Ep. 23 - Marijuana and More with Davis Clayton Kiyo

[Music] Welcome to episode 23 of Synchronicity. My guest today is co-founder of Meister, Davis Clayton Keough. If you remember, last week, I had Ben Kovacs on who's the other co-founder of Meister. Meister is a marijuana lifestyle and accessory company. It's just check it out, getmeister.com. I'm going to have links to all this on the podcast page. How do you get to the podcast page? There's two ways. One is through synchpodcast.com, S-Y-N-C, podcast.com. Boom, we'll be the first thing there, first podcast. Super easy to find. Also, you can go to minepodnetwork.com/noah, and the first episode will also be there.

So that's two places you can go to potentially check it out. Also, on the podcast episode itself, I have links in there too, so you don't even have to go anywhere. So basically, if you want to find out more about anything I'm talking about, I'm trying to make it as easy as possible. So before I get into Davis, I want to recap last week's book giveaway, which was, what did I give away last week? Tribal leadership, right? And who won that? Let's see here. Renee, congratulations, Renee. So I hope you enjoy the book that I'll be sending that out today. This week's book giveaway, if you don't know what I'm talking about, I will tell you.

But this week's book giveaway is by Carl Jung Man and His Symbols, one of my favorite books of all time. Admittedly, also one of the densest books, it's probably one of the least dense Carl Jung books. It's also not exclusively written by him. There's other takes on it from some of his disciples and people he taught, but I love it. It gives a fantastic introduction/general overview with some specificity about Carl Jung's kind of ideas relating to archetypes, symbols, so many other fucking awesome stuff, Carl Jung. The podcast is named Synchronicity because of Carl Jung. So that's this week's book giveaway.

Again, all you do to enter this, it's really easy, syncpodcast.com, S-Y-N-C, podcast.com. On the right side, at the bottom of every post, there's going to be something that says, "Hey, you want to join the Synchronicity podcast?" But put in your email, and what that means is you'll be getting weekly, not daily, weekly updates on the show, weekly updates about the guests, and cool stuff, like being entered in book giveaways, where if you just put in your email, you have a random shot of when in that week's book and I send it to you. Brand new book, it's not like I'm reading these used books and sending them to, although that would be cool too, it's just more of a hassle for me to go to the post office wherever I just send it from Amazon right to your door.

So if you want to partake in those, there you go. That's all you have to do. I'm going to start talking about this lesson less as time goes on. This isn't really as much of a promotional thing here as I just want to create something cool. I feel like if I listen to a podcast and someone's like, "Hey, I really like this book," and I like that person, I'd be like, "Ah, I would like that book," and I'm just trying to eliminate one of those steps, plus trying to give you some info at the same time. So I'm looking at it as win-win. So Davis, this was an in-person podcast, right? I've spoken about this before, and I was actually having a conversation about this with Michael Donovan, who has his own podcast, Walking Home, which I highly recommend you check out.

And he was saying, "Listen, Noah, you shouldn't do the Skype podcast. They're not as good." And I don't necessarily agree that they're not as good, but I do know what he's talking about. And what he's talking about is just kind of, there's something to be said when you're in physical space, sharing physical space with someone, and the dynamic and the alchemy that kind of comes out of that. So I have noticed this myself. The in-person podcast seemed to be a little bit different qualitatively, not better necessarily, but definitely different in a way that I actually enjoy more, so maybe better for me.

But this was an in-person podcast, and I think you'll hear some of that kind of come out, what I'm talking about in this particular episode. So Davis is a really interesting guy, and we talk about a lot of different stuff. We're both from the Washington, D.C. area. Also, right off the bat, you'll hear him. Davis talks about his parents are Donald Trump supporters. He himself is a Bernie Sanders supporter, so that was fascinating to me, and hearing him talk about it and kind of, you know, he gets to ask his parents, like, "Why do you support Donald Trump?" That would be an amazing opportunity for insight and learning. In general, we talk about bringing more awareness into our lives, right, trying to learn more about other people and other things, which then allows you to potentially engage with it in a more beneficial way.

Maybe not so judgy, I think is what kind of came out of that little piece. We talk about the pros and cons of marijuana use. I'll be honest, most of the things we speak about are pros, but we absolutely acknowledge the shadow side to marijuana as well. Also, Davis acts as he asks me about, you know, how would you hack the voter system? And it was like a novel concept, and I was debating the merits of even trying to do something like that logistically, but I didn't have a great answer for him then, but I feel like a thought occurred to me as I was taking a walk the other day and was seeing political science. Like, why don't all of the Democrats, like the DNC, all of this could apply for either party, but if you're a democratic leadership, what I would say is, "Hey, guys, who like us and are inclined to vote for us," for all the primaries, register as the opposite party.

So if you're a Democrat, register is Republican. If you're a Republican, register is Democrat. I mean, this is getting pretty chaotic here, but follow my logic. If you register for a party you disagree with on almost everything, you can -- if enough people did this, you could influence the results of those primaries. So you could pick someone -- I don't know. I mean, it seems like it would be Donald Trump, but I have no fucking idea what's going on there. I have some idea, but I haven't really totally figured out because to me to be able to pull the trigger on someone like Donald Trump, I don't know.

But what I'm saying is, if you got everyone from your party, your constituents, to join the primaries -- because in general, you can still vote for whoever you want, right? There's no law that says if you're a registered Democrat or a registered Republican, you can't vote for the other people. That would be illegal. So you can do whatever you want. Yeah, sure. Maybe we get weird emails and mail from stuff you don't really care about, but still. That, to me, is an interesting concept. So I'm encouraging everyone to do that for the next election cycle. Register with whatever party you don't like for the primaries and just try to know who the really just totally people who are not going to win.

I recognize the inherent danger of what if that person is so bad and then they actually win because you did it. But I feel like it is enough people. Like, if enough people did this, this is a potentially interesting thing people could do. But I'm obviously half-joking about that. What are some other things me and Davis talked about? I'm going to wrap it up. I'm not trying to ramble on here. But we talk about he is of the opinion that everything is theoretically knowable and it's a very empirical science-based, like things that we describe as magic are just stuff we don't understand yet. Which is there's a famous quote of someone, I forget who it is, who is like, you know, if people saw technology from 100 years in the future, they would think that's magic. That would be magic to them.

So we talk a little bit about that, talk a little bit about spirituality. We talk about he talks about an experience that was relayed to him by a friend's father, a near-death experience, which kind of put a different or an interesting color on how he views death and reality. And he also just talks about a general open-mindedness and we kind of close on changing reality with your thoughts, which to me is, I don't mean that necessarily in an esoteric kind of, you know, nebulous way. I really do believe that there is an interplay between what goes on in our psyches and in our heads and outside in reality and not in the way that like, hey, I'm going to pick up this later.

And that is a thought that is influencing reality. I think actually changing things in another kind of more subtle way. I believe in that. So we kind of close on that. Is that it? I think that's it, right? I don't think you guys want to hear me ramble on too much. That's the second time I've used ramble on. I'm now very self-conscious of it. But yeah, that's all I got. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to everyone who is rating and reviewing. I know I harp on that. I think I've mentioned this in every episode. I don't, you know, I was thinking, like, why am I asking people to do this? And I want to get to meta or self-analytical here.

I just kind of say it feels really, I love reading when people say nice and thoughtful things about me. Is that narcissistic? Probably, but I bet you do too, right? No one doesn't ever want to hear something nice about themselves. So I really appreciate those of you who have taken the time to do that. It means a lot. That's it. Now it's officially it. Without further ado, Davis Clayton. What were you just talking about? That was super. Oh, yeah. Politics. Yeah. So what were you saying about Bernie Sanders, though? I mean, dude, of course, of course, I'm super into Bernie, right? Just like you were saying you're into Bernie. It's disappointing to me when I mentioned it to you that you just completely think it's not possible he's going to win.

Yeah. And all things since the last time I was having a conversation about this on a podcast, Bernie Sanders hadn't won Michigan yet. But the, I think we were talking about, you were saying, like, how do you hack the vote system, right? Not in a legal way, but like, just hack the engagement and get like, how do you basically, how do you pay people to vote without being able to vote and then I say with like something, you know, like, like, I was like, they do that. Bernie Sanders campaign is doing that really, really well. And he's getting a ton, so many individual people donating, like, not huge amounts, like realistic amounts, like something you and I were donating.

