, the cat.

You inherited the cat.

Wow. Yeah.

Wow. What do you connect with the most? Like, what do you connect with? I mean, your. Your kids with. With.

I connect a lot with people. Struggling and suffering, which is basically every.

Human being struggling in suffering. Okay. Yeah.

But I mean, like, I see that, for example, a lot in artists. I have this awesome artist friend, Nate, and North Carolina, and he's creating awesome stuff, and now he's building his own brand and whatnot. But. And he's always in a lot of emotional turmoil. Yeah. Sometimes suicidal and whatnot. And we talk and. But for me, it's like every human is struggling and suffering. Right. But most humans are scared to say that because they're like, oh, everybody looks awesome. So well put together. I am fucked up. I'm the only one.

Right.

And the funny thing is once they start sharing that and like, I struggle with this. I'm scared of this and whatever. First of all, that's relaxation because, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, up. You up. Yeah, let's talk. You know, let's. Right. And yeah, it turns out that everybody is as human as. As you, as me, as. Is struggling. And, you know, you know, you. You are not you familiar with a matter of addiction, right?

Yes.

That's being human.

It's real. It's real human suffering. I mean, it really is. And it. And it took, you know, took many years of my life. You know, I interviewed Lance Armstrong earlier this year and he. He had made this comment during the interview. He said, if you would ask me that same question, I think he said, five years ago, I would have lied to you. He goes, I just, I wouldn't lie to you. And he said, you know, I'm a fucked up guy. He's like, I've had a pretty, you.

Know, and he's like, it's such a relief when we can say the truth.

Right, right, right. And that's pretty much what he was saying is like, when you just try to, you know, and he had. And when I first met him, I didn't know if I would like him. And, you know, he's like, I've done a lot of work over the last 11 years. He's like, I've had a lot to, you know, think about, including, you know, medicine journeys and whatnot. But, yeah, so. So you see. So your artist friend. Do you know Gabor Mate? You familiar with Gabor Mate? Yeah, so Gabor is a good friend of mine. He lives here in Canada.

Yeah.

And when I created artists for addicts back in 2015 he had written up this whole thing for me about the sensitivity of artists and you know, some of the world's. If people walked in Hollywood and saw the Hollywood stars, they would be. So I bet you half the people that have Hollywood stars have struggled with addiction and many of them have died. And so, you know, you've got the 27 Club where there's 150 plus musicians and artists that have died at 27 years old. And it's so interesting because the creators of the world, and I don't just say creators in terms of artists or music, but like the entrepreneurial creators, there's so much anguish and there's so much mental struggle. And so I think can it be parlayed into something productive or is it something that just keeps them trapped? And I think, so what are your thoughts on. Because I had mentioned before we started recording, you want to talk about addiction? You're like, sure, let's go there. And I think of addiction as a solution to pain. You know, I don't believe you can punish pain out of people. So if you try to incarcerate someone, which they do, or you look at someone as a moral degenerate, like a choice, then it just makes it more hidden. People don't want to talk about it because they're going to be publicly shamed. Have you struggled with addiction in your life?

It's interesting, right, because it's like when people talk about addiction, people talk about drugs, right? Like they have certain the way they label stuff. But then I sometimes then I help people take a broader perspective, right? And a lot of people addicted to working hard, right?

Oh well, you know, there's a book on workaholism in the subtitle is the Respectable Addiction.

So I've been lucky, if you will, that my addictions have been mostly of the type that is less frowned upon by the human society. But the addiction of being smart and constantly learning new stuff, it's awesome. Addiction and also like over the years became very clear to me that this is also one of my ways to kind of escape. You know, like when I'm suffering struggle, then I might be likely to try to read a new book and find a new way of thinking about stuff. And it's funny, right, because a lot of the times it's also about instead of dealing with stuff, we try to find a way to heal stuff or learn or understand stuff. It's like stuff is right here. But yeah, I don't like that. That's too hard. Let me try to. And addiction to Working, like a lot of my life has been, again, it's been generally manageable. I worked quite a bit, but then I also had my kids and I'm happy that I spent a fair bit of time with them and all of that. So I had those things and the life addiction to alcohol and whatnot. And I had her light addiction to cannabis, if you will. For some time. Those are mostly gone. But again, like, for me, this is, it's a word. What, what does it really mean? It means that human being, you know, we all have emotions we're not comfortable with and then we try to find a tool, a way to manage them. Right. And then we find the tool and eventually, inevitably we overuse that. Right. Like, you know, we work a bit, we work more, work harder. That's cool, you know, generates dopamine recognition and results and success and whatnot. But then we keep working more and more and, you know, we stuck in that. Or maybe we drink a little bit and then over the years we keep drinking more and more or whatever other thing we consume. Like, coffee is my drug, you know, I like it. You know, I drink a few cups a day and it is a drug.

And what's the most coffee you've ever drank in a day?

Not a lot, like, I don't know, maybe four or five cups.

Okay.

I mean, one of their mechanisms that's been programmed into me long time ago is discipline. Right. So that's been a very powerful tool that, that have been in me for, since my childhood. And it's been extremely effective in a lot of things and really messed me up and a lot of things too. Right. You know, the way I think about this is also here's their range. Like, some people are really good at discipline and some people are really good at being sensitive and surrendering. Right? And I think that sometimes we have a natural way we gravitate toward one or another because of our genetic circumstance and whatnot. And, you know, but I've seen people stuck in one of those for a.

Long time, you know, that's okay. So where I, where my brain goes with what you just said is that when I was in the peak of struggling with my addiction, worst stages were when I was 18 years old, I was free, basing cocaine, I was snorting crystal meth, I taken LSD price 75 times. Before the age of 18, I was taking speed, I was getting high every day, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol. It was a mess. And in my worst state, there was one week where I had not eaten for hardly anything for the entire week. And on average, I was weighing 120 pounds. And when you're a male and you're 5 10, that's freaking skinny. And there was one week where I had just eaten hardly anything. I'd just been doing coke all week. I was up just almost nonstop for this whole week. And I weighed myself, and I got down to 105 pounds, and I look like a fricking skeleton. And people were telling me like, you need help, you need help. And it would just piss me off. And I was oblivious of seeing how messed up I had become. And so obviously, I write about this in books that I've written and whatnot, so I won't go into the whole story. The. What ended up happening is I got out of where I was living. I drove to New Mexico on this piece of crap pickup truck and lived in a trailer with my father and got sober. And the first six months were just grueling. And then I ended up getting a job selling gym memberships. And I, for the first time in my life, I started consistently exercising. Then I met someone there, and I got a job at a mental hospital. And I was a mental health tech. And I would drive. One of the things of my job was to, three times a week to drive the patients there that were adults for drug addiction, alcoholism, to AA meetings, Alcoholics Anonymous, NA meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, CA meetings, Cocaine Anonymous. And I would sit in on these meetings, not realizing how valuable that would be not only to my life then, but in my future life, because my core addiction was sex addiction, and that stemmed from being raped and molested as a kid. And I was paid money not to say anything. I also didn't have any female upbringing because my mother died when I was four years old, and my father never remarried. So he was just, you know, tormented. So I had a really. Not a very happy. Yeah, it was a miserable childhood, but basically, I. I just didn't deal with any of the. The trauma. So I'd gotten sober from drugs, but I never dealt with the underlying issues that caused me to drink in the first place. And so that term, dry drunk, There's a lot of dry drunks in a lot of my very successful friends and colleagues. Like you had mentioned, they're workaholics. But it's. It is this. It is this compulsivity that you get rewarded in the world. You get high status, you can make a lot of money, you can actually do a lot of good stuff. But inside, you know, there's this drive that is driving you, you know, Crazy. And so. So workaholism, sex addiction, you know, drug addiction, These were all.

Bingo.

Yeah, exactly. And I'll tell you, like during the pandemic and during this big, you know, the NFT craze that was a couple of years ago, I was looking, you know, even, you know, thinking of myself and the people I was talking with, it totally mirrors gambling addiction. You know, crypto addiction is. Is very similar to. To gambling addiction. And I'm like, man, there's a ton of people in that space that struggle with addiction on top of the fact that they're staring at screens all day long. Because Internet addiction, porn addiction, gambling addiction, gaming addiction, these are all these compulsive ways that people try to scratch the itch. So the spectrum of. I think that line, the opposite of addiction is connection. In the ultimate form of connection is getting into a state of flow where you just. Time disappears and you feel really connected there. And I, in most human life is kind of in between, and it vacillates between joy and. And misery. Although from my perspective, I think it's more unhappiness than happiness. And I don't even think happiness is like the. The goal, you know, as a matter of fact, I mean, some of the world's greatest achievers and people that have done things did not live most of their life in joy. A lot of it was, you know, there's. So how do you view sacrifice and how do you view, you know, what, you're willing to endure pain for different people, for different causes, for your family? I mean, is there places where you're like, you know, I will trade peace of mind for productivity in these areas.

