Money, Obsession and Forging Your Own Path

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This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity. (dramatic music) (upbeat music)

Welcome to synchronicity and welcome to 2018. I know we've been here for a little bit, but this is the first time we're connecting. Well, some of us, I'm sure. I've spoken to some of you in the interim, maybe on the Discord channel, Crypto Sync. What am I talking about? There is a new Discord group messaging app channel for synchronicity, crypto, all of those lovely things. You can find the information. Where can you find the information? Oh, you have to join the email list. I'm going to be adding as part of the automation sequence that goes there, an intro to the list. If you want to get in before then, send me an email, Noah@synchpodcast.com, and I will send you a personal invite.

It's getting pretty cool. We're doing a lot of stuff in there. I'd like not to rehash everything that's going on with crypto, but it's weird. It's kind of like not talking about Donald Trump right after the election. Like you can do it. You can pretend that didn't happen, but it did. And if you did pretend, you'd probably just kind of not be engaging with reality or some aspect of reality. So today, I know I promised last episode that I had some exciting guests coming up, and I do, I really do. It's not even, it wasn't a lie. But this week with the holidays and everything else, this is again going to be a solo.

So if you don't like hearing my voice, first of all, why are you listening to this podcast? That doesn't make any sense. But if you don't want to hear a solo episode, don't worry, next week we are back. I have a wonderful guest scheduled. I am really excited to introduce you to him, and I have some other things coming up. So what I'm going to do in this episode is kind of a recap of where we're at, what's going on right now, and also an intro into something that's coming later this month related to synchronicity that I'm very, very excited about, and partnering with just an incredible group of people, many of whom you know already, many of whom you know, no, that's not right, many of who you know.

It's just a shit sentence, however you slice it, who or whom? (laughs) So let's do a little recap. (mumbles) I could have just put in a sound effect, but I'm going to go with making weird sounds with my mouth. So the past month and a half, we have been leading up to the new year, there have been tremendous transitions for a lot of us, we just had a lovely super moon the other day, fellow Cancerians, I'm sure you felt that one pretty big. I was about to say bigly, I was actually about to use the word bigly there, and I didn't. Okay, so the past month and a half, you've heard me talk about cryptocurrency nonstop, but I wanted to talk about something that I don't, I think when we talk about money and some of the problems that money can bring up or dredge up, we like to pin all the blame on money or currency or just value or whatever, but what I really think happens a lot is there are trust issues that money reveals, right?

There are privacy issues, and I don't mean like, oh, I want to keep my payments secret. I mean that, you know, even in relationships, you know, if you're in a relationship with someone in share bank account or share funds and expenses, you know, both people want to know what's going on, and while I'm partially referencing what's been going on with me in Alexis, and I'm happy to say she is now on the crypto train full board, what it really happens is with money is it can bring out just kind of these sensitivities or versions that we have to certain things. One of those is feeling like we're being taken advantage of.

One of those can be feeling like we don't know what's going on in confusion. It can be a very uncomfortable kind of state of mind for all of us at any point, even not related to money, right? If you just don't know what's going on in your position where you think you should know what's going on, no one really likes to be there. Paradoxically, that's something Ajahn Chah referred to, famous Buddhist teacher. He referred to it as don't know mind, and this is actually also referred to as beginner's mind, and this is a state of childlike curiosity. When you don't know something you're not upset or scared by it or confused and frightened, it's an opportunity to look at something with fresh eyes, to look at it with like a childlike's wonder, which is an important state of mind.

I mean, that's how all of us grow up typically, and whether that's stamped out or encouraged can really make a big difference in someone's development. So my point is this. One of the things that has emerged in the past month and a half is this, I've been obsessed with this cryptocurrency, and I have to continuously check my behavior. You heard me mention this in the Ethan Nickturn podcast from a few weeks ago. I've brought it up. I think on every subsequent episode, it's an obsession. And if you don't care about cryptocurrency, you don't even have to look at this through the lens of cryptocurrency.

