SSP 032: Steve Clemens - Reconnecting with Nature and Purpose in Urban Cities

Guys, welcome back to the stagehifters podcast. I'm so excited to have you with me on this episode because I have my good friend Steve Clemens back on the show. Steve was a guest on episode 16, and if you haven't listened to that one yet, I highly encourage you to dive into it. Steve is such a fascinating man, and the story behind how we met is really one of my favorite memories out of my time here in Canada. And, you know, as my. This chapter begins to come to an end and I'm heading back to Australia next month. You know, this two year journey of me leaving my hometown in Perth, Western Australia, to come out to Canada has really culminated in me connecting with some of them, some really special people who've really opened me up in a really profound way. And Steve was one of these people. We met in a cabin. You know, I booked a place in his Airbnb that he had built himself in a cabin for four hours north of Toronto. And it was just in the middle of a period of time where Steve had spent two years in solitude. And this was an opportunity for us to reconnect and really get an understanding of what insights and perspectives he got during that time. And this is really a follow on conversation from that first one, but we dive into some of the insights he had from his time away in the cabin, and then we also some other topics such as finances and some of the things that Steve and I really bonded and shared a lot of conversations over. So I'm excited to dive into this one with you guys and I'm looking forward to sharing the episode with you all. So the video is available for this one, too. If you want to check that out, you can go to the YouTube channel. It's state Shifters. Enjoy the episode, guys.

Welcome to the State Shifters Podcast, a show dedicated to helping you discover your true potential through connecting the mind, body and soul.

All right, Stevo, we're back at it, mate. Down here. Welcome back.

Thank you so much.

Your second appearance on the State Shifters podcast. It's an honor to have you back on, mate.

I feel honored. Thank you for having me.

Oh, this is a very special occasion because, you know, I've only got three weeks left here in Canada and we've put this weekend aside for us to reconnect and spend some time together before I head back back home. And we're here in Grimsby. This is. This is where you live now.

This is one of the spots that I'm residing currently for now, for now.

And the last time we had in your show we're up in the cab. I was up in the cabin with you.

That was up north. Yeah.

And since we've caught up many times and shared some amazing experiences and I thought it'd be special to bring you back on and really touch base on some of the insights and breakthroughs and journeys we've experienced together and share some of this with the. The world, man.

Appreciate that. I think it's nice that you're taking the time to do this and we didn't, we didn't get to finish our conversation the last time.

Barely scratched the.

Kept going and going.

Barely scratch the surface.

We can now, we can now dig a little bit deeper, go down that rabbit hole.

Yeah. I'm really excited to dive into it, man. We've such a beautiful setting. We're by the fire again and we're outside Sunday afternoon.

It's almost essential.

Microdose, a little bit of mushrooms. So we'll see where this conversation takes us. And I'm really excited to. To connect, man, and share something special here.

Appreciate that. And again, I always love it.

Same brother. So, mate, tell me what you've been up to since the last time we hung out and. Or the last time we recorded an episode. Because in that point in time, you're at a phase in your life where you'd experienced a period of isolation or solitude where you lived out in the woods four hours north from Toronto and you spent two, almost two years out there.

It's three.

Three years alone in a cabin that you built yourself. So for people who are perhaps listening to this for the first time or watching this, you know, Steve built, you disconnected yourself from the everyday world, as you say it, and moved up north and built a cabin in the woods in Nipissing. Remind people who perhaps are first time coming across you, like why you did that and why you felt it was necessary for you to do that.

I was engaged in a capitalistic lifestyle again. It was something where I was pursuing the ultimate dream of world dominance and material acquisition and possessions. And nice car, nice house, was doing good and my son was born and I had an epiphany and I realized that everything that I was doing to profit was destroying the planet that I brought my son into. So I was struggling for a while on obviously how to proceed. I was living a cognitive dissonance, which is a. It's just a bad state to be living in. I don't know if people realize that that's probably one of the number one causes of depression. You're doing something that you shouldn't actually be doing. We're told we should be doing it. We're told it's good for us. But deep down inside, something's. Something's not sitting right. So that's where I started to formulate an escape plan. It was something where I realized that I could talk about the problems that were happening in the world and you could research it and you can agree with it. But it wasn't really until I decided that you have to live it like it's something where you can't tell somebody that they're destroying the planet or talk to your friends or family and try to convince them that we have to lower our carbon footprint. I think it's something where it's more lead by example or it's something where I felt like I was talking to people who didn't want to listen because I was a hypocrite. It was something where I was still turning on a light switch, I was still turning on the same faucet, hopping in the same vehicle that they were. And I thought that they should be listening to my message. So I decided to basically, I guess you could call it sort of like a quiet kind of protest is what I decided to do. I decided that I wanted to get rid of my bank accounts, bank cards, credit cards, wallet, keys, all debt. And I really, really wanted to try to live life with as little money as possible. Which means obviously you're doing somewhat of a sustainable living idea. So my idea obviously is to do that you had to plug a lot of holes in this bucket, which we talk about a lot. People try to make a lot of money, but what they don't realize is this money is just. It's just filtering through. It's just going in one pocket, out the other. You're left with nothing at the end of the day. So I decided to quantify how I could basically have a subsistent life where I could operate on as little money as possible but still have a high quality of life. So I had a piece of property up north that I bought and again, I paid off all my debt. So it was a paid off piece of land. It was about 88 acres. And I decided to build a micro cabin. It had sort of like a glorified outhouse on the property already. And I converted it into a micro home that was about 330 square feet and off grid. So I had some solar panels. It was in the middle of the forest, so about a quarter kilometer away from the road, which in the summertime you could navigate a good 4x4 truck you could get back there, but for the most part you're walking, especially in the wintertime. So it's really in the middle of the forest. And I decided to see if I could just live a quiet lifestyle, reconnect to nature and basically formulate my day. Cutting wood and carrying water, basically is what I did. And I meditated a lot. I had a very clean lifestyle. Got back into fitness in a. In a pretty. I got into it pretty intensely because it was one of the very few things that I could do out there. But most of my day's chores were. Were pretty physical in nature anyways. So that's basically the. The gist of how it all happened. I went from capitalist to environmentalist. And now I basically, I ran. I ran an Airbnb for a while at the last year because I was getting quite, quite lonely. It's how we met. So people who don't know that that's how we connected.