This is a very complex calculation that a human being does every single moment, right? Like, you know, what do I do? And it has a certain pattern. So it keeps applying, right? And it finds them successful or not, and it keeps applying them in one way or another. So like sacrifice, right? It's always the way I look at the human being. Human being does what it does. And then there is a story about why did I do that and is it good, is it bad, what not? And the story is a superficial layer on top of that. The behavior is not driven by the story, but the story is one aspect of what a human being is. And I also seen that our story about what's happening, why am I doing things, can change, radically change. But the thing is, even when the story changes, the behavior might still be there or not. It's really fascinating. Somehow for me, for example, I've never on the one hand, I can say that I rarely sacrificed some physical aspects of my health. Like, for example, I've always been very good with sleeping. That's something I've never really sacrificed. When I was working full time, studying full time and having a kid, sleep was difficult sometimes. But I would never, for example, work during the night and do stuff and whatnot. I would always go to sleep and still kind of. That's been all of my life. But then also sacrifice, right. Like, and then I exercised for the bulk of my life. I started exercising about 17 and I was this skinny guy and I wanted to be bigger for like, you know, to attract girls and also to look scary to bullies and whatnot.

Right, right, right. Of course there's a practical reason.

So I've done that and. And it's been awesome. But also, like, I've been in that discipline of doing that. I've been also, looking back, I've been so insensitive to some injuries and stuff and, you know, injuring myself basically, not properly healing. And some of that stuff caught up with me later on. Right. So it's like, so that's another sacrifice. Right? So all kinds of sacrifices. Right. But whether we talk about sacrifices or not, right. Like, we kind of want to say, I'm noble, I'm doing this stuff for the good, for the future. But you know what? Fuck your future, because the future will always surprise you. Right?

Yeah.

So we do what we do, and then what happens is what happens. So it's merely what we do is our current best effort based on everything that happened to us, based on our current mindset and emotions. And how did we sleep and what did we eat and what did we listen to and maybe listen to your podcast. Right. You know, yeah, maybe we listened to some asshole. Yeah. Who said something different and gave us some. Whatever crystal method. I never tried that, but.

Well, you know. You know, it's funny. The only thing that makes the brain light up quicker than sexual imagery is methamphetamine. I mean, when you. So it lit. So, yeah, you probably don't want to try.

It's.

It's a bit.

Yeah.

But, yeah, but here's the thing. Like, I don't think any. If, if you're sit. If you're sitting there, I don't even know what the hell rational even means like, half the time. But if you don't would sit there and be like, let me take this substance that's going to.

Right.

You know, be clearly has a lot of consequences. But. But it gets you high. But at the same time, you know, if you've been on medicine journeys, which you have, those could be really intense too. But the, you know, the point is, is like, people are trying to escape constantly the, the, you know, the reality of, of a. Of a situation. So let me. Let me mention this because I want to get your perspective on what you think of this line. I. I talk about it all the time because it just, for some reason, it just resonates with me. So I have a. A genius network member named Dr. Don Wood. And he's a trauma doctor. He used to be a hockey player, and he's in his 60s. And he never had a lot of severe trauma. He never had like that he can recall any serious trauma in his life, but his wife did. And he got into, you know, becoming a trauma therapist in a lot of ways because of his wife and just different people. And he's become really, really good at it. And he has this line where he said, if you understood the atmospheric conditions of somebody's life, it would make sense why they are the way that they are.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah. So in your, you know, so if you think about the atmospheric conditions of your life, if I had them, I would be you. If I was built genetically, everything the same. And so, you know, and you've talked about this where people are, you know, people are just doing what it is they do. It's not even. Right.

Let me also talk a little bit about this, because when we talk about drama, I don't even like to use that word anymore because for me, just like every human being has all kinds of influences on them all the time. And then some of them, they are powerful and they stay with us for a long time. Some of them are more fleeting, right? And you look outside the window, you look at this tree. It has a unique shape of its branches and leaves and whatnot. It's been shaped by how the sun, the structures, the wind, the humidity and all of that stuff, right? The same with a human being, right? We. We are shaped by that, but we are not a static thing. You know, it's not like we become this and then we stay this. You know, we're ever flowing infinity constantly dancing with our environment. And what is also interesting is that as I've been in the last year, especially kind of diving more and more into the world of AI and AI is modernized, they are built on somewhat simplistic model of a human brain, neural networks. And what is very interesting is one aspect of this, when we humans think about the brain and many of us heard the story that we have these neurons and they then get activated. For example, a neuron can be activated when you see somebody's face. We say that people we are well familiar with, they might even have a bunch of different neurons activated when that happens. But anyways, human brain is one unique aspect of this is that it's much more complex than our simplistic story about this. Meaning that if you take a particular neuron, it's not that it reacts to a particular abstract event like this human being, but it reacts to maybe this human being and also affect it a little bit. Like it's activated less or more based on the weather, based on some. Maybe music, based on some of their chemicals that you have in your bloodstream from what you eating. And the thing is. So it's a very complex structure, and you cannot just take away one neuron and say, oh, this is a bad thing. This is my addiction pattern. And I can somehow get rid of this because this is an interesting aspect of what you are. And maybe your kindness, maybe your ambitions and your achievements, they're there in that neuron as well. Right. So we talked a little bit about this thing about many people are now on this journey to authentic self. Right. And that idea is based on a very simplistic understanding of human being, that here's my good, authentic human being. And here's some bullshit that I don't like. I'll get rid of the. I'll be so awesome. Right? And this is so up, man. Right. Because you already are all of this. And all of your parts are interrelated. You know, you take this part and then maybe you will have less of this pattern, but also you will become maybe less friendly, less ambitious. Maybe you will get really fat, who knows? Right? But that's the point. You cannot disassemble human being into components. It's just like one interconnected, interwoven structure. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So what are your thoughts on forgiveness and acceptance?

And.

Because is it. Is that. Is this human? This whole bundle of emotions and feelings and behavior, some good, some bad.

Yeah.

And. And. And, you know, good or bad is relative to a.

The.

The actions and the other person's interpretation and then your own.

Yeah.

Because, you know, meaning the line that I will often say to people are, feelings are not facts. You know, especially if I'm. Because I talk to a lot of people that are struggling with addiction and there are times where I have felt fantastic and my life was completely fucked up.

Yeah.

And I was delusional, Right. Because my life was just not working. There's other times where I felt miserable, and I'll have people, you know, be like, oh, my God, you were so helpful with me, you know, And. And you're doing so good. And I'm like, well, I don't feel like I'm doing really good, so. Right. It. And then there are times where it's congruent, where I am doing well. At least I feel I'm doing well. And I feel pretty good. And my life is working right.

Okay.

And so forgiveness and acceptance and how. How do you think about that?

I think they're grandiose dreams of ego that I am forgiving you. It's all bullshit, right? What I mean is that when the real forgiveness happens, it's usually. It's not a story that it's not the real forgiveness, which is, again, the new story, but it's not coming together with the story. Like, I forgave this, me, you, whatever. But it's something much different. It's like the real forgiveness happens when you see, oh, wow, there was nothing to blame in the first place, right? When you see, like, wow, this human being, this human being, this human being, they were doing this because they were in so much fucking pain. They just. You feel the pain, you feel the compassion, right? And all of your ideas, like, oh, he did this to me. Like, even the person who, you know, molested you and raped you and all of that stuff, you know, fuck him, but also love him, right? Because he was doing this because he was in so much pain, right? And a lot of this pain, I don't know his story, right? But a being who is not in pain is not inflicting pain on other human beings, right? Well, so, yeah, I mean, that's like the real forgiveness is really when the idea of blaming disappears, right? And the real acceptance is not. Like, I have accepted this because again, like, you know, it's. It's an idea of trying. Like, here's me, human being, I'm standing somehow aside from myself, and then I'm accepting stuff, and I manage my own emotions. But you cannot manage your own emotions. The emotions, they. They flow, the thoughts flow, and all of this flow. And sometimes there is acceptance, right? Yeah. And you've been on medicine journeys, right? And sometimes there's a lot of resistance, and sometimes you get stuck in that resistance, and it's extremely painful, right?

