Narratives of DIVISION: What They’re Not Sharing w/ Peter Santenello

What do you think the media's agenda actually is? And why are you so passionate about telling the stories that the media doesn't?

Okay, the media's agenda is about making money. It's not about creating a better society or more mental health. It's about triggering people. I think the big ones right now are race, gender and environment. But I think a lot of these things are done in triggering ways that divide people and actually make things worse and better.

Is true, honest, authentic journalism actually dead?

I think at an institutional level, yes, but true journalism, I mean, there are some great journalists out there, but as far as mainstream, you know what you're going to get in any topic. If it's the border, if you watch Fox or cnn, you know the story. If it's any one of these issues, you know exactly what's going to be delivered. We're told we're so divided, yet you go to any sort of like normal event, the country, everyone's not really having a problem at all with each other.

Traveling the world, seeing so many different cultures. 85 plus countries was the last time I checked, but it's probably over a hundred now.

Yeah, it's still 85. I've revisited a lot and actually haven't been anywhere in two years.

All right, well, traveling the world, though, you've had to have seen so many relationships that were successful, either intimate or just friendship relationships. What do you think the main difference is between how we have relationships in America, how we interrelate to each other in America versus Europe or one of these 85 countries that you've been to? In other words, is there a stark parallel or stark contrast in the way we treat relationships in America? Intimate and friendship and society versus somewhere else?

Okay, so to generalize, because that's a hard one with the States. I was just in St. Lawrence Island. It's part of Alaska. You can see Russia from it. This is a native island. They're completely removed from the States in many ways. And then I live not far from Miami. That's one country. And it's unbelievable. It's like different universes. So to generalize with America, I would, you know, it's hard. It's hard because there's. There are traditional relationships. I've spent a lot of time in so called flyover country lately. And there are a lot of more traditional relationships that you would see in, say, Eastern Europe. More traditional roles in relationships. That's a really good question. I mean, there's some places, like India, right, where it's arranged and they're Actually, even pros and cons to that. I mean, I try to stay as open as I can with all of this stuff. And, you know, they say, you know, we don't fall in love and we don't get together for love. We get together for bringing our families and our union together. And then we spend the rest of life falling in love. Versus in our culture, it's fall in love, get the dopamine kick, and then hopefully that lasts. It's going to change, but hopefully you navigate that and it works out for the long run. I'd rather have it this way personally, but I get what they're doing over there. Yeah, that would be one big stark difference. But a lot of the world is just more traditional. You go to the Middle east, it's just more traditional. Maybe like the US in the 50s or something.

A lot of the goal of your media, I feel like, is to see the world through someone else's eyes. When I was preparing for our time together, I thought, okay, if he's seen this many different places, and I've probably only been to five or six different actual continents, countries, different places, how could that help all of us in this world, especially with the times that we're in? In other words, there's a lot of theater going on. There's a lot of, like, theater of health and theater of what we should do with our bodies and things like that. And I think about the way that I've navigated it. I've had to go through a lot of different emotions. You know, the Hawkins scale of emotions. I've had to climb it. But what has been one of the most challenging worlds to understand a lot of what you talk about in your media is like, I want to understand someone else's world. I really want to understand someone else's way of being. Out of the 85, was there one that sticks up for you where you thought, wow, this is actually challenging my own beliefs. This is really hard for me to accept.

I wouldn't say as far to accept because I don't have to adopt any of these values. But to understand, I think India is the most confusing place on the planet.

How so?

It's everything. It pounds every one of your senses at once. So in the States, maybe you're in New York and you hear a lot of horns, but the air smells somewhat normal. Maybe you're smelling some hot dog stand or something. But anyways, you're not getting accosted with all five senses at once at such a heavy level. Or India, you're In Mumbai, go around a corner, you hear a drum beating, and you look up and there's a kid on a wire 25ft up, and he's 4 years old with a balance beam. And if kid falls, he dies. The mom's beating the drum at the bottom, and if you look, you pay the mom, and that's the game. And then there's a water buffalo coming around the other corner and a Ferrari coming around soon after. And you're just. Everything just sort of gets flipped on its head. And the smells and the heat and the noise and the grit and like. So that. That throws you for a loop, I would say.

I could imagine, like seeing so many different inputs and feeling so many different inputs. There would be like, really an overload switch that would get flipped. Like, how do you deal with that? And honestly, do you think human beings were meant to live that way? I think about what we talk about on the show all the time, man. It's like, how do we manage our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and financial self if we're being overloaded from input? Doesn't it short circuit us in a way?

I think that's a choice to some degree. And there's a point where it will short circuit you. Like you're in 110 degrees with no air conditioning and you're trying to sleep. I mean, that will short circuit you eventually. But with a lot of this stuff, I think, like India, for example, when it's really hot, you can try to fight the heat, or you just accept it and let it go through you. I think a lot of this stuff, you just sort of have to let it go through you. You can't control it. You can't get what you want, per se. But in is the grind, which is the lesson, which makes your normal life feel that much better, at least for me. Things like air quality, the US I never thought about air quality before. After living in Ukraine four years in Kyiv, you touched the inside of our balcony and it was black on your finger because there are no catalytic converters on the trucks. It's the graveyard for bad admission cars in Europe. And I started getting headaches and some other health issues because of air. And I come back here and it's like, wow. And I'm in South Florida now. The air comes right off the ocean where I live. And it's amazing, those little things. So I think when you go like anything in life, any struggle, you have your own struggles you consciously make. If you're not living through the struggles and you're living a Comfortable life, then I think you have to make some sort of struggle to get that. That balance, maybe, or that full picture on things.

Yeah, but there's something inside of you that I was feeling. I was looking at your inside. Cowboy ranching in Texas. You just did. You've run the gamut, Peter. It's been like Latino culture, Hasidic, Jewish culture, Texas. Like, that's a wide. That's a really wide spectrum to cover in media. And really, what I feel like you're sussing out is how do we have compassion and understanding for the way that other people live, to literally see the world and experience it from their eyes? And I think about early on for you, you even wrote this on your website when you were 8, your mom asked you, hey, what do you want for Christmas? And you said you wanted a book about the Soviet Union. Like, that's not what I was thinking. When I was eight years old, I was like, give me a Genesis. Give me a Nintendo. It was 1985 in America at that time. And I don't know if you've talked about this in a while. I haven't. I haven't seen this anywhere online. It's just something that I intuitively was curious about. When you were 8, what was that for you? That you actually wanted that as a Christmas present?

