Ep. 22 - Actualizing with Ben Kovacs

[Music] Welcome to episode 21 of Synchronicity. I guess today is Ben Kovacs. And welcome, since, if you're getting these in real time, IE, the day they are released, this is the second podcast in two days. I'm on a tear here. The one yesterday was with Danny Goldberg. It was the second podcast I had done with him because the first one cut off about 45 minutes in. So we did that one. I was politically based. And today I have friend and just who I'm going to call an actualizer extraordinaire Ben Kovacs, a traditional good old fashioned renaissance man, does a ton of stuff. And I'm going to tell you what that stuff is. But first, but first, let me give you an update. So if you're just tuning in, you haven't been listening for the past few episodes or you're just hearing this for the first time, welcome, welcome to you. Welcome to you who've been here too. Obviously, you know, I love you guys. I've been doing these book giveaway contests. So basically what I'm doing is books I've read. I'm really particularly enjoy. I want to spread the love. So I want you guys to read them too, if you're interested. So I'm giving away brand new books, shipping them directly from Amazon to you. So I've been doing this has been going great. We have had two winners so far. We've had Adam, who won the first book, which was Mira by stars caravan of no despair. And then we had Derek, who won the last book giveaway, which was the supernatural by Whitley Stryber and Jeffrey Cripal, Cripal Cripal, still still. I don't know. I'm going to get his names. Next time I say it, I'm going to know it correctly. Sorry, Jeffrey. And then this week, doing another one. And this book is one of my favorite books. Oh, I lied. I think there was another book giveaway I did, Phil Jackson's book 11 rings. I remember that because Phil Jackson actually mentioned the book I'm giving away this week in his book 11 rings. The name of the book is tribal leadership. What's what's the full name? Hold on, let me give you a full name. Tribal leadership leveraging natural groups to build a thriving organization. So yeah, I don't know. I it sounded really interesting.

I've mentioned before, I've kind of stayed away actively from this tribal mentality, you know, consciousness meme that's been permeating for the past 10 years. Seth Godin, I know is a big proponent of it. I just haven't read his stuff. Nothing against it. But I just I have this weird thing. Maybe you're like this too, where if something's really popular, I kind of naturally rail against it. I'll tend to get into that thing later after after it's not really that cool anymore, or not is, you know, present in time. But that's just, you know, it's a quirk. What can you do? But this book, man, I got to say, this tribal leadership book is one of the best books I've read in a while. It's nonfiction, essentially the authors Dave Logan, John King, and Haley Fisher, right? They interviewed and put together these massive databases based around kind of, you know, organizational culture, and what led to successful organizations. And it's fascinating. It's totally fascinating. The gist of it is just to give you a brief overview. So there's five stages that they have identified. And I think they actually interviewed Ken Wilbur who said, you know, I think you should add two stages to incorporate higher consciousness, higher states of consciousness. So I'm going to investigate that because that sounds amazing. Plus it's the number seven. That's a great number.

But they've identified five and with four being the most stable type of organization. So I'm going to give you a brief rundown of what they are. Stage one, the language that permeates from someone or a culture that's embedded in stage one is life sucks. So everything sucks, right? Life sucks, the fact of living sucks. And I love these tribal leadership things, because I think they can also key in on mental states and individuals to not just organizations and groups of individuals. So stage two moves from life sucks, goes to my life sucks. So you're at least open to the possibility of life not sucking is just yours does. You can see other people in their lives don't suck, but for whatever reason yours does. So those two stages pretty much you can imagine if a working environment and organization is made up primarily of those types of people, probably not the best working environment. But the next stage stage three, and I don't want to get these percentages wrong, but I believe that they say over half, maybe 75% of all working environments are dominated by stage three cultures and personalities. So stage three is I'm great.

Individuals walk around with the I'm great mentality, which is the implicit, you know, admission there is you're not I'm great, you're not. And you can actually get really, really, really effective organizations, you know, bottom line and, you know, effective in the sense of they can be functioning and working, seemingly working well. But it's a collection of individuals who I'm great, you're not. So this is often characterized by like the office space. The guy who played lumber in office space is actually interviewed in the book. And he's fascinating, dude, I forget his name, but such a cool guy. And lumburgs, right? The lumburgs of the world, the Dilbert bosses, as they put in the book, you know, people who really are managing you and they're great or you're working with the coworker and they're great. And it's a competition that can actually thrive productivity. I mean, encourage productivity. So it's not the worst thing in the world. Stage four is like I said, the highest stage that they have for stability. So this is the we're great. And then the, you know, hidden, you're they're not. So this is when teams galvanize and organizations galvanize around, you know, whatever it is, their mission, their cause, they they're better than their competitors, they want to do this, they want to do that. So it's not the highest stage, right? And then stage five, which they didn't find any examples that stabilize a stage five culture, you know, in the working environment, but they saw companies and organizations move into this. And this is the life is great, kind of working for the higher cause, a noble cause, adhering to core values of the organization. Really, like the people who work there like feel very, very like empowered and good, right? And they adhere to whatever those values are of the organization. Everyone kind of uses those as a reference point. So to me, this has been fascinating. Because I think you can apply this. And I don't want to be too quick to do it, but you can apply that lens to lots of different areas of life, right? I mentioned mental states and individuals, but they don't have to be organizations. They don't have to be working environments. But this tribal mentality, which really does have some basis, you know, it has basis in, you know, how tribes formed in early, you know, the starting parts of civilization for humans.