What a moment. That was.

It was, it was, it was the very synchronicity. It was the synchronicity. That was the thing where again, we were just talking. That. That's. It's something where it was monumental, I think, for both of us. So. So after that, I had a proposition from a friend who needed help renovating or doing a large project. And I decided that my quiet protest, I think, was over. I spent enough time reflecting on what my new chapter or the new phase of my life should be, and I don't think that I need to do it in isolation anymore. And it was something where I decided to come out. I've been out for about nine months now. And this is where we are.

Yeah, man. It was such a magical time because I came up there in summer when we first met the Airbnb. And I just loved the energy you'd created behind building a cabin out in the middle of nowhere. And one of the most amazing experiences was returning in April of this year and to even. Not even in the heart of winter, to be honest. It was sort of the back end of winter, back into winter. And to see the cabin or to see that part of Ontario in that much snow, like we're talking like waist deep snow for anyone who wants to go back and see photos of that to my Instagram page. And it was, it was a totally different experience. And we're inside the cabin the whole time and I was amazed by how warm that thing was. And it just got me thinking of, like, what type of experience was that, like during winter, like in the heart of winter here, we're talking like minus 30, minus 40. Snow, unimaginable amounts of snow. And you're still functioning in a way that you buy yourself for starters, but you're still occupying yourself in a day to maintain a level of fulfillment so that you don't get. You're pretty. Pretty lonely and downing yourself versus most people spending that much time alone naturally start to. We crave connection with other humans. So I'm curious to know, like, in the winter months, like, when you're dealing with that much. Yeah. The environment's throwing stuff at you. Like, how do you then navigate your day? How do you then navigate your own energy and your own, like, levels of fulfillment and personal drive?

I think for the, for the first part, it's. Overall, it was kind of like that perfect storybook setting, like something that you'll see in the movie where there's this cabin out in the middle of nowhere and the snow is. Is so deep and it's so high on the roof. And it's just. It looks beautiful. Like. It is. It is beautiful. It was the most beautiful environment that I could imagine living in. There is a lot of snow. I remember having the walkways. Every day I would go out and shovel and it would be something where the snow would keep piling up higher and higher to the point where it was getting above my head. So shoveling snow and like now heaving it up over a massive wall was. That's when it kind of dawned on me. Like, this is. This is a lot of snow. And again, I am heated just with a wood stove. It is a small cabin, so it's not hard to keep it warm to the point where I actually had to open the windows. In the. In the wintertime, working outside was not a problem because it's. If you dress appropriately, it's. Again, it's fine. It was the middle of the night. In the mornings was the odd time I would wake up and my dog's water bowl would be frozen. Like, it would be a puck of ice. So that's again, kind of dawned on me like, okay, this is a little extreme. This is unusual. Most people probably wouldn't find this tolerable, but those were the things that I found to be the most special enduring cold. As we talk about being part of like the whole WIM HOF methodology as well, it's hardening off the body. And that was something too, where I felt like I wanted to work hard. I didn't mind carrying water, water chopping the wood. Even in the in the wintertime, I would have to go where my water source is, down at the front, which is again quarter kilometer away. And I have the little house built around my well, which I put the wood stove in there. So even in the wintertime, my well would freeze. So to get water, I would have to then walk down. In the morning, I'd have to start a fire in the pump house, get the temperature in the pump house warm enough that the shaft of the well would thaw. So I could then pump water by hand into jugs and then pull it on sled back to the cabin. And this was again, people would think it as being enduring or whatever, but I found that to be just part of my, my day's labor. The way that somebody would wake up in the morning, punch an alarm clock and they would go off to work. That's basically what I was doing. That's the way that I basically thought about it. But it was my time and it was something where as I was doing this remedial task, it gave me a great amount of pleasure to just observe. I had, I mean, again, if walking down a path and then all of a sudden a deer is standing there and he's looking at you, you're looking at the deer. And it's this connection, it's something where again, most people don't get that. And that's sort of where I had that opportunity, do those things. So the hard part that I think was again, the. The light cycles, seasonal depression was something that most people get, but because I was trying to be aware of that, I had lists of things that I made sure that I was doing consistently to preoccupy my mind. And it was doing things obviously that were keeping me healthy. So the first part of my day, before I would even go outside, obviously, I would brew my coffee, I would sit outside and I'd have my coffee until the point where I shiver. So both the dog and I are outside and we're shivering. And again, that was how I started my day. And it was just the hardening off of the body. I would then go back inside and I would basically spend the first half of the day until noon would be on a physical conditioning. So that's where I started my meditation, Qigong, stretching, yoga, physical training. So I would do resistance training, calisthenics, and then I would. And also while I'm doing this as well, I also have mind feed going in the background. So I would do something where I could try to learn Spanish. So I'd have like a Spanish course going or I would have a Terence McKenna or a Ted Talks or whatever. My brother would load me up with all kinds of podcasts that I would have on an MP3 player because I didn't have a cell phone either at the time, obviously no cell reception, so I didn't have the ability to download things even. So every time actually had to come prepared with. So, yeah, my MP3 player had to have a lot of storage. Storage in it because I had a lot, A lot of podcasts that I would. I would. Obviously I would chew through those because I would always have them playing in the background. So it wasn't. I mean, lonely per se, but I always basically had like another person talking in the room, which again, sounds weird, but that in itself is comforting.