But then I was like, yeah, but you have one guy on any side who's like a billionaire, and it's like, here's $200 million, like that kind of defeat. And that's, I think, kind of how everyone feels, which is ironic because that's how... Why do they even need money? That's a good question. But like, dude, the way that the internet it is now, right? Like, it can't, it's not expensive to campaign in a lot of ways, other than actually winning the nomination, right? So, I mean, winning the democratic nomination. The question, I guess, is what makes someone vote. And I'm realizing in myself, it's when someone says something or seems to be a way that resonates with that person, and that's very vague.

But it's clearly some connection that is made maybe through policy choices, but I don't think that's what it is. I was giving the example of I have a relative who's incredibly smart, incredibly smart. She's so smart, and she was saying that she was voting for Hillary, essentially, because if a woman was elected president, that would be representative 100% of the people. And it really made me stop and thank, and I was like, holy shit, you know what? That's like a very valid point, regardless of my personal feelings or political feelings about Hillary Clinton. But it also gave me a pause, because she's incredibly smart, and I just fundamentally disagree, and I think Bernie speaks more to what I'm saying.

So, I guess when you're talking about hacking it, is how do you get people to resonate with a certain thing? But even back to, like, somebody being so smart being into, like, something that you are surprised at, I said this a couple times, but my parent, both of my parents, like I love them, they're also very smart, but they are Trump supporters, man. It blows my mind. You know, it's like, I can't, you know, I can't believe it, man. Like, it's like a mind fuck to me in a lot of ways that they actually are into him. But what do they say about? Of course, the classic shit, like he says what he means, and dude, he's very entertaining, and he's really likable.

Like, I like him in a lot of ways. Yes, I understand that aspect. And I would be lying if I haven't put on the debates, like I would put on, like, a sports game and be like, yeah, nice hit. I saw I get that. The Republican debates have been, like, straight up. The last one was entertaining. The last one was boring. Well, yeah, I didn't even watch the last one, but two months before. Oh, crazy. When he's talking about his dick, like, openly. It's amazing. Oh, well, see, that's the entertainment value of it. So the question is, uh-oh, we got a whiny dog. Macio. Don't ruin it. She's holding on. There's a he or she.

He's a he, but he acts like a she sometimes, which is, you know, he's in a drawing. You know, he's in arogynous, coddled only child at this point. Literally, as you know, he has a brother going. He's cool. He's cool. Yeah, so to the politics, so we were talking about what would motivate or make someone resonate. I mean, then it becomes a question is, like, obviously a lot of people like Donald Trump or Ted Cruz because of kind of what it seems like they stand for, you know, and some of that could just be, like, speaking their mind, speaking what they believe in. But I think also another, like, why do your parents?

That's a great, why do your parents like Trump? I mean, I haven't gotten really deep into the conversation with them because it's like, just, I just kind of throw my hands up, truthfully. I haven't really, like, asked them completely, but they just, I mean, they Republicans all together. They've always been Republicans. They've been, they were like, they love Bush. I mean, they still love, you know, love. So it's just support whoever is leading in that party or? Yeah, I feel like that. Yeah. I mean, dude, there's just, there's a big disconnect. Like, it's funny, you know, my family, I've got three younger sisters.

Yeah. Like, you know, we're all, my three younger sisters, like, we're all potheads. We all are Democrats or liberal in a lot of ways, especially socially. And like, it's always been a thing. Like, you know, my parents, both still, you know, straight up don't think that gays should have marriage rights. You know, like, that's, that's, it's, I don't, I can't understand that. Why do you think that is, though? Do you think it, do they know, like, I was reading something or listening to something? Well, it was, I forget what it was, but it was basically saying. That the reason that people are capable of disliking or not believing in other people's like, kind of basic stuff, like getting married, like, it's not a big deal.

Really? I mean, who cares if someone else wants to do that? And of course, everyone should have the right to do that. Sure, sure. Of course. But, you know, when you don't know a lot of people, like, if you knew zero black people, right, if you know zero, and like, friendly, like, you're not a guy you see on the street, but like, someone you're, who's, you interact with, or your friends with, or a girl. It's easy to be like, oh, well, black people are like this, you know, or anybody. Anyone is like this. So the more you get to know people in general, the more you realize that you're fundamentally the same.

That's the point that I brought up with them multiple times. Like, you don't, you just haven't hung out with a cool gay person. Right. Right. And, and, you know, I remember it happening to me. Like, you know, I grew, they're my parents. Right. Of course. I remember thinking in my mind, like, gay shouldn't be able to get married. Right. So I grew up with them, my parents, you know, and then I remember, like, going out and meetings, like, in high school, having gay friends and like, I'm like, that's just, you just realize quickly, this stupid is hell to be that way. So that's interesting. So you made the transition.

That's a valuable thing to go through in life. Any type of transition like that, because it's huge. And I think that, that aspect of mine, like, that capability of being malleable and seeing things in a different way. Also, I imagine for you, what did it feel like when you didn't think that gay people should be married? Like, was it like, just the viewpoint or was it like, how did that feel? I mean, dude, it's funny. It's like, this is almost something like taboo to admit. Yeah. Right. I mean, I was, but I was young. I'm like, you know, before high school, middle school type shit. Yeah. And it's more important that you made the transition.

Yeah. And, and, you know, to be clear now, I, I really feel that like a, one of the main signs of intelligence is the, the ability to like, just totally realize that you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. That is. So like, I'm totally wrong all the time and realize that I'm, that I am. And that's like, exciting and awesome, right? So that's it. This is a situation right now. But, um, I remember thinking, I remember thinking, I guess my parents had got me kind of convinced in the fact like they shouldn't raise children. Right. I remember thinking that like, because it's weird and like, I mean, this is great.

I shouldn't even be saying this, but I get it. But, but I remember thinking that was like the excuse for why they, they shouldn't be able to get married. But that was the rationale. Yeah. Um, but it's just so dumb. Like, what does it make sense? And it's, it's when you hear like people who are like in like deep, deep religious cults, you know, like in Utah who are like polygamists and all this other stuff when they come out, they're like, they're like, how could you believe and like, why, because they're voluntarily there sometimes like there's, there's not like someone forcibly keeping them in at all times.

They're like, well, this is how the world was and like, why didn't you question this? It didn't make sense. Oh, I remember where I got there from Sean Dunn. Um, the, a podcast he did with the, the Mime from cam girls, one of his movies, um, she was in like a very deep religious type cult thing and she's like, there was, she's incredibly intelligent. You'll hear if you listen to that podcast, I'll have a link to it, but, uh, incredibly intelligent, but she's like, it logically, it's stacked up until you started questioning it. Yeah. Um, including myself, like I'm not always questioning everything at every single point at a certain point, there's kind of a meshing of intuition with it.

But if you're constantly being told something, and this is the way the world is, or this is how these people are like, most people don't have a filter to be like, no, I don't think so from jump, like some people do, like there's some things that strike you, but that's interesting. Um, that's really interesting. I think this is really important to talk about too, because, um, I'm sure there's millions of people, just like you who are raised in cultures or with parents or anything who just don't, doesn't make them bad. They're your parents. You know that better than anyone. Of course. But they're not evil.

They're not, you know, they're not bad people. They just, they just have a different opinion. So that gives you a particularly unique, um, take on maybe what I'm seeing with a lot of Donald Trump supporters is like, it's so easy to demonize Trump people at this point. Like they're basically calling Trump Hitler and, um, it's fascism and there's Nazis and Bernie Sanders things, you know, there's people getting arguments about who's right and who's wrong. And it's very polarized. It's like hyper polarized. Uh, what? That's what it is, man. Yeah. It's a, it's a, like, like I said this before, uh, when, let's say you're lost in the woods with a bunch of people, right?

And, and one guy is like, dude, well, the stars are like this and maybe we should go this way or like, you know, you're like, uh, well, this, like the sun went that way and he's like trying to figure it out. And he's like wavering back and forth. And then other guys like, no, no, no, it's this way, like, knows which way it is, right? Even though he has no idea what the fuck I'm talking about, that dude is easier to follow. And like, you know, and, and, and portray, like, people are just like, okay, you know, he's confident as shit. He knows where the fuck he's going. We're going to follow him. Like, and that might, that's kind of like Obama, a lot, in a lot of ways, I think Obama's problem was that he is always weighing every situation and everybody's opinion, especially it was.

Yeah. It comes off like, not confident, not masculine, not even intelligent in a lot of ways. Like, I mean, that's, that's a crazy way to like, so this is interesting. This is your masculine and feminine have qualities that are hyper sexualized, at least in our culture, right? That they immediately conjure, you know, members of an up sex sex, like, you know, males, guys and girls, women and men, um, but there's qualities that pertain to each of them. Um, that I think in balance are very, very useful, but when out of balance in either direction are very, very kind of crazy. And I think culturally what we're experiencing, um, is, I don't know if it's the last vestiges, but kind of the end of what has been almost a 2000, 3000, maybe longer period of kind of the masculine energies outweighing the feminine, like, look good in religions, all the big Abrahamic religions, feminine, femininity, women have been suppressed or still suppressed all over the world.