So I just find it fascinating. Anyway, sorry, I digress there. It's such a long digression. But I'm giving that book away, tribal leadership. So here's what you do to get the book. All you have to do syncpodcast.com. That's s y n c podcast.com. There's a sign up form and you can join the synchronicity community. And yes, you enter your email, but no, it's not just an email list. And I will be very specific when you sign up before you sign up exactly what you're signing up for. That's how you enter this these giveaways, though. If you're on that list, it's a random drawing. Every week, I'm going to do this. And you can get that book. If you don't get the book, I really still encourage you picking up a copy if it sounded interesting because I just thought it was great. Okay, shift in gears back to Ben. So Ben, what an interesting guy mentioned that he was a Renaissance man. He is he so here's some stuff that Ben does. He just founded a gym called guardian gym, which is a mixed martial arts. And I think it's jujitsu and martial arts studio in the Oakland area. And it's a little bit different than regular gyms where you're going to go and you're going to pay tons of money. And you know, maybe not go once in a while or you're going to go like whoever whoever you are in your relationship to the gym. I don't know. But this gym guardian gym, the premise behind it is he's really creating an institution in a population in an area with a population that has at risk youth. I don't love the term at risk, but you know, if you've been around places where they're economically deprived, there's not a lot of, you know, affordability. There's not a lot of opportunities. That's when people fall into some bad shit and things that can affect their life in a not great way. And I've, I've known a lot of people, you know, especially when I was living in New York, grew up in the South Bronx grew up in areas that are just like, you know, they're not doing great. However, we think the rest of the world is in this country is doing like, you know, there's people, there's pockets all over the country around the world. People are not doing great. So what guardian gym is doing, it's kind of like an extension of a big brother thing, but it's allowing kids and other people in the community to go and have a place and kind of learn about themselves, life, discipline, all the things that come along with martial arts. And you'll hear Ben talk about that in this episode right in the beginning. So I'm not going to give anything away, but it's just really a very, very awesome thing. He's done and he co-founded it with another friend he has who worked at Twitter. He works at Twitter, which is cool in and of itself. It's, you know, despite being, it's one of my favorite social media platforms, but I find it to be so much more than that. It's probably my favorite way to connect on the web. And that's evidence by just people who have come on this podcast, I've met them directly through Twitter. I love it. And he also has a cannabis marijuana accessory and lifestyle company called Meister. And interesting note about Meister, I'm actually going to have the other co-founder Davis who lives in the area I live in. I had him come by my house and that's going to be a podcast coming up too. So you're going to get kind of a real Meister, you know, expose. Is that the right word? I don't know. But yeah, so Ben though, so all of those things, he does at the same time, but does not seem overwhelmed, which I love because I'm a firm believer that you can do a lot of different things. And you can do a lot of different things effectively, and it's not doesn't have to make you crazy. And that is kind of a mindset shift, I think, for a lot of people, if you're doing a lot of things back to the tribal leadership thing, that's actually a hallmark of a stage three mindset is if you don't have a lot of time, you're always feeling rushed, you don't have a ton of space. And that can extend down obviously into organizations or family life or whatever. But back to Ben. So let's hear some things we talk about. I'm going to run through them because I realize a yack, I don't know how long it's been at this point, but you want to get to the episode, I'm sure. So here's what we talk about. We talk about the genesis and the mission behind Guardian Jim. We talk about the importance of martial arts, which admittedly, I don't, you know, I don't do martial arts. It was very interesting for me to hear his perspective and what some of the practical benefits of martial arts could be. He talks about being humble and the relationship between that and developing confidence. He talks about having a purpose in life beyond making money, right, he lives in the Bay Area. And you know, a lot of people made a lot of money there and are making a lot of money there. And it doesn't necessarily translate to happiness or them feeling good. So that's interesting. He talked about working at Twitter. He talked about his personal relationship with marijuana, kind of the future of marijuana, the normalization of it. Then we get into a fascinating, I mean, I didn't know this, and I thought it was really interesting. We talk about microdosing because Ben microdoses LSD.

I think he just recently started doing it. I don't know how consistently he's doing it, but he talks about what that experience has been like and kind of some of the benefits or just what it was like. So that I thought was very interesting. You talked about, he talks about this yoga in marijuana scene that's developing on the West Coast, which for, listen, here's my deal with yoga marijuana. I smoked once right before going to yoga like 10, 15 years ago, a long time ago. And it was overwhelming. You know, every time I'd close my eyes and do an Asana, I would see like swirling colors. Like it was just too, it was like totally distracting from the actual process. So that was my particular, you know, entry into yoga in marijuana, which I really haven't attempted since then, because I didn't find it was productive. So it's interesting that that has developed that type of culture has developed on the West Coast. So of course it has, right? We talk about how to cultivate, how to cultivate happiness, which is, you know, come on, if you're going to be cultivating something, that's a good thing to be cultivating. And I'm not, it's not like an allusion to weed. That's actual happiness. And we're, he mentions at the end, you know, I've been asking if you've been listening, I ask every guest at the end of each episode, what are some practical tips or tools that have helped them on their, in their lives and on their paths, whatever it is. And he talks about, you know, following your passion and doing what you love. And he says much more eloquently, and I put him on the spot, I don't prep guests when I say that. But he did a great job of answering it. All in all, this was, this was one of my favorite conversations I've had. It's very inspiring to see someone like Ben doing things that he's passionate about, making a difference out in the world, and maintaining, like I gotta say, for everything he's doing, he's got a ton of equanimity there. Really balanced guy, it's, it's obvious, you hear me when I talk, I get excited. I'm excitable. But Ben in a good way is very kind of medium, which I think is great. So yeah, that's it. Subscribe to Synchronicity. Of course, if you haven't done it, and you like it, don't subscribe if you don't like it, because that would be a bad decision.

Don't forget to rate on iTunes and Stitcher. I'm getting about one or two, you know, reviews. Oh, and I love the reviews. Like the, I'm telling you, like the ratings, you give me one star, but a nice review. We need so much more to me. I'm getting about one or two a week, and I love them. I, I gotta say, I'm very, very appreciative. And I think I'm going to start mentioning the people, if they don't mind their names, who have reviewed. I'm going to start that next week. But yeah, so I don't have anything else to say. This is pretty much it. Ben Kovacs is the guest, and here he is. Yep. Hey, like San Francisco.

Well, I'm actually, I'm out in Oakland. So I come in the city to work, and then I go back. So it's almost like Brooklyn and Manhattan type thing. So close, but there's definitely like a different vibe between the two. So I really, I mean, I just love the whole area. You know, the weather is amazing. That was one of my big problems with living back east is I just hated the weather so much, right? Like, that January to May timeframe was just painful, right? And then all of a sudden, you get through that and get a few nice months, and then you get to August, and it's so hot you can't even go outside. So I just like, I really, I don't know, I really wanted to get somewhere where I could have a lot more like indoor outdoor living. Yeah, yeah. Welcome to the year. So that's certainly done that. And I was really fortunate to get the job at Twitter. And I met all sorts of cool, interesting, fun people through this and started the gym because of it. And I just been really fortunate, like for four and a half years, kind of a lot has happened. Let's jump right in there. So, I want to start with the gym, actually. I really want to start with Guardian, Jim. We can get into your Twitter stuff. But tell me, what was the genesis for this? And I'm going to have an intro so people will have some idea of who you are. So they'll be background. But I would like to hear from your perspective, like, why are you doing this? What's it about? Thoughts behind it and how it got going? I mean, I think I'm very similar to a lot of people out there in the world that, you know, when you're young, you think that making money and having a career and everything is super important.