Correct.

When I found that I was talking to the dog too much, that's basically when I decided that it was time to go into town and pick up some supplies. So that was kind of the gauge. So I would. I would be fine hearing people in the background with my. With my podcasts. When I start talking to the dog too much, then I go into town, talk to real people. And I found that that was something where I also tried to keep to a limited fashion as well, because I really did want to challenge myself with being alone with my own thoughts. Because I think that that's something too, where people that not used to it, they try to busy themselves with a lot of remedial tasks, or they try to fill up their. Their daily agenda with all kinds of things that keeps them hustling and bustling so they don't actually have time to reflect on the type of person they are, the things that they should be doing or the things that they have done. And that's kind of where a lot of demons do come out. And that's where I think a lot of people try to avoid that.

Yeah, it's one of the lessons that I got from the living in downtown Toronto for a year, where this, like, busyness just consumes you. Right. We're always running around. And I'm someone who likes reading, I like learning. I've always got podcasts on. I'm always taking in new information. But I noticed because I was so busy, there was no time to sit and digest and reflect on the amount of things that I was experiencing.

That's a good term, is digest.

Yeah. And that's. And that's sort of where I was. So spending time alone like you did, where you're still learning and still absorbing information, but then you have the silence to sit and start to assimilate what's coming in. Like you're starting to put pieces together, reflect. And like pontificate was another great word you use that I loved, which I noticed in the city you don't necessarily have. It's just like onto the next, down to the next day. And there's no time to just slow down and be like, hey, like what, what direction am I heading? Like, what did I just learn from that experience that I can take with me onto my next day? And it's something. If you're not careful in the city, you'll notice that your time is just, just evaporates from you. So it was more. My lesson from that was being much more diligent and calculated with putting time aside for whether it be meditation, whether it be reflection, reading and then slowing things down. Because being out in nature where you're, you're learning but then slowing down, I feel like would give a different insight into the things you're learning.

That's again, that was another, another aspect of, I mean, as I was a capitalist, I was always thinking of resources or commodities as a measure of wealth. And I forgot to actually think that time, time in itself is a commodity. And when you really think about it, it's the most precious of commodities. Because whether you're a billionaire or you're poor, everybody has 24 hours in the day. That's how you utilize that. Time, I think, is, is the value. Like that's where we're time starved these days. I mean, they just had a little survey on the radio that I heard the other day where they were talking about how people would take a pay cut to just have a little bit more time. I was thinking to myself, I'm like, well, that doesn't seem to be like, I don't know, maybe the survey that they're filling out, that's what they would like to do, or ideally that's what they want to do. But I don't think realistically it's something that most people can do because again, you get into this crazy vicious cycle. Yeah, you want to have that? Well, the exchange of that is going to be money. Well, where are you going to get the money? Well, you got to go work for it. This is where I think that people's concept of value in the things that we purchase, they don't equate it to time. I have to now go and hawk my time to have that. And this is where I think that people, there's some kind of a break. Like they're just not making this connection.

Yeah.

So time. Time was the other big thing that I wanted to reclaim my time. It was actually part of my entire mission statement. Of the. Of the top three things, one of them was I wanted complete autonomy of my day, and I wanted to do first. My priority was the things that I thought were going to build me into a better person, a better character, instead of doing everybody else's first. When I got home at the end of the day working, you got nothing left for yourself. Your tank is empty. Very, very hard to motiv. To motivate yourself when your tank is empty. So again, time, it's. It's the ultimate equalizer. Yeah, brother. It's the ultimate equalizer.

Circle in, like, kind of expand on that. Because one of the things we didn't get to touch on in the last podcast we did together was where a lot of your time was allocated to learning and understanding the cryptocurrency world or the blockchain technology. Some of these newer technologies that are starting to come out that perhaps a lot of people would say they don't have the time to look in and research and understand it, but you got to really sink your teeth into it. And you really enlightened me on just this. The global economic landscape and what's going on, and this new uprising of cryptocurrencies or an alternative. Alternative currency that's coming through.

You don't have to. Excuse me.

Yeah, no worries. Check that, check that.

Duty calls.

Yeah.

All right.

We had to have a little pit stop there.

Sorry about that. I feel like I'm on call now. Go from, like, no phone guy to be like, totally like a. Like a freaking doctor. I'm like, oh, I gotta go. The bat phone is ringing.

Steve's just been given the responsibility of looking after a car wash while your mate goes away. So that's the reason for business. Yeah, Business calls. But we're back. And I was asking you about a lot of the time you spent you invested into learning about cryptocurrencies, blockchain understanding global and macro and microeconomic influences that were happening in the market at the time. And I remember finance was always a passion of mine, mate. When I first started, I studied business, and I guess that's one thing I'm become aware of as I've left the corporate world is the lack of awareness that most people have to. What's actually going on. You know, we kind of just.

I think it's by design.

Yeah.

Personally.