Um, you know, and that's still a reality, but slowly in other places like here, they're gaining, you know, in momentum. So what I like to do with this, and this is a good segue for what you do as a business is I think, and I've said this before, I do think marijuana, since it's the female part of the plant, um, is a rebalancing. And one of the qualities that can potentially be so upon consciousness and work with is a receptivity and an open mindedness and a compassion that has been lacking. So I'm interested to hear your thoughts on marijuana. And then maybe you could talk a little bit about, and we had your business partner Ben Kovacs on an earlier podcast, um, my star.

So if you could talk a little bit about marijuana and its impact on your life. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm like super in love with marijuana, like I've like, I've always loved it. I remember the first time that I actually got high. I mean, it took many times to get high. The first time I got high, I was just like, excuse me, I was like, you know, this is it. I love this. I was just so comfortable and so into it. And you know, I almost, you know, I was like 13 and I've almost smoked basically on a daily basis since then I quit a couple times for like a month, maybe, um, but yeah, and I have like a super, I mean, I also have like a hatred sometimes of marijuana, cause I sometimes, there's negatives and positives to it, but like sometimes I'm like feeling like I'm too dependent on it and like, um, you know, you got to be willing to admit that like there is some type of addiction there.

Absolutely. Because you know, it's enjoyable. Anything you're regularly using on a daily basis, um, is should always be examined for addiction. But on the whole, it's been, it's been great. And like, you know, for me, uh, you know, I got, I just was always into weed and like very open with it in high school, known as the guy that like was the weed dude or whatever. Um, and you know, I got into it and then, you know, after high school, I got actually indicted by the federal government for conspiracy to smuggle a hundred pounds from Canada in the Montana, uh, when I was like 21 years old. And, uh, that was like a crazy huge nightmare.

It was like, you know, I was facing 10 years. It was like 10 years ago, 12 years ago, marijuana was different. You know, like it was that you could really get seven years, eight years for that type of shit. Yeah. Um, or you know, at least a couple of years, whatever. Now it's like really hard for people to go to jail for a long time, but, um, basically I got caught up in this whole thing, long story short, like spent a shitload of money, got the case completely dropped, like no probation, nothing completely dropped. Great. Awesome. It was awesome. Like my life almost got ruined right there and there was 41 people involved with this thing.

There's thousands like this. This happens to thousands of people. Like people have nice families, have kids, they sell some weed to their friends and they get caught up in a conspiracy and then they get taken away to a box for years. Yeah. That it was just, you really, if you step back and think about it, especially because I believe cannabis is actually good for you. Yes. It's one, there's medicinal qualities that are proven at this point. For sure. There's no arguing with it, there are positive, there are a shitload of positives. There's negatives too, but there's positives and I think the positives weigh out number that is.

Yes. Absolutely. Um, but feeling that way and when you step back and think like that for, to people grow, people grow this plant that helps people and give it to people and make money and also like, and then you're throwing people in a box and like ruining their lives and their family's lives and like this whole system around it, it's a really fucked up thing. Like it made me realize a long time ago that this isn't just like, this is a huge catastrophic mistake. The prohibition of marijuana is a catastrophic mistake and it is literally like shaped this whole jail culture and this whole intuition.

It's been the foundation of which it's been mass incarceration and for-profit prisons have been built upon, um, and I, I had been, it's expunged off my record now, but I was arrested, um, on upstate Maryland for possession, very small amount of joint, um, and it wasn't the worst experience, um, but I saw because, uh, you know, I had access to good lawyers that it wasn't a big deal for me, but if I didn't, that would have been a problem. And if I didn't look the way I looked and I had dreadlocks and everyone wanted me to cut them off and I was like, nah, I'm like, I'm like an asshole, like I'm like an idiot.

Like truthfully, like because like this guy actually holds your fate in your hands. But um, truthfully, it's, uh, it is fucked up and it is a huge cultural problem outside of whatever mystical, uh, financial, other things. Like this has really been kind of a fucked up pillar upon which our society is built on now. So yeah. It's, I mean, this is a, it's a statement also, but it's literally the worst mistakes in slavery. Like it really, I can't think of a worse mistake as like a culture, like that's a really weird thing to say in a lot of ways, but there's other things women, women, women not being able to vote.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's a worse thing. I'm, there's, it's one of the worst, it's, it's, it's, we don't have to rank the things. There's a lot of others. Probably. I don't know about it too. We don't know about, but definitely, uh, it's fucked up and it's really bad. And for me, it's one of the biggest issues that I can see. I think so. Yeah. Continue though. Continue. Um, all right. So yeah. So, uh, that's, I guess I got kind of into my relation, but it made, made me realize, and then, you know, I was still really in the marijuana. I was an entrepreneur, but I wasn't in the marijuana game or anything like that.

It was, I opened an eBay consignment store, um, and then I turned it into a shipping center. And, um, that was like six, seven years of my life. Uh, and then I had this idea for, uh, a magnetic rolling tray, right? So we, we came out with that. It's called the stash tray, right? It's magnetic rolling tray. It's got everything you need in one place, blah, blah, blah, but that like started the whole thing. I had this stoner idea to, to make, uh, we're looking at the stash chain. Yeah. I think it will. Um, and then I, so what we did is like, I got an engineer, I made a bunch of prototypes. We went through the whole design process and got the finished like final prototype, made a cool video.

Uh, did an indiegogo. You helped out with that. I appreciate that. Yeah. Uh, it was, you know, successful. We, we funded the production of that and it made me realize, you know, there's a huge market. There's a huge space in this market for high end luxury, like well designed, uh, modern cannabis accessories. Um, I just didn't see anything like that yet. There was no like, and super functional, um, and the, the tray goes in a book cover too. Yeah. So it's like easy to put away. Kind of hide it, hide away for spouses or people who like to keep things organized and clean is a very functional use of it.

It's just nice to have like a spot where you know, I'm not, I'm not intentionally pitching the product. I just know that it's actually like there's real thought behind this stuff. Um, but to me, it also just fits into kind of normalizing out of the term cannabis culture is a little too zingy for me, but like people who enjoy smoking or ingesting or partaking in cannabis and whatever those effects might be for that person, whether medicinal consciousness related, not, um, I think that it's normalizing those types of people that they can be functional. Um, and like really bring a lot to the world too.

Yeah. I mean, that was, that was, that was really the, the, like statement behind it is that we wanted to be high end. We wanted to be kind of the opposite of what you see behind the marijuana, you know, which is a lot, I mean, you know, it's a lot of hippiness to it. A lot of like, you know, which is fine, but a lot of times, you know, I'm from DC, we're from DC. It's a very snobby here. It's all about like the way you dress, who you know, all this shit. And it's like, it's a really snobby culture. And so we kind of, I, I just see the space there. Like I know I have a lot of doctors that are customers, lawyers, psychologists, like very, this is for, you know, people that, that have money that enjoy cannabis and there's a shit load of people.

Yeah, I think it's also, I wouldn't even say that you need to have money for this stuff. I think it's just an investment for, if you're a regular or ritualistic smoker, this stuff could actually help you. But I'm not going to sell the product anymore, you don't want to talk about it. No, I, no, it is, it, I'm going to have a link to it, obviously, if there's no doubt about it. And I'm in no way saying I don't want to talk about it. Appreciate it. It is. But basically, that's what sparked the whole Meister, Meister high-end accessory. So right, so then we started with just a line of multiple different products.

We have a dryer vaporizer, we've got a vaporizer, it looks like a pen, blah, blah, blah. We've got like 27 different products right now. So that was the whole idea is a whole luxury line, you know, a lifestyle brand. And but what I'm saying is part of the movement and part of the idea was like we want to take this out of the shadows. We want you to be proud of your cannabis use and also like show it off instead of it being like a secret thing. And you know, it's what I've always been, you know, felt very strongly about it because of what happened with me, the indictment and things like that. But now also the second legal situation that's happened to me and Meister has also made it just like even more important and make a lot more sense behind like why things need to change.

Like so let me, let me get back to that. I mean, whoever's listening to this doesn't know about what happened. But so Meister, we have two stores. We had a retail store in Petworth in Washington, DC. We used to have a retail store in Bethesda, Maryland right outside of Washington, DC. And we were selling, you know, Meister products and glass as like a boutique smoke shop, right? And we were selling CBD oil out of out of the store, right? And just non psychoactive. Yeah. So to be clear, like CBD oil is made from hemp, right? And it's, you know, extracted from hemp and it really like it doesn't get you high.

