Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Warrior to Visionary ft. Rafi Anteby | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

In this episode of Coffeez for Closers, we sit down with Rafi Anteby, a man whose journey is anything but ordinary. From his time in the Israeli military to mastering Kung Fu, Tai Chi, and Qi Gong as a Daoist monk, Rafi has reinvented himself multiple times.He’s the founder of Bullets 4 Peace, turning spent bullet casings into meaningful jewelry, and the visionary behind Rafi Lounge in Malibu, a one-of-a-kind wellness space blending ancient practices with modern community.We talk about his approach to life, business, and finding purpose in every chapter. If you’re looking for inspiration on how to pivot, evolve, and create impact, this one’s for you.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

From the streets of Israel to Hollywood's most exclusive circles, Rafi Antiby is a man who reinvents himself at every turn. Marshall artist, jewelry designer, entrepreneur, and the creator of Rafi Lounge, where the world's most influential minds come to connect. He built a space where business meets mindfulness, where networking is an art form, and where success isn't just about what you do,

it's about who you become. Today on coffees, we get inside the mind of Rafi Antibh, on building a brand that attracts the elite, the power of community, and why the biggest deals don't happen in boardrooms, they happen over coffee. Welcome to the show. Hello, hello.

Thank you for such a welcome. Yeah, you know what, Rafi, we've been hanging out already for over an hour, and I'm a big fan. I appreciate it, thank you. I'm a big fan of everything that you're doing. I'm a big fan of the vision that you have behind this wellness center, what you've done with Bulls for Peace. I mean, and you as just an overall human being.

You know, we connect at a soul level, right? Yes, that's what I wanted to tell you. I feel the same. I talked to you now for an hour. I said some people, you can really see that there's going to be a long-time relationship and a very fruitful one in a very pure way. Yes, exactly. And we're aligned mentally, spiritually, you know, and demographically too.

Yes. Yeah. It's been great, Rafi. let's talk about like some of the vision that you had well first off before I get into the vision of what you had I like to start every podcast

with how do you start your morning what is your morning routine and I want to know this one my morning starts at 5 o'clock in the morning I wake up the first thing that I do is I thank God that's the first thing I do I thank God it's a little thing prayer that is that I thank him for what he gave me

and I'm thanking him for trusting me and putting me back in my body to do what I'm supposed do for the day and be happy about everything that he'd been giving me. Right after that, obviously, I don't drink or I take my shower, but I don't drink or eat. I go straight to work out. The first thing that I do is I will go outside by my house to a tree. It's still early morning. And I do what we call Zan Jong Chigong, which is meditation with a tree.

The tree in China, there's millions of people that stand there. by the tree every early morning because it's well known to them that the trees throw a lot of chi in the morning and a lot of oxygen, as we all know. And that allows you to rejuvenate all your cells in the body, all the organs. So that's the first thing that I'll do. Any tree? Any tree, not a young tree. Like if it's a tree that you see, it's still young, let him grow. But any big tree throw, because tree feeds you. Tree are probably the most loving, unconditional thing, love that they can give to anybody because all they need is some water and sun and they will give oxygen to all of us. Without trees, we wouldn't exist. We just wouldn't exist. So by standing with a tree,

the Zhang Zhong Qigong is a way that you allow yourself to receive a lot of chi and also to let go of all negative energies to the ground. So it's very important to be. So the first thing that I want to do is bring gratitude and then connect to nature. Those are the two things. And right after that, I'm going to the gym. I'm going to the gym. I do my workout. I split my workouts to chest triceps back biceps shoulders legs and I do two cycles a week and then I will practice some Tai Chi or Kung Fu depends on the day so by about 8 o'clock 8.30 I'm ready to come to the lounge that's really my morning routine that's so how long is the meditative perspective when you're staying in

front of the tree and then doing your gratitude a all that is about half an hour half an hour you do 20 minutes and 10 minutes and Walk me through some of the practice of standing in front of the tree. Is it deep breathing? Is it... Well, the main thing is really that to know that you should breathe always from Dante. And we as human being, we start to breathing from here, get fed from here as a baby before we even were born. And then slowly, slowly we raise up to the chest level.