But which is, again, is. Is why you blow. You blew My mind in a sense where we were able to have a conversation around stuff that majority of people just aren't aware, man, you know what I mean? Just because you're able to. Again, it's the way you learn. You dive fully into something and. And cryptocurrencies and blockchain was something that I hadn't really scratched the surface at all. And I'm really glad that you showed shared everything you knew about investments, finances. And I just want you to. I would love for you to share with the world your approach to finances, your approach to investing, your. And your awareness of what's actually going on right now from a global economic situation. Because I think it could bring a lot of value to people who perhaps have no idea around they're just kind of working, putting their money into whatever savings account or just putting into a 5o what do you guys call superannuation out here? So RSP, RSP just. And no real awareness of where their money's going or what their money's doing or who they're investing in or maybe some, maybe no one's investing. So.

Okay, well first of all, this is not investment advice straight off. I'm wrong 100% of the time. And I used to live out in the middle of the forest. So this is just for entertainment purposes only. So my perspective on the finance or economy is for a personal, like a personal standpoint. I think that obviously debt is the problem right now. Our entire economy is a debt based economy that is fractional reserved and the monetary policy is not designed to help you out. That lesson I learned because I had to. It was something where being in business everything is interest rate sensitive. When you're borrowing money, you want to make sure that your cash flow can service your debt. Plus you want to have a little bit of positive cash flow at the end that maybe you could possibly put in your pocket and buy some groceries with if the economic gods allow it. So where people are living their lives in a phenomenal amount of debt and I don't think that you're ever going to get out of it because again it's designed that way. So I tried to lower my debt, got rid of it. So I actually had surplus cash. And that's where I decided that I wanted to put it somewhere to work for me. And again, as you were talking about, I started to look into what my possibilities were. There's the stocks, there's bonds, there's the RRSPs, which is A. I mean you're told by everybody that this is for Your retirement, this is going to be here for your retirement. And they agree to that, but they have no idea again what it's invested in and the dynamics behind it. So that's where again I started to find out that it's like having the fox looking after the hen house. It's just ridiculous on how we're allowing people to manage our money because nobody, I mean, we don't know how to do it ourselves. So we obviously get a money manager or somebody who will look after our money. Or you just go to the bank and ask them if you can just buy one of their, their investment products. And that's pretty much where people leave it if they want to invest, which most people don't invest because they don't have any money to invest anyways. So if there's, I mean, and the chase is on there you have it. So specifically, I don't know if there's something like how deep you want me to get into sort of like the problems with our economy or if it's just something hurt.

Like how, like I'm curious because majority of people, I would say listening are aware of what's going on to a certain extent, but they just blindly putting their money, investing it into, into whatever. Unless they've, unless you study finance, unless you're, you're working in the, the fine, like the finance industry, most people are completely unaware of like how to manage their money, like you said, where to invest it for starters. And once you do a little bit of your own research, you start to realize if you're smart about how you invest, you can actually set yourself up long term, medium to long term in a way that your money starts working for you.

I watched my dad do it. My dad was phenomenal at the stock market. I grew up with him showing me companies and what these companies did. And I got the whole sort of Warren Buffett, you know, the whole fundamental analysis of trading, of investing. It's not timing the market, it's time in the market. That was his old philosophy. He would buy very, very large blue chip stocks that had a dividend. These dividends got reinvested. It's called a drip program. Those are the very basics. Those are the things where again, you can't really go wrong with that if it was a free market. But again, this fundamental investing isn't good if you have high frequency trading. These are computers that are trading these companies so quickly that you don't stand a chance. Even if it's something where you want to stay in the market. Well, you can have companies start doing stock buyback which they're diluting the shares now of the company or they'll split that will dilute the shares. You have a company that will start buying back their stocks. Like there's so many things that you just weren't in control of when you were investing in the stock market. And that's again too where I just, I felt like my money wasn't safe. Like it just wasn't something that was good. I mean talk to somebody in 2008 how their portfolio did not too good if you're in retirement age and you needed that money. That didn't work out well. People who didn't panic sell. They made a lot since 2008 because of all of the capital investors injections that they've been putting in. So again it's, it's a what? It's a, it's a wild ride. You talk about cryptocurrencies like that's something where, you know, when I first got into cryptocurrencies, I mean it was basically said you don't put any money that you are going to need. That's how risky it is. It is something that was assume you're.

Going to lose it type thing. Exactly.

It's like pretty much you know, comparing it to a casino. Like that's how much control you basically have. Which I think that was just the warning signs obviously. It's something where if you understand sort of the beat or the breadth of the market, it's something where again you know that you can buy bitcoin on one of those nice dips and you can feel if you are going to ride this out for 10 years. I'm pretty sure in 10 years Bitcoin isn't going to be back where you bought it at the dip. You buy it at the all time high, maybe waiting a little bit longer. But again those are just the way that the market, the markets go. So the time that I spent on all of this stuff that's where again back to the leisure of having time. People think I'm really smart and it's not a matter of smart, it's just I had more time to study it. I found it to be a passion of mine like you and I just had more time to read about it while everybody was off at work. I was just reading more articles, I was just watching more videos. And again that was something where, that's how I decided to live my life is I wanted to spend the time on the things that were important to me. So I could become knowledgeable. So I didn't have to ask somebody to do it for me, like asking the fox to look after my hen for me. So cryptocurrencies is a fantastic next generation step because if you see the way that the house of cards are stacked right now, the house is really high and the foundation is really wobbly. The canary in the coal mine is all over the place. Like the signs are there that a 2008 pipe crisis is probably around the corner. And it's something where you want to make sure that your eggs are not in a lot of different types of baskets. The assets that I think are extremely overvalued right now are real estate and stocks. You have a lot of money that was injected into the market since 2008, probably four plus trillion dollars. That money had to find a home. So it went specifically into real estate and to stocks. You could see if you have an index chart or you have the ability to go and take a look at the charts. Charts. It's indicative, you can see this massive uptick in IT evaluations. They're out of control right now. Stock market, the PE ratios are crazy again and again. House prices in the Toronto, Vancouver, actually, I mean it's ridiculous everywhere. It's ridiculous everywhere. And this, again, it's bubble. I mean this is bubble territory here. And this is where you want to go in very cautiously when the bubble bursts. I don't think that they're going to be able to come up with the same shenanigans that they did the last time. I don't think that the public is. They were unaware before. It was something where they were scared into allowing these, these certain provisions to happen. And in the meantime, I think that a lot of people became very educated on what actually happened. You can't unring that bell. But if it happens again, I'm pretty sure you're not going to be able to pull a, pull the wool over these eyes this time. And if they try to do it, I'm pretty sure people will take to the streets. They're doing it in other countries right now. And I think that this is going to become a global phenomenon. I think it's going to be something where you're going to see the people are going to be pushing back. I think that it's something where we've.