It helps with seizures and anxiety, PTSD, cravings, correct. And you know, I have the documentation, we were getting it labeled and remade from a company in California, not California, Colorado, that has a USDA certified organics certification for their hemp. I have the whole all the backup to show that it's legal, right? So you know, I was referencing the federal law to like when I did the research before we started selling it, I checked the federal law. It's legal. I checked Maryland law, marijuana statute, right? And it's legal. I didn't check the control danger of substance acts, right? So what happened was Montgomery County police sent in an undercover, purchased the, the CBD oil, took it back to a lab, tested it, it came up positive for THC because all CBD oil contains a minute amount of THC, especially when you extract it from, from the hemp, it increases the amount of everything, right?

It's like more concentrated. So they didn't test the percentage or anything like that. It's like it's positive with THC, they're selling oil. So they like basically treated it as if we were selling wax, you know, like, like super concentrated weed oil, right? So they got a search warrant and they came in, they raided the shop, they took all of our inventory, took all of our cash for deposits, detained me and my two employees, took away our business license, impounded my employees car, impounded my employees' laptops, their cell phones, froze or not froze, drained both of our business accounts, like literally went and showed up and took a check out, made out to Montgomery County police for the balance of our business accounts.

Yeah, did the same with my personal opinion? Is that legal? Yeah, it's legal, man. Is it seizure? It's a whole seizure thing. And the truth is, it's about to change, like especially in Maryland, there's a bunch of bills, like, and there's one bill that just passed, like limits it a lot. Yeah, it's really crazy. Like they literally, they literally came and robbed us, I mean, that's really what it comes down to. Yeah, praise, cover, inception, rob it. They just came and robbed us, you know, instead of, you know, that's the thing like I see under, let me explain too, under the Control Nature Substance Act, it goes, it's like applies to bath salts and synthetic marijuana and all these other things.

And it also says that you can't sell any oil that contains THC, right? So in a lot of ways, that contradicts the marijuana statute that says hemp oil is legal and the federal one that says hemp oil, yeah, I mean, it's debatable. But in my opinion, in my lawyer's opinion, there needs to be a clarification, like there literally needs to be a change in this law, especially in Maryland. Well, especially if the intent, I mean, it's one thing, like, to me, and it's, I imagine there's less percentage wise alcohol, I mean, THC in CBD oil extract, then there is alcohol in something like listerine. So my, my point is, is that like, it's pretty, like the intent isn't, you know, people can go and drink listerine if they want to get kind of drunk.

It's incredibly unhealthy. And if you're an alcoholic, you may do that, but like, it's, you're not going to do that with CBD. Well, this, even the CBD, I mean, every single package has a batch number and a full-on report. Like this had a little bit under 3% THC in it, right? Like we know how much was in it is there. So that's what's debatable. Like Montgomery County feels that it's illegal and I broke the law. And then, you know, I don't feel that way. So, so it's an interesting situation right now. They actually, they dropped the two, I forget to, I forgot to mention, they charged me with three felonies.

They charged my two employees, one with two felonies and another with a misdemeanor possession charge. They dropped the felony charges on one of my employees the other day. And they're, I assume, going to drop the misdemeanor charge on the other employee. That's just like a different schedule in the courts. But they did not drop mine, right? They are straight up going to pursue these charges for me, which, you know, has a five-year possibility sentence. I mean, there's no way that that's going to happen. I mean, I think my lawyer and me, I'm just under the opinion, like it's just no way I could get jail time for this right now.

I mean, if I could, that's crazy. Yeah. But we're going to fight it. I'm like literally ready to fight it, not only because I want to get that store open and like I want to start making, you know, it's really hurt me, you know, like it hurt Meister altogether. Absolutely. It took a lot of income out of our pockets. It took a lot of inventory. We had just, of course, like a week before we had literally just like restocked the store with like, we had, you know, just an immense amount of inventory in there. Well, now the Montgomery County Police Department has a lot of height. Yeah. Very well. Right.

God, man. It's so frustrating. But at the same time, like, you know, it really hasn't, well, for a little while, I was like super down about it and like, you know, really fucking frustrated and angry and stressed. Of course. Yeah. But now I'm kind of turning around where I'm all, you know, I have, I'm very good at turning things like in my own mind into a positive, but this is, this is legitimate. There's going to be some positive from this. Right. I mean, first off, we're going to get press. Like, I'm already got a lot of avenues that are interviewing and I'm going to get a lot of good press out of it.

And second off, I think, I think that we can win and if not, we can at least like cause enough of a ruckus that it change, it actually makes Annapolis like the Senate change one of these things. They're going to decide that they're going to change it to clarify that I was totally breaking the law or that I wasn't. And what's great is what's trending right now, not only throughout the world, but, but especially in Montgomery County, Maryland, what's trending is no big. No, don't fuck with weed anymore, you know, like, just leave it alone. This is, we've already got, you know, to be, to be, you know, to be clear about what's going on in Maryland, they, medical marijuana is legal.

Yep. They are going to have 98 dispensaries in Maryland within months or at least licenses. That's a lot, 15 grow operations. And there's a recreational bill right now in Annapolis that's got some steam, you know, like to actually legalize recreational. So basically the positive there is that the trend in policy in this area is going in my favor or in Meister's favor. So we'll see what happens. I mean, basically if the right now we're waiting for the state's attorney to come back with an offer and if the offer involves not being able to open the store again or Me having to plead guilty to a felony, we're going to trial.

Yeah. You know, it doesn't. Well, I mean, I think from a change standpoint, this could be pretty important because as you're saying, well, let's tie two things together. The thing we opened with and this, I mean, there's a bill like you said in the Maryland Senate. Yeah. Introduced by David Moon. So we'll have a link to this on the site on the page too. But you know, how to get, how do we get things like that? Do you just call your local representative? Like how do we, how do we enact those things? I feel like at least in Montgomery County, just from moving, I, you know, I'd been living in Manhattan for the previous seven years, moved here in June of 2015 and since being here, there's a good deal of people around my age, young families, a lot of young families, a lot of people who grew up who in my estimation from the demographics, I think, well, they're pretty, whether they smoke marijuana and just marijuana or just, they're pretty much cool with it.

Sure. You know, they're not, they're not hard line. No, it's horrible. It's the devil's weed. Get away from me. Yeah. So it seems like naturally, if everyone did have like a button they could push right away and everyone did it same times, it would pass, right? That's kind of the general pervasive attitude. But Maryland is also a pretty diverse state. Yeah. So what do you think, like, how do we get people to kind of galvanize for a larger mobilization effort for that? Man. See, I don't know, man. I would ask you that question. Yeah. And it needs to be hacked in some way. And like, yeah. I mean, this is even like a bigger, larger picture is that I don't even, I don't really, I don't even really know how the law, like what you do to even get that law, the bill passed.

I think people vote on it. Yeah. So you probably have to put pressure on people. On delegates to vote. On delegates. Yeah. To vote. I mean, I think that's pretty much how you do it. Like, you have to know that you're constituents, the people you're representing are being heard. So if you get enough people to, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's people like me should be, from what I understand, it's going down there and testifying, which I am planning on going down and testifying just about what happened with this. Sure. Like, it's, it's, um, they just need to know what's going on and I'm, but that, from what I understand, because I actually have two friends that work there, like a chief of staff or somebody and another person that's, you know, helping and, and, uh, they're, they're just like, look, everybody here is like, for we basically, you know, except for a couple people.

Yeah. You know, so, so it's, what do you think the moral, um, you know, disagreements or objections is the word I was looking for against cannabis and marijuana are like, cause those are, it's kind of like at this point, you know, I don't know of a legitimate one. I can't, like your parents, are they cool? No, they're, they're cool with it. I mean, they don't like really. I mean, that's a funny thing too, is that like, you know, I'm, that because they know someone who now they were super, like when I got indicted, it was like a whole, especially on the family level and social level, like in a huge embarrassment for them, you know, and that's bullshit that it has to be that way.

But, you know, so that was like crazy to see that's a funny part of my story is basically like I was the, the, you know, the weed guy in a negative way. And now that myster is like successful and has respect and is like big in the industry around the world, now I'm like the weed guy in a positive way to my parents, like they literally are proud of it. Yes. And it's cool. Um, it's just interesting that took 10 years to happen, but it's happening very fast. Like where that's just like a, it shows like a little microcosm of the change in people's opinions. Yeah. It is a, it is, it is interesting. I think all of this is centering kind of around normalizing certain aspects and different things to people.