This could be any obsessive behavior that you notice in yourself. Smoking cigarettes, playing video games, anything. Alcohol, whatever it is, any behavior that you notice yourself just engaging with gambling. And it doesn't have to be even necessarily such a hyperbolic bad one, right? It could just be something like you find yourself doing it, checking your phone, right? Here we go. That's something everyone can relate to at this point, checking your phone obsessively. You kind of catch yourself sometimes doing it. And you're like, what? And then you still do it sometimes. What is up with that?

Anyway, what I want to point out here is, when you have these types of repetitive patterns that you kind of know, the still small voice in your head is saying, hey, what's going on? These are great opportunities to figure out what is really going on here? Why? Why are we checking our phones constantly? Why am I looking at crypto markets and the trading of cryptocurrencies constantly? And these questions don't necessarily end up with us saying there's no reason for this. There's no real fundamental particular need that I'm fulfilling by doing this. Why I shouldn't do it, that's not always what happens.

And this is what I want to talk about today. So one of the things that I've had to reflect on with cryptocurrency is, why am I doing this? It has been getting to the point, and luckily I'm happy to say that I'm pretty much over the hump, not completely, but it got to the point where my kid was around me, Eli, one and a half years old, sweetest, cutest child ever. And I noticed that I'm putting in front of Sesame Street for 20 minutes so I can follow something that's happening in the market. And that's not something someone should be doing. So it's a great opportunity for me to check what's going on.

Here's what I found in this particular instance with cryptocurrency and why I'm gonna justify some not so great behavior and hope that it makes sense to people listening. And also really I just wanna put a focus that you should investigate any behavior you're doing. You may come to the conclusion that you can justify it. And reasonably it makes sense. It's always a good idea to run that by other people so you don't just trick yourself and are delusional. But sometimes you may find that it's just not the right thing to be doing. So here's my logic right now. I'm engaging in short-term obsessive, unhealthy behavior for the potential to be freed from what in my life has been an incredibly crushing pressure when I don't have money, which is the responsibilities of a debt-based commercial capitalistic society.

I am not a massive consumer. I'm quite confident in saying relative to many of my peers I consume far less material goods than the next person. I'm not saying better than them, certainly not. I just don't have that need to do that. Now certain, let's think I'm a bullshitter here. If I could buy and get some really awesome synthesizers and musical instruments, oh my God, I would jump at the chance, but I don't feel this compelling drive to get that. I recognize a lot of people do, and it's really not their fault for the most part. This is a system that is super imposed onto our lives. So don't feel bad if you're a consumer.

You don't have to be a non-consumer. That's not what I'm getting at. But I'm the type of person who doesn't consume a lot and recognizes that the mounting pressures of the expenses for just basic shit, like heating your home, basic stuff is really expensive. And it's really high, and this points to bigger and maybe deeper issues in our society. Like maybe living in isolated singular units as the nuclear family isn't the most efficient way for humans to live. I'm not saying that it's not, but probably it probably isn't. But my point is, is we don't have to make wholesale societal changes and cultural changes, even though we may recognize that something isn't totally right.

So back to my point. The idea of being able to release that hold, that I don't want to call it money, but financial responsibility that a lot of us have to deal with, being able to release that doesn't mean like I get to kick back, relax, retire, never do anything. But for me, what it would represent is me literally being able to make a choice most of the time about how I spend my time, right? A lot of us go to jobs. A lot of us work all day, whether it's looking at a crypto market or going to a nine to five, nine to six, whatever it is. That's our daily lives. Many of us enjoy our work. We enjoy what we do.

Some of us don't. Many of us don't. But this is something that we all kind of do. My hunch is, is if given the opportunity, let's say we had like 10 years to not do anything, right? We don't have to do work. We have a universal basic income. We can do whatever we want. We have that, after a certain point, many of us would be like, I got to do something. My point is, is I want to get people and personally for myself to the point where we can do that, excuse me, sooner rather than later. And I think we're now being presented with an opportunity to do that. And I've said this many times, and I don't want to make this seem like a get rich, quick scheme or anything.

It's certainly not easy. But I think we're actually beginning to see this manifest in front of our eyes. So I'm basically making this equation in my head relative to my obsessive quote unquote negative behavior. Short term hit to wellbeing of me and those around me, but explained in a compassionate way to myself and other people. I'm exchanging that for future wellbeing. Is that a good idea? Is that living in the now? No, it's not. I've thought about this, right? It's not living in the now. And that's what we're supposed to be doing, right? Brahmbas, be here now. However, if you look at time as a non-linear progression, now is all the time.