Hit the tipping point and if someone's listening or watching who perhaps has heard of cryptocurrencies and is aware of what they are, but hasn't necessarily done the research enough to dive into why they should be investing where they should be investing, what they should be investing in. What kind of advice would you give to someone who's perhaps scratched the surface a little bit? They're, they're aware of cryptocurrencies, but they haven't really.

Andreas Antonopoulos, without a doubt, he is the absolute first person you should listen to. Andreas Antonopoulos owns no cryptocurrencies.

Why do you.

Actually, he's a spokesperson. He's just a spokesperson for the technology of blockchain. He doesn't actually talk cryptocurrency, blockchain. He talks.

You would say start there before you.

Absolutely. Without a doubt. Without a doubt. You understand the blockchain and the benefits of it. There's a book out there called the Blockchain Revolution by Don Tapscott that would be the second go to. Before you even think about dropping a dime anywhere, understand this new economy and how it's going to change the world. Because it's.

Why do you think it's important that people do that, first of all? Because that's, that's really the main question. A lot of people think, oh, why do I need to understand bitcoin? Why don't you understand blockchain?

Well, again, it's, it's something where it's like, I mean, again, me not understanding how my car works. I go to the mechanic, I get, I get taken. They see, they see me coming a mile away. Right? It's just something you have to be aware of your, your own honey pot. Like, it's just something where you just have to have that vesting interest in it, you know, and that's where, again, that's where I think it's important to be spending the time on, you know, just as important as it is diet. You have a fiscal responsibility to, to work out them, them, them fiscal neurons. You have to know how the world you live in works. Again, if not, you're going to be taken for a ride, you're going to get run over. And that's, and that's basically what's happening to a lot of people right now, because they're interest slaves. They're wage slaves and they're interest slaves. And it's, it sucks. And our children are going to be born into bondage as well, because they are going to observe us with these shitty habits. So again, that's a problem. So this is where, again, becoming aware of your own, I mean, it's your con. It's like driving a car without putting your hands on the steering wheel. It's ridiculous.

Right. And majority of people are perhaps in that point where they're just not aware of what they're doing. And now this is a chance for regular people to perhaps gain back an element of control of their money. Where in the past banks or larger financial institutions have really dictated how much we get charged to borrow money, how much it costs to even have money in a bank. Is this where you see things shifting in a large way?

Where again, I just look at the quarterly profits of TD bank and when you're like 2 to 4 billion dollars a quarter, you ask where's that money coming from? That's us. We're giving them that money. That's why when you go into the, into the Royal bank tower in downtown Toronto, everything's marble. You think Royal bank paid for that? No, I did. My six dollar a month service fee goes to pay for that shit. This is the stuff that you have to be aware of. Like when you go to a car dealership, you go to that antsy fancy car dealership and you're that little cappuccino machine, you're paying for that. Those are the things that you have to become aware of the world that you're, that you're living in. So like I said, cryptocurrencies. Go to Antonopoulos first and read a book, understand the new economy. It's like, it's like the Internet was confusing when it first came out. All this WW dot. I mean, people your age, you don't realize that you were born into it. But when the Internet first came out, people didn't get it. There's even recorded news broadcasters and they were like, what's this Internet thing? They're like, well, I think it's something where you can like email. And they're like, well, why do you even need that? People talking about a computer in every house, that's ridiculous. Why would you want a computer in every house? So these are the things where cryptocurrencies is going to be Web 3.0. The way that we now utilize the Internet, we book vacations on it, we Uber on it, we stream videos, we live off the Internet. And when the Internet first came out, people were perplexed. They didn't understand it, they didn't think that we even needed it. So blockchain technology is going to be the next thing. The reason being is because the system that we're in right now, it's too inefficient. And blockchain technology is allowing you to take out that middleman. It's that middleman, which is bleeding a little bit off of every transaction in every exchange. Having a third party to. Again, like, it's. The blockchain technology is going to revolutionize the world. It's going to.

And this is what got me when I. When you first started explaining this stuff to me was I realized how unaware, like I was just completely unaware of how impactful this technology was going to be. And it was something I was like, wow, I really want to. It's one of those things where ignorance would not be bliss.

No.

Because although you missed the boat otherwise.