And if I just made more money, then my life would be complete. And I'm no different than that in a lot of ways. I mean, I always at the core, I guess knew that wasn't true. But I still like craved it, right? And it wasn't until I found some success and bought a couple of nice cars and houses and things like that that I just quickly realized that I was fortunate. I feel like I found that success far earlier than most of my friends, which, you know, today I'm 34. And I think a lot of people are just getting into that where they kind of screwed off early in life. And then they're like, oh, I need to be an adult and buy a house and have a kid and all this stuff. Whereas like, I did a lot of this stuff early and realized that, you know, I was fortunate that I realized like, wow, like, having that really nice car didn't actually make me happier. I think it actually made me sadder because I like had to put all this energy into dealing with it and thinking about it and parking it in the right spot, right? So exactly. So I was fortunate. And I got into jujitsu when I was 24 years old at the Yamasaki Academy in Rockville, Maryland. And it really changed my life. Like, I just, I found this thing that I was so passionate about. And it wasn't about winning tournaments and everything, but it was about the community that the school had. And it was about the training partners and going to dinner, lunch after class, watching the UFC fights together. You know, even some people doing business deals and things together and hiring contractors from the school and things like that. And I just realized that like, this is not a community that happens with basketball or baseball or football or so many other sports as consistently as it does in the martial arts community. And so I came out here and started doing jujitsu at another school. And I realized that, wow, it's like, it's basically $200 a month after tax to train unlimited jujitsu at a school in San Francisco. And, you know, if you do the math on that, that means you got to make about $4,000 a year for an average person. Hey, your dues for the school every year. I mean, that is a tremendous amount of money to go roll around on a mat with sweaty men. And I know there's, I know there's more to it than just rolling around on the mat because you're paying for obviously the instruction and the insurance and the rent and everything else that a place provides.

But I just thought, you know, Joe Rogan had this really simple quote where he said, the world would be a better place if everyone did jujitsu or everyone did martial arts. I forget which one he said. It's so simple, but it's so true, right? Like it's this one thing that creates a community. It lessens your ego. It obviously keeps you in really good shape if you do it consistently. And I thought like, why not give kids the chance to do this regardless of their financial situation and provide them a free way that they could train because this gift is given so much to me. What better gift could I do to give back? And they always say like, do something that you love for a job and it won't feel like work. Well, I think it's the same thing with volunteering.

If you, if you tell me to go pick up trash, I know that's good for the community for me to walk around and pick up trash, but that's going to bore the shit of me and it's going to feel like work after 10 minutes. But I found this thing that I know gives back to the community now. It's also something I love. So it doesn't feel like this huge painful endeavor to have to go to the gym every day and do it. Right. So you fuse those two things. Well, there's a lot there. Talk about, I mean, what was it specifically about the martial arts? I'm going to just say from my perspective, I took a Jiu Jitsu class actually at, I think it was NIH. There was some thing they had like a Jiu Jitsu thing when I was growing up and my friend went me to go and I went and had the ghee had everything and I was terrible. I was so terrible. I flipped one guy and I felt really proud, but I was like, I can't do this. I don't like it. I am not admittedly a huge martial arts person, but I get it. There's some aspect of the discipline as a spiritual pursuit as a lot of things. Can you talk about what it is specifically that engaged you? And then I certainly want to get into kind of the service aspect of this, how you're helping communities and people and the whole community thing is fucking awesome. But can you just talk about specifically about martial arts and what you think kind of the practical benefits are in your life and then what you've seen in other peoples? I mean, there's so many ways I think you can go with this question, but the one thing that I find is that we're still wired, especially as men, that we are very unsure of ourselves. I think a lot of times and it creates this chest beating, puffing sort of complex where we always have to look like we're tougher than we are. We don't want to be embarrassed. So we kind of a lot of us walk around with this false sense of bravado. I used to think that when I went to the bar or something when I was 21, I would be like, I could probably keep stepping on my foot. I could probably beat that guy up, but he's smaller than me, right? Or he looks like I look like I'm tougher than him. And then what I realized when I started doing Jiu Jitsu as I got tapped out by 16 year old girls, 72 year old men, is I was like, I'm really not very tough. I'm not a badass physically by any stretch of the imagination. And yet at the same time as I've kept going, I've built up this quiet confidence, right, where I never get in fights outside of the school. But yet at the same time, I'm really scared of like very little compared to what I used to be. So it's almost like this true confidence that carries with you, I think, through life. And it gives you this backstop of no matter how bad your day is going, you can go out in the mat and like put it all on there and you leave. And it's really hard to leave there in a bad mood or worried about that your presentation was late or that you got a parking ticket or all the things that make people crazy. You kind of forget about it when you go on the mat. And I think the second part of your question is kids, there's so many opportunities for a lot of kids in schools with therapists and with doctors and counselors, but they can't relate to so many of these kids. And you have to get them on the mat kind of like how yoga was really invented to help people meditate thousands of years ago. Yoga wasn't really invented to give girls in LA six pack abs although that's a great it's a great side effect of the movement. Don't get me wrong. I'm very happy for yoga and my girlfriend does it. Don't get me wrong. But I think it's the same with martial arts. If we go wrestle with each other or punch each other in the face for a few rounds or whatever, we have a mutual level now of respect.

And if you're a 14 year old kid that can't connect with guidance counselors because you live in a situation where they just wouldn't understand it's a way to break down that barrier, right? And everyone is equal on the mat. And the guys that train at the school where I came from, there's kids that sleep on the mat who make $100 a month and I don't even quite frankly understand how they support their dream to become the next world champion. And then there's one of the co-founders of Airbnb who was training at the school who I think is worth $2.5 billion. And these are people on the same mat at the same time doing the same thing, treated completely equally. And I think that's really interesting. You know, if you remember growing up on the basketball court, what was the basketball court like? It was a bunch of people talking, "I'm better than you.

I'm better than you. Pick me." Like that guy doesn't pass enough. I call foul. You call too many fouls. It's like this really weird thing, right? Like I played basketball my whole life, but it's far different. This is like the boxing ring is they call it the ring of truth, right? Because you can't go in there and talk your way out of it. You know, you got to go in there and actually box your way out of it. And the Jiu Jitsu fight, you know, it's the same thing, right? Like somebody's going to get choked out or get armbarred. And you can say you're the best in everything, but it ultimately comes out in that sport. And I think that's a big difference between Jiu Jitsu boxing and something like a basketball. Like a team, something like that. And it seems like the one-to-one relationship too is something that kind of cultivates a mutual respect, which seems to be key.