So now is also the future. Now is also the past. So if we can kind of connect these kind of like wormhole like portals of the future and present and even the past, if we want to really get weird with it, I think it is a weird way of living in the now. I also just fundamentally believe that the connection between psyche and matter is an incredibly strong one. And where we place our attention and focus gives us those results. That doesn't mean it's good, always. You can focus on a lot of shitty things and a lot of shitty things will happen for sure. But it can be. So I bring this up because it's again, not just about cryptocurrency for me.

It's about an obsessive behavior that you might be engaging in. And is there a way, excuse me while I get some water, is there a way to mitigate or investigate what you're doing to see if it really serves you? And that's what this is about. This is, you're gonna hear water in the background. I'm literally gonna drink with water. This is what I do on my day off. So basically it comes down to this. If you're doing something and it's hurting your wellbeing or your wellbeing is suffering for it and the people around you are being put in worse positions because of it, it's important. Take a look, just take a quick look.

See if you try to justify. If you get to a justification like I have and you're confident that that's the right move, then start asking people around you, right? Let's see what they think because oftentimes you will get met with resistance and then you're like, no, you're just, you're diluting yourself. And this absolutely happened for me related to cryptocurrency and Alexis, right? She was, she wasn't buying any of this. It took about a month and a half of me fights repeatedly trying to explain why I was doing what I was doing and that it wasn't some kind of like a manic, get rich quicks pyramid scheme, but that there were some fundamentals here that I think were reshaping our reality and kind of how we view what's going on, which I know sounds kind of woo and crazy, but I do believe, and if we want to get into the technical aspects of cryptocurrency, I'm happy to do that.

If you have any questions, you think I'm just talking about in my ass, please. That's my favorite part of it is the real world application of blockchain technology and how this stuff really works. Obviously, a lot of people are in cryptocurrency right now to make money and that's certainly a part of what I'm talking about. But to me, how this can change the world for the better, if applied correctly, if being not even a huge caveat, I think it's very easy for this to change the world for the better is why I'm so interested in it. I don't know about you guys, but I'm sure there are some of you out there who possess talents, who possess skills, who could make money in any variety of ways, any variety of ways.

And I'm sure of you people out there who are like that, you're aware that you don't choose sometimes the easiest way to make money or the best way or the quickest because it doesn't align with who you are, right? When you find the thing that aligns with who you are, then it's like, oh my God, this is fun and this is why I'm not even to fun, but this is why I'm going to do something. Cryptocurrency, for me, checks all of these boxes. It's not just some stock market game where I'm buying this and I hope it goes up, it's looking at what these people are talking about and projecting and how they're going to utilize this technology and seeing the potential for it and investing in that.

That's really what it is for me anyway. I see how easy it is for me to digress. All right, back to the 2017 recap and what I really learned here at the end of 2017. And I hope that it serves me and I hope it can serve you in 2018, which is if you're doing something and you have a sense it's not good, you don't have to believe right away that it's not good. Now, if you're murdering people, it's probably not good. All right, so we'll get that out of the way. Some things are just objectively not good. But don't beat yourself up right away because here's what I could have done. And now that we're, all of this is kind of worked out, at least for the time being and I'm in a good place mentally and psychologically related to crypto, here's the truth.

If you are in a place where it's not healthy for you to do something, it is incredibly easy to make that label and judgment right away that I'm bad. Why am I doing this? I'm a terrible person. All right, I'm gonna stop doing this. And sometimes that is the clear and best decision and don't deny that. That said, sometimes you have to fight through some of the tough shit. You have to get through the resistance to get to the point. You have to really investigate it. And that's why I keep saying you check your behavior. You see if you have justifications that you can actually believe in, then share them with other people.