Growing up in Vermont in a very rural atmosphere, no exposure to the world. We didn't travel at all. And I was young. I was eight. So look, I think just subconsciously taking in the media, what was on the three channels, everything Soviet was bad, and therefore I liked it. And this just the contrarian way. I think it's nature, nurture. That one is. That one is nature, because I wasn't nurtured that way. And what. Okay, they're all supposedly bad people and look terrible. Okay. Now I like them because I want to sort of like metaphorically stick my finger up to school. Because I hated school. And you're telling me it sucks. I love it and I didn't know anything about it. Right. I remember a substitute teacher came in, and she's like, what's your name? And I was that rebellious kid that could push it to the line. If someone wasn't a good teacher, they didn't really fully care. I was a terrible student, and I would just hit them from all angles without getting suspended. So I'd be like, what's your name? I said, joseph. What's your last name? Stalin. Eight years old and I don't even know who Joseph Stalin is. I just know he's not supposed to be liked. So I don't know, just trying to be a rebellious kid. Thankfully, I've moved beyond that in life. But that contrarian way of going about the world. My family lineage, a lot of it's from Italy. I hated Italy because I was told Italy was great. So I'm like, I love the Soviet Union now. I love Italy.

Have you ever been to your homeland in Italy? What'd you think?

It's great. You feel a bit of a connection, I gotta say. Who knows what's in your mind or what's real, right? You know, comfort food. Whenever things get stressful or whatever, I go for Italian food because that's what we had every, you know, growing up. And there is this town where there are Santanellos, there's actually a Santanello clothing line. And I met all these guys and they're, they're. I don't know again, if it's me making things up in my head or there actually is like a serious, deeper connection. But I felt it.

Yeah. We can't always explain things what we feel like. Science is always trying to prove. Oh, 23andMe. We have the same Hapalo groups. I'm 49, Sicilian, so my background is from actually Panzika, and my mom's name is Padolino, which is next to Terminium Oresi in Sicilia in Sicily. And so I'm like, I feel connected to it, but there's this split between us being all strangers, yet all family in the world. And you have this unique way. Like, I've gone through so much of your media and. And you have such a beautiful way of making people feel comfortable. That is not the rebellious side of you that I feel. Right, I get your rebellious side. What is the part of your heart that wants to make people feel so comfortable? Is it just to tell the story or is it something else?

Okay. The origin story to that was when I started doing this content. I was. I went around the world for a couple years in my middle 20s, saw 50 plus countries in that trip, which changed me. And when I came home, people would say, like, where do you like? And I was like, oh, the Republic of Georgia, Tajikistan. And there'd be this puzzled, like, disappointed almost, why would you like that look? And I don't blame anyone for thinking that, but how we. We've been conditioned, right? If those places ever were exposed in the, in the west, they were negative. Right? And so what I got out of those places was the hospitality, the food, just the raw adventure. And not. I wasn't going for the political systems, which are terrible. And that worked into doing content in the States. Living overseas for many years and then coming back to the States and having a whole new appreciation for our country. Especially in these times when it seems like everything or a lot of things are aimed at us, to divide us and tell us how bad we are and how this system is so terrible. After comparing with 85 countries and living in four countries abroad, you're like, really? Okay, do we have our problems? 100%. Are there things we can work on? For sure, that's obvious. But any one of these issues, what country are you really comparing? If you're going to compare infrastructure to Switzerland? Okay, but really, that's a few examples like that. And I appreciate things here. The question was going into why I connect with humans. I don't know. I want to learn. I don't know. Everything I learn on every one of these videos I do. I can learn something from the Chicanos, from the Hasidic Jews. Why do I got to go in and tell them how they should be or what I feel about them? Like, I don't have to agree with people. I talk with people and I let them speak. I don't go in with an agenda or a narrative just to understand them better and let the audience understand them better. And then you can agree or disagree. And I don't think they're. That should be a rare thing at all. I think that should be the normal. Because humans are messy, they're complicated, they're confusing. A lot of things don't make sense. They never will. And just to see where someone is coming from. I think that's what's great about your platform or other podcasts is you can actually just see where someone's coming from.

We have lost the art of listening. We have lost the art of listening. Because I remember when I was young, we would, like, get in a fight in high school and then we would make up or even in my early 20s, I didn't have this edge that the media has trained, that I've actually had to untrain and unlearn within myself. Have you identified through all these travels something that you needed to unlearn or you needed to let go of, like, a bias or a judgment? Honestly, just something that wasn't serving you.

I've become way less. Way less judgmental in this work. For example, my wife loves all these Americana things. Like, I wouldn't even call it quintessential Americana, but she wants. She loves pickup trucks, right? Chevrolet. Yeah, she Wants to get a cowboy hat. You know, she wants. Like when we were in Montana, she was. She wanted a pickup truck. And then she's like, I want to go to Monster Jam. And you know the big monster trucks.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, I would have never thought to go to Monster Jam, but we went to Monster Jam last weekend and that blew my mind open a. I thought it was just like, not to be an ass, but, you know, just some redneck event, right. I go in there. It's all different types of people. It's every ethnicity you can think of. Well, in South Florida here it's mostly Hispanic, black and whites, and pretty much equal proportions of those people. And everyone's hanging out and kids are having a good time. And I'm like, actually, the driving is super technical. I was surprised. I'm like, that is fricking hard what they're doing. It's pretty unbelievable. It's like ballet with these monster trucks. They're balancing them and doing all this technical stuff. And I just sat back and observed them like, how cool is this? We're told we're so divided, yet you go to any sort of normal event in the country and everyone's not really having a problem at all with each other. And this work has gotten me into these neighborhoods. I've spent a lot of time in inner city America. Would have never have done that. That's been an eye opener. Big time understanding where people are coming from there and those environments better. So, yeah, the more I do this, the more I'm sort of hands, of course, have my opinions and values and everything, but I just sort of respect every. It's this simple. If someone treats. If someone has good intentions and they treat you with respect, I have like 0% mal emotions towards them at all.

Is that challenging at times when you maybe go into a culture where women are treated a certain way or seen as lower human beings, like in Saudi Arabia, how do you navigate your own moral compass to not be upset, to emotionally regulate yourself? In other words, does it bother you when you go to cultures that see women as lesser beings or lower beings?