This is the epitome. This is the epitome of leveling the playing field too. This is, this is complete awareness for everybody. What, what a bankster can see, I can see as well. If everything is on blockchain technology, it is complete transparency for all. There's no guy behind a curtain anymore pulling, pulling these, these magic levers and the things that we don't have control over. It levels the playing field. Cryptocurrencies is built on the blockchain technology. Again, a decentralized currency that cannot be hyperinflated. Bitcoin is stagnant. At 21 million Bitcoin, there will never, ever, ever be more than 21 million. Get one now before they're gone. That's all I gotta say. So those are the things where they can keep printing money debt. We're at 23. I mean, U.S. is at $23 trillion right now. And the printing presses are going like, matt, I got you to look up that US Debt clock real time. And I mean, the numbers are flicking so fast that you can't even see them flick. I mean, every six seconds they're adding like a million dollars of debt. And it doesn't stop. It doesn't stop. And it just, it's. Since I, since I've been watching this thing, I think I started watching it when it was at, I think 12 or $13 trillion. And within, I think, I don't know, it was like eight, ten years, it's doubled. I just. It blows my mind. And then think about another eight or 10 years if it's not slowing or abating. I mean, again, how can you, how can you run a business when you're constantly just in debt and printing money and nobody's even buying your debt? You have to print money to buy your own debt. It's like writing yourself a check that you know the money isn't in the bank account to cash. It's just. It's ridiculous. And this is. This Is the, this is the economy that we're living in. Governments can't manage the books. We can't manage the books. That's a recipe for disaster.

Yeah, that's exactly it, man. That's. That's the disaster that's pending. Right?

Everybody's financial horror house is in disorder right now.

So the opportunity we have, if we can allocate a little bit of time, allocate a little bit of investment into our own research, our own knowledge, our own understanding of what's going on, we can take back an element of power.

Absolutely. It doesn't have to be blockchain technology. Again. I found buying a seed. I mean, if you can grow your own tomato, something as simple as that, Food prices are going up, guaranteed. When you go into the grocery store, tell me that you haven't seen the food prices going up. And this is where people don't get 20. 30 years ago, $20 would fill your grocery cart with a lot more items than it will today. And this is where, again, it's the nominal value that we see. $20, $20 is exactly the same. Now, 40 years ago, $20 was $20, but it's not the same. It's what that purchasing power of that $20, it's diminishing. Our money has lost its purchasing power because they keep diluting it by printing more. It's a hidden tax, and people don't get it. Just go off to work, make more money. You buy more expensive things. And again, people think it's just a dynamic. Things just go up in price. I could buy a Coca Cola for 15, 25 cents when I was young. I mean, two bucks, no, go to the, go to the cinema. It's 27, but whatever.

Correct. The reason why I like talking about finance is because I've noticed for a lot of people, me included, finance is usually the main barrier from people taking action on their dreams or they. They think it's the main barrier. And when you realize that doing a little bit of education into how to manage your finances, how to, you know, start to be smart about where you're putting your money, you can actually mitigate a lot of the risks, but at the same time, leverage yourself in a position where, when the time comes where you have a dream, you have something you want to take action on, some grand vision, you have the finance there to do it. Whereas most people are debt to the house, debt to their car, student debt.

But they've been told. So again, like in their defense, like they've been told that a house is Your is your largest asset. They think a house is an asset, which historically it has been because house prices have historically been going up double digits. You have those few downturns. But our parents, who have done very, very well in real estate, encourage us to buy real estate because they did well in it. And it is something where a lot of wealth is held in real estate. But if you take a look at, again, the way that the environment has changed, interest rates have never been this low for this long. So again, yes, it was great for my parents back in the day, but now it's so low that, again, like, this is one of the things that's pushing the house price up. Interest rates are part of the equation that they use for the affordability of the house that you can buy. If interest rates were higher, you wouldn't be able to afford such an expensive house. So it keeps people out of the housing market. Because interest rates have been so low, people flooded the housing market. Supply and demand takes effect. Again, these are the dynamics that people have no idea about. So investing in something that holds its value historically, they talk precious metals. That's usually good for you. Want to invest a dollar today, you know that. Pretty sure 20 years down the road, you'll be able to get that dollar back. Historically, gold has been good, but people, it's boring. Gold has lost its luster, no pun intended. So other than that, people get analysis paralysis when they start trying to learn or they hear about all the different types of investments that are out there. And they, you know, people talk about the stock market, money market. It's confusing to them. And I think it, again, by design, the same way that the tax code, doing your own taxes, it's. It's too complicated.

Correct, Correct. There's no, like, cryptocurrency advice. The cryptocurrency advisors right now are the financial advisors, in a sense.

Yeah.

So there is no dedicated one person who manages cryptocurrency yet? In a sense, no. So it's our responsibility.

It is our responsibility if you do.

Want to dip your toe in the water, do a bit of research and understand why you're doing it, for starters. And then that's.

That's what. And again, that's what led me down the road of cryptocurrencies, because I found that everything else was. It was too risky. Which is funny, because it's cryptocurrencies, where they say is the. Is the risky thing. But I think that the reason why is because a lot of the people that are saying cryptocurrencies are risky is because they don't understand it. And you can even watch cnbc. A lot of the market analysts on cnbc, they even admittedly say that they don't understand it. Even when they talk about it, you can see that they don't understand it because they're talking gibberish. They don't understand the dynamics or the technicals behind it. So it is very complicated. So the thing is though is understanding that it's the hyperinflation. If you again, cryptocurrencies are also very young as well. They don't have a time for people to say like this is historically what's happened. I mean, bitcoin came out in 2009, so it's been around for 10 years. You have no historic charts for bitcoin. And that again, I think makes people very nervous. You have 3,000 plus years of historic charts for gold. That makes people very comfortable. You've got hundreds of years of historic charts for real estate. That makes people comfortable. And again, I think that that's why those are how people keep it to the basics.