Yeah.

And sometimes there is just surrender, right? Yeah. And I remember in beginning of this year, I had mushroom journey, and I came out of this and there was quite a bit of resistance, and it wouldn't fully go away. And I came out of this with a very powerful insight. And the insight was like, fuck you, Dima. Right? And I posted about this and some people misinterpreted that, right? Because really, it was about. There was a lot of compassion on that inside. Because really it was about the fact that sometimes we do our best, we try to accept and surrender and everything. Like your acceptance of your non acceptance, like, this is the infinite circle of that, right? It's not like, you know, acceptance, oh, I will accept. And now I'm peaceful and I'm happy. It's like, you know, sometimes acceptance is just like, this. This is. I'm in pain and this is it, and I'm suffering and I'm not able to accept this. You know, I look at, you know, we mentioned war in Ukraine, and I see a lot of people who are really suffering and struggling like, you know, this is bad. This should not be happening. You know what? This is happening, right? Our struggle is always. We have an idea how reality should be, but the reality is different. And it should be different. Right? And the thing is, we can still act, but we don't have a story that things should not be this way. Putin is a fucking asshole. But also, you know what? He's a human being who's been really messed up with whatever his circumstances are, were. And he is just a natural phenomenon, right? Like, you know, we can blame him or, you know, shame him. We can say, yeah, I mean, this is this kind of stuff he do, you know, he lies, he kills people and all of that, right? So this is the reality, right? Can we act based on the reality? Not of, like, the ideas like, you should not be doing this. You know, like, he's doing this, right?

What?

Same with us.

Well, you said, you know, someone misinterprets something. Well, like, it's really interesting because if their interpretation is their interpretation, right? So if someone responds by reality, Right, right. Because there's people that. So if you take something you've posted and people like, I don't, you know, they're disagreeing with you, they're arguing, or others are like, dima, you know, totally relate with you. Whatever it is, whatever the topic is, whatever's going on, that's just simply their atmospheric conditions, their life experience. And the thing with. With humans, I have thought about this a lot over the last year is everybody thinks they're right, including me most of the time. And I think it takes a lot of awareness to be like, you know, I'm I'm really. This is. I may not be right here. I could be completely and utterly wrong.

Yes.

And, and people will fight for their wrongness in thinking they're right. And there's that, that line. I've heard Stephen Covey say it. I've heard, you know, other people, people judge themselves on their intentions. They judge others by their actions.

Right.

And if you were to ask Putin or you'd ask any side, you know, you, you, you take Israel and, you know, Hamas, you know, whoever is, is in charge of any political thing, whatever, they think they're right and they're. And, and when someone will often hurt us. Well, it's not my intention, but their, their actions did.

Yeah. So.

And that's a really hard thing to, to come to grips with when there's, you know, war and conflict with, with each other. But I think the conflict first starts internal conflict. You know, there's not going to be external conflict without people, internal conflict and then budding, you know, heads with themselves before they start butting heads with others and being right.

It's like, you know, I'm a guy who used to be very keen on knowing a lot and I still, I have a very natural curiosity and that's still, it's still present. I, I learned about a lot of stuff. I read and I play and I explore and whatnot. But it used to be very important for me to be right, right? So it's like what I know, right? And when I would argue then that I would be. I didn't realize that, but I would be so scared of not being right. And I would like, you know, just try to bamboozle and to my opponent and pretend that I know when I, when I had my doubts and whatnot and what. So arguing with people is difficult, right? And it's no longer the case. It's like, you know, I post my opinion and then it's like, this is just like my current idea. And then somebody's agreeing with that. Okay, awesome. And somebody is disagreeing with that. Of course you're right. How can you agree with the bullshit I just posted?

Right?

So there's this lightness, right. I can see that all that we know is a matter of perspective, and that perspective is not the truth. Of course it's the truth of this. But this is human being is really just this imaginary perspective on everything, right. Most of the time it's like, here is me. I'm the center of universe. This is how things are and I know it's right and so on.

Hey, I Hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there. You know, I have a friend, Dan Sullivan, who has company Strategic. It's one of the reasons I'm here in Toronto. Right. I'm gonna see him, you know, tomorrow. And we had done a podcast a while back where we had talked about, you know, the reason people kill each other on the planet is because of accidents and resources. We want someone's oil, we want their land, we want their women, we want their. Whatever those are, you know, whatever they want.

Yeah.

We want their gold, we want their cattle. Then accidents. You're born this religion, you're born this color, you're born this race, you're born over here, you know, and so it's very hard to make sense in my mind about all of this, you know, all of this human pain and conflict that people bestow upon each other. And you mentioned ego. What's the healthy way to utilize ego? And what's the unhealthy way that it just fucks you up?

The idea of healthy, unhealthy utilization of ego is. That is the ego itself. Right. Because the ego thinks that it's in control and it knows what is healthy way and what is unhealthy, and it can decide which one to use and it can judge. That's the ego.

Yeah.

Do.

Do you. Do you believe that the ego is necessary, though? Like, for instance, if you're being bullied or you're in a leadership position and you wake up and you have like, you have a very bad day, you're sick, you physically don't feel good, and you have to address your. You have to take care of your kids. You have to, you know, at what point or someone is approaching you with. At what point does. Does surrender work versus wind is like, you know what?

No, we're gonna surrender is a fancy way of figure. Nothing more than that. Right. It's like, my ego is so awesome and so spiritual that I'm going to my ego and surrender and I will have no ego. Right. And if you listen to that carefully, you can see that it's still the ego. Right?

Right.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Right. The ego is just a story that is generated a sensation, pretty much Every human being, most of the time that here's me. I'm separate from the world and I have to interact with the world. I have to protect myself, I have to get more resources for me and all of that kind of stuff. Right. So I see that as a very natural aspect of human functioning. Right. That natural aspect of human functioning can be expressed in many different ways. Right. And sometimes it becomes expressed in like really in violent ways. It can be expressed in fancy spiritual ways and all of that. Why not?

Yeah, yeah. So what? So when, I don't know how long ago it was two years ago, maybe three years ago when you had told me about meditation process you had gone through. And so I ended up signing up for something that you had recommended and going through it. When did you start meditating?

I did a fair bit of meditation. I don't remember on the first time I tried, like, I'm thinking maybe 12, 15 years ago when I really started kind get into this. And then I. For some time I meditated quite a lot. It was like for a few years, it was a couple of hours every day. And you know, before that, like I tried and then I would succeed and whatnot. I remember at one conference there were some fancy monks speaking. I'm like, buddy, like, you know, you're talking about this meditation that looks awesome, but you know, I'm unable to find half an hour every day or whatever you recommend. And he's like, hey, if you cannot find half an hour, why don't you start with one minute? I'm like, oh, that's a cool idea. I've always been a big fan of baby steps, that kind of concept that really helped me in so many areas of my life. So I started with 1 minute and then eventually became 10 minutes and 15 minutes and 30 minutes and eventually it became 2 hours for quite a bit. So I meditated quite a lot. And also at some point I did this really awesome course, finders course, which was really about taking people within four months through a lot of different types of meditation. Because we are humans and we like to play and explore. So we developed so many, we invented so many ways to do that. So it was really fascinating to, to kind of look at that. So I did that. And then eventually a couple years ago, year and a half ago, I think it stopped.

Really. Okay, so do you meditate?

No. I mean, maybe, maybe I do, but I don't think of it as meditation. No, it's more like, you know, life and meditation, they stop being different activities.

Well, you know what? So we're really talking about things that are related to the nervous system and to the functioning of the body and the movement of it. So certainly, you know, I've always liked the line the issues are in the tissues. And so if you don't involve yourself in some sort of physicality and it's just purely mental, there's a big part of human expression that you're not experiencing. And I even think of addiction and work and art and music as expression. Humans are just expressing creatures and we're either, you know, sitting still or we're moving around and you know, driven people that will be like type A or however they're labeled. And I even have a genius network member and a friend named Dr. Doug Brackman who wrote the book Driven. And he talks about how, you know, 5 to 10% of humans read the book.

Yeah.