Yeah. I'm hoping. What's, what's, oh, I'm sorry. No, no. What's a legitimate argument for the continued prohibition of cannabis? Um, that a legitimate one. This is hard because I'm obviously a big proponent of making it legal. Um, I guess one of them, I mean, I'm the literally the worst person. Yeah. I mean, because I have to, you just ask me, I kind of threw back the same kind of question you know, I can't think of, I'm trying to think of a hypothetical reason why someone wouldn't like, well, maybe they think that it creates in the general population lazy behavior or people can't handle it. And I will say this.

That's true. Yeah. I will say this. Um, I know a lot of people who smoke weed in various different ways. Some of them very irregularly. Some of them regularly. And some people can function very well and it can help them. And it can be any number of things in a positive way, but, and it can also be a negative thing for a lot of those people too. But then I know some people like they can't, they cannot, that, that is bad for them. You can see for whatever reason, whether it makes them anxious or tired or they don't want to do whatever it is, um, it's not. So maybe that children who now see something as akin to cigarettes, which, you know, technically you're not supposed to smoke till 18, but come on, high school, middle school, kids are smoking cigarettes, guys, so, um, I think making it so normalized, like almost more normalized than alcohol in a lot of ways because alcohol, it's clear, like don't drink and drive.

Like you can't do this as well. So don't do it. Marijuana is a funny little line there. Um, you know, some people will say when they smoke weed that they're better drivers. If anything, they go too slow. They're too cautious. So the thing is, is it's a little, it's a murky area, which the public and general people who don't understand something are going to have a difficult time with, right? It's like not like easy. Oh, okay. Cut and dry. Some people like I smoked weed once and I freaked the fuck out. And that's what everyone's doing. They're just crazy people. There's, that's one thing too about like the first time you get high.

I mean, the first time I got high, it was like psychedelic. I saw, I had visuals. I got visuals, you know, from, and I remember and gravity was all fucked up. And so for people that like only smoke a couple times, they're like, whoa, like I can't imagine driving. Or, you know, functioning, working during the day, but, um, but there is, there is no question that there's negatives, negatives to a man. Like I know, I know, you know, I've said it before, like the positives outweigh the negatives for me, but there's definitely like a motivation and organizational thing, a memory thing for sure, man.

Like that you're, it fucks with your short term memory, like, at least for me, at least for me. Yeah. Dream, like I don't, when I... Dream is the present. Big time dream. It's so true, and that's what, when you quit for a couple of days, that's the first thing I noticed, man. Oh, yeah. They fly back. Yeah. Oh my God. There's a whole other world here. Yeah. And then there's the, I mean, really, and even for me, especially recently, like the munchies aspect has really been... So Ben mentioned too. Yeah, man. It's like... I wonder if the munchies sometimes also, there's two aspects of the munchies.

One is I think a lot of people think the food or whatever you're eating just tastes really good. Yeah. And then there's also the craving. I think the craving is just exacerbated. I think the craving is already there, but when you smoke marijuana and just marijuana, it just accentuates it, so you act on it more. There's... Because I think the munchies are just akin to something like emotional eating, like stress eating. There's something... I don't want to sound dumb, but like there's something about THC, I've heard, I've read this somewhere, that shuts off the sensor that tells you you're full, basically, or like that your stomach is full.

I really, I remember reading that somewhere legitimate. Yeah. That would make a lot of sense, right? Because I know I've been full and smoked weed, and then I'm hungry. For sure. For sure. But, yeah, man, it's still, it's been... I mean, what's funny to me, man, when you just said, we're talking about legitimate reasons for the prohibition, if you were really to step back and choose, if you had to choose between having legal recreational alcohol or legal recreational marijuana, it would have to be marijuana, like alcohol is so much more dangerous, it's so crazy. But it's not. It's not even close.

I mean, we're totally in agreement, but I'm just saying, it's not even a question that in society today, if you tried to take away people's, if you tried to do a prohibition with booze... Oh, yeah, no way. Over to... No, it's not happening. I'm not proposing that we do that. Of course, my point is, is that I think we may be saying that it's like maybe an education thing, but I don't know how you go in about convincing people who have been taught their whole lives and have never met anyone who is capable or enjoys marijuana as also productive, or maybe people know that, but it's still under the table.

Like, gay people still had to be in the closet up in this country up until fairly recently in recorded history. That's... I mean, bringing it back. When you're making an argument to somebody that doesn't agree that gay should have the right to be married, right? It's very similar. Like, look, fine, if you think it's religious, wrong, or you think it's gross, whatever, but you just don't have a right to tell people what they can't do like that. And that applies to smoking marijuana. Like, it's... Well, this is like, what about psychedelics? Where does that fall in the spectrum for you? I mean, personally, I think it should be totally illegal.

I mean, I really... I think all drugs should be illegal. Heroine, too. Yeah. Yeah. I really do, man. Now, we at least have... We can hypothetically imagine what someone's argument would be. What about the cultural ramifications of legalizing all drugs in a society as large as the United States? I mean, there could be potential... I mean... You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. There's no question. I mean, I don't know. I just don't like the idea of choosing a line. Choosing a line? Like, oh. This is good. Well, it's very libertarian. It's libertarian. But this is not okay. Like, I feel like... I see...

And here's the thing. What... And I think Oxycontin and I think Opioids are one of the biggest scourges of the earth. Not like something like Opium, but I think like the painkillers, the scientifically engineered thing. Watch "Oxyanna" by Sean Dunn again. Watch that. I mean, it is like... It's devastating communities. It's a problem, huh? I mean, I think... I forget where it falls and percentage-wise. It's an astoundingly large percentage of young people dying of drug overdoses in the past 10 years. Like, really creepily high. So that to me. I mean, you've compared that to something like marijuana, cannabis, and it's like a no-brainer.

But then that means that there's something else going on, right? And that something else could just be as simple as the dichotomy of like the political thing, right? Like, well, Bernie Sanders, you know, people see the corporations in Wall Street having fucked everyone over and all these things and they agree with that. And then there's people on the Republican side, Cruz, Ruby, I mean, they all agree with this in Trump and most of the ways, too, that, you know, those aren't the issues. The issues are as illegal immigrants and all these other things, you know, Planned Parenthood, all this other stuff.

So is it... How do you convince people or how does the culture kind of shift its mindset? To me, it was a natural proliferation. I think it's more people smoke marijuana or ingest marijuana. And the more people know people who do it or do it themselves in some way and realize it's maybe not the worst thing in the world, it changes. But then I think there's that other step of when does it actually reach the tipping point and it's like, okay, now it's legal in every state, now we have an economy and it's... And I think, I mean, imagine the economic potential boons that could happen from this that could be used for educational initiatives, any number of things.

Right now, the US, we grow the best weed, man, in the world. It's like, you know, Germans make great beer. We grow the best weed. Don't I know it. And like straight up start exporting it to countries that want to legalize it too. I mean, that's even more far-fetched, but like, it's going to... I think it's going to be there one day. I mean, I definitely... What's your problem? What do you think in terms of time frame? I mean, it's totally a gas, man, but I would like to think that within five years we're going to be federally, recreationally legal. I know that's crazy, but I would like to think that, man.

I think that the way that communication is so open and issues are moving so fast and changing so fast based on like the way that we can, you know, example, like, when... Remember, when Obama was like about to bomb Syria and everybody was just like, no, dude. Don't do that. Like, that is a crazy example of how the internet and like the free communication and the level of like the effectiveness of communication. I mean, though, that was a direct cause and effect, though, doing... It could have been some... I mean, it was just like a whole opinion of everybody was just... He got on... No. He got up and said he was going to do it, right?

Yeah. Like, they crossed the line, then I said, and now I'm going to do it. And then everybody was like, no, right? I don't remember exactly what happened, but it's just an example of how things are moving so fast because... Well, no, that's technology, right? That's... If nothing else, technology has enabled light speed, literally communication between, you know, people and thoughts and ideas, how... So your question had to hack these things, right? It reduces... Technology reduces the effectiveness of propaganda, right? Like, you can't even get away with... It would probably... Oh, I guess you would.

So here's the thing about technology that I think is my take on it at this point is... I think it's inherently neutral. I think as most things in this world, intent and intention have a lot to do with how things are used. And that is ultimately what will proliferate not only on the internet, but also just in your immediate world, whatever's going on around you, what you know, like what you think is what you become and what happens around you. Like, that's how it works and, you know, if you can tap into that, you can really enact some change in a lot of different ways, but technology definitely allows that.