So like, what are some things you've noticed, like the impact it's had on people's lives, you maybe otherwise wouldn't be able to go and do something like this? Yeah. And so we've been planning this gym for about two years. We just opened our door seven weeks ago. The first few weeks were pretty embarrassing in the sense that, you know, we'd have one or two or three kids walking through the door. Now in our seventh week, we've started to have classes with 25 plus kids in a single class. I got a text message from a student. I'll read it to you the other day, which I think sums it up. This guy has been coming. He's 16 years old. He's been coming to our class now for a little over a month. Just a great kid. Super nice. Definitely not in the best of shape, but he keeps showing up and, you know, putting in the work. He hasn't, he's not doing any other types of sports or programs. He said, "I wanted to talk with you about some problems I have at home, my house. My dad actually just left the house and left me, my sister, my brother, my mom, all together. Guardian has actually helped me a lot because I have a lot at home and school, but it's the only place I feel good. I want to be able to help my mom and my brother with stuff around the house. So I'm trying hard for a job or a paid internship. I don't know.

If there's anything you could do to help me out to find a job or an internship, I'd really appreciate it. So, you know, basically after just a month of training, you know, this kid felt comfortable enough where he said, you know, this is the place where I feel safest. It takes my mind off the problems at home. And now he's doing exactly what we expected kids to do, which is how do we take this success that we're seeing on the mat and the community that we're building and how do we help these kids, while they're at such a vulnerable age, get to the next step and say, "Hey, like, I want to get an internship. Like, I want to get a job. Like, these kids want to work when they're 15, 16, 17." They don't want to ask their mom for money anymore. They like, they want to be productive members of society. But there's a disconnect. Like, they don't have a dad or a mom or an uncle that has a connection for an internship or can give them extra yard work at home to pay the bills. Like, a lot of these kids don't have anything. So, it's either, you know, getting a job that really isn't going to advance their career in any way, kind of a dead-end job where they're stuck, maybe like, say, a fast food place or something like that, or worse off, they, you know, have no job or they hit the streets to do something that's going to get them into a lot of trouble or danger. So, I really think that this is such an important age to be hitting people and we have so many problems in society and we spend so much money rehabilitating people through drug programs and through jail programs and all these things that are the consequences of not paying attention to our 14, 15, 16, 17-year-old kids. Why don't we spend a fraction of that money and a fraction of the resources and put it into helping these kids early to build that confidence and work before they get frustrated? Wow. So, that's, it makes a tremendous amount of sense too. I mean, I am sure you see yourself maybe potentially setting up some platforms and things within Guardian Gym to help people like that specifically because I think you'll probably, as time goes on, fund more and more situations and texts like those. That's awesome. I mean, it's, it's amazing. The name Guardian Gym, right? It clearly, you're, you're already serving as a safe space within seven weeks of operation for someone. That's, that's the biggest testament to the success. You know, whatever else you could tell me about numbers or anything else. That's, that's fucking awesome, man. That's really, really, really cool. Thank you. All right. So, I want to, I want to, you do a lot of different things. You have a day job at Twitter. You also, we have a mutual friend, your business partner, Davis. You have a company with him. Does he do lifted too? Is he involved with lifted? Yeah. So, you have my strength lifted. So, I want to get into that too. But I wanted to start at Twitter because that's your, your day job, so to speak. Tell me a little bit about how you decided to apply or start working for Twitter because I know you had your other companies at this point. And then a little bit, Twitter, FYI is one of my, of all the social media platforms, by far, my favorite. It's the one I gravitated to. Not the first Facebook was, it was in Boston when it came out, but I love it.

Something about the communication form itself, to me, it's digitized consciousness. And I think it's a fundamentally different way of communicating than a lot of the other platforms. And which is why I think you see a lot of the other platforms like Facebook copying the newsfeed and the timeline and all of these things over time. So, tell me a little bit about Twitter and how you got involved and what you do. Yeah. I mean, I, I love Twitter. I mean, the way that I got here was kind of an accident. I was actually working for another company at the time and I was on LinkedIn and it said, I think I had smoked a joint and I was just doing some late night work. And it said, do you want to work for Twitter or click here? And I clicked there and a couple of days later, I got a call from a recruiter. And she was like, your resume didn't upload correctly. Like when you, and I was like, yeah, it's really weird. Like, I don't know why I'm thinking in my head. Like, I didn't even upload a resume, right? I just clicked the button. But anyway, I went through the process. I was very honest with them upfront. I said, Hey, I also am involved in a marijuana accessories company called Meister. They thought that was cool and interesting. And I think my entire interview was talking about that instead of other experience. So, that was cool. And so, it kind of took away a lot of people ask, well, how do you do these other ventures if you're doing Twitter? And I say, well, I've told them before I even worked at Twitter what I was doing and they hired me. So it'd be a little awkward for them to come back now and complain about it. But yeah, I mean, it's been an awesome place to work. I mean, Twitter as a company is great. Obviously, we have our public challenges and everything and growth and everybody expects Twitter to be as big and powerful and have a market cap like Facebook, which just hasn't materialized. And I think part of that is for the reasons that you say like Twitter's digitized consciousness in your mind, right? And it's a platform that you gravitate to. And I think part of what makes Twitter unique and cool is that your grandma isn't on Twitter necessarily. And your mom may not even be on Twitter or whatever. It's kind of like the people who love it seem to just really love it and gravitate to it. But it's clearly not a platform for everyone, at least compare when you compare it to something like Facebook. So I kind of think that's like the strong suit of Twitter and what may actually allow Twitter to like outlast some of the other platforms that come around that could be more fly by night platform. So it's just been an awesome ride. No, no, I was going to say, I was going to say this just about Twitter to say another thing. I really love about it. The horizontal, I had a conversation with Kelly Carlin, George Carlin's daughter, a few episodes ago.

And she brought up that in this day and age, we're so easy, it's so easy to use the the horizontal. You can go across mediums really easily. But the vertical, the depth of subjects isn't as easily accessible. One of the things I particularly love about Twitter though, is that horizontal capacity. I've made so many connections with people on Twitter. I mean, I was one of those people back when AOL was going on, like I'd meet real live people, not in a weird way. And I'd be like, these are my internet friends. And then we'd meet up in person, whether it was from a message board. Twitter to me is one of the coolest, like here's here's my favorite Twitter thing. I have the company that this is on, this podcast is on, it's MindPod Network. And there's a lot of other cool teachers on it. People who listen to this podcast know what it is. But my favorite thing happened with the MindPod Network. One of our followers is Phil Jackson. And he follows like 60 people.