Oh yes, it's fascinating book. And he teaches people how to meditate by doing open eyed meditation while shooting rifles. Right. And so, and he talks about the driven entrepreneur, the driven individual, where it's a genetic mutation, the D2 and D4 gene, which I don't even fully understand, even though I've interviewed him on this, I still don't. I think he's got two PhDs, he's a smart dude, quirky as hell. And there's the drivenness. So there's this nervous system thing. So when you're meditating for a couple hours a day, you're going to interact in the world completely differently than if you're not doing that. So, so you stopped if did anything change or did you get to a point to where you kind of, do you feel better? Do you feel worse? Do you not even think of it that way?

Yeah, I don't even think that way.

Right.

Like, you know, everything constantly changes.

Yeah.

You know, here's you meditating, here's you drinking more coffee, here is your drinking wine. And at some point I stopped drinking alcohol and I didn't have a single drop for a few years. And then, and now I can have the glass here, glass there, but it's no longer, it's no longer trigger that takes me down certain path. Like, you know, trying to have more and more like convert games. Right. Can be an addiction. And I'm not really into shooter games, but there's this puzzle game, Candy Crush. Right? Yeah. So well designed. Like you know, when I play it, I can see. Oh wow. So well designed when as they throw different stuff at you and they're trying to get you addicted. And I used to sometimes play A lot. A lot, a lot.

I have never played Candy Crush in my entire life. I don't even understand it. But that's.

Yeah, I mean, it's just a puzzle game, Right. The way it works, it kind of distracts your mind from stuff in a way. It can be. You read some interesting research some years ago that can be helpful to process some emotional stuff. And I remember I took my mom for her 75 years a while ago to Rome, and he didn't want to go because her mother, my grandmother, was pretty sick, you know, close to death. But I'm like, mom, she's been that way for a while. Let me take you for your birthday. We went to Rome and having a good time there. And then my grandmother dies while we're there, and my mom is in a deep, dark space. And I remember that research. I'm like, hey, mom, let me show you this game, Candy Crash. And, you know, and I pointed her to Candy Crush. And she took her a little while to figure it out. And she started playing. And at least it seemed to me that made her suffering easier for her to process. And to this day, she still sometimes plays and whatnot. And I mean, it still was difficult, like, you know, just losing your mother, like, you know, it's hard. Right. And then her being away from that, you know, we went back within, like a few days. But. Yeah. So, you know, like addictions and games and everything else. Right. This is just our natural human reactions to handle what we trying to handle. Whatever the current reality is.

Yeah. You know, I think there is a lot to be said about distractibility. And there are times where grief or situations, betrayal, whatever, are so difficult that there, I guess the way I think about it, does it expand you or does it contract you? I mean, it's very good point.

And I'm sorry to interrupt. No, no. But it's just like something that I thought a lot about, and I've seen that in myself and others. Right. In any crisis, like, you know, one of the two outcomes usually happens. As we kind of go into this suffering, one of two things can happen. We either contract more and we become more defensive, and we like, this will not happen. You know, I know what happened, and this will never happen again. And we just, like, you know, contract around our pain and we become more rigid, more defensive, or we fall apart, you know, and we fall apart. It's a very difficult process. Right. And happened to me recently as this breakup that I went through. It really triggered deep abandonment trauma that was sitting deep in me. And I Was just like doing so much crying and screaming and waiting. And thanks to medicines, I was able to do that with abandon. And, you know, falling apart was so beautiful because at the bottom of this, there is so much peace happens, right? Because you experience what you're scared of end of the day, every difficult situation. Why is it difficult? Because it triggers an emotion that for some reason, human being, this particular human being is having hard time with whatever that emotion is, right? Let's say grief and sadness and loneliness, whatever it is. And once we experience that, magic happens and the brain kind of looks at that like, yeah, that sucked. But you know what? You know what? Not a big fucking deal. We're okay, we're here, right? And it's no longer that scared of that emotion. It stops being this thing. It's like that we're constantly protecting. Like, you know, no, no, don't do that. They should not say that. The government should. Blah, blah, blah. Like all of those should and should not, right? They're really us trying to manage the emotions, trying to protect that. Right? And once we experience that emotion deeply, when that happens, something magical can happen. Right? So that's exactly what you said. It's about, like, we either expand and there is freedom or relaxation, or there's more determination and contraction, which is very powerful in itself, right? Sometimes that's what we do. Sometimes we use that mechanism. We persevere through some really difficult stuff in war, and it's extreme, but building businesses and dealing with kids and dealing with loss with all kinds of stuff, but powerful mechanism, and they have their place and they have different consequences.

Well, I want to emphasize this, what you're talking about, because the way I interpret that is, is if someone's spending time listening to us right now, or they're watching us, all humans are going through pain. I think a magic moment is when someone talks about going into a place that everyone deals with, like, to go back to trauma. Let me say this, I like that there's so much conversation about trauma. The downside to it, though, is you have a lot of people now that are. And I have to be careful this myself, is that that live in woundology, where they use their story, their pain to manipulate or to make themselves feel like, I can tell horrendous shit about my childhood and I can get people to empathize with me. I mean, people be like. And if I identify with that too deeply, it becomes like, well, everyone's had shit. Every human being has pain. And so when you just talked about, like you were wailing and you're crying, and you. You were unraveled. And how peaceful it became. That is like, there's that Joseph Campbell line I love, which is, the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek. And there are a lot of caves that are just scary as fuck to go into. And admitting that you have an addiction problem, you know, trying to hold yourself together when you have your heart broken and you've been betrayed, I mean, that is really difficult. I can't even fathom, you know, I will often think about some of the shit I went through. And one of the things that comes out of the addiction recovery work is, as weird as this sounds, I will talk to people on a weekly basis that I hear stories where I'm like, I cannot even imagine this person went through this. And a lot of these people have. They're grappling with it. Some of their lives are out of control, but other people have transcended it. I mean, they have done the work. They have whatever the work is, right? And I'm long past, like, there's a right or wrong way to do stuff people have to go through, you know, I mean, I have ideas of things that are helpful for others, and that's why I like hearing other people's stories. I like hearing, how did you go through this? What did you learn? What did you discover? And so, for me, it's really encouraging when people have gone through enormous pain and they have come out, you know, on the other side, and they have become better humans. It's fascinating. So with. It's almost like for anyone that's listening that is going through something that they think, I don't even know how to deal with this, and I'm hiding it from everyone. I have this shame. I have this pain. I have some loss. And I can't seem to get my life into a place that even feels good because. But you kind of went there. So did you actively seek out this or how. Like, how do you. When you're. When you're in a situation like that, how did you get to that medicine journey? What needed to happen for you?

We do what we can. We do what we, you know, what we have learned, and we keep trying different things. We're also creative, and we keep trying new things. And it's interesting, like, you know, and you talk to humans, right? That's a very powerful way of dealing with different things and reminded me, I'm blessed that I have a lot of amazing humans around me with very deep, authentic connections right. Where we can share stuff and it's not about advice. It's not about telling people what to do, but it's about just sharing. It's like, I know what, this fucking sucks. Oh, yeah, I've been there, right? Just like, being human, trying to get all of this right. And I had some friends who are like, end of the day, as we talk to another human being, and they express something difficult, right? Some difficult emotion. Sometimes it's hard for us to feel that emotion. And we start giving them advice. Well, you should not feel that way. And a few people in my, you know, I talk to them like, you should. Oh, you have so much to live for. Look at the bright stuff. Like, you know, there's. I'm like, thank you. I know that. Right. But it's. Who cares?

Yeah. It's not what I want right now.

Yeah. Like, you know, right now I'm in pain. This is the reality. That's it. Right? That's very simple. And it reminded me, like, some of the people I talked to, sometimes some of my friends and connections, people who are suicidal. Right, Right. And again, when you talk to a person who is suicidal, I see the reaction. And many people, oh, you should not be talking about this. You should not be thinking this way. Like, you know why? Because they are scared themselves. Like, what if they do die? Like, you know, what does it mean for them, for me? And, well, you know what? When I talk to somebody who is suicidal, I just appreciate that they're sharing this with me. Right. And I can, like, I felt somewhat suicidal, I felt deep pain in my life. And I just, like, I can empathize with them. I can be just with them without trying to invalidate what they feel, without telling them that this is wrong.

Right.