Okay, that's a complicated one. So if you take Saudi, Saudi Arabia, for example, Riyadh and Jeddah are totally different. And so in Jeddah, women don't wear head scar. A lot of women don't. It's really a choice. And of course the relationships where the man's going to require it. Right. And I think that's in my opinion, from my values. That's odd. I don't want to control anyone with that stuff. Yeah, there are a lot of. I did actually a video on entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs in Jeddah, because there are a lot of them. A lot of them choose to. The way they want to wear a headscarf. It's their culture. It's their religion, and they. They want that modesty, and they want to have only their husband seeing their full selves. Okay. There are also private clubs where they're Saudis and bikinis and they're huge party scenes. So it's really. It's really mixed up. But as far as seeing anyone pushed down in life, when you see there's an obvious relationship where someone's almost like a slave. Yeah. Of course that. That's gross. And I hate that, you know, but you can't. You can't label one place like that. That's the thing. It's sort of like. I'm oversimplifying, but relationship to relationship. There are cultures, though, to. Okay, Peshawar, Pakistan.

Yeah.

The women are pretty much off the streets for the most part. Unless they're going shopping. I don't want to go in and tell them how to do it, to be honest. It's not my way. It's not how I think. That's a tough one.

It is a tough one. I think about. And I'm not. I'm not a huge, like, rah, rah, I guess you could say social justice warrior. I feel like I'm a warrior for truth. You know, if justice falls in that line, then cool. I think about a quote that MLK said. I think he said something like, witnessing evil and not do anything about it is a tertiary agreement to that evil, in other words. Right. And I could see how you traveling the world showcasing these stories. It opens up people's hearts and minds. It did for me for sure. When I watched the Chicano special you did, I was like, wow, this guy's got a tattoo of his father on his leg who is in Vietnam. Like, we're all people. Yet sometimes, Peter, and I'm curious how you feel about this when we get into these other cultures where there's so much tragedy going on. I myself have had to work on not attaching to it, not making it my solution to solve. Have you ever found yourself in the depths when traveling from an emotional state just because of the overwhelm of the culture you were in?

Yeah, I lived with this family. My first YouTube series actually started in Eastern Ukraine in the countryside, living with this family for six weeks. I documented them. They had zero money, but was a Beautiful family. But we're a beautiful family. And I just, I cry, Cried. Like that was heartbreaking to leave. I felt an unbelievable connection with them. So that would be almost a positive thing. But overwhelmed to the point where I'm incapacitated. I can't, I can't like function properly. I can't think of one. I'm sure there has been.

Yes.

Makes me sound cold. Makes me sound cold, doesn't it?

No, I mean, I, I would assume that. I mean in the small amount of travels I've had, it's not Nowhere close to 85 countries. Every time I come back home, I just appreciate where I live.

Oh yeah.

I appreciate America so much. And like, yes, of course we have our issues. Of course we have our issues. And one of the things that you talk about in your work is like you're going to meet the locals and you're going to dive into these foreign situations to understand what the world is like from different perspectives. But how has it refreshed your perspective about living in America? In other words, are there things that other people would die for, wish they had that we just kind of throw to the side as Americans?

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, we have so much abundance, we have so many opportunities. Look, I went out, I always had the grass is greener mentality. Europe is just better in general as a whole. Living in Italy would be better than living in the States type mentality. In the back of my head, I don't feel that way anymore. For example, a good salary In Italy is €2,000amonth. I don't care if your healthcare is free, you're still. It's not like energy is cheap in Italy. Sound like you're going to get a car. Like materially, if you come from nothing here, you don't have a big family name or a bunch of money and a trust fund. The opportunities are better here than anywhere, in my opinion.

That's right.

Can you strike it anywhere? Of course. And are there plenty of examples for that? But I still feel like even in these times where I've done all sorts of work, I've done work I didn't want to do. I had a detailing business because that was what I could figure out that would allow a seasonal work so I could get out, travel and see the world, that was my number one. It was a long time ago, sort of pre tech and I'm not a techy person. I couldn't figure it out online. So I did a lot of grind for what I wanted. And I think if someone really wants to do that here, they can now. If you grow up, your mom sells meth, your dad beats you, you're in a terrible neighborhood, you have no good examples. Like you're the thing cards are, you know, odds are stocked, stacked against you. So I'm not saying it's easy for everyone by any stretch. But yeah, I'm appreciative of here and I feel more like I have to give to the country and that's why I'm doing my videos about the U.S. i'm just, I'm doing this ranching series right now. I know nothing about ranching and cowboys. All I know is I do eat meat and I have a leather couch that I like and how about learn about that lifestyle? And it's, it's been a big eye opener. Like 96% of the ranches out there are small, family owned and there's a process ranching and then that goes off the feed law. And that's where you'd see like the anti meat videos and there's a whole reason for those for sure, where they just get packed and fed because people like the taste when the cows aren't moving around much and they're fed a lot and then the slaughterhouse and I don't know how you make slaughtering good. I don't know, it's complicated. But the part I just saw was the initial stage where you have a family ranch, they're raising these cattle, the ones I saw, in a humane way. A lot of space to roam around and then it's off to something else. It's not what they're doing per se. And a lot of these people have a lot of care and pride in what they're doing and feeding the country and doing honest work and hard work. And so to give them face and voice, you know, that's. I want to do more of that in the US different groups that sort of get smushed on, you know, bit of the underdogs these days. Any, any time I can do that, you know, I got to have interesting content. I can't go with someone to their office and watch them smash an Excel spreadsheet. You know, that's. Nobody's gonna watch that, right? So there has to be something in it.

I love it. It's the stories that the media doesn't tell. Because it seems like there's about three to five topics that the mainstream media. Cause you and I are both, you know, we're in different unique expressions, but we're in the same lane where this is Grassroots, your job, my job, what we do for a living, it could have never existed 30 years ago. It just wasn't possible. So as we've gone through this evolution in tech, evolution in media, what do you see as like, the three to five topics that the media hammers on? I have my views, but I'm really, really curious with what you do and what, you know. What do you think the media's agenda actually is? And why are you so passionate about telling the stories that the media doesn't?