And to me, that's the coolest fucking thing in the world. That there's someone like Phil Jackson, who has tapped into something that's a very small part of Twitter. Really not being promoted in any way. But he's tuned in consciousness wise and he's retweeting things here. Like that to me is incredible. And that alone, the serendipitous things that can take place on Twitter, put it in kind of a different spectrum than I think a lot of these other things that are out there. So yeah, continue. Sorry. No, I mean, I'm really glad that you're passionate about Twitter. I mean, I think Twitter is amazing. And I've only started reusing Facebook and some other things because of the gym, because they're so powerful in the Jiu Jitsu community, especially. And I'm like, man, like I need like a PhD to use this, right? And I put out something and it's like, you want to put money behind it or nobody's going to see it. And I'm just like, this is terrible. Like Twitter actually from not just because I work here, but it's just such a better experience than some of these other platforms. And so I really agree with you. But I do sales here. So my job's pretty straightforward. I work with some of our largest advertisers in the country. I've worked with Bose and Beats by Dre and Comcast and Zillow and Mozilla Firefox and advertisers like that to help them with their paid ad strategy on the platform. So it's kind of a part creative, part sales, part account management, you know, a little bit of everything. That's what you need to be on the web today, wherever you're working. I mean, come on, you got to be resourceful and have many, many talents. All right, I want to focus on one of my one of your projects, your businesses that I am very much aligned with, which is my star. And I heard you say at an interview, and like I said, we have mutual friend Davis, so I kind of know what it's about. But making marijuana culture or marijuana kind of an integrated part of the regular culture, because I'm I'm a huge proponent of cannabis. I'm a daily marijuana smoker. I am also a successful professional. I do a lot of creative things. They're not mutually exclusive. We have more people in culture kind of being those people. So can you talk a little bit about the genesis of my sir and anything else related to that marijuana in general? Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm sort of like a halfway, a halfway daily user, I guess you would say, like I don't, I actually don't function that well when I use most types of marijuana. So I kind of know my own limitations. And I'm not somebody who rolls out of bed and grabs a bowl and hits it and then hits it again at lunch. And it's it again after dinner. I mean, I'm more of like, you know, I get through my day, I get the things done that I need to get done.

And then maybe similarly to how average person would drink wine, you know, after work or after their workout or whatever it is, that's when I would typically enjoy cannabis. So Davis is the opposite, right? He's, you know, all day, every day, like, that's just part of his life. And and my thought is it doesn't matter, like how much you smoke weed or, you know, use cannabis, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Like we all should be on the same team for legalization, right? This isn't something that whether you want to use it once a year, once a lifetime, once a hour, you know, it should be a choice, right? Like this isn't something that the government should be regulating, in my opinion, this should be something that's left up to people to make their own decision on. So, you know, I think what Meister is trying to do in a subtle way is, rather than just, you know, there's a lot of people that are out there beating the drum for legalization and going into rallies and stuff like that. But we think one of the best ways to change perception of the industry is of not just the industry, but of the plant is by building really high quality products that professionals, business people, lawyers, doctors, you know, can put on their countertops, put on their tables, put on their bookshelves, take in their car, you know, whatever it is, and be proud of, right? Like you bring, we always joke, like, you know, you bring a girl home from a date, and you open up a shoebox on your kitchen table, and you start pulling out a bunch of like, shake and, you know, metal grinders that are in three pieces. This is, you're describing my wife's, the bane of her existence, my box with all this stuff that is because she's just constantly throwing stuff in there, and she's like, "Ah, you need a new shoebox, it's horrible, so yeah, I totally get it." Yeah, I mean, it's just like, it doesn't look pro, right? Like, it's like not how we do anything else in our life, so why, why something that we know is as good for us as marijuana for so many of us? Why, why does that, like, why don't we have a better way to do that that we're not embarrassed about? And just because it was illegal, or just because our parents may be frowned on it, depending on who your parents were, doesn't mean that I think it has to be like that forever. So I think Meister is doing its part in the movement by not just, you know, donating money, or doing, you know, legalization marches and stuff like that, but it's actually building products that people can be proud of. Which are very awesome, I can, I can attest to that fact. Thank you. So you touched on something very, very critical, I think, in that, which is that you fundamentally believe it should be a choice, right? That this is something that, so let me ask you this, what about psychedelics? Psychedelics, do you believe that's also a choice? Are you a psychedelic user? What are your thoughts on psychedelics? Absolutely think psychedelics should be a choice. I've experimented with a lot of different kinds, probably not as much as you, but, you know, I've tried, you know, some pretty powerful salvia, I've done mushrooms, you know, a couple dozen times. I've started not that long ago within the last year micro-dosing LSD, and that's been one of my favorite things to do. I feel like that's been, I don't do it like all the time, not because it's not an amazing experience every time, which is because I figure there's probably a good reason maybe not to do it every day, and they get more of a special occasion, but that's been definitely like my new favorite go to.

So I guess those, I'm trying to think if there's anything else that I've, I haven't done ayahuasca yet, I think those, that's probably the, at least the majority of my psychedelic experience. So talk to me, I've micro-dosed psilocybin mushrooms, very small amounts. I did it for a couple, two different times, a few days in a row, and I was actually, you know, I actually spoke to Dennis McKenna about this, Terence's brother, and he, he was basically, I think he was being polite, but I don't think he fully believes in micro-dosing, but I think he just is saying that not that he doesn't believe in it, but he does, doesn't have any personal experience with it. I found doing micro-dosing psilocybin that there was clearly an effect. There was clearly a sharpness and acuity, a flowing of thoughts that quite frankly, meditating kind of brings about. When I find when I'm regularly meditating, it's a similar type of acuity that is kind of on the periphery, but still there. Can you talk about micro-dosing LSD? I've never done it, sounds interesting, it was a big, big LSD fan in the earlier parts of my life, but what, what have you noticed with the micro-dosing LSD? Just a sharpness, everything's a little bit brighter, everything's a little bit clearer, much easier to live in the moment. So, you know, for example, I like to use the example that my girlfriend has a three-year-old son, and his favorite game is put rocks in your pocket, and typically that's honestly not my favorite game to walk around and collect rocks for a couple hours and put them in my pocket, but, you know, if I'm micro-dosing, then all of a sudden it becomes a game that's totally fun, and I could play it for an extra eight hours. So, it's just, I think, that like concentration living in the moment, not really worrying about what's on the periphery, you're just really, really focused on, you know, the tasks that are at hand, and I've really enjoyed it. I think one of the downsides I have with cannabis is I really, I really get the munchies when I smoke weed far worse than a lot of, you know, my peer group, and I recognize that as a problem because, you know, I don't feel good if I, you know, smoke weed and an hour later eat two pints of ice cream, but on LSD, you know, you're not really hungry for a while, and then when you do eat, it doesn't actually kill your high, and I think that's a really big difference for me, so I, you know, and obviously when you, when you take shrooms, at least the way that I've always taken shrooms, it's like shrimp chocolates, you know, you have to be very careful, right? You have to eat, but then you got to have, you know, you want to have food, but you don't want to have food in your stomach like digesting, and then you can't eat after you take them or you're going to throw up, right? It's like a very, it's a, it's a, it's a little bit more of a, well, strategy, right?