Definitely. It's like there's just an element of foresight that if you're going to adopt that and start to see just the direction where things are going, you can start to then make better decisions around where you want to invest your money, but more importantly, where you want to invest your time.

Again, I think it's the time. Time to educate yourself. Once you're educated, I think that that's where it becomes really easy to find a place to put your money. And again, the Internet is fantastic for that. I mean, obviously there's a lot of people that will obviously send you down the wrong path because they have a vesting interest in something that they want you to purchase or whatever. But again, I think it's something where, if you, if you kept it to the basics, where there was the. The wealthy barber and the richest man in Babylon, two of the oldest finance books out there. And they're like tiny. They're almost like a magazine. They're so small you could read them in a day and a half.

Exactly.

Those are the basics. You know, you want to save a little bit of your paycheck on a monthly basis. You know, once you have that money saved, put it to work for you, but get it to work for you in a smart way. Simple example is a solar panel. You could buy a solar panel and start cutting your electrical costs. Same thing as like buying a milking cow. You can just keep milking this cow Instead of going out and buying. I know people can't go out and buy a cow because they don't have the space. But it's that same analogy. Put your buy something once and keep milking it. Have it. Keep giving you something back that you can see whether it's a dividend, whether it's planting a seed and getting fruit, whether it's a solar panel and getting electricity, whether it's a cow and getting milk.

Or build your own house.

Chickens and eggs, again, whatever.

Can I build their own house still? I know, I know the. I know what you mean by this analogy of like invest again. I like to tie it back to time. Most people say I don't have the time to learn how to do that. I don't have the time to grow my own vegetables.

That's where it starts. It's that double edged. That's. That was the paradox. That was that, that was the paradox. And that's where a lot of the people that I talk to is. They're like, well, I can't do that. I can't just go and, you know, move off to a property that I don't have and do things that I don't know how to do.

Exactly.

I was lucky because that was sort of like the path. I was knowledgeable in those things. But for most people who are living, you know, a pretty standard life, again, if you want to get ahead, you have to do something differently. That's basically it. What you did yesterday is not working. Don't repeat the same thing today. That's basically it. Educate yourself, educate yourself.

So to switch gears a little bit, an example of that was where best to invest your time is I would go to what we did this morning. To be honest, we got up early, went did a hike, watched the sunrise, had some coffee, came back, meditated and then went out to the gym. All before around 1 o'?

Clock. That's correct.

Small decisions that we made around where to invest our time absolutely yielded to me. I felt, I felt an element of fulfillment, an element of connection, peace, joy from these investments and where to put my time. So I set, we essentially set ourselves up in the afternoon now to have a conversation or you know, have something that's really going to bring nutrients to the mind and to the soul.

But I think that's again, it's what you said, it's. It's intention, it's. You're setting your intentions, which means you're planning your day like the way that you are trying to control your day. The way that you control a car with having your hands on the steering wheel or the way that you want to control your finances. Us making the decision to wake up early, that's easy. You know, these are the things where you just have to do it. Some people, I mean, why they don't, I don't understand. But again, it's setting those intentions and fulfilling that on basically whatever it is. And I think that that's actually, you know, that's something that I actually wanted to talk to you about. So what do you think motivates somebody to actually do that? Like, what differentiates the person who just does it as opposed to the person that does it? What, what do you think that motivating.

Factor, I think is the, it's the, it's the why behind it. It's the purpose behind it. Like, so many people aren't tuned into, like, why, why are they going to work? Why do you get up and go to work every single day? Why do you get up and go to the gym? Why do you get up and spend time with this person over that person? And it's like the purpose behind everything that you do is what gives you the drive is what gives you. I actually don't like to use the word motivation because I feel like if you have to use the word motivation, if you have to motivate yourself to do something, your purpose isn't strong enough. Once you have the purpose, once the vision or the mission statement is strong enough, it will just pull you. Like, for us, it wasn't like we didn't need the motivation to get up early to go to the for a hike. It was like, we know what's going to result when we do this. We have a strong enough purpose, a strong enough reason why to do it.

It's the, again, it's that getting excited, it's, it's being excited or looking forward to something. And I think that that's where a lot of people, I just, they're looking forward to the wrong things. They're looking forward to going home and sitting on the couch to watch the new episode of, of XYZ show.

Correct.

And that's where I kind of, I'm confused. Like, it's, it's, it, it's lost on me on how people have become so satisfied with standard.

I, I, I'll add to that. I just think the people who, there are a lot of people now who are starting to tune into perhaps listening to this podcast are like, damn, I want to get up early. I want to get up and meditate. I want to get up and go to the gym, but they just haven't found the drive yet or the word motivation. I'm saying, like, to get. To remove the need for motivation is to get to the root of why are you even doing this in the first place? And what you ultimately realize, it's actually not about you. You're doing it for the people around. Whether it's your family or someone's gonna benefit from you becoming a better version of yourself or you bringing more energy to life. Is it your family? Is it maybe the environment as a whole? Maybe it's just the earth as a general. Like, who. What's the greater purpose of why you're doing what it is that you're doing? And start to dial that into your personal mission statement. Write that down. Like what. Like why. Why do. Why am I doing this? Who benefits from me being the best version of myself?

I think finding a mentor, too, would be beneficial. Like, that's, you know, like, you're doing the consulting now.

Right.

So, yeah, finding again, finding somebody who can do. Keep you. Keep you motivated. Like when we were at the gym.

Yeah, exactly.

Working out with a gym partner. Believe me, I'm. I'm gassed right now because you pushed me. You pushed me. You pushed me not to the last rep. I mean, you pushed me two. Two reps past my failure.