Okay. The media's agenda is about making money. Okay. It's not about creating a better society or more mental health. It's about triggering people, I think. So. Okay. The big ones right now are race, gender, and I'd say environment. Do I want there to be less racism? 100%. Do I want anyone being marginalized for their gender or whatever? Of course not. And do I want a cleaner environment? Of course. But I think a lot of these things are done in triggering ways that divide people and actually make things worse than better. That's what I'm seeing. And I was out of the media. I was out of the US for four years. This last time, I didn't spend a minute on looking at what was going on. I was gone out of the US for the whole Trump years. I didn't pay one bit of attention to what was going on here.

Did your mental health reflect that?

Well, I don't know because I have a lot of tension with. I was trying to figure out how he's going to make videos, and at the beginning there was no support and I'm not making any money and I'm like, how am I going to figure this out? So I don't know if my mental health did better because I was like, in my own, like, in between two worlds. I had a business. I was running from abroad, but in the States. But it was sort of falling apart and it had an expiration date because you can only do absentee owner for so long, at least in that type of business. And I'm like, what do I really want to do in life? I want to be one of those people that does what they love. Like, I really want to be one of them. And I'm going to do it. I'm going to try as hard as I can until I get to that. But sometimes it's hard because you don't even know what that thing is you truly love how it looks like. As far as a job, I couldn't see that it would come to this. Even two Years ago.

Yeah. Looking back, you were a cyclist, you were an entrepreneur. There was a lot that you had your hands in. What do you attest to your success?

Just being stubborn, not giving up. So I had a business. I moved to San Francisco because I had a great, great tech idea. I was going to just crush it with it and a guy with no tech background. So I'll go to San Francisco. And it's basically an app that connects people through common interests when traveling. So if you go to Berlin, you love running. You type that in Berlin, running. It would match you with the person your dates. It would match you with the person. I think that's so cool. It would connect you because people connect through common interest traditionally. And wow, who doesn't want that? I didn't know anything about tech. I worked at it for three years. I sunk all my money into it. I had a development team in India, and I had one woman who really believed in it. Nikki. She was awesome. And she was helping me with marketing, which she had skills in. But I was really over my head, and I finally gave up on that. And then I was just like, I don't know if it's midlife crisis, but I was just like, what am I going to do? And then it was just like I owned a home that I was renting. That was my backstop in case I would run out of money completely. I would sell that and live off that until I figured out what I was doing. But the Runway was getting pretty short, and it's almost like the pandemic saved me, because we're actually going to move to Italy from Ukraine in 2020. And then we decided to come back to the States, and I just never really thought of making content in the States. And now I'm loving it. And just by doing that, too. The embodiment of land of opportunity is the ad. Revenue is way better here. So I could actually make a living, because us eyeballs are going to be worth a lot more to Google than Ukrainian or Iranian. You know, just the ad revenue, they're going to get way more for a watch. And then, wow, I can actually make money at this thing. Okay, let's see where this goes. And then I became fascinated with the stance, and maybe it's the media that I think the media drives me because I just, you know, I try to avoid a lot of it, but I'll occasionally, you know, put on npr, and I'm like, oh, God, this is so, like, it's so one. There's some great programming there. They have Some great stories, but a lot of the news is just so one sided. Like the border, for example. They're never going to give a full picture of the border situation. That to me is just is like, how is that possible? My mom years ago was so angry about the border and now with this administration, hasn't said a word. And it's only because the messaging she gets, she has a few channels and this is most people, right, isn't reporting anymore. So therefore there's no concern. Well, in truth, the problem's gotten worse.

Do you feel like true journalism is true, honest, authentic journalism actually dead?

I think at an institutional level, yes. Because we need deep dive investigative journalism, which takes resources and money in a big institution. I can't do that. No solo creator can do that. No even small team can do that. You can't survive. I got to post weekly on YouTube if I really wanted to do the deep, deep, deep dive on the border. I'm talking like, let me go down there for a half year and make a two part documentary series out of it or something with all the finances and hit it from as many angles as possible. What I do is I meet up with someone. Like my last video down there, I met up with the sheriff and he brought me into his world. And I always tell my viewers, look, this is one angle in this is what I'm seeing. I'm capturing it, look at other content, hit it from different angles. But true journalism, there are some great journalists out there, but as far as mainstream, there's no one. I mean, you know what you're going to get in any topic, if it's the border, if you watch Fox or cnn, you know the story you're going to get either one, if it's any one of these issues, you know exactly what's going to be delivered. And so I try to do it. I try to show what I see and I see things the way I see things in life. So I'm going to have a bias. But I try my best to be as authentic and honest as possible. Even if it's something I don't agree with, I keep rolling the camera. I'll let them speak about that. Doesn't mean I agree with it.

How do you challenge someone in a different culture that maybe you don't agree with to, to see your side? Not that they have to see your side. Okay, but how do you present when you're in an environment like for example, maybe something that happened when you're in the Chicano culture or when you're in A culture overseas that really maybe irritated some part of you. How do you. Or do you even try to explain to them your side? You're literally just. Just there to capture theirs.

More to capture. Because some of these environments say, if I'm in the hoods in East New York, right. I'm like, in with the right people. I have a friend, Kashmir, he's brought me in. We've done some great videos. But then I get brought into other stuff, and I don't know these people as well, and I'm in their world, and I'm in the projects, and I'm in the elevator with them. I'm not gonna start, like, nailing them hard. Cause that could go really bad for me. And I honestly don't feel the need to. But I'll show it. A lot of my work is through just the visuals. Pay attention. Here's what's happening. I don't need to explain it. We go out of the projects, he takes the bottle and chucks it on the green grass. And there's a lot in that. Whose responsibility is it to pick all that up? Is it society's responsibility? As in, don't do that because this is where you live. Or do you think an agent, some city worker should come and do that? I mean, that's a bad example. But there are a lot of topics that come up. And, like, I care about my neighborhood. I care about this. And then trash on the ground. And then you're like, okay, interesting. Okay. Where'd they learn that? Probably their father. Their father did the same thing. And that's how this stuff works.

Yes. Everything's passed down behaviorally, no matter what.

Yeah. But I do push back when I can and when I think it's warranted, but I can't always. I get in pretty deep sometimes and wouldn't be smart sometimes.

Can you. Can you take us to a moment where potentially. And just share whatever you can share? You know, if it's super vip, private, obviously you can't divulge, but okay. Have you ever been so deep in a situation you realize that your actual safety was being threatened? Like, you could potentially die or be injured?