You're definitely tapping into an aspect of LSD. I mean, I think LSD is a very subjective substance, chemical. I really, I think I've seen people react to it so differently across the spectrum. I've seen people be in the, the death throes of an overwhelming experience, which I've never really had. I've had not overwhelmingly positive experiences at the time. I've certainly had what could be classified as negative, but I've never been like consumed worse mushrooms. I fundamentally believe that's another form of consciousness, and it interacts with us, and it can play tricks on us, and it's not just us having a subjective experience of a thing.

So yeah, I definitely can hear you about the cleanness. I myself with cannabis, like I, there are certain types like a heavy indica. If I am smoking a heavy indica and trying to do my job impossible, like I know what the effects are. It's not going to work. I'm going to be tired, not focused, but the right sativa at the right time can spur any number of creative ideas, which if you recognize how to harness it, it's useful for me. But I think it's important what you're saying. This is always a big question to me with any type of substance use or anything cannabis is recognizing where your limits and where your potential deficiencies are with these things. My barometer for whether you should be doing something in life is, is it detrimental to you, or is it detrimental to people around you? If either of those new things are true, you really need to reassess your relationship with it, because if especially if you're addicted or have any personality traits like that, it can be a real problem. So I think that's important what you're talking about how you kind of know those things about yourself. That's cool that you microdist didn't know that. Very, very cool. Yeah, I'd like to do it more often, to be honest. I'm a little bit more careful now because of the gym. I actually, my favorite thing to do is use cannabis before I do Brazilian pizza. And this isn't something that I invented or anything. This is something that I think Joe Rogan and Eddie Bravo and their whole crew made really famous because they're clearly high functioning, successful people in the world, and they're using it. And the Diaz brothers and the UFC, same thing. These are people that are performing at really high levels, but clearly find a huge benefit to training with cannabis. And I think that's kind of partly the future of marijuana is like, what are they going to invent? What kind of edibles and what kind of tinctures and concoctions that are going to actually be designed to help people use cannabis for productivity, whether it be on the athletic field or whether it be, you know, at the workplace. And I'm sure there's going to be amazing breakthroughs in that over the coming decade. I mean, we have an endocannabinoid system in our bodies. This is a crazy thing that I don't think everyone really fully rocks. Like, that's weird that we have this system that basically interacts specifically with the plant out there in the world. And yeah, the potential there is amazing. It's funny you mentioned the digit thing because back in high school, I use this is like one of the only times I used to actually work out go to the gym. This was in high school, truthfully, I exercise now I just got a Fitbit.

It's working. I like the Fitbit. But in high school, I loved smoking before going to the gym. I fucking loved it. And all my friends are like, what is the matter with you? That's like weird, like, who wants to be like lifting weights and running out of treadmill and doing all these tests? Like, I don't know, I love it. I get super into it. So I find it interesting. I didn't really know that there was kind of a culture of people and in the martial arts using it. That's pretty awesome. It's also about here in San Francisco too. There's a huge yoga pot yoga culture. I think that's developing in LA. There's schools that are playing actually like they smoke, I think, in the school before they do yoga. So I don't know, it's just like it's breaking down this barrier that you have to be you're either a high functioning, high intent adult, or you're a pothead lazy loser stoner, right? It's like, I can do both. Actually, I could be high functioning and, you know, like, to use cannabis. Absolutely. I mean, that's a fact to many of us who are. But I mean, you're talking about yoga and cannabis. I mean, there are sadhus, right? Wandering ascetics who smoke chillums all day long. There's a spiritual component to cannabis too that I think it's, we have a very weird stigma over the past couple hundred years with it because of the way our government and other governments have kind of adapted to the laws that were set up. I don't think because of cannabis being so, so bad. I think it was economic reasons. There's plenty of things that go into it, but it's to me, it's a mystical substance. I think where it's the Women's Month, right? It's international. No, it was International Women's Day, but we're in the midst of, you know, it's the Women's Month. To me, the most amazing thing about cannabis is it's a female. That's what we're smoking. We're smoking the buds. It's all the female part of the plant. And I notice people who smoke it or ingest it or have any relationship to it. The qualities that kind of interacts with people's consciousnesses are very feminine, right? Being a little more open-minded, being a little more receptive, being a little more tolerant, compassion, all these things typically associated with feminine divinity. So I really think it's having a huge impact on the culture are obviously coming up from the grassroots, no pun intended, but really now starting to proliferate, especially in places like California. I mean, it's very different. Like, you're in California, right? I'm in Maryland. It's still illegal here. It's decriminalized, but it's illegal, can't grow. Even in DC, 10 minutes away, you can have six plants. What do you think is going to happen though? I mean, you must have, you have a cannabis accessory and product line. You obviously have some vested interest in seeing where this stuff is going to go. What are your kind of projections and thoughts on that? To be honest, I don't put a lot of time into it because there's already 30 million people in the US that admit to smoking cannabis, at least semi-regularly. So, you know, my thought is clearly that tide is rising. That number is only going to go up as legalization happens.

And, you know, people are always like, how many do you think like, what state's next? And I'm just like, I don't really fucking care. Like, it's going to happen over time. That's because you live in California. I care because it's not legal in my state. Yeah, I know. And I don't want to tell everybody on the East Coast, but you are allowed to move. I got arrested when I was in Maryland for I was smoking, someone was smoking a joint on my back porch in Bethesda. And the cops were called for, so they say, and I had 10 cops come to my back porch and pat me down and find a little bit of weed in my pocket. And they arrested me and they took me to jail. And I spent six or so hours in jail because of smoking or not even smoking, but having marijuana in my possession on a porch in a house that I owned on my own property, not even outside, not disturbing the neighbors.