And you know what? We humans, end of the day, we're just complex monkeys, right? Yeah. And when another human can see they're in deep pain and their brain is like, I'm in deep pain and like, am I dying? Like, is this normal? This is bad. When they can sense from another human this is normal, they can sense the peaceful presence, right? It's normal. It's absolutely normal to sometimes want to kill yourself. Yes. Is it absolutely normal to sometimes feel deep pain? Yes. Right. And when they can sense that. Not in, like, intellectual level, but they can sense, oh, yeah, this human being is not freaking out. They are with us. They sensing our pain. They still hear. They seem to be okay. Maybe I'm okay too. You know, we kind of like learning that, right? So that deep empathy that we get from a peaceful presence of another human being that's so powerful. Right. So I mean, the question you asked is about how do you go there? And there's no answer to that. Right. Because sometimes you will go there, sometimes you will not be able to go there. Right. Like in my life in the last 10 years, I discovered the very powerful tool of psychedelic medicines. And they've been awesome. They've been sometimes extremely difficult and challenging, but they also been very powerful. Like they help this organism to fully experience some of the emotions that it was not able to experience from extremely deep sadness and despair and helplessness or even anger. Like most of my life, anger was a very difficult emotion for me. It was very hard for me to sense it in people around me and also pretty much impossible for me to experience myself. I could not raise voice at people, Right. I could not scream. I remember I was at some conference and they're like, hey, we're doing this. So that was maybe, I don't know, 10 years ago or more. Let's do this fun exercise. We will scream and people are screaming. I'm like, I cannot scream. Well, right, Just. Just for fun, right. And then eventually I did some medicines. 5 Meo DMT, if you're familiar with 5 Meo. I've. I did a lot of screaming and that was, that was fun.

How many times have you done 5m?

I did. It was a particular guide really awesome human being. So I did it maybe seven, eight times over the course of six years. Wow. And. And now, like, they're not illegal in Toronto. You can buy five weight pants in mushroom shops all over Toronto.

Oh, I didn't even know that.

So you can get that. And I have a weight pen and sometimes now can I use a light those on my own? So.

Wow.

So, yeah. Wow. All in all, maybe, I don't know, 12, 15 times, however you count the small doses.

Well, this is an aside in. In 2015, I went to Mexico and I. I'm the first person in the world to have before and after brain scans of doing Ibogaine and 5 Meo DMT.

Nice.

Yeah. And it was. We took a film crew there, we filmed. I've never put that footage out publicly. At some point it might end up in a documentary or something, but it's. Yeah. So you. So the point is though, is you have been willing to travel into places to open up this very fucking scary places. Oh, yeah. God, yeah, it's so. Yeah, it's so.

It's like this is where your illusion of control, you kind of like at some point it's overwhelming that it just like disappears, right? It's. Yeah, yeah, this is it. Maybe I'm dying, maybe whatever it is, but this is it, right? And. And that's the magic of this, right? When that happens, and then your brain, your organism is like, oh, wow, something new can be born in this. And like in this. Total pain, total despair, total helplessness.

Yeah. So I want to take a break in just a moment. But what. Before we do, I want to. I want to ask you about the. There's a resistance. Because you had mentioned the word resistance. I don't know if you ever read the book the War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

I think so. Yeah.

Yeah, it's great. He's a friend of mine.

I did, yeah.

Yeah, it's a great book. And he talks about resistance with a capital R. And he. He uses the word resistance is all of those things for the. Like, it doesn't take a lot of resistance to do shit that's, you know, like, go out and get hammered drinking or to default into some get rich quick scheme or.

But.

But to take on like a, you know, I would say like a medicine journey or to go into, you know, making amends to people that you have hurt or becoming part of a recovery program. What, Whatever.

Let me actually comment quickly on that before you continue, because I actually think that going out and getting hammered, that's a lot of resistance in your body to some pain that you're experiencing, right? The pain that is crying, that screaming that wants to get out. But the Orient's like, how are we going to resist that? So, like, you know, how do we fucking escape that? And this is resistance too, right? It's just like, you know, you can use that word for many different things.

Oh, yeah, no, and I get. And again, not to say how Stephen, if he was here right now, wouldn't interpret that. But what I mean is like, you know, to be in some deep pain and say, you know what? I'm just going to escape it versus I'm going to face it. And by the way, I don't think, like, who am I to say what is. How to tell someone the right or wrong way to deal with something? I mean, ultimately it's just consequences. I mean, if there were no negative consequences, I think, you know, I would want to eat pizza all day long, eat sugar all day long, go out and, you know, just do all kinds and consequences, right?

We like to talk about them, but people often have a very simplistic story about them. Because if you look at your Own life story, the challenges you went through, the human being, the addictions and all of that. But look at where you are. These are also consequences, right? Yes, the consequences are eternal and unlimited. Like, you know, when Vitalik, my son, who has created so much on this world, his birth had a lot of consequences for, for me, for a lot of humans, right? Like, you know, and Initially I was 21 and they became a father and I'm studying and working full time and now I have a child. Wow, that's a lot of fucking pain, right? But then you also have this beautiful baby. There's so much love, you know, Right? And then like raising that baby, a lot of difficulty, a lot of challenges, a lot of stuff, right? And then seeing that baby blossom into something and cravings. So consequences, they're eternal and unlimited, right? And we're talking about crypto being used for people, by people, for gambling, right? And some people kill themselves, right, after gambling away their crypto money, right? Then I've come across online, some people saying like, I hate you fucking, you know, Vitalik and Bitcoin or Ethereum, whatever, because my relatives killed themselves after they gambled away all of their fucking money in crypto, right? So that's a consequence. Consequence too, right? So what I'm saying is like, consequences are unlimited, eternal, and they are spring out like this, right? And when we say, oh, let's think about consequence of this act. Well, you know what? You cannot because you don't know what they're going to be. And they.

Well, and I guess it matters, the timeline too, right?

Exactly, that's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

The timeline, it will shift.

Well, yeah. So for me, one of the things that never made sense to me, I would say when I first started going to 12 step meetings, you know, and there's many things I don't say 12 steps or anything. I mean, there's community, there's biochemical, there's nutrition, there's trauma work, there's meditation, there's breathing, there's exercise, there's the environment. There's all these things that factor into what we do and how we do it. And I used to sit and hear people say, I'm so appreciative of my addiction. I'm so appreciative of, you know, it was a gift to me. And I'd be like, what the fuck kind of gift just makes my life unmanageable and not work. And I spend, I'm obsessed and I'm destroying my life and I can't control it, you know, what, how is any of this a gift? But now you fast forward to the work I do today in the, like ways that it's the shit that I had to face and do in order to stop doing or to just do life differently, to learn a new way of living. That's how I interpret, like, well, so when I say consequence, I also, it depends, you know, there's a consequence to a lot of stuff. It's just. So now I fully understand the gift. And I guess I'll say it this way. I have a friend named Jenny Lachlan, and she. I used to say this and I forgot about it entirely. And then like 10 years later, I'm at a meeting and she's like, because she's a speaker and she's a comedian, she's funny as hell. And she said, you know, comedy, what comedy is, is pain plus time equals comedy. And I'm like, I used to say, and I love that. And you take a breakup, you know, in the right when it happens, it sucks. I mean, it's all right if there's love there and there's loss. I mean, it's just, it's, it's so hard to describe, you know, your own version of heartbreak, right? You have to, you go through it. You can't just describe, miss it. I mean, it, it is in you biochemically. And, and, and, and I, I look at a lot of the things where I thought at the time, I can't believe I've lost this person. I can't believe this happened. And I look back at it and I'm like, thank God, I dodged a bullet. And then secondly, it's like, I can laugh at that in the moment. I could. It wasn't, none of it was funny. It was just grief. But again, so, But I'll tell you.

Sometimes, sometimes you can laugh in the moment, right or right after the moment. I remember the last time. Well, I did 5 GMT with this guide back in September last year, and it was right when this whole breakup thing was just like, really starting to unravel. It was very painful for me. So as he gave it to me, and I'm starting to feel that it's coming on, I'm like, oh, wow, this is going to be one mother of a trip. And I'm like, hey, buddy, can you lie down with me on the mattress? And I just hugged him. And for the next half an hour or however long it was, I was just like crying and then hugging him. And it was so much pain. And it was extremely difficult and on the outset of this, there was so much freedom. And I was just laughing for the next hour after. Right. So it's like, you know, they. Right there, the pain and laughing, they're just like our ways of feeling the pain and feeling, you know, and just laughing away for the human nervous system to just like fully release.