Iran was weird. I've been there twice. The second time was weird. I had my camera stolen, I think, from a government official. I was followed. I know this through receptionists at hotels telling me I'm on the flirting, this line between being a tourist and a journalist. Because I do have. Even though my setup is minimalistic, I do have some wires and some audio equipment. And what is that? I go in as an Italian because I have an Italian passport, but I'm also American. I cleared that with the embassy, the Iranian embassy in Ukraine before I went. But still there's a lot of gray zone. You start feeling like you're followed. You don't know what is in your mind and what's real. And I think that's by design too. A lot of times they do things that sort of get you thinking certain ways. So that was like I got. When I. When the wheels lifted off out of Tehran, I was like, big relief. I landed in Kyiv, Ukraine, and that felt like the beacon of freedom and tranquility.

Do you feel like people resonate the most with your work because it's adventurous? In other words, they have a desire to be traveling and seeing the world through other people's eyes. They just happen to be seeing the world through your camera's eye. Is it adventurous spark as to why your channel has grown so fast or what are some of the other ingredients as to why you've grown so quick?

Well, I think the say country like Iran or Saudi Arabia, they're considered dangerous. So I think people want a peek behind the curtain. Metaphorically speaking, it's not so common to have the American have full access to Iran. Americans have to go on a tour there. They have to be on a. With a fixer. Because I have an Italian passport. I went in on that. I didn't need that. So I have a unique perspective. Saudi Arabia, the tourism visas opened up a month before I went. So I was one of the first guys to really get a beat on the ground all over the country. So there's that adventure component. But now my content's been in the States for almost two years. I think Americans, look, most people know we're being played. Most people are good people here. They don't want to yell at their neighbors over any one of these issues. They actually are fascinated and want to know what these cultures, subcultures are like in the United States. It's a motley mixed up, wild experiment, this country and a lot of people are interested in that. So it's turned more into that, I would say, than the adventurous content though. I just got on a native island, private island, that's going to blow people's minds. I can't wait to post these videos. It's the sixth biggest island in the country. They live off a whale hunt. Every year they hunt reindeer walruses. They're Americans technically, but they don't. They're sort of in their own world too.

Yes, that is so badass. I mean, see, because this is what it brings up for me is like, the spark. And we've talked about this metaphor so much, man. I don't know if you yourself have seen the documentary film Finding Joe. Have you seen that film or heard.

No, I'll write that down, okay?

It's absolutely incredible, but it's. Don't take my word for it, y'. All.

Finding Joe Biden is it.

It's definitely not Finding Joe Biden. We know exactly where he is. But one of the things I love about Finding Joe and also in some of the content we've put out this year, is this. This metaphor, Peter, of the spark. Everybody's got their spark, right? Like, yeah, for some people, it's playing guitar. For some people, it's being an amazing parent. For some people, it's going to different countries and filming it and sharing it with the world. For some people, it's hosting podcasts that actually move people to make different decisions.

Right?

And for all of us, we have that spark. But for you, it took some time for that spark to come online. How did you stoke the spark? And how would you even describe your own personal spark?

I mean, I was always curious in the world. We didn't travel growing up again, mid-20s, no one ever gave me travel, so I had to save up. I worked day and night for two years. I set a goal. I'm like, my dream was to see Europe for seven months. Saved up 20 grand. This is early 2000s. I'm dating myself here, and went to Europe and then just kept going. Came back in a lot of debt into the US But I thought it was the best debt ever.

How much debt were you in?

I was in 20 grand, which for me, when you're working restaurants at night and detailing cars during the day, is a lot of money, especially in 2000. 20 grand is probably 50 grand now, right? So for me, it was a big hole to get out of. But the spark, I don't know. There's always been a fire to see what's around the next corner and understand things better. So that's been my spark. I wish at times I could be the guy that could just sit and read books and not move from where I live. And I admire those people, too. You know, I need. I need a little more chaos, I guess. I'm in this chaos, calm paradigm where I'm like, go out on the adventure, get the content. And there's pressure in that because I got to get content, and there's a lot of Things that can go wrong. And then when I come home, it's like, these days, I don't want to go anywhere. I go to the ocean here, it's five minutes away. Go walk in this little park, the grocery store and home. That's pretty much my life when I get back. So it's this like, ying ying and yang that. The spark. And if I. If I'm too calm for too long, then that spark is like, okay, I got to get out to the adventure again. And there's the challenge of it, like, which is stressful, too. But I agree. The spark is like, whatever that might be. I admire anyone who's into anything now.

As long as they really love it. Yeah.

And it's not malicious, you know, but before, I would have been like, oh, monster jams. You know, if I was younger. Oh, what? What a redneck thing? Right? Here's a crazy story too, you know. Have you ever heard of this monster jam truck called the Grave Digger?

Yes.

So growing up in Vermont, I hung out with this kid, John Zimmer. Okay. So Zimmer would play with monster trucks. And this is in the 80s, little monster truck, gravedigger toys. And everyone was like, ah, you're such a redneck. That's so uncool. You know, like, sort of picked on a little bit. Zimmer would go to the ice rink in the middle of winter on his BMX bike, put his hips on the handlebars, his head over the front wheel, and just pedal and do donuts. And it's like the balance was unbelievable, right? Fast forward 20 something years, Zimmer's driving the Grave Digger. Like, he is the driver. And I'm like, how badass is that? The kid was playing with the little matchback matchbox toys and then like, just American dreams. It fully goes full to what he was doing as a kid. And so now I look at something like that. Like, what in my former self. What an asshole. Like, what an ass. Just saying, like, oh, that's some. Right? Now that I saw it, I'm like, look, it might not be my thing. It's most, Maybe not most people sing. I don't know. I don't know how popular it is, but I can admire it because there's spark in that and there's a lot of skill and there's a lot of, you know, passion.

Yeah.

With any of this stuff, I was so much more, you know, I think that's the problem right now, Right. People are like, well, if you don't reflect exactly what I love or what I do. Then there's, you know, you're less than or something like that, which I find to be very immature.