And they tried to give me a year probation for that. And I mean, I just said, like, you know what, this is it. Like, this is a last straw. Like, this is absolutely insane. And, you know, to have 10 cops rolling up, I had a cop, like stare at me and be like, I think he said, like, you're such a loser or something like that when they were like walking to the car and handcuffs. And like, this is, this is insane. Like, this is, this is totally insane. And yeah, I could stick around here and fight this or whatever. But you know what, I think it was time for a change anyway. And I just decided. Yeah, I mean, I was something I was already thinking about. And I thought that was like the universe's way of telling me like, yeah, it's not safe here. Go away.

Cops will do that. Cops will make you definitely think the universe is trying to tell you something. Anyone who's been through any arrest or cop experience, it is that is a transcendental experience, depending on where I once got arrested in New York by narcotics officers who thought I was purchasing heroin, I was getting a dime bag. And they threw me in the back of a van, drove around for like five hours, then threw me in a local precinct, then sent me down to the tombs, which is central bookings in Manhattan. And don't ever go there if you can, because it is a shitty fucking place. And I was just like, this is insane. This is because I wanted to buy like $20 worth of weed. This is fucking nuts. That was a huge eye opener for me just how, I mean, and we're white. You know what I mean? We're white. Like, can you imagine if you're a person of color and this shit? Like, it's just fucking insane to me. So I am home. The culture and national culture changes sooner rather than later, because it's just the waste of resources and time and fucking sucks. All right. But I want to, yeah, no, go ahead, go ahead, please.

No, I was just going to say, you know, we're taking, we're taking away a very profitable business, right? Like, you know, as states decriminalize and legalize the stuff as Uber comes in, I heard that in Sacramento, the cops are actively pulling over Uber drivers because they're so pissed off that they're losing so much money from DUI revenue. So it's like all these things that are great to society are actually bad for our police forces. And, you know, the DEA and all the cops, like, if I was president, I would make a rule that like any cop caught doing something like that. It's just like instant 20 years in jail, like, you know, like to me, that's like this.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the scum of the scum, like pulling over a driver who's keeping people from killing themselves because you're lowering your revenue for your party next year. Like, I fucking hate those guys worse than I mean, my blood is boiling, just thinking about that. And like, how easy that would be to curb that corruption and just say, look, people get laid off in jobs in the private sector all day, every day, right? And they have to go find something else in society. And we need to do the same thing with all these, these people, right, these, these DEA agents, these cops that are driving around pulling over Uber drivers. If there isn't a job for you anymore, and we don't need you because we're DUI's are down 75%, goodbye. Like, you know what I mean? Like, take kind of hang on and let them torture your society is just so wrong. And I think it's something that politicians really need to address. I wonder, I mean, I wonder how these institutions, they kind of like, it's like corporations who kind of get run a mock at times too. They kind of turn into these nebulous, you know, self running autonomous things and people like can justify anything based on the system. And that's the way it's done. Like I read this article, I think it was in the New York Times not too long ago where there was a there's a black police officer. And he was like railing against quotas. He's like, these quotas are bullshit. Like you're making a stop and frisk all these people in the city, it doesn't make sense. So when he started bringing this up, he started getting in trouble. So we started tape recording all of these conversations with the superiors. And like, there were some superiors who knew he was doing something noble, they didn't know he was recording but they're like, no, I get it, man, this is fucked up. And he has this a huge court case, it's going on now. And I wonder, a, how these situations and institutions kind of get so corrupt, I think with power, the ability to be corrupt obviously increases the more authority and more kind of you're given by society. But man, I don't it's it's fucking crazy at this point. It really is.

And I wonder how we collectively kind of move out of that. But truthfully, I think the answer is something you're already doing. When you can change the relationship from kids, it's something like guardian gym. So they have a place where they're not even having to interact in the same way or not even if they are they have a different focus or mindset or place they can go. That's going to do as much as anything else. I mean, education, giving kids safe spaces, starting with younger people. And then hopefully, I mean, how great would it be if people are guardian gym, you know, decided to go out and serve the community because it was actually something that they could do and they had a different way of interacting, you know, those those skills transfer over in a lot of different ways. So I hear you, man, I, I get just as upset about all of these things too. And anger comes with that I think a clarity that is very useful. But I have a temper problem, like I get really fucking angry sometimes. And then it becomes a detriment to a lot of the things I do. But I definitely hear you on all that stuff. Okay, I want to talk about this. So you do a lot, you seem like a very happy guy too. Like you have a very refreshing perspective on life. I think you're doing some cool things in the world. You have an internal facet to you that I think is pretty cool too. So what, what to you? How did you go about or how are you going about creating a life that's fulfilling and kind of, you know, may allowing you to be happy?

That's a good question. I was actually just thinking when we were talking, I was like, no, it seems very happy. Glad that you think of me as happy guy too. I mean, I guess as much as I've worked in like the corporate world now at companies like Twitter, I feel like what I've done is there's a big difference between so many of the people that I see that are just like, you know, working eight to eight and checking emails on their, you know, phone as they go to bed because they have to because their boss is going to, you know, be pissed off if they don't or fire. They're worried about getting fired. And I've always tried to kind of create this always on retirement type approach, right? And I'm not doing everything that I want to do all day, every day yet. But I've never had the type of jobs where I wasn't able to work out because my boss expected me to be on a plane and traveling around the country at a moment's notice or, you know, that I had to, you know, get up at six o'clock and work till eight o'clock at night because a project was due for the company. Like I've always had this work life balance that I made sure the balance part came before the work part, right? And the life part came before the work part. And I think that's been a huge success. And I think also just managing like what you need to be happy, right? Like, I don't have any debt. I don't, you know, I don't use and put a lot of money on credit cards. And if I do, I pay them, you know, immediately and everything. And I don't, you know, I have a house that has rental units attached to it. So the rental units basically pay for the house and things like that. And, you know, I think having that freedom and flexibility to any day that you want, just say like, I'm done working, like I can walk away from Meister, I can walk away from Lifted View, I can walk away from Twitter at any day and like totally just go on living the same life, right? Whereas I feel like so many people that make even a lot more money than me, they have so much stuff that they've accumulated and they have a golf course membership and a boat and they have a house and they have, you know, a nice car and like they need $20,000 a month just to pay their bills, right? And when you need $20,000 a month to pay your bills, that means you need a job that makes $500,000 because you have a wife and two kids and all those bills, right? And I never wanted to be in that type of situation where I felt stuck, right? Where I had to work to pay for the stuff.