Yeah. What I'm hearing and why I interpret is that's just the connection, you know, you. You know, you connected with the pain, you're connected with the joy. You just let it go. And, and the thing. And the reason I wanted to kind of emphasize it is that I hope that whoever's watching this or hearing this, you know, when there is a time, and maybe it's right now, maybe where you just. There's that resistance and it. And it's just keeping you trapped. There are ways to let it go. But that, that surrender, and the thing you said earlier about surrender, like Tony Robbins. I know Tony quite well, and I've interviewed Tony a couple of times, and when I have him at my events, I always interview him because I don't want the whole crowd jumping up and down and all that sort of stuff. I mean, that I'll let him. He's good at that stuff.

That's not what. I've been to a bunch of events, and I took Vitalik to events. Oh, did you?

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. And I'll tell you, I think you take not just Tony, but a lot of these empowerment seminars or anything that would be in the realm of, like, better yourself over a weekend or whatever, there is a lot of people that try to, you know, motivate their way or push their way or empower their way through addiction. And addiction recovery is really a surrender process. It's not a.

So that's the first step, right? Yeah. Recognition of that. This is bigger than me.

Exactly. And so you said I was really good at discipline. Right. But then there's surrender. And I think in your life, my interpretation, again, is that you've. You've gone through this roller coaster. Discipline, Surrender. Discipline, surrender. And, you know, and acceptance and, you know, just seeing how life is. And I think that's just the way it works. And people that think you're going to solve everything with discipline and power, you're not. And if you think you're going to just try to be a spiritual, enlightened person and you're never going to have to get your ass up and do stuff, you know, like, I love the power now. I mean, power now, like by Eckhart Tolle, is A great book, powerful book. I mean it. And I don't know many people that I've ever heard say. I sat down and I read Power now and I made a million bucks. I mean, you know, there's like, there's. You have to do too, right? So there's in, in. In the presence, the being present when someone, if you've ever sat with someone when they're dying or they're just so broken and their life isn't going to get better, it's just, it's. It's just where they're at, I think just being present with them. Oftentimes where you're saying with someone, it's an energy when, when you are with someone. Again, this is my interpretation. When you're with someone that's with you and you're feeling that empathy, it's not just you being there, it is an exchange of some sort of energy that happens. And that's when I think that's when healing can begin. Well, let me ask you, what. What are you currently reading, listening to, watching, that is interesting to you?

Right now, Twitter is my number one social media, even though now I'm also excited to see that finally we seeing some decentralized social media getting. Finally getting some traction. And there are some cool contact that I'm also getting on Forecaster and on Lens.

Okay.

And it's interesting to see that my son Vitalik is now spending more time on Forecaster than say on Twitter or anybody else on their own island. So that's in terms of like. And I kind of like that because it gives me really. And I have a list of people that I follow that gives me all kinds of input from what's happening in Ukraine and Russia and Canada, in psychedelics and meditation and AI and technology and stuff like that. So as I mentioned, I have a very curious mind and I'm attuned to different things. And then sometimes I really get interested in a particular topic. For example, a year and a bit ago, I really got interested in AI the way where it is, because it became obvious to me that we had some powerful inflection point and I generated thousands of cool images and I posted them on my Instagram and whatnot. And I also been learning a lot about them. Okay. How do the modern AI system, LLMs, work and how do they evolve and whatnot? So a lot of my stuff is coming from that. I used to read a lot of books, lots and lots, and I do much less of that now, actually. Yeah, I still kind of can read. Like I Still have a bunch of books open on my Kindle. Some books that resonate with me are books about non duality. I don't know if you know that term. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So kind of like, I have some awesome books that I. And I pick up some new books here and there. Books about AI, about how the brain works, about medicine, I mean, health, I mean, how humans function and this kind of stuff. I mean, in the past, I also read a lot of books about building businesses and leadership and stuff like that. And that's no longer really bigger of interest in me. But also it's like my. I have a lot of interest in that and I still do it for a bit of like, mentoring, coaching, people who come to me and talk, want to talk about things like that. But interestingly, that the way I now think about entrepreneurship and building businesses, it's a reflection for human beings. So it's really important for us to connect with who we like, you know, the human being that is building the business. Because the emotions that you have and the emotions that you don't realize that you have will really determine the outcome of what you're doing with building the business. Right, right. So anyways, like, so I do that and actually I'm watching a bit more. I used to be so disciplined, like, you know, working and doing stuff and businesses and kids and then exercise and whatnot. And now I'm a bit more relaxed and I can watch some nice dramas on the TV and whatnot. And I really enjoy connecting with their, like looking at how the actors portray those stories and human emotions. And now I'm much more connected with that. Yeah. Yeah, so. And it used to be less. Less attractive to me. I mean, it was harder for me to connect with that.

Yeah. Do you feel like you are missing out on anything?

No.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, life is infinite, right. So of course you're always constantly missing out on so much, but you're not missing out on anything because this is it. This is it. Like, you know, your life is not in the future. Your life is not in the past. This is it. And it might be different things right now I'm talking to you, another human being. We're connecting about some really cool topics. And in the morning, I had a nice walk and I looked around and I fed my cat and all of those moments, right? All of those moments, this is fucking life. Right? And you might have a story about, like, oh, I'm doing this and building this and affecting people, but you don't know, Maybe you just smiled at A human being on the street, right? You know, as you were passing by. And that human being didn't kill themselves, right? And maybe they had a child and the child created another Ethereum or who the knows, right? So all of your stories about the consequence, about, this is my vision, this is what I'm doing. They're all bullshit. I mean, they're fine, they're cool, beautiful stories. We all have them, but they are all just stories, nothing more. We're trying to find a way to measure stuff, but life cannot be measured, because to measure, you always have to find context. And you have to say, this is good and this is bad, but it's all what is good and bad and what is important and not important. So my life is now full of flow and ease and enjoyment of what is. And sometimes what is, is a total struggle, right. And pain. Why the not, you know? You know.

Yeah, well, you know, the. I guess when I've. When I've heard you in. I've watched a few interviews that you've done with people, and people are always trying to, you know, ask you about Vitalik, right?

Yeah.

And in my whole thing, I was like, I'm not gonna sit and just try to talk to Dimitri about stuff just so I could hear about Vital. I never.

I mean, we can talk about him.

No, of course. No, I know. I know we can't. Yeah, I know. We can talk about what. What I find interesting with you is, like, people are always trying to find out, like, hey, how did you make Vitalik? How did you make him responsible? And you've always. From what I've seen, I mean, maybe there's some where you've said it differently, where you're like, he's his own person. I mean, he does his own thing. You know, I mean, look, I had. I had a child, I had Vitalik. And he's like, your other kids. Talk about your other kids, like how.

To have two daughters. And they're awesome and very different and, you know, beautiful. And they're going through their own. One of them is currently 13, one is 16. And they're going through their own process. You know, the younger one went through a very difficult year for some reason, during COVID times, I think, developed really acute social anxiety. And it became really hard for her to go to school. And it was a real struggle. And she would be, I would like, you know, from there outside, you could say that she looked deeply depressed and, you know, spends a lot of her time in her room and on her bed and wouldn't go to school 9% of the time. And that was very difficult, right? It's very difficult when stuff happens to our kids and then we kind of want to help them and support and we do our best and sometimes, sometimes the suffering is still there, right? It's. That's like the deepest surrender too, right? Like when you're trying your best to help the suffering person, whether the person is another or you. But then you've done all that you can think of and this is it, right? Like, end of the day, it's God's will and I'm a fucking atheist, if you will. I'm not like, you know, I'm no longer like. I have a very different take on religion now that I used to have. I'm sure there was in the Soviet Union when it was like, religion is bad and all of that. And then my view on that has shifted and evolved so much.

Did plant medicines have anything to do with that?

No. I mean, maybe, yes. Like, you know, Sam Harris, I'm sure the name. Right.

So I've met Sam before.

His book Waking up had a powerful influence on me maybe 10 years ago. And you know, the book is about spirituality. So at first his book helped me separate religion spirituality, because for me it was all like, oh, that bullshit like that I don't touch. And then his book Waking up as a subtitle, as a spirituality without religion. So I'm like, oh, okay, religion, spirituality, I can see the difference. And then also in his book, there was a chapter about psychedelics because like, oh, these medicines can, you know, can be something like 20 years of meditation. I'm like, what? Drugs, meditation? What's the connection? Right? And I got really curious and explored that. And yeah, so like, the way I view the universe, God and religion and spirituality has changed so much.