Great point.

Two reps past my failure were. If I was working out by myself.

You wouldn't have got that. I never. And I would say it was the same for me. Exact same for me. I've it. And you nailed it. Like, if you can find, like an accountability buddy or someone, that's what it is. That's.

That's good.

Someone who's on a similar path to you. And a lot of people sometimes make.

A commitment, again, make a commitment to somebody else because I find that it's. It's easy to let yourself down, but you won't let somebody else down. I think we had that conversation the first time.

Definitely. We did. We did. And it's powerful because, again, this is why I see the value in coaching. You know, I've really invested so much of my energy now into coaching because I see when you have that accountability with someone who's like, once a week, we're going to catch up. 60, 90 minutes or however long. Could be 10 minutes.

Yeah. You don't want to look like a. Yeah.

So what have you. What actions have you taken since we took. Yeah. Because speaking about it's one thing.

Yeah.

Doing it different. So again, man, we, you know, you nailed it with the, the gym this morning. It was such a prime example of that. Yeah. That was extra output that I got because I had someone accountable with me.

So that's where, again, so hanging around, hanging around people that aren't going to motivate you. Maybe that's probably the problem. Maybe we're kind of hanging around a cohort of people that we feel comfortable with because they're not pushing us to the next level.

Agreed.

Oh, comfortable.

That's it? Well, that's it. Well, then sometimes it's a lot of people. For a lot of you, it's the workplace. The workplace. You don't get to choose who you hang out with at work.

Right.

If you're in a corporate job or you're just put with this group of people and if you. It's sort of the, the analogy. The crab in the bucket. Yeah. If you try and rise, everyone's like, what? What? Why is Jordan meditating now? Why is he eating, eating healthy and going to the gym?

I should poo poo on that. Yeah. Making me look bad. I should, I should shut that down real quick.

Yeah, you'll feel like the outsider, which a lot of people experience because I'm having conversations. Yeah, you feel deficient. And they're struggling to find the others, which is where the value for me, the advice I give to people when they struggle to find the others is dive into a podcast, a book, a community where, whether it's your yoga community or like a fitness community or whatever it is where you can feed off each other's energy. If you're on a path to improving some aspect of your life, it's infectious.

It is infection.

And then you can find accountability, buddy, from there, or a coach or a mentor or whatever it is.

I think that once you catch momentum as well, I think that you can kind of. You can even just. Just keep that momentum going every once in a while. Maybe like a checkup or a tune up like you would a car.

Big time.

But again, like, that's something where for the most part, I like to stay self disciplined. But I definitely find that it's. It's being around that right person where you can. You level up, you hit that. You just, you have to step up and you. It brings yourself to that whole next new level.

Big time.

I think that's a good one.

Oh, it's been one of the things on this journey I've had here in Canada, man, I'm just so grateful for the people who have come into my Life because they're the ones that have really allowed me to go to that next level. Do you know what I mean? It's the company you keep that really, really makes it. And I guess now, for me, reflecting on the last two years that I've been here, it really has been that the people I've attracted into my. My life have just given me the support and guidance that I've needed to really progress along this journey towards this vision or this dream that I. That I'm. That I've set, you know, that we're moving towards. So you being one of them so.

Well, again, even when you brought Gusto and Stefan up north and then we went to the retreat, the. The. In April, September.

Yeah.

Like, those. Those are the people that I found that just. They start to. To lift my. My soul. That's when I realized too, like, it is about finding the others. It is about finding those people that can help elevate you, bring you to that next level. They can be sympathetic to a certain point, understand you, but again, it's a swift kick in the ass is required. And again, you want to be like you. I mean, it's. It's easy being around people who are positive. Like, it's. It's nice. That's. That's what I felt.

I agreed, brother. Yeah. And I guess for people here, like, obviously I'm leaving Toronto, but I'm going to be coming back eventually. But for people who want to better, who are listening to this, who are perhaps in Toronto or in Canada and they want to connect with you or communities in Toronto, there are so many of them here, and if they want to find out how to access them, contact me and I'll be happy to pass them on to you or pass them on to another community. Mindset Brain Gym, Meditation studio, who I've been working with, they're out there. They are out there, you know, and I really feel like this is a really beautiful place to wrap up this conversation because it was the intention we set before going into this episode was connecting with each other and the value.

And hopefully someone else.

Exactly. Hopefully with someone else. So, brother, is there anything else you want to leave people with before we sign off from our round two? We had a brief interruption in the.

Middle, but, yeah, it was just love yourself. It's just something where, you know, don't take life too seriously. It's. It's meant to get you all stressed out. Breathe it out and start with step one. Just keep it simple. Start with step one and just make today different. Than yesterday.

I love it, man. This beautiful, brother. Second that. I second that.

Excellent.

Until I return to Canada. Yeah, we'll do another one.

Maybe in Australia.

Maybe I'll come see Australia. There we go.

Maybe I'll come see you.

Thanks, brother. Love it.

Love you.

There we have it, guys. Another episode of the State Shifters podcast. Thanks so much for joining me. And as always, if you resonated with some of the stuff we're talking about, feel free to leave a rating or review on itunes. And if you want to dive deeper into some of the work that I'm doing, you can check me out on Instagram, that's dateshifters. Or if you want to reach out on Facebook or LinkedIn, you can search my name, Jordan Kanlisch. And always open to having a conversation with anyone who's perhaps going through their own period of transformation or just want to connect with like minded people. There's communities available and I'm more than happy to support you in any way that I can. So until the next episode, thank you so much for joining me. Have a wonderful day.