The chest level in Chinese medicine, it's considered as fire chi. And that control your emotions. So imagine that something that control your emotion, you all the time feed it. That means that all your decisions making going to come from emotion level and not always it should be the case. There should be a balance. So by breathing back to Dan Tien,

which is two fingers under your belly button, that allows your rational mind to take over and then you balance. So I breathe from Dante N, I always put my tongue up to the upper palate because that connect yin and yang channel in the body and the inner from the nose and exhale from the mouth, very slow,

very mindful by my breath. And always the E, what they call in Chinese, intention is very important what you do. So I always see that light force coming from the tree penetrate through the baihui point, which is the hundred gate here, right here at the top of the head, goes into Dantian and then expand into the all parts of the body and beyond because our physical body and our metaphysical body are two different things. So I go all a bit above. I call it in Chinese Weichi, which is surrounding energy or a aura, what we call in English. Wow. That is very deep. And people are

just don't know any of this stuff that you're talking about. I know. I know. It's in China, a lot of people doing it, but people don't understand. And people don't wake up 6 o'clock in the morning to see the Chinese people stand by the tree. But if you go to Beijing, to any park, to the imperial palace, anywhere into those hours a monk in Wuhan in China. But anyway, you go early morning, you will see hundreds and thousands of people standing by the trees.

And how close in proximity do you have to be to a tree to really see? About three, four feet. So you'll see people surrounding it. running a tree. Yes. But you have to be in the front row. Can't be in the back row. You can be anywhere because it really doesn't matter.

I stand very close because there's nobody there. But even if I stand 20, 30 feet, it's okay because here is the thing. Roots of the tree go way deeper than what we see, right? So they go 30, 40 feet downwards and sideways. As a matter of fact, if you go, there's a place called Trinidad. It's a little secret place that now I'm talking about it won't be. But if you go to Northern California, Trinidad is one of the most magical places in the world. in the world and they've got a redwood forest

that is 5,000 years old. And you see some trees that got burned and they burn in the base and they're still flowering and have leaves and everything at the top. And the explanation to it is that there's a whole organism supporting, life supporting system

that's happening underground between the trees in the roots level. And they're supporting each other and feed each other. So they are very much, when they feel that something needs help, the roots send a lot of nutrition So the best thing to do is if you can do it is really do it barefoot. But it doesn't matter if you're not barefoot because, again, the intention will allow you to go through the process.

Fascinating. Fascinating. Okay. That went deeper than I expected on a morning routine. And that was super insightful. And I'm like in my head while you're talking. I'm like going to think about where I can stand in the morning and just to add that to my meditative. Any tree.

You just go down the street and you find a tree and you stand and it's fine. and close your eyes so that nobody look at you and says, hey, what are you doing? But, you know, I mean, you look to any, look at Sufis, Rumi, Kabbalah. Every religion and every scholarship and every esoteric study will tell you that some of the practice is standing or hugging a tree.

It's amazing how much it does for you. You hear about it in a disfamism perspective, like, oh, they're tree huggers. Yes. But those are the people trying to save trees. Exactly, exactly. But there's much more to it. Yeah, there is much more to it.

Now, tell me the idea of evolving Raffey Lounge into what it is. And, you know, kind of so the general public knows what is Raffey Lounge, what is the goal of Raffey Lounge and the vision behind it. Okay. Raffey Lounge happened because it's really happened in pandemic. When 2020, when we were in the midst of pandemic and everything went really shut down, I actually did something else. I took my Jeep and I said, well, God gave me a gift is to see a,