So let me ask you kind of shifting gears a little bit. Sure. Do you consider yourself, and I know this is somewhat vague and purposely so, do you consider yourself like a spiritual person or someone who has spiritual, you know, resonances with anything? I wouldn't consider myself necessarily spiritual, but I consider myself like believing a lot in science. I'll put behind it like, I don't think, I don't believe in magic. I don't believe in like mythical spiritual in that way. I love it. I believe that it's all, I mean, I believe that it is magic to us, but we just don't understand the science behind it, right?

So like everything, religion, afterlife, whatever happens to you when you die, vibes, you know, there's laws dictating, and we just have, we're just way, way too stupid to understand it at all. But I don't think there's anything magical about it, you know, like very, very, it's like a very, I totally get that. And I think there's a lot of elements of Buddhism, I think you would really like. Yeah. I mean, that's how I got, that's how I got to that point, truthfully, I went, you know, I went to Thailand for like eight weeks and wrote around temples and met with Buddhists. Oh, Thai Buddhists, yeah, and like very cool.

And really talked through it because Buddhism was always the one religion that I saw being somewhat logical, you know, that I actually was like, maybe this is on to something. Like I was raised Catholic Sunday school, you know, all into that and I get it and I'm not, you know, I don't think the Catholic church is evil or whatever, or maybe in some ways, maybe it is, but that's horrible to say. But like, I don't think it's evil or I think it's a great thing. Yeah. It's a great, no, truthfully, it's, it's good. All together. It's great. Right. There's like the whole pedophile situation. That sucks.

Whatever. I'm getting off on a tangent, but I don't believe it. I don't believe in the Bible, you know, as a literal thing, it doesn't make sense to me. Like it doesn't, it, it, it sounds like stories that were made up over, you know, I mean, I'm not saying things didn't happen, I totally get it, you're not offending me and I, I, I hope I'm not offending anybody. I don't think you're offending listeners by saying that. But truthfully, whatever, if you're offended, that doesn't, like what, that's, that's crazy. Like, you have to be open-minded like that. So what maybe believes, I mean, I don't know word for word.

I mean, my conception of the Bible and here's the truth, here's the, the flat honest truth. I've never read the Bible cover to cover. I've read things about it. I've read breakdowns. I've read aspects of it and parts of it. Sure. I've read the whole thing, even the Old Testament, I've never read the whole thing. I'm Jewish, should have some idea, but you can look at them in a bunch of different ways. You can look at them as kind of allegories or metaphors for things that we encounter in life. You can also realize that a lot of these things were definitely written by people, whether they come from the direct word of God or whatever people want to say, that's another question, but they, people wrote these down and when people write things down, they sometimes things can get lost in translation and also just from experiencing things, like peak experiences, if anyone's in psychedelics, trying to translate that into words sometimes, not so easy.

So there could be some non-literal things that are taking place, but I think, you know, I look at stories like the Ramayana, which I know is the wrong pronunciation of it, but the Hindu epic, it's a him, one of the foundational, you know, scriptures of Vedic, you know, the Vedas and it's very important for Hindus. And there's a lot of stories there. I do believe those things exist, not in this world. I don't think that, I think the imaginary worlds, the dream worlds, other dimensions of consciousness are equally as valid as the one we're in. I agree that the scientific model or empirical model could potentially explain almost everything that happens in the universe.

But I think it's also explained simply by kind of the law of karma, which is the very chunked down version of it, cause and effect. But that's, I got off on a tangent about it, about racism, but, you know, Buddhism, that's where I got lost in Buddhism, like I was really, when I started reading into it, and then I started reading some of the, like, laws or I don't know what they're called rules or I don't remember truth, it's truth. And it was like, if you're this, if you're this percentage in light, and this happens, and then they got into all these, like, crazy details, like, no, you don't know that, like, nobody knows that, you know, like, it's, yeah, there's a lot of lists, and then there's a lot of different types of Buddhism, and there's a lot of different, you know, interpretations and lists.

Buddhists have, you know, famously lists on lists, on lists and subsets, but it is very much open. The Dalai Lama, like famously says, if science proves any aspect of, you know, what we believe wrong will change it, like, and he says that tongue in cheek, though, he says that knowing that, like, the inner exploration that people have been doing at least in the Buddhist tradition is Tibetan Buddhism, they, they kind of, they, they know things that maybe other people don't know by directly physically observing. So the question is this, I guess, I don't know if I probably do believe in magic, but only because there's like a, who said it?

There's like a famous saying that, like, people, technology a hundred years in the future would look like magic to us now, right? That's like another of saying on things. And that, that could be very true. If you took like, you know, to inflate that a little bit, if you took like an iPhone back, you know, 600 years, you're a witch, you're like, you're a witch, bye-bye, like, you're getting, you're getting burned at the stake. So I get that aspect of it, but I do think there are things that we don't experience through a regular filter of consciousness that are equally as valid, and in some ways may actually even dictate more of what goes on around us than what we consciously perceive, which makes us and puts us in a kind of precarious position of, you know, well, what, when do we know what to believe?

How do we know this is valid? Because there's examples, I think, in everyone's lives, like, I think there was one report, I forget what it is, but it was like 75% of people or 80% of people reported like mystical experiences, like things that they could not account for in regular Newtonian physics or even now, like, the emergent fields of quantum physics, which is still, like, quantum physics is still physics. That's, yeah. I mean, that's what, like, everything that you're saying, I basically agree with, it's just, like, the over-encompassing thing behind it is that it's all science and quantum physics that we don't understand, and my opinion, even karma, you know, like, like, all this stuff is, yeah, that's the only difference we have in opinion is that I think it's more scientific.

So what? You think there's a possibility for more of that? Different properties kind of come to be in your conception, you know, this isn't, like, a right or wrong answer, so I just, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I like, especially, yeah, like, that's the first thing I admit, thinking in those stuff and then saying, you know, that's, that, that open-mindedness is a famous Zen thing. I think it was Suzuki Roshi, or was it Ajahn, someone, name's not important, but it was don't know mind. Yeah, yeah. Don't know mind. Yeah. Beginner's mind is Suzuki Roshi. Beginner's mind. Totally like a child sees the world.

Not presuming anything, so that's good, that's a good quality to have. Yeah, like, what made me get there kind of? Yeah, like how, what, I mean, there must be, yeah. The trip, like, where, where, when I started looking into it and I saw the specifics, yeah, sure. The specifics, that's what I don't like. I don't like when, when religion tells you something that's so specific, yeah, that it's just like, dude, nobody knows that, that, that, that makes, that like discounts everything. So that's where I kind of got lost in like the, the full on Buddhist side of it, but, but I still just think that that's, I think that the truth, like karma totally exists.

I think reincarnation is definitely possible, and I think that like, I don't discount that at all, but it's also, it's also possible you just die or I'll shut off, but, you know, it's, it's, I mean, actually, let me tell you the story, this is an interesting story. Okay. All right. All right. So my friend's father, a really good friend of mine in middle school, was like basically like my second father. He's definitely like a mentor in a lot of ways, like I hung out there a lot, whatever, became real close. And he, he was in a, he had like a grenade blow up, he jumped on a grenade, right? And he, in a, in a war, right, jumped on a grenade and he died for a little while, right?

And I would used to always bug him about that and be like, yo, what happened when you died? And one time he told me, he was like, look, and he got like a real serious about it, you know, like, and he was like, look, like don't, you know, I don't know what your parents like, don't tell your parents this, like I don't, it's, it changes things. It's like different about religion, blah, blah, blah. And what he said was this, right? He, everything went black, he floated towards the cliche light, right? He became a part of the light, right? He was everywhere at once. He felt the most comfortable he had ever felt, he knew everything and knew everyone, right?

And time didn't exist. Yeah. And then he came back, right? And that's like basically like what I word for word remember, I know he added a lot of other things, like, like the feeling, he drew a, a stick figure on a piece of paper. And then he said, like, he like took it and like cut it out and folded it up, right? So make it like 3D or pop up. Sure. Pop up book. And he was like, look, like this is what it felt like I was coming from the stick figure and going and becoming the 3D pop up, like into another dimension you don't understand, right? So that was like, that, that happens to him. I fucking really believe him.

I really try. I really trusted him. Yeah. I still trust him, you know, like, and, and like also I just, I trust him enough to like, why would you ever tell somebody that if it wasn't fucking true. Exactly. And it could be, it could be a hallucin, it could be DMT, it could be fucking DMT. Sure. Being released in your brain when you die. And then that's it. Yeah. So. It doesn't say anything really, but I believe that's what happens. I do. So that is a common shared experience from near death experiences and also in Buddhism, they talk, I believe that's referred to that white light is the clear light of awareness.