There's a big duality between somebody being passionate and someone having compassion. Like, I don't know if you trace the, the etymology, the Latin roots of these words, but think about this. You know, just, just try this on for a moment, everyone. So if someone is very passionate about any topic, let's say it's like dancing or being a seamstress or kayaking or stand up, paddle boarding or journalism, whatever it is, if their art form is triggering to me in some way where it actually makes me go on YouTube and write comments. And look, you and I both get it. You get it a lot more, I'm sure, where people are like loving you and then there's always those people that are casting, shadow throwing hate. So really, I believe, and I'm curious how you feel that's actually doing good because you're bringing up emotion in the haters. You're bringing up a different point of view. It's actually. Now granted, if somebody's like directly insulting you, you can just blame lock and bless. But, but people that are like actually giving you some chastisement and being negative towards you, how do you be compassionate to them when they have such judgment about your passion?

Yeah, I really, I really don't care anymore with that stuff. In the beginning of YouTube, you're more like creating videos. You're more insecure because you don't know what you're doing at all. You have no following and everyone around you is like, what are you doing with your life? You know, I remember being in just two years ago, my best friend growing up with, I come back to the States, I'm in Vermont where I grew up for 17 years of my life. My best friend's there and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to go down to New York and go into the hoods and shoot what those are like and then hang out with the Hasidic Jews. And he's like, yeah, that sounds fun, but what are you going to do for work? And I'm like, okay, like zero support from most people, right? And then when you post and you're like, you're not really knowing what you're doing and then you get the negative comments, it hits hard, right? But it's a good thing because it's a barrier to entry. It's not supposed to be easy. That's the whole point. Look, if everyone praised me in the beginning when I didn't do cool stuff, great stuff. And, you know, I would have. I would have not driven. You know, I would. You sort of press harder. You sort of got to go in two modes. You give up, which is not in me, or you just go, okay, I'm just gonna grind through that. And so the comments don't mean anything to me now. Like, zero. I've been called everything. I don't care. I really don't care. And I honestly think, like, I feel bad for people. I couldn't imagine going on YouTube and just dropping so much hate. Obviously, they have some internal issues. I hit. I triggered something. I don't care.

So that's the compassion we just heard from you right now.

Yeah. And when I hear. So I've heard Jordan Peterson talk about this, and he says he gets really affected by comments. I'm like, I don't get it. And he's a clever guy, and he's a psychologist, Right.

You think he actually reads the comments?

I'm sure he does. He seems to come from the heart with what he's doing. People can agree or disagree, but I think. It's not like I watch him all the time or anything. I haven't seen him for a while, but I think he's doing it out of a good place. Even if, again, someone doesn't agree with what he's saying, his ideology. But, yeah, I heard in an interview him saying, like, it really affects him. And I'm like, maybe that's something I got to look into on myself, because it does. I do not. If you call me neo Nazi or Trumper or woke guy, or I get called everything, because depending. I don't like right now, the space we're in with. With politics, like, if you're on a Republican or Democrat, right? There's like, say, five top issues, right? And if you fall out of line with one of them, you're going to get ostracized very quickly, right?

Yeah.

So if I go to the border, I'll be called, like, a Trumper. Like, I must love Trump because I went to the border and want to show what's going on there, right? But then if I go do, like, a video on Muslims in America, all of a sudden I'm a. Like a woke guy. You see what I'm saying? I'm just like. I'm just interested in the story and truth. And that's why I don't really fit in either of the categories these days. I'll fit into more logical thinking because I had to leave California because stuff was Ridiculous. Like San Francisco, not all of California. I don't want to say that. I have a lot of friends living in California. They're in better places. But going back from Ukraine to San Francisco, and my wife is like, how is this even possible? She's, like, scratching her head. This is before the war. She's like, I'd rather live back in Ukraine. And yeah, when it gets ridiculous to the point of ridiculous, like, no, I do want law and order. I don't want, you know, to see broken glass everywhere when I park, to go walk on the trail and know that it's just a matter of time before my window gets hit. Like, in the next week.

Yeah.

Like, I don't think it's okay for someone to set up a tent in front of me and take a pee on, you know, on my stoop. That's not like. That's not, A, it's not compassion. B, it's not. It's just. It makes for a very heavy energy. Okay. And if that policy is more on the left, then I guess I'm more on the right, because I don't want to deal with that. Does it mean we should ignore the problem? Of course not. But the current strategy is not effective.

I find that we're in, like, a societal gaslight. And also every other thing that you want to describe under the sun when it comes to, like, how we bypass things or how we're manipulated and how things are explained. So the. The gaslighting that I see is if you have a certain belief that is based in freedom, forget about even Peter right and left, because in my mind, those are just constructs. They're fabricated constructs. You're not a red or blue person. Neither am I. Dude. That's not. We're not colored at birth. We also don't have a set of beliefs at birth. We. We learn all these things.

Yeah.

So I. I'm curious how you see the gaslighting component in the media and just in our society in general. How do you see that playing out? In other words, if you have a belief that's not accepted by a certain agenda, then you get gaslighted. I think now more than ever that is occurring, and we just need to be aware of it.

Look, every country. Look, it's a very complex situation, but the Internet has a big thing to do with this, which I love, because I get to do what I'm doing, so I can't be a hypocrite. But the country's young, and it feels like an adolescent stage of, like, 1415, where you're just going to do the most rambunctious, ridiculous stuff to get attention. And I just think that's the state the country's in right now. Maybe now there's a good thing to being young as a country. You're a kid, you fall and you get up and you go at it again, and you're a little bit naive in it, but you're not, like, scarred by, like, you know, 50 years of bad relationships and mortgages. So you don't want to risk anything in life. That would be like, in my opinion, like an old entrenched European country where it's just like, you fall in line for the most. I'm being very stereotypical. But you fall in line. You don't go out of the parameters of what you're supposed to do. Where America is that kid, where it's like, you want to go for that. You want to come up with something totally new, go for it. And, like, they're at least amount of filters or resistance in your way. It's a beautiful thing. And growing up here, you don't notice because, like, only after travel and living abroad, I could contrast, compare and contrast. And you're like, oh, okay, in that system, we're allowed to do this more. And there's pros and cons in all systems. Right? But that's the adolescent stage of America, and hopefully we get through it without the teenager getting hammered and, like, crashing into the school and killing a bunch of people along the way, metaphorically speaking. Right.

It's a great metaphor.

I love the metaphor.

Hopefully.