America, there no people and just see nature. So I did something called Untouched for one month, and I traveled all the way to Yellowstone and Trinidad that I found and all those places, and just so nature. When I came back, there was such an isolation and such a fear-based mode in everybody. Remember, I went to a gas station, and I didn't see really many people, and I went to the gas station, I put gas, and somebody suddenly jumped on the side, and I said, are you okay? And he was with a mask. He says, well, you're putting a gas without a glove. You remember how fear-based everything was? I said, gosh, that's not okay. People are just not okay. So as I'm going in my mind, somebody told me about this balcony here in Malibu,

and I came to see it, and there was nothing on it. And then I said, I'll take it. And I decided I need to bring community together and let them understand that there is something to say about A, number one, community and how you interact with other people, that that's a very important portion of being healed. Being alone is not necessarily healing. Being in meditation and mountain for years, that's necessarily healing. And number two is to bring the past experience that I have in my life in many modalities, if I was a monk in China, if I was in the entertainment world, and bring all those laughter

and wellness modalities that are ancient as well as futuristic and allow people to come into a new world where they understand. And I think pandemic somehow teach everybody. They really realize that actually I don't need four walls to create a whole business. I don't need to be stagnated in a building that is closed to really be successful. And also when I see the people that coming here to this healing modalities, I understand that financial is part of that. I see how many people when you bottom line, when you tell them, well, okay, let's do a manifestation course.

What do you want to see? Well, I want to see more money in my life. It's one of the main things. So obviously it disturbs you. Obviously, it makes you have lack of sleep and it impact your whole well-being. So holistic approach for me was the whole purpose behind Raffi Lounge to bring different modalities of wellness. Anything that comes from ancient modalities like acupuncture, meditation, soundbath, reiki, all those things that we do all the way to more, more than one, like a body scoping.

And like we do right now, we're doing the coplunge and bring all the way to what we call the biohack. And like I told you, Dave Asprey was here the other week at the World Biohack Day. And we talk about all the new modalities that are available. So we created also a center of biohacking system here with the hyperbaric chamber, with Avicen machine, with so many different things. and then understand what's your constitution. You know, I studied Chinese medicine.

I never finished, but I have to say it, but I studied Chinese medicine. And my teacher was a very old lady, and she said to me that one of the main principle is that you never 100% balance. If you're 100% balance, or you're dead, or you're an angel. But every morning she goes and she check her heartbeat,

she takes her, check her ton, and her eyes, and then she takes certain her biology and other things to really compensate or see what needs to be balanced. We all always out of balance and it's okay, we're human. But with it, we can always check what needs to be balanced and go accordingly, and that's what we give here. So we give you balance modalities on the financial side, on the spiritual side, on esoteric study side, and on wellness in general. And the amount thing that I don't bring here is politics and things of that nature.

That doesn't help with wellness. Not at all. Not at all. And it's actually bringing a lot of separations lately. And I think unity is key. And if you study Kabbalah, one of the most important numbers actually in Kabbalah numerology value is 13.

Because it means love and one. Because through unity, we really bring love to everybody. And that's key. That's key to everything. So one of the things I really admire about the, the whole Rafi lounge experience is that holistic approach.

Because what we missed the mark on now recently with health, and we were talking about this earlier, is like, people just think health is just, I'm going to go and work out my chest and my bias and then maybe do some cardio. Yeah. Like they don't think about it as a holistic approach. It's financial, it's spiritual, it's physical, it's, you know, emotional.

We are a very complex machine. And we have so many facets to our machine. and each one of them contribute. So when you see somebody who is, you know, the other day, Dave Asprey talk about Metushelach. Metushelach was living over, I think, 895 years or something like that. And he said, well, people used to live. First of all, they knew what their intake. They took everything from nature.

Everything is healthy. There's no chemicals to it. There's no nothing. Secondly, I don't think there were cigarettes at the time, you know? Thirdly, even the alcohol was probably a pure alcohol if anyone drink alcohol. The air was better. Everything was better. And the job was better.

I know that I'm a shipman. I know that I'm going to take care of my ship. I know that I'm going to come in the end of the day. I know my worries. I know that maybe we have weather issues to deal with or things like that. But everything was much more relaxed with understanding. They didn't have a $30,000 mortgage? They didn't have.