Oh, same here too. I mean, look, growing up, my mother was a former nun. She left the convent because she was ill. I went to Catholic church early on. I had a lot of abuse that happened under the guise of God. I had a really, a real issue. I'm not going to go deep down the rabbit hole with this. I had a of issues with God. And then in recovery, you know, seeing so many people that had a belief in something that I could not even wrap my head around. But whatever, whatever was connecting with them or whatever helps someone to, you know, to, to feel connected and make their life work is if they're, if they're being a decent human, if they're, you know, whatever. I mean, and so it's. It's It's. It's a bit of a mixed bag. I love the saying, religion is for people that are afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for people that have already been there. And another friend says, lord, help me to search for the truth, but spare me the company of those that have already found it. But the thing is, whatever one connects with is what everyone connects with. So as a father, as a parent, what advice would you give to anyone about.

Yeah, I would say fuck all advice. Yeah.

Well, no, no, it's funny because I'm asking you that, but I almost knew you would say that because you're like, there is no advice.

But, like, the recognition of. As we parents and we deal with this human and, you know, quite often we come at it from this story of like, I'm a parent, this is a child, right? And they have to. Children trigger us, right? Like when they don't listen to us. But we mean good for them. They should do this and that. And sometimes we're able to just see them more as another human being and then we can connect with their humanity and our humanity. And just again with Vitalik, as he was growing up, my nature. Is about not trying to force stuff, but it's more like, hey, Vitalik, this is the situation. Here are the things that. Here are the options. It's kind of on you to decide. And there are consequences. Being more peaceful because again, as parents, we want to protect our kids. It's like this thing. It's like we want to have them comfortable and happy, but then also we want them to be prepared for life. So then we try to teach them the right way to be. And the thing is, like, you know, they will be in their own unique way, and then we will do our best to help them and support them as much as we can. And we will mess it up in some ways, right? We will. They will pick up some stuff from us we might not even be aware of. For me, it's about just deeply loving the human. This human, their human child and their situation. Because my younger daughter was struggling with her stuff and we're doing everything to try to help her. And sometimes then she screams at us and like, I hate you and I can scream back now, thank you, medicines and whatnot. But it's like all of this is no longer you against me, and this is bad. But it's more like their recognition of how this is a bad, beautiful, difficult human situation. Right? So not losing the sight of that, right? Having multiple perspectives at the same time, that's. That's. Possible too for us.

And how recently has that been that way? Because you said, you know, now I'm able to scream back. When were you not able to scream back?

I would say that maybe until about five years ago, it was extremely hard for me to even like raise my voice. But you know, screaming or you know, whatever was pretty much impossible.

So you've had some pretty in transformations in the last five years.

Yeah, like, you know, five, seven years, like let's say that kind of shifted quite a bit. And you know, there's no limit to all those transformations. Like you find new layers. Right. You know, human is an infinite onion.

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. So you mentioned AI. So I mean, look, in the time we have remaining, let's talk about, let's talk about AI, let's talk about crypto. Yeah, I'd love to get your views. So for, I mean, I recently met Michael Saylor, you know, who's all a big Bitcoin. And where's Ethereum going? Where do you even, I mean, I remember early on you saying, you know, right now this on those maybe two years ago in an interview, you're saying, you know, there's not a lot we can do with it now, but that's how everything is in early stages of all this with these innovations and when someone creates this. So, so where do you see it five years from now?

Awesome stage. Because finally a lot of the vision that Vitalik and all of his colleagues that they laid out some years ago, it's finally coming to fruition. A lot of the way they envisioned the roadmap, the way they're thinking that finally there's this concept of so called L2s, which is a way to scale Ethereum. And they're already doing awesome in terms of mass adoption. And finally people can do transactions on those for tiny fractions of a cent, which opens up a lot of other use cases, not just like financial speculation, but decentralized social media and all kinds of other fun stuff. And even when I look at Vitalik, right. For a long time I could sense in him it was like the first five years they were the most difficult because he had this vision and he kind of wanted to just be on the side and have ideas and other people build it. But then he had to to be right on that because all kinds of people went into Ethereum, all kinds of assholes who were really trying to kind of like, you know, start in a really different ways. So he had to step in and be much more of a leader that he really wanted to, he wanted to be like, you know, chief science officer or whatever. And then he was very, he felt very responsible, like, oh, this is a vision that I outlined and kind of want this to happen. A lot of things took much, much longer, including the transition to proof of stake, which decreased the energy requirement for like 99.99%. And now he's in a much better place because Ethereum is much less about Vitalik. He still contributes a lot of cool ideas and he's seen as a leader, but there are so many amazing people who are doing this. And for me it was a huge learning too because I'm a guy who built businesses, right? So initially when Vitalik was building Ethere, trying to give him some advice, if you will, or at least some ideas based on my experience with building businesses. But he built something very different because my experience was mostly building pretty centralized structures and they built something different which is very messy but very resilient and very creative. So kind of seeing that and seeing how many different people enjoy that openness and freedom and they can throw ideas and they can discuss stuff open openly and you know, this is really awesome. And he's much less on the side now, just kind of looking at this and throwing some ideas, but he no longer has to try to kind of like control it anyway. And not that he did, but I can see that he's really enjoying that the vision is coming to fruition. So that's where we are. And I think if we look at the society as such, we already get into a stage of mainstream adoption. Right? Because with ETFs, Bitcoin ETFs are there Ethereum ETS in the US should be done this summer. Right? This is really becoming like, oh, this is some drug crime thing. This is like, oh, this is part of the fabric of our life. Right? Right. So I think for me it's very exciting to see that happening and I can see that finally the Ethereum infrastructure is there for people to build all kinds of really cool stuff from gaming to identity to decentralized social media, whatever you can think of, finally the tools are there, right? And the team is also, instead of like building this very hardcore deep down protocol level stuff, they now delivering stuff and improvements in the system that make it easier for end users to use the system. So really, really exciting stuff.

So is it hard for you not to, is it tempting to not get involved with all of this stuff? Do you have to resist Skinny? Because it doesn't seem like you like, oh, I need to jump in and just do something in which you could. I mean the position you're in, you, you guys have, I mean you're, you're in the middle of all of this. Do you?

No, I mean, because I've never really been involved in any hands on way. Yeah, I've always been more kind of like sitting on the sidelines and cheering on.

And you've wanted it that way, right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean I was busy building my businesses, raising other kids and whatnot. So for me it was more kind of like I was privileged to have the front row seat at looking at the spectacle of this transition of human society to new level, new way of doing finance, new way of doing many other things happening. So it's really awesome and I'm full of opinions and ideas and I really enjoy, you know, being connected with some of the cool people in that space and kind of watching them trade cool stuff. And I do my best to just support them on emotional level. Not like I can tell them what to do, but you know.

And you don't try to tell them what to do?

No, but you know, when they struggle I can send them my hug so you know, I can remind them that, you know what, yeah, this is fucked. But this will be okay. And yes, SSE is doing all kinds of shit, has done a lot of kind of shitty things to a lot of people. You know what, we're still persevering people, moving on and building stuff and whatnot. So for me it's really just being this part of the emotional support system of Ethereum. This is exciting, right? So definitely I'm quite interested. I keep my eye on that and I have a high level, pretty decent high level perspective on what's happening and I'm very excited by what I can see. We're really at this stage of revolution, very exciting adoption of stuff and so much happening and not just like in finance which is all cool and exciting. Right. But beyond the finance, so much stuff to. Wow. Okay.

So you know, one thing that I, that I'm annoyed at myself at is because I left it on the counter at my, my kitchen counter at my home before I flew out here is I had a copy of the pre release version of Ray Kurzweil's newest book called the Singularity is Near and it's about the age of AI and, and I had, had because Ray's a friend, I had him send you and, and, and Vitalik a copy of the Singularity is Near a while back.

Yeah.

And so here we are with AI recently, it's what. How are you engaging with it? What do you think is going to happen? Any.