My other metaphor was, Sorry, I want to drop this with San Francisco, because I just thought of it the other day going back. To me, that was always the greatest US City because it had everything, in my opinion. It didn't have the hustle and bustle of New York by any stretch, but it had the best balance of the urban and the natural. Right? And it was so mixed up and it was so accepting, and whatever angle you came from, people embraced it. That's sort of gone away to some degree now. Going back to it, when I went back from Ukraine, it was like, okay, now I'm with the heroin addict chick that's super hot. Like, she's hot in San Francisco is beautiful. There's no doubt about it. It's like one of the most beautiful places. So it entices you. And the weather, like, depending on what you like, it's pretty cool, actually. Pretty good. But you can sort of get what you want. The redwood trees, the Beaches, you know the story there. It's amazing. You can go to wine country, like way more on Topper than where I'm at now in Florida as far as like options and geography. But that heroin addict supermodel you're dating keeps like smashing the car into the front, the garage door without opening it and causing all these problems in your life. And there gets to be a point where you're like, yeah, your beauty is sort of going away now because there's so many other stupid things I got to deal with at this point in time that I shouldn't have to deal with. And so I'm going to tap out of this. And again, this is a San Francisco story. Currently not all of California. I have friends in Lake Tahoe. It's different up there or Northern California. You can get into some pretty remote, amazing places where you're sort of like left alone to some degree.

There's a philosophical bent for what you're sharing too. And would you consider yourself to be a philosophical or a spiritual or religious man? Maybe some of all three or none of all three.

To some degree it's come in, it's come in waves. For example, I, I experimented with, you know, mind altering substances at a time. Now this can be triggering for some people that don't understand, you know, like drugs can be put in one, one category. But like I did ayahuasca and that stopped me from drinking seven years ago. I did that seven years ago and it was the best thing in my life. And I was in this journey of like trying to discover self and really putting a lot of energy into understanding my personality type and just trying to get a better grasp on who, who I am or who I was.

Yeah.

So that would be the more spiritual moments.

That ain't for the week, by the way. I'm not, I'm not an advocate nor against ayahuasca. I've done a dozen ceremonies myself.

So.

Oh, gee, like, I, I honor the path that you went on to go there. And thank you so much for dropping that. The reason I asked you about spirituality, if you're a spiritual man or a religious man or a philosophical man, is because I know for myself that when you brought up that analogy of San Francisco where it was like this beautiful model, but she kept crashing the car. I think that happens because Energy Without Borders dissipates. If you have expressive energy, energy that's like an ayahuasca ceremony that never ends, you need to come back home eventually. There has to be some kind of.

Structure with there has to be guardrails for sure.

There has to be high pressure. To quote Alan Watts, always seeks low pressure. Nature abhors a vacuum. Right. We talked about this on the phone earlier today in Sausalito, right next to Silicon Valley. So I think what's going on in San Francisco, and I'm curious for your input, is this energy and full radical acceptance of all ways of life, all ways of being. No borders whatsoever. Well, guess what? That energy is eventually going to dissipate and we're seeing the ramifications now.

Yeah, it just, I mean, it just feels heavier there and. Okay, I moved out. Maybe it's getting better right now.

I don't think so. I have friends and they don't, they don't say that it's getting better.

I think it's got to hit the ground and then it will. I think it will bounce back. That city's reinvented itself so many times. I am an optimist, but it needs to go through. I don't know. Well, they did recall the DA which is a huge step. That guy was calling the criminals the victims. Art Safeway was getting hit multiple times a day and no punishment for those hitting him. And it just became like going to the grocery store turned into a heavy, heavy experience where going to my grocery store here, I live near this Italian market. It's uplifting. It's great. I sort of enjoy it even, you know, and like those.

Go get a cannoli, go say hi. It's peaceful.

Oh, yeah, everyone's cool. Like no one can, you know, just go in and rob it. Like they're the, the store owners. It's old school Italian. They're, they're going to take the guy out and then the law is not going to go against the store owner so that it just doesn't fly. It wouldn't fly here. The cops aren't all demoralized here. They're going to do their job and that society is going to back them. Bad cops are bad cops. Nobody wants any of them Bad, bad anything. Nobody wants bad doctors, bad teachers, whatever. Like, the whole point is to like get better people and everything. No one likes bad YouTube videos, which I've made plenty of. But yeah, this whole, like when I came back to the States and there was this energy against like getting, you know, I don't know how what's real and what's not, how much was media and how much people actually felt. But I'm like, you guys really want to demoralize and weaken the police. Then they're not going to do anything. And that emboldens people that have have bad intentions and then that's what you get.

So I feel like structure is what holds the capacity for flow. I love to go back to the laws of nature, right? High, low pressure, gravity, closed organic cycle. You even spent time on the ranches in Texas. You know, the sun feeds the grass, the animals eat the grass, we eat the animals, we poop it out. There's a circle there that gives back to one another. But if we had unlimited flow with zero structure and zero order, there's no possibility for life to continue. And honestly, I'm not like a negative bent guy. I'm definitely an optimist. I don't consider myself to be a pessimist. But we find ourselves at an interesting intersection here. And I think when we talk about real wisdom, there has to be a middle way. You strike me as a man who creates content from the middle way. How do you do that? What is it about yourself that makes you want to speak from the middle instead of choosing a side?

I want truth in whatever story is out there. And that's a really hard thing to find. And of course I come with my biases. So I don't want to be like, I'm truth running around the world giving videos.

How do you stay in the middle if you have a bias?

Okay, for example, I had a bias about the border in South Texas. I did a series on there before the video series. I think I thought the wall was a bad idea. I went down there, I talked to customs and Border Protection. They're like, you build a 30 foot wal, there's a 32 foot ladder that comes. And I'm like, that doesn't sound like it's working. But they're like, no, it is, because it brings everyone to one place. We can also put up our infrastructure. And it's really difficult landscapes at times. So we have infrastructure on both sides of the wall. It makes our job a million times easier. So then I left that series. I'm like, all right, the wall in South Texas makes sense to me. Then I went to West Texas, Rio Grande, Big Bend national park area. Talk to the sheriff there. And if you see the geography there, if you put a wall there, then you pretty much gave Mexico the complete river. The way the geography set up. There's a lot of mesas and difficult geography. So you basically just put the river to Mexico and walled in this part of Texas that really needs the river, even though it's a trickle these days, both economically I think it's the draw of living there, and it's also the water source. So then after that, I'm like, yeah, this place probably better without a wall. I understood what he was saying. So that's where I stand right now. And maybe I'll do a few more videos down there and have something. It's like bricks on a house. Okay, I'm going to build my house. I got to. Okay, that's a brick. That's some information. I got another brick. That's other information. You know what I mean? And I'm going to build on that. And I think in 10 years, I'll probably feel totally different or things have changed in some way. We can't foresee where. What I'm saying now doesn't make any sense. And that's where I will always want to stay. So if I lock into one group, if I build my platform off one group, if I go off the teeter totter and I go one side, game over for navigating my videos like that. Because I'll piss everyone off once I go the other way with something, somewhere. And a lot of I do piss people off with that. But I'm not a political channel, a more about human condition, some of the issues we're dealing with in the country. But I think some people respect me for it and that's what they want and that's what I want. In creators, I watch a lot of stuff where someone's going to, like, for example, Sam Harris. I listen to him and sometimes I think he's like, he doesn't, you know, go back and go back to what he said before and, like, call it himself out, perhaps. But I do think he's going for his North Star and he will piss off both sides along the journey, and I respect him for that.