And you know what they didn't have? Internet. Today we get fed so much information that work out of, scarcity mainly. Yeah. Right? I mean, everybody said to you, oh, do you have that? Do you want to prevent this? Do you want to prevent that? And this scarcity, oh, wow, you know what? And then these people start to get imagination. And one of the worst things that people get is the imagination going in the wrong direction. And they start to thrive of their imagination. That's, by the anxiety. If you tell me, Rafi, what was the number one thing that I got ever known here in America

is I never felt to fix anxiety in my life, through chigong? So you're going, it's a very simple fix. Never failed. An anxiety is dwelling about your own problem for the wrong reason. You start to create your own movies all the time within you, and you start to realize that those movies may be a reality when they had nothing to do with you to start with. You understand?

They're just there, and you just start to accumulate and accumulate and accumulate, and it leads to nowhere. So when you drop everything and you just realize everything is okay, everything is okay, you know, and then you realize that you live your life in mind, much more humble way, you know? And we're in such a rat race with everything that we get fed, everything that is expectation. You know the Taute Ching, Lao Tseh wrote the Taute Ching, which is the Bible of the Daoism.

You know, it's a philosophy and it's not a religion. But I said, as long as you do what other people expect you to do, you remand the slaves. And so many people doing it all their life, sometimes never wake up. And Rabbi Shima Baruchad, the wrote the Kabbalah book, the Zohar, the Shani book, says that most of the people walk dead in their life because they don't live their own life. They slowly fall into the pattern of follow what society wants them to be and they never really understand that they could shine and they came here to shine exactly for what they are. So when I teach my manifestation course, the first thing that I go through, I go through letting everybody really understand who they are. are, who even asking them who they are inside them. You need to really go deep inside and say, who really am I?

What really thrive me? What really makes me happy without thinking that's going to make me happy because my father or my mother going to be happy or my wife or my kids or my friends or my family, whoever it is? What really make me happy? If you really get to that and then you hold to it as strong as you can, that's your path. And that's really what we're trying to do here with everybody. So you started this place 2020.

Yes. And now you've attracted some of the biggest celebrities in the world here. We have a lot of people came. A lot of them came from the pandemic time. A lot of them coming now. I have anybody from Jeremy Fox. I have Stevie Wonder coming and surprising me now to my birthday and saying, Happy Birthday.

That was probably the treat of my life, you know? That's amazing. Yeah, that was really, I can't thank him enough. And I told him that was really an amazing surprise. You did a birthday party here for Rafi? Yeah, yeah. Two weeks ago. When was your birthday?

August 23rd. Rafah, I don't want to tell you this, but I'm August 30th, you know. Really? Yeah. Oh, wow. So we were two Virgos. Yeah. I told you, another one.

One week apart. One week apart. That's crazy, right? You see? Another thing we got to check on the box. Yes. You probably had a much cooler birthday than me. I was fortunate.

I had, you know, Stevie came. here and he surprised I didn't expect him to go it up and sing and he was singing happy birthday to you and the crowd was just wow wow yeah and you did the party I'm assuming here yes of course all my friends and family and members came and it was just like I just wanted to share with them you know they say that when you have your birthday it's not time to receive it's time to share because you almost like give a rebirth to yourself so you have a very original energy of birth so and I'm happy to share I think that the maximum goal is to share

you know when you share when you give to somebody need something who's more happy yeah of course you you're more happy yes that's the instinctual you know purpose of our life is to serve

as long as we fulfill that servitude like God continues to give you more exactly exactly and that's you know that's one of the things that it's I teach it also as well that I say, if you really want to understand how to receive, know how to give, because if not, you create your own stagnation in your own vessel. You will never receive.