And I just find for me that's that like ability to have freedom, like even if I'm at work for a day and it's not the best day at work for whatever reason, it never feels like the end of the world and I never feel like I'm stuck here because I can always go to that thing that I really want to do. And, you know, it won't be too much longer until I transition out of work. And, you know, concentrate on growing guardian gym from a single location to something that revolutionizes the world, hopefully in martial arts and, you know, something that, you know, if I just don't understand if we're successful in Oakland, why we can't take the same model of free martial arts to everywhere in the country and everywhere around the world. So I see a much bigger vision there and like someday that will probably be my sole focus. So I see two, I heard two main things in that. I heard a lot of stuff, but I heard two main things that I thought were really important. One is you seem to have a high degree of engagement, but you're not attached to the things that you're doing.

So being able to walk away. So this is hugely, hugely important because that you don't want to have the things you get own you and your circumstances own you. That's the same thing. That touches all the second concept, which to me has become very, very clear in how it's benefited in my life, which is space, the concept of space, having the flexibility and time to operate, not constantly being bumped up against something being drained on time and focus, which is, I have a question for you because I've noticed it's helped with me. I just got this thing called the muse. It's a muse. It's this headband that sits around your neck, your forehead and goes behind your ears and it monitors your brain activity when you're meditating. I'm a notorious, I don't meditate, right? I work with people in the field who tell the benefits of meditation. I've seen the direct impact in myself and others how great it is, but for some reason it never really connected with me. So I got this thing and now I'm meditating every day because I need the feedback. I see it and it works. What I notice when I'm meditating consistently and I've noticed this before is internally I have a higher degree of space and that internal space created is totally transformative. It really allows you to approach things in life in a different way. Do you meditate? No. It's very interesting. It's a very interesting process. I think I would put it like this. I got the Fitbit and the Muse thing at the same time. Meditation is like martial arts for your brain, for your mind, for your state. It really, it's something that was so hard for me to do and I'm not going to be good at it forever and I don't want to doubt be like it's a panacea for anything, but the sense of space that I think you're tapping into and how you approach your life is something that's akin to the sense of space that can come from meditation or psychedelics or micro-dosing or anything. I want to end this because I want to get you on again and next time you're around or if I'm ever out there we should definitely get together. That would be awesome. That would be really fun. So how about this?

For anyone who's listening, can you give a couple or few practical tips that have helped you in your life, kind of in your life? Practical, down-to-earth, regular stuff. Man, I'm sure I could think of some better stuff with a little bit more time, but I mean a couple of things that come to my mind are I've rarely found any happy people in life that don't have a passion and when someone says like what are you looking for in a significant other, for example, I always say like they don't have to have or share my passion or passions, but they have to be passionate about something and I feel like if your passion is just watching, you know, reality TV or checking out Facebook all day and you don't have, you know, your jiu-jitsu or your meditation or your yoga or your, you know, I mean there's a million piano, making music, like everybody has, should probably have or find what their passion is in life and, you know, I was really lucky that I found jiu-jitsu in boxing and that kind of became the cornerstone for my passion, something that I try to do every single day or five or six days a week at least and I think finding your passion, especially if you can combine it maybe with like a something that does both the physical and mental component for you, that's why something like yoga, I think is so powerful, I think you have a much better chance to be a happy person and be able to block all that stuff out and then I think the other thing is just realizing that no one has it figured out and you just have to start things like I've met and become friends with some of the most influential people in Silicon Valley and, you know, these people that are revered on Twitter, right, they're revered and by TechCrunch and they're the smartest people. No, no, not so much. They're just people that have the same problems and they're figuring it out as they go through life and they sold a company and got lucky at one point or they got the right job at the right time and, you know, obviously a lot of people are super smart, way smarter than me and, you know, in many aspects of the world but not smarter in the sense that they have it figured out, right? Like very few people have like this secret sauce to life and my partner Joel, when I came to the gym, it was so special because I had this idea for a gym and I wanted to do it but the truth is without him taking the first step and actually like filing the 501(c)(3) paperwork and, you know, paying $10,000 to a designer to start working on logos and doing all that stuff, I'd probably be sitting here talking to you today about how I work with Meister and how I have an idea that we should start a non-profit martial arts gym someday instead of I have a great space with kids coming in that I could show you I have a gym and that it's working and I owe him a lot of credit because he really showed me that the best ideas are ones that you actually start and the best businesses are ones that you actually start and it sounds so simple but like so many kids that I talked to today are like looking for that secret sauce like Ben can you give me the 10-step process to be successful? I really want a Tesla, can you tell me how to get there and it's like you got to just start and we all make a crazy amount of mistakes and no one has it figured out so I don't know I would say live within your means, find your passion and you know stop thinking that everyone is smarter than you and has it figured out you know listen to them but then you know do do what you're passionate about wow for off the cuff you did a fucking good job so congratulations amen thank you so much for doing this I've really got glad we got a chance to connect here yeah I enjoy talking with you you have a great energy and and I hope we can link up next time back on the east coast and you're always welcome to stay out here with me if you need a place when you come out to the bay area appreciate it man cool cool yeah so but after the music people thank you again for listening past music and/or being lazy and not turning it off or you could listen past music and be lazy too right they're not mutually exclusive but thank you for real reminder if you want that book I mentioned in the intro tribal leadership by Dave Logan John King and Haley Fisher Wright um and I'm not I don't have like a this is just because I like the book and I don't get nothing for this um but uh if you want that book remember sync podcast.com that's sync podcast.com it's like in sync the band but no in or that asterisk just the sync um if you want that just go there on the right on the posts there's little things that says hey join the synchronous synchronicity that's not a thing if you join the synchronicity community um you'll again it'll be very clear about what that is and what you're signing up for that automatically enters you in the drawing to get that book and then what happens is is when you win I reach out to you and I say hey you won uh but if you go to sync podcast.com and you enter your email to join the synchronicity community you're automatically entered to win um and that's it that's that simple um so thank you as always or for the first time if this is your first time listening thank you um oh and let me point out that this contest for this tribal leadership giveaway is march 23rd the contest will be over march 28th and I'm going to announce the winner march 29th and if this is way in the future this is the year 2016 welcome future people um but that's it thank you for listening as always uh rate and review on iTunes and Stitcher or anywhere else and I will see you next week