Well, dude, the nature of truth is that it's subjective. I mean, what you believe, what I believe, what anyone believes. There's always. I mean, you can't really say, like, if I drop. I've gave this analogy before, I drop this light switch, that's gravity. That's obvious. Subjective truth to anyone. But there's so many things, like 90% of truth is subjective. It's whatever I believe and you believe. And there's actually research to back this up. And as we round out this podcast, I can't let you go without getting your flow on this question, because when I was digging into your work and I was seeing, like, what is this really about? This is about seeing the world through someone else's Eyes. The University of Plymouth did a study, and it was a meta analysis. It was also a like, like five, six year long study. And it was titled how to See the World through someone Else's Eyes. And it was this new research, they found that that provides direct evidence that we can actually take other people's perspectives because we spontaneously form mental images of how the world looks to the other person. So in other words, this allows us to virtually see through their eyes and make judgments as if it was what we ourselves were seeing. And they put people in different, different groups and they allowed people to explain and to receive information as if they were the other person. And it completely changed the way that people live their lives. Some of the people went on to live completely different structures, completely different beliefs, but it was because they actually practiced the scientific practice of putting yourself in someone else's shoes and seeing the world through someone else's eyes. Now that's a scientific study from the University of Plymouth. But I'm curious for you, from a heart level, from a voice level, what does something like that actually mean to you to see the world through someone else's eyes?

I just think it makes life more interesting. That's my simplistic answer. I don't know. Do you want to see different colors or do you want to view things black and white? Look, we're all learning through stories. Basically everything in life is stories to some degree. And when you hear something, a story that grabs your attention or makes you think a different way, and I think it only adds to you, you know, I don't want to be the person I was when I was 21.

Mic drop. Thank you, Peter, for coming on the podcast. I think about all the ways that I learn how to tell story and from one creator to another. Super. Respect the way that you tell things from the middle of the, of the ying and the, the yang. I. I really feel like there's a point in everyone's life where they get to where they just want to stop fighting and they want to actually enjoy their lives more. I don't think it's possible to do that unless we live in the middle, unless we operate more with the wisdom of Lao Tzu. So as we say goodbye, one of the things I love the most is, is this contrast of wellness and wisdom. Wisdom and wellness. What does that actually mean to you? If you're a wise man, if you have wisdom, how would you define wellness? Like, in other words, how would Peter define a life well lived?

I think giving it your best. And for me, at a Personal level, like, exploring the human condition as much as I can and trying to add to the world in a positive way, like, give content that someone's going to leave the video being like, oh, cool, I see it a different way now. Or that leaves me in a better mood than a. You know, I don't leave the video, like, in a worse mood. We all know we're all gravitated towards clips on YouTube, at least I am. Like, there's certain news stories as I watch and I want to watch them, but it leaves me off in a worse place energetically after watching. I want to be the opposite of that. That's the goal.

Thank you, man. The YouTube channel is YouTube.com Peter Santanello. Anything we missed, man, we covered a lot of ground of seeing the world through someone else's eyes. But is there anything you haven't ever shared before where, you know, it's top of heart, top of center for you?

I'd say it's been a hard journey to get to this point. It might look easy and, like, once I, you know, and nothing is for granted and I could lose it all tomorrow. I totally understand that. But it took a lot of trial and error and a lot of struggle and a lot of internal battle actually to, like, be doing what I love. And even with that, every day I feel a pressure to, like, you know, it's not like it's comfortable, to be honest.

Man. And in a way, isn't that beautiful if we can lean just, like, 1%, but not off the cliff. I'm not saying we need to jump off the cliff, but, like, if we can lean just a little bit over the cliff to where we feel that fear and we just do the shit anyways, that's living. I feel like that's me actually alive.

I agree. And the last thing I'd like to say, back to your point of borders and holding things in frameworks or gravity. I want the most amount of freedom, but within a framework. And what you were saying, I think is a great point of just unlimited freedom. Doesn't work. But I also don't like being told what to do. And there's finding a balance in that. And I think this country's done a pretty good job versus most of them on that front up until this point. And I hope we regain some of that. And that's a whole nother podcast.

That's a whole nother show. I think we will. I feel that we will. And we talked about this on the phone. So before I actually stop this podcast, are You a fan of Alan Watts?

Yeah. I had a period. I watched a lot of his stuff. I haven't for a while.

But you resonated with some of it.

A lot of it, yeah. Cool.

Because the last thing I'll say before we say goodbye is that there is this phrase from Alan Watts that is so on point and it actually in prep and in definitely a conversation, you bring it out of me and it's this phrase, we all must stay connected to our inner rascality. To our inner rascality. And I feel that from you. And I think it's really important that we take away from this podcast this time together. Stay with your rascality. Like, if you're a rebel, stay with it. But don't be such a rebel and a rascal to a fault. Just like you mentioned, mentioned freedom without borders. Unlimited freedom isn't good either, man. We are looking for the middle way. So thank you, man, for being here with us talking about the middle way. You guys make sure you subscribe to Peter's YouTube channel. And we're talking more about Peter's work in the group@joshtrent.com forward slash, community. Until Peter and I see you again, we're all wishing you love and wellness. We'll talk to you soon. Hey, thanks for watching the podcast. I appreciate you being here. If you have, if you haven't done so already, click the subscribe button and the little notification bell so you never miss any of this free weekly content delivered from my heart with care right to yours. If you love this video, you'll love any of the videos on this page. Just click the one you want to watch next.