If the vessel is blocking the bottom, it can be filled again. You've got to give all the time. Then you'll see the flow. So what are some practices people can implement who don't have the resources to come to Malibu and spend time in a wellness retreat? Like, what can people do at home to improve their wellness overall holistic? Well, few things. First of all, I always said that, and everybody said it, actually, that everything starts and finish in the kitchen, all right? I think that your intake in the kitchen is very important,

what do you eat? And I tell you what, I don't, not that I disagree, I agree with everybody, include Dave Asprey and others about that you need to see what you eat and where you eat, but you can start slowly. You don't have to punish yourself. You don't have to torture yourself. But you can look at really what's your intake and really write down for a week, what do you eat? And then look and Google. And today you can use AI. And you can tell AI, and by the way, that's a little AI thing, but you can tell to AI, you can prompt and say to AI, you need to give the AI the explanation what job description you give it before you start prompting it. So you said to AI, AI, I want you to be my nutritionist. I'm going to feed you

with what I ate in the last week, and to JetGPT, right? And please tell me what do I need to adjust? And right away, to it for you a lot of ideas. And take some of them and slowly, slowly implement it and see how your life change. Number two is... Who would have thought that we all have nutritionists now at home?

Yes. Better than a nutritionist you could pay... It's the best brains of the world, and it comes in one second and for free. Right? Maybe $35 a month if you do the... GPT, the new one. Yeah, I never even thought to write down my diet and prompt chat GPT as my nutritionist and say, you're going to act as my nutritionist. Here's my diet for the week, adjust it.

Yes. I want to drop X amount of pounds. Amazing, right? Yeah. It's crazy. Tell me what to do. Yeah. Yeah. And it's amazing. I mean, I can tell anything to, I mean, we do AI classes here as part of elevating our community. And I love it. And I think it's just going to, it's not going to go anywhere so it's just going to enhance everybody and if you're not going to make it your friend then it will be your enemy it's one or the other i said on another podcast that you know those who aren't going to adopt AI will lose their jobs to AI exactly very true very true it's going to happen it's going to happen and you know what it's going to put everybody in check because here in the end of the day you will need some humans we're not there yet for example i want to say well i want to

create a room i want to create design for me a room with this specification, and it will design for me everything, and I will put it into image, and everything. It will still have some human feeling that I would need to change things. It will still not cater to the 100%. It will give you the best that he feels it's right, but then you have to come with your human touch and say, that's what I want.

I want to create a book. I want to create a movie. You can create it, but you will need your human touch, and that's where we still need to come. So there's still be a place, but for those who understand how to use it and how to leverage it. And prompts it correctly and, you know, add which directive? Exactly.

So what do you think the future is for Rafi Lounge? Like what do you think the future is for this organization? Two things. I'm looking at Center and Broad. Center, I think that Raffey Lounge is going to become more and more strong here in Malibu and preferably here in this location that we're going to turn it into a wellness hotel and the purpose is to create a very big wellness hotel, not big in numbers, because it's a very boutique, but as far as people can come here and can book for the way, I think that everything

in hospitality going to turn into wellness. And we want to be the first one to have a comprehensive week retreat hotel. You come here, you get checked in advance, everything is in advance. We know exactly what you need from ancient modalities all the way to futuristic modalities and from the second you step in from the second you see the dormant all the way to the second you're in your room everything going to be catered to what are your needs to make sure that we elevate you so that we know that a week later you're not only going with what you experience here and you feel much better you also get a program that's going to take you all the way to the next six months or so until you want to come back again or whatever you want to do next.

So that's the center. On the broad, we really want to create that kind of modalities throughout the world, but in a way that is scalable. Because to control a certain thing and a certain level, it's very difficult. You know, I have a friend, his name is Tony. He owns probably a no whole food. Not so, sorry, not whole food. I said whole food.

He owned Air One. You know Air One market? It's a very big market in LA. Everybody goes to that. It's the whole food on steroids. It's like all the Hoos and Hoosug by there. Everybody, very expensive, by the way. And in one state, somebody from Dubai come to me and said,

Raffi, I want to open in Dubai Air One. So I came to Tony, and I said him, Tony. And he just said about eight at the time. No, 10 at the time six. Now I think he's 11 one. I said, Tony, I've got somebody who wants to put money and open one in Dubai and said, I don't want to open. I said, why not?