And if you can recognize it, and this is why I love Tibetan Buddhism because they really do break it down, but it's not, it doesn't have to be so like nerdy or it doesn't have to rub you the wrong way. And one way of engaging with Buddhism and all their lists and stuff is A, you know, reading and investigating stuff that seems to make sense to you on some level and also taking it with kind of a grain of salt. If it's not resonating, you don't have to be like, Oh, well, these people. But they talk about Tibetan Buddhism being able to recognize that clear light and you get many actually opportunities to do it before you reincarnate into cyclic existence, which is what they believe the human world is one element of that.

And that's a very, very training essentially what people do and they train for their lives in many different ways is to be able to recognize that light and understand what it is and not actually take future birth or if they are going to take a future birth, take what's known as the Bodhisattva's vow, which is to reincarnate for the benefit of other people. You'll stave off your enlightenment, the merging with that and whatever that is to the Buddha realms, whatever it is for the benefit of all other sentient beings, which is part of the Bodhisattva's vow. But it's interesting that these things kind of line up a lot.

And to me, that's why I always I'm fascinated in some particular paths to it, but I'm more interested how everything kind of lines up like the fact that you can have some guy who's in the war, jump on a grenade, die, have a very similar experience to what's been written down for tens of thousands of years, thousands of years, at least, is pretty remarkable to me. And I think I also try to cultivate this skill you're talking about, which is not thinking I know everything, you know, and that is really been very useful. I've become especially the last like 10 years, I've become really like way more open to possibilities Why?

It's just a feeling, dude, I'm starting to like, I mean, do you, I really like legitimately believe I can change things with my thoughts, you know, like, like, and I like the secret kind of stuff like what they talk about, like, I think that there is something to that. So what do you think that is? That's the inner play of psyche and matter, I've talked about that a lot on this. I have a book right there. It's one of the most interesting things to me that's the same thing I don't understand and I think that like, I have no idea, but I don't think it's mad, I still don't think it's magic, but there's something like something about it like and it's not magic in that sense.

I totally get it. But that's what, that's what really started to open my mind to like, when I started to believe that, that idea that you can change things with your thoughts by thinking positively and manifesting things. And I also, I like waiver between like thinking how crazy that can be, like what you can do, but I've like, you know, I, I, it's hard for me to concentrate and hard for me to get certain things done, but I know that like, when I want something to happen, it fucking happens. Like it's happening, you know, like, and, and, and so whether that's magic or whatever, but that like opened my mind to, you know, and then also the double slit experiment.

Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite experiences. Totally. Like, I was like, all right, like, we have no fucking clue what's going on. Just a little entire paradigm of what physics is, the, the double slit is the, the principle essentially that emerged from there is that by observing a light go through a double slit, it could emerge as either a particle or a wave, depending on what the observer was looking for. Dependent. No, depending if it was being observed, right? Observed, right. Like if you were looking at it, it would do something. If you were filming it, it would do something. But if nobody was looking at it or wasn't being filmed, it would do something different.

Yeah. It basically shows that there's the quantum indeterminacy, which is there's, we don't exactly know what's happening at a very small level. It means the protons. Plank levels. Yeah. Basically. What's fascinating to me on the quantum, if you want to take it to another little weird place is that the plank level, right, one one thousandth of an inch is what is being defined as quantum. Right. That's what quantum. That's what they're observing. It's below one one thousandth of an inch. That's where all this weird shit starts to happen. That is the gap in between our neural synapses, where neurotransmitters are.

So that's like where everything is being quantumly into, you know what I mean? That's the quantum world. We live in this big world, us gigantic people, compared to the quantum things, but our consciousness or in our brains at least is actually being functioning on a quantum level, which is pretty nuts. And I think does support the interplay of psyche and matter. I guess magic is you're defining it as something that you don't understand, that we don't understand so it looks magical to us. Magic is what's a broad word, but I mean it can mean anything from ritual magic, so trying to do exactly what you're talking about, like spells and things like that, incantations, even alchemy.

What people want into it is, you know, it is doing these ritualistic behaviors and, you know, whether to gods or to energies or to whatever, to enact change in the world. Think of simple, simple, super simple example, rain dance, Native American rain dance, right? Shouldn't necessarily have anything to do with anything if you're doing a dance, should it rain, but you know what, that's a, we wiped those people out, not we, but this civilization that lives here now wiped out the Native Americans and they had a lot to offer. The Lakota were incredibly wise, you know, south, just so I think what's interesting now is with technology and people, I am looking for the fundamental balancing of the technological revolution and where we're going there, but also remembering there's a whole aspect of the world that we can't technologically influence just by virtue of technology.

Maybe we will, maybe the singularity happens, maybe we merge and robots are the new form of consciousness that's predominant and they teach us the way, like many, who knows. But I do think there's so many things we don't understand about the world we live in and what we perceive that it's important to try to investigate, that's what this podcast basically is, this touching on it here kind of in the end, but that's essentially what we're trying to figure out collectively is, you know, what the fuck is going on and, you know, what are people's different perspectives because that's, yeah. You mentioned technology, of course, right?

Yeah. I personally am like super, especially recently, like the last six months, super overwhelmed and stressed by the constant communication that I'm stuck with all the time, right? It's becoming like a, just like a, a downer, basically, like that I, yeah, it's a time suck. Yeah. And it's not like a popularity thing. I guess I'm an entrepreneur, like whatever, I just like, I have so many communications and so, basically, like so many notifications, like constantly all day, that it's starting to, starting to fucking drain on me, man, you know, and I feel like it's happening to a lot of people, you know, like.

You know, like, priorities in life, I mean, there's a lot of ways to do a lot of different things in the world. Running a business and scaling up a business can potentially create an influx of information. However, I mean, there's simple things, you know, that people like Tim Ferriss, right? Yeah, yeah. Or that stuff, gating your time, automating a lot of things that are still allowing it to be personal, but still, you know, prioritizing things. I got to reread. It's good. I mean, I, I took a few concepts out of there. But I really was the biggest key takeaway, and I think what he tapped into with the Four Out Work Week, which was great, which is this idea of kind of cultivating the type of life that you want to have.

And whatever those priorities are, is setting those as kind of the goal and then shaping everything around that. In terms of the sheer amount of information, just make sure you're doing other stuff, you know what I mean? Like, make sure you have other outlets and things to do. It's an issue with me, like, I have, I'm starting to admit now, like, my addiction to social media altogether, right? I straight up, I straight up have an addiction to social media. And for me, it's like super hard because I post something on Instagram, like a really good video. Yeah. And then I see the sales come in. Right.

So it's like, there's a reason. It's like, there's a reason. I have a right to be addicted to it. It's fucking exciting and it's cool, but it can't just rule your life. And a lot of ways, like, I mean, you can delegate things and all this stuff, but, um, that's, you're going over, shadow that delegating is very important. That's what I got to do. I literally, I have to give up social media for my company, at least, actually. As someone who works with a lot of clients doing social media for the day-to-day management and strategy for, you know, two plus years, um, the day I delegated the majority of that work and now almost all of it, um, I said to the odd thing here and there, my life really, that's one of the most interesting, I, I can't wait for someone to do a study on social media managers over the past 10 years or 15 years in a couple of years, um, because you, people don't realize the coil, the umbilical cord that exists between managing accounts and really understanding them, not doing a half-ass job, but really understanding like the analytics and understanding why things are being done and how that kind of ties you to a machine.

Maybe you're not at a cubicle, but you got to be by a screen to be able to do stuff and analyze things. So that though, I think we're developing, and I'm seeing this just in the by virtue of my work, there are systems that you can actually put in place now that allow people to use, allow yourselves, businesses to use social media organically, um, and not have it be a time suck, not have it be something that, um, is truthfully like overwhelming them just by virtue of having to do it. Um, but I think, you know, one of the first things that's important if you, if you're feeling overwhelmed by something is the concept of space and creating space for yourself.

This is kind of a classic mindfulness meditation concept that, you know, by observing your thoughts and making time to kind of sit down and not even observing them, but just trying to sit and focus on your breath, you realize, hey, how many thoughts you're having right off the bat, which most people is very overwhelming for a lot of people. Um, but also over time, you get to see that you don't have to react to every thought you have. You don't have to pursue every thought. There's a lot of space in between, which can be beneficial in any number of ways, but especially in the professional world, um, that concept of space is really important because you're not as effective if you're stressed out and if you're overwhelmed, if you had time to easily brainstorm or think of strategy sessions and do the stuff that really motivates and energizes you, then, um, you're going to be doing a better job for everyone you want.