Because I think that's the element here that ties us all together. If I'm just on my island and I'm completely the only one here thinking this is the right movement, everyone else in my life is telling me no, it's not. And they're listening to what I'm saying, but they're not agreeing with it at all. That's a time to check in with yourself and really weigh their arguments. Now you still might not agree sometimes, but I think if there are people who you really value in your life and the relationships you really value, you will value their opinion. So that's all I'm recommending. It doesn't have to be cryptocurrency.

It could be any behavior you're looking to change. And a lot of people do the New Year's resolutions. I didn't do a New Year's resolution this year or any of them. What I'm doing is trying to just not stamp out negative behavior, but observe behaviors that I feel aren't serving me or are serving me. And just to reflect on those as much as possible to see how can we make this a little bit easier? It doesn't mean it's gonna be less like suffering or less bad shit happening in your life of not nice and pleasant things. It means that you're shifting behavior to a place where it's gonna be easy for you to process what's going on in a way that's productive for you and the people around you.

So I don't know how this episode turned into this. I hear the truth. I didn't have a plan. I knew I wanted to do some type of recap, but I'm just kind of relaying what I've been going through. And I'm sure if any of you have been in a cryptocurrency the past however long, like this is something you've been dealing with too. This isn't like unique to me. It's pretty fucking insane. It's a vortex. I call it the vortex for a reason 'cause you get sucked in. So anyway, here we go. Later this month, January 11th is our plan. Cryptocir is launching. This is Jennifer Soudini and Michael Phillip from Third Eye Drops.

We are starting a new platform for crypto and consciousness. So there's gonna be more talks and discussions and live streams and pieces of content and interviews, some great videos that are already coming out from Cryptocir. That's kind of gonna be what's going on. So, you know, I think there is a lot of opportunity in this space for money making. I mean, there's already a million podcasts about how to make money. This is how you gotta do it. Look at the market, blah, blah, blah. I think that's valid if that's all you're interested in. To me, the question is, let's say we make a bunch of money.

We make enough money that what I'm talking about, this pie in this guy attitude of not having to worry about money anymore, then what, right? I had Gerard Powell who runs Rythmia in Costa Rica. He made 94 million dollars a decade ago, longer. He was miserable, he was suicidal. So it's not like we make the money and everything is okay. It's what is this? What is going on? What does money represent? What is money? What is consciousness? How do these things interface? These are the questions that we're gonna be exploring with Cryptocir. Obviously, this podcast is going to shift back to its less focus on, less of a focus on cryptocurrency and go back to the interviews and wherever someone's coming from, whatever's going on, we're gonna be talking about that.

So I wanna give those of you who are interested in cryptocurrency the head up, head up. Nope, heads up that this is gonna be watching this month. We're targeting 111, 2018 for the launch. It's gonna be cool. And also, a tease that last week, there's a new podcast coming out from MindPod Network. It's called Decentralized. Putting the finishing touches on it now. Stay tuned for that. It's gonna be really fucking cool too. Anyway, welcome to 2018. Super happy you're here with me. Apologies for two, I don't know. Should I be apologizing for two solo episodes in a row? I don't think so. I obviously have no shortage of things to say at any given point.

So not that I'm alone in my house. I'm actually not alone. A little boy, a little baby, Macio. It's five years old today. Sweet boy, sweet boy. I love him so much. You're a good boy, Macio, and I love you. Anyway, have a great, great beginning start to your year. Big thank you to Patrick Nemchik, who helps get an episode out every week. If you'd like to support, donate, you can do all that. Syncpodcast.com, we got a Facebook group. We got a Discord that I mentioned for cryptocurrency. We have an email list. When I say we, I, you, we, the community, that's all there. So that's it for this week. I will see you with a guest.

I promise it. I don't have a guest next week. You can, I don't know. You can't, you really don't have any recourse. You can give me a bad review or something, but I promise I will have a guest next week. Love you lots. See you next week. Bye bye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) We all have had, and even a population of non psychedelic people have had prophetic dreams, intimations, unlikely strings of coincidence that this is all of these sort of things. These are experiences, which cultures deny.

Cultures put in place, I'm sure you've heard this word, a paradigm, and then what fits within the cultural paradigm is an accentuated stress. And what doesn't fit inside the cultural paradigm is denied, marginalized, argued, against. And we live at the end of a thousand year binge on the philosophical position known as materialism. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)