He said, because then I cannot control the quality. And it's very important for me to control the quality. And I appreciate it. And I feel the same. But there is a way that you give what we call the stamp of approval to what's the quality and create or a franchise or in a way of really open our own places. and preferably even in hotels, you can go into existing hotels

and create those things. But, you know, Rafi, there's only one Rafi. Yes. So, you know, part of the... For now. Yeah. Part of the glamour of coming to the Rafi lounge is like they get to experience you,

they get to experience your experiences and all of your education and knowledge. And there's just so much need like at a macro level for a wellness center like this, not just for the affluent, but even if you can downgrade it for like the middle class somehow if there's a way to make that happen. Yeah.

But start with the affluent first. Then you could scale down, I guess. But how are you going to impart your knowledge and experience and expertise and teach people how to like really integrate these various modalities, you know, at these new retreat centers? You hit the nail on its head. I always say being Rafi it's a blessed

than the curse what happened is that when people coming here the first thing they ask is is Rafi here you know it's like it's very personalized and everybody

see me here all the time and to multiply me is a very difficult thing not because I'm that especially just that I'm a certain person who had certain experiences and to multiply me

to many many places will be hard at the same time I always say if in the end of the day I didn't remove Rafi out of Raffi Lounge, I failed. It has to be slowly that I get up and get out of here

and allow myself to be in other places. The main way that I see it right now happening is before I even start to open any other places is really to do weekend retreats, because that I can go. So what you do is you create weekend retreats in Miami, in Sedona, in Mount Shasta, and all kinds of places like that.

And slowly, slowly you build a community. Within the community, there will always be somebody who can. The stand-up student. Exactly. Exactly. And become the next one that can open somewhere. Yeah. That's a great idea.

That's how you're going to find your talent. And I think, yeah, doing like a targeted demographic, like Newport Beach, Miami, you know, certain areas in Silicon Valley, people who are super conscious of holistic wellness. Exactly. That's where you'll be able to find your star students. And that makes sense. You know, those listening to find top talent, I guess that is a great solution. Yeah. I think, I think that's the other way.

Because, you know, I taught around the world. I have probably, I teach Kung Fuentecchi. I have more than 4,000 students through the years. Some of them, when I say 4,000, some of them are very steady students in Africa and in Israel. And some of them students that are for charity, like in Myanmar, for monks that are novice, that are home that are they don't have parents or things like that and they live in monasteries

but I had a lot and you always for a teacher it's easy to identify who's next usually yeah it's easy so when I go for places I immediately somebody trigger and says okay that person cadet and may you know

it needs a combination because it has to have somebody who understand the business mind too he's going to run a business he's going to run it's it's still an enterprise It's something that you need to know how to run, not only to come and look good and say, okay, I'm going to teach Tai Chi now and today going to be.

It's a process. And you must understand this. It takes many to build it. It's not, I'm not, I happen to hold a brush for this canvas, but there's many other people that are the paint. We have Karen that does Reiki and she run all the things here for the wellness. We have Angel who really manage a lot of things, include the food intake and things.

We have so many people here that are part, Alonzo. so many people that are part of this thing. So you start with one in every one, in every place there's a small anchor. You start to taste it. Is he good? Let's see if he comes to the next one. If you come here, if you come there,

okay, now let me pull him in and start to teach him really the ins and outs of everything so that he can go back there. And that's how you build more organically, I think. Wow. So we talked about this earlier and, you know, your history where you would practice kung fu,

Tai Chi for eight, 10 hours. Yes. Now, a discipline like that in this modern age, this hyper ADHD society, how are you instilling that sort of balance in your members here? I mean, because you'll have people here coming here, there'll come six, eight, ten hours.