I just, dude, I just got to start turning my phone off for a couple hours a day. Like even right now, just having the phone off. You have push notifications for your email. Oh, no, no, no. Turn that off. Turn that off. Just turn it off. But, uh, yeah, make yourself at least do it so you can see how often you do it, but turn it off. Don't get notifications. Just you only go when you go to, to, to open up your email and get shit done. And yeah, even if you sit there with it open all day, if you do a good job, you don't even need filters because people won't hit you up to do stuff because you're handling what you want to be handling and what you need to handle and you've set that up.

Your business won't crumble. You have, like, a successful business, you know, someone else is posting an Instagram link. They're going to generate. I wonder what's going to like, you know, the way that we communicate has evolved so quickly and such like, um, you know, there's so many different ways, like there's so many outlets, so many social media outlets and tax message and phone calls and voicemails and video calls and blah, blah, blah. It's like, I wonder what's going to be the, the next revolution of communication. I feel like it's probably going to be something in VR, but I think it's still people.

That's the important thing to remember, whatever tool we use to communicate, no matter how transcended it is in terms of visual or whatever, um, it's still just people. And that's the stuff that works from the people who are doing email lists to the people who are getting on the phone and the people going out and talking to people. Like, it's still people like this to bring it back to the first thing we're talking about. That's why I think people vote for certain candidates is because they represent someone who like is like them and or at least represents what they believe in. So that's, how do we, how do we use our thoughts to make people vote?

Oh, that's a good question. That's a great question. I think the first, the question there would be is why would you want to even do that? And I guess the obvious answer would be, well, because we know that this is going to be better. But I think that when it comes to all social action, including political action, the best thing you can do, in my experience, it could be wrong, is start with yourself. Yeah. Um, there's a classic example of someone who's on my iPod network, this podcast network, Rhombas, he says, like, if you've ever gone to a peace rally and noticed how many angry people there are, just like, screaming, peace, peace, peace.

And he's like, that is one way to do it. But if you, and you should, of course, engage in social activism, but if you don't have your own shit straight first, what are you bringing to the world? Yeah. What are you maybe not consciously? Like if we talk about how much we don't know, then we have to be open to the possibility that we're bringing so much stuff. This is also a Carl Jung thing. He talks about the shadow and projection, it's a Freudian thing too, you know, you're projecting. But people commonly believe that their shadow side, the stuff about themselves, that, you know, they may not like or they maybe think are bad or society, whatever it is, people have a very good, you know, proficient at projecting that out to other people.

Oh, well, that person is like that. These people are like that. That's just a common thing that's happened. And you can see in politics how people can kind of, oh, we got them now. But I think that's, that's a really important thing is rather than trying to influence other people's mindset or what they're even voting for is just start with yourself because it's a practical doable thing and you'd be surprised if you use your mind thought changing stuff on yourself, you can then maybe even do some real big change like that. And that's, I think how people do it truthfully. I think that's how people like Martin Luther King, like I think that's what he did.

I think like he understood some essence, some universal essence of what was going on and focused and galvanized and created a system like a tribe initially that sprouted because it made sense and he was represented of it as a whole. So I think anyone can do that truthfully. I do. I definitely believe that. All right. So we're, we're going to end it now, but we'll definitely have you on again. This is awesome. There's so many other things we didn't get to talk about, but uh, what about so I'm going to ask you the last question I asked every guest, which is what are some practical tips or things that have helped you in your life?

Like this could be something you do or something or whatever, just what has helped you in your life kind of, you know, helped, like, um, God man, I should, I should have thought about this before. That's what it says. But it's okay. You don't have to. You know, man, I mean, it's like, I really, like I'm, I'm a very creative person. I'm like really, and I'm also super distracted. Right. Um, just recently I've realized the importance of exercising and that's ridiculous that it's taking me this long, but like just recently, especially with like yoga and a little bit of cardio, like right now, like today I did it, like I'm realizing now that anytime I have to do anything where I want to like speak well or represent myself positively, I need to work out, especially because of my like crazy, crazy, um, creative and like distracted and fast moving mine, it slows me down and allows me to like be a little bit more level headed.

Um, so I just like, I, that just, especially because it's happened to me recently, that's the first thing that came to mind or at least the, the, that's a good one. Um, and the problem is I've known that for a long time. I've just like now realized the importance of it because I'm getting old. Yeah. Well, I think that's something that does it from the physical side for a lot of people. I totally agree. I started taking walks, uh, like about a month and a half ago, like long, vigorous walks with my dog. And it's great. It's just great. It gets energy out, getting your heart rate going can just really, I totally agree.

That's a good one. That's a good one. Um, and then I mean, you know, really on, uh, on like the other side, it's, it's, uh, I want, I guess it's not even like a tip, but like basically I always have this like mantra and I've been saying it recently, like I, I want people to create more stuff instead of like, the, the, and this isn't even like a tip on how to do your life, but I think people should not be scared to put themselves out there like that. And not so many people that I'm friends with like constantly are, you know, Facebook, that's what Facebook about is about, is about sharing somebody else, somebody else created like they constantly, like I want personally, I want to create way more than I consume that becomes content or anything like, I think it's really important to not just listen to hip hop to make hip hop, like not just watch movies, but to make movies, you know, you could, you also believe what's implicit in that is that people are capable of doing it.

A lot of people don't think that they're capable of creating things. Period. Yeah. I got it. It's wrong. You might estimation. No, of course. Even if it sucks, but it's just like super enjoyable to really like that's, you know, the best part of creating something. I mean, you know, this, you make music and stuff, right? Right. Like you make something and then you like listen back to it or you like see people's reaction to it and it's like, it's fucking cool. There's something, there's something really behind it. And that's like, that would be just the advice. It's not like a tip. Really, it's just like if you're, if you're scared, like just do it.

Just do it. Just do it, man. All right. So your, your tip is Nike. Basically. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Right. I mean, I'm almost like saying that to myself because I'm like frustrated with like, you know, every time I put myself out there, you know, I'm happy with the results. Yeah. Like, you know, self-doubt and also I think like we, this is one of the negative. We does call self-doubt, but like the self-doubt of like, wait a minute. I don't want to do this because I'm going to look stupid. I don't want to do this because this blah, blah, blah, just pull the fucking trigger. Nobody cares. Even if you are stupid, nobody gives a shit.

The worst is going to happen is no one's going to pay any attention and you shouldn't feel bad because I can tell you just being doing digital marketing and strategy. Like, it's hard to get heard if you don't know how to do that. We did. We did. I know we're supposed to end, but let me just. Yeah. Yeah. Bigfoot sighting video for my son, right? I saw that. Stupid as hell. It's so dumb. I mean, it was embarrassing. And that was the type of thing. Like, we made it and then I waited like three months, I was like, I don't even want to put this out. This is a mad dump. But then I put it out. It's been the most effective video, any video we've ever made, right?

And it's the same deal. Like, you have to, you just got to put yourself out there, man, and like really pursue your ideas, man. Like, I guess I kind of, I can be a good example of that because I've like had a crazy idea and made it work. Yeah. Successful company. And it was really like, there's no secret other than just getting to it and like putting yourself out there and not being scared about what people are going to say or the haters. The haters. The haters. The crescendo haters. The cliche were the haters, but you just don't worry about that shit, man. Just go hard. Yeah, man. Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on.

This has been really, really great. Thanks for having me, man. Really enjoy it. Cool. Thank you. Thank you for coming to Sony. Enjoy the show. That was like a movie thing. They did it. The movies. Was it Sony? Was it Lowe's? I don't know, but I liked it. And it always stuck in my head. So now I do it sometimes. That was a good episode. Right? I enjoyed it. I hope you did too. I assume if you're listening at this point in hearing this, you must have not hated it. So yeah, next, I did FYI. I've recorded this week alone for five podcasts. So I have a huge kind of backlog of guests. So stay tuned. Some really, really, really, really, really cool and interesting people coming up who I think you people will all enjoy.

Enjoy. Talking is not so great today. But thank you again for listening and I'll see you next week. Polymarket is proud to be the world's top choice to trade football. You mean soccer? Right. Soccer. Polymarket is proud to be the world's top choice to trade soccer. Know the game better than the market? You can earn cash trading on tournament and game outcomes, golds, assists, saves, corners and much, much more. Download the Polymarket app and use code free50 to unlock $50 free for your first trade. Trading not available in all jurisdictions. Check local regulations before trading. Restrictions and eligibility apply.