It's mind blowing, right? Because you read about this and I read so many books about AI and I kind of love the whole topic. Definitely was a lot of interest to me. And I loved Ray's books. I read all of them. Then I gave them to Vitalik, like, you know, hey Vitalik, check it out. I'm pretty sure they are part of his kind of like, you know, upbringing. So kind of seeing that happen, like as I was tracking this and kind of as I'm playing with it, I'm like, oh wow, this is really getting to totally new and different stage. Like the way they, we can interact with them over text and then wow, what they can, the kind of imagery they can create, the kind of video and people, oh, AI is not creative. You know what, Like I have created many thousands of images with AI and some videos and there is plenty of creativity, right? And humans are extremely complex and can be creative and whatnot. And I can see that these systems are starting to approach the level of ingenuity and creativity that humans have. So for me it's a very exciting time. And one thing I can tell you for certain, nobody has any clue where it's going, just because there's this concept. If you know the name Stephen Wall from, I love his writings and he's a very smart guy. But this concept of computational irreducibility, meaning that you cannot predict the behavior of a complex system with a simplistic model simply because this system is more complex than your model. So the only way you can do this is by the system as complex or more complex, right? And that's the point. But you know, nothing is as complex, more complex as life, as universe. So there is no way to model that, right? So we now with AI, we're creating those kind of systems that cannot be modeled by a simpler system. So actually AI will become better and better as being able to model humans. So they will able to kind of like, you know, interact with humans in a way that humans cannot even imagine kind of how it would impact them. So for me, seeing all of that and seeing how this is going to, I can see that it's starting to impact so many industries and the impact will continue to accelerate. The speed of change will continue to accelerate. In my life, I have seen personal computing paradigm, Internet paradigm, crypto paradigm, now AI stuff, right? And the thing is like, you know, so I'm turning 52 shortly, so I, I'm pretty sure. That the next five years we will see as much change as I have seen in 50 years of my life, right? And this is a crazy, unpredictable change that will affect every industry, every human being in some unimaginable ways, right? So for me, it's all about trying to. Where is it going? There's no way to know. But the thing is how we humans will deal with that, right? Because the biggest issue with humans is always dealing with change. And we're going to see much more change, much more rapid change, intense change in next five years that we have seen in the previous few decades. And this is going to be very difficult for a lot of people. I'm also happy that we having more of this discussion in the society about do we deal with addictions, mental health and trauma, whatever they call that, right? But all of that, it's really about human beings struggling with the emotions, struggling with the change, with the rate of change. And you know, then for me also, I'm really happy to see that finally we in the renaissance of psychedelic research, right? And also in many countries around the world, the legalization of that. And you know, people finally, like, yeah, we can try to, to. We can try to stop and prohibit the things that we're scared of. But you know what, this is going to have all kinds of effects. Just like, you know, some stuff we talked a little bit about today is, let's say, sexual drive, such a powerful human drive. And a lot of our interaction of our society of humans was like, oh, this, this is bad. This should not be this way. Right? And that creates so much pressure. And then, you know, those behaviors and drives are still there, but they become convoluted and they end up and like, you know, people killing and raping and molesting all kinds of stuff just because, you know, it should not exist. Reality is there, right? It's like, you know, when we try to push down a drug war is another example. We're trying to push our simplistic ideas of what should, what should not, right? But the reality is always there. And it becomes just like now we have this fentanyl, you know, problem and whatnot. So for me, it's about the more as humans, we keep opening up to our fluid and messy and beautiful and uncontrollable nature and all of this, right? Like, this is the beauty of this, of life, of being human. Yeah. And you know, that's going to be. So back to your question. It's going to be exciting. It's going to be fucking scary. It's Going to be difficult and it will be really hard to. For us to deal with this. But wow, hang on. You know, the ride is. Is not. You cannot stop this, right? You cannot find control.

Yeah. I'm not sure if I would ask you, do you prepare for this? Do you embrace it? I think you're more on the side of you embrace it than like preparing for anything.

I mean, prepare, why not? But it will not help you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You will do your best based on what? You know. Sure, why not? I'm not saying don't prepare, but, you know, life will still surprise you. And, yeah, your preparations will be useful maybe to some degree.

Yeah. Okay, so, well, let me think. So what do you hope for the world and. And the people in it?

All hopes, all dreams, all fears. Let's enjoy this. Let's. Let's kind of act from where we are, right? And, you know, talk to other humans and connect and support them. And if we're into achieving stuff and building stuff, let's build and achieve some awesome stuff. Like, you know, awesome companies for building some really cool products and, and some crazy conflicts, right? And the conflicts are very difficult, right? And we want to take sides and we also want to achieve peace and right? And people, it's interesting, when the war started, the Russia invaded Ukraine. And some of my spiritual friends, some of them, they had this like, oh, Jim, I don't talk about this, don't post stuff about this. Let's just be peaceful and meditate. This is how you bring the peace. I'm like, I'm sorry, guys, but this is your misunderstanding of meditation, right? Sometimes if there is a violent attacker comes at you, your best meditation is a baseball bat to his head, right? Like, this is how you meditate, right? Life is not about the prescription. You do this and there is more peace. The horrible conflicts that we have in Gaza or let's say in Ukraine, right? Like, you know, it's not like we can meditate our way to peace. We have to deal with the reality. We have to deal with that violence. We have to deal with the facts. There are people who want to kill you, who want to rape you, who want to take your stuff. This is also reality, right? You cannot just say they should not be this way, right? They are this way. So let's deal with what things are, right? Whether we're talking about drug war, how about instead of punishing suffering people, we try to look for ways to support them, right? It's really that, right? Or if somebody's trying to kill them, it's not about necessarily killing them, but obviously some. This human is up, you know, and, you know, they have their reasons for being up, but we kind of want to isolate them from the society because we don't want to create more violence and, you know, more pain in the world. So kind of let's. But how can we do this with the deep appreciation of this reality just being what it is, you know, right now? Right. Not in like dreams and hopes. Like, you know, and dreams and hopes are fine too, right? No question. And fears. Let's prepare. Right? But they still all stories. And those stories, they will fall apart sooner or later, right? So it's fine to have them. But the power of now. Right, but the power of now with all of it, with all of the stuff that's happening. Right. It's not a prescription.

Yeah.

It's a recognition that things are already the way they are.

Right. Right. So what? Didn't I ask you that I could or should have?

K, I think we covered so much.

No, we did. We covered a lot.

Very human. Yeah. And we didn't talk about a lot about Vitalik, but I love and appreciate him so much because he's a very smart guy and that's awesome. But also we have seen so many very smart assholes. Right? And what I really appreciate about him is how kind and human he is. We are down to earth. He doesn't own fancy cars or whatever.

Is he still nomadic?

For the most part, he's still nomadic, yeah. He travels the world. He should be in Toronto pretty soon. Hope to see him actually on my birthday this year. He's just a human, right? And he's also his leadership. He has shown to other smart, nerdy, kind people that it's okay to be smart and nerdy and somewhat awkward and whatever. Like, you know, this is fine, you know, you don't have to pretend be to. You don't have to be fucking Andrew Tate and like, oh, I'm be. If you want to do that, not a problem. Right? But it's like, you know, this is their beauty of humanity, is that so many ways to be. And each one of them is perfectly fine. And he created his movement and it looks like it's a lot of really awesome smart people dealt around that. And that's freaking awesome. And I love that and I love kind of seeing that and seeing how that movement creates so much, you know, all those cool new systems and cool ways of finance and financial systems and so much more. Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome. So is there any place where people can follow you learn more about you, anything you're currently writing. I mean, you mentioned Twitter.

Yeah. If you look for me on Twitter, you'll find me there.

Yeah. Well, Eddie, famous last words for resistance is futile. That's great. I love that. Well, if you enjoyed this, share it with someone that you think may want to hear. Because we talked about a lot of very human moments. I think that was the most valuable thing. And I learned a lot, too. I mean, I learned a lot just talking with you here, and it really reinforced some things. And I appreciate you spending the time here and talking about this and hopefully in the future, because I know you're always on the cutting edge of what the hell is going on, and you have very unique perspectives on things. So we could even in the future, I'd like to just stay in touch and maybe do.

Yeah, absolutely.

Do a future one. But thank you for coming out and for those of you watching, you know, go give someone that you love a hug. Yeah, yeah. Just, you know, there's important people in life and.

Kick someone that you hate. Right? Like, be your authentic self.

Exactly, Exactly.

War and Peace, they might kick back.

Awesome. Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate it, man. Thank you.

Okay.

I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead. You're over here. Do it now.

Come on.

Thank you. Watch them.