So it's a great level of patience that people are kind of understanding. Obviously, it's not with like an eight, ten hour workout like you were doing before. I think, first of all, my goal was Kung Fu. So think about it as like

somebody who come to study here at Pepperdine and he spent his 12, 13 hours a day to study. He can do that. But even this in this DNA what's happening with kids is we have something that's called digital burnout.

And that's a problem for a lot of kids that go to all the kids of the NFT world and the meme world and all those things. And they really go going to depression, a lot of other things, and they cannot fix themselves. As a matter of fact, I don't think I can sit next to a phone too long myself. And they have to jump from one thing to another, and they have what they call the monkey mind.

And they really cannot focus. I think that the main thing to do is to understand that if it's part of your daily thing that you insert in different places, you will be more accommodating towards that. So that's why Raffey Lounge, we tell you, come with your computer, do your work. interact, bring your meetings here. And then you can say, oh, sorry, one second, I have a yoga class. One second, I'm going to do my cop lunch. One second, I'm going to go to the hyperbaric chamber for an hour and rest.

And then you start to see, oh, I can combine the both. I can create the community. I can work, and the productivity is so much higher. If you go to the hyperbaric chamber and you just rest for one hour and you become so strong when you come out of there and then, okay, let's go for it. And let's go for the meeting. You feel so strong. You feel so good.

you know that you gave something to yourself. I cannot do a business meeting well if I didn't walk on a beach and did my morning routine. It's not going to look the same. You know, so yes, we do that. And I still hope that there's some kids that can still do the 10 hours a day Kung Fu. There's some kids that you will, like I said, you will pick and choose them one by one. I say, okay, he's been chosen. Not by me, by life, by whatever you want to call it.

There are those people. Is there a specific mantra that plays in your head all the time? What is like the mantra that you live by? The mantra for me is always to be in a moment. That's the most important. You know, people that know me at the lounge, they think that I'm like a little kid because I'll talk to you. And, you know, because one of the things that are near the lounge, it was an empty balcony,

and I said, I'm going to bring back nature here. So, I mean, you can see everything we surround is just all green. It's all green and it's flowers. And we have fig trees, lemon trees. And they're all giving fruits, by the way. And we have so many birds and butterflies coming here now. So we have like a whole family of blue jays coming here. So every time when they come here, I stop.

I don't care. I'll talk to you and I'll stop you in the middle and tell you, look at the blue jay here because it's such a beautiful thing. that I like to cherish the moment. So my main mantra is live the moment. All we have is the moment. The past is past. The future we don't know.

So we have the moment. Make it count all the time. When I talk to you, I want to hear you. I want to talk to you 100%. Whether something happened around you that is elevating you, stop for a second and enjoy it too. Yeah, one thing I notice about you is you could be very, you know, you have this aura about you,

but what's really dominating is that you're very present with me. You know, like, I could feel your spirit there, you know. It's, uh, I think it's important. I think it's important that, you know, like you say, human interaction is key. Yeah. You know? I mean, we all enjoying each other's company when we laugh and we enjoy, you know, and when I'm with you and I'm going to think about, okay, what's going to happen? Nothing going to change. If I, again, I'm creating more movies that have nothing to do with nothing. So why, why would I care? If I'm worried about something, then let me do the something I'm worried about. But the second I'm with you, stop worry about this thing.

You just decide that you're going to designate that time, enjoy it. You know, on a different level, it's not exactly like that. But Rabbi Burke, who used to own the Kabbalah center, he opened, right? The teacher for Madonna and all those people. And, you know, in Jewish religion, you're not allowed to eat pork. And he once said to me, my mom told me that if I ever eat pork and I made a mistake, at least enjoy every bite. you know once you do something enjoy that no matter what it is don't punish yourself all the time

on things don't all the time struggle of how i'm going to get my mortgage how i'm going to get this i'm going to when you talk about the mortgage focus on that when you talk to your your girl you're going out with a woman on a dinner don't be on the phone don't tell us sorry i have business stop put tender phone upside down for emergency it's fine tender i know i know never leave the phone like that. It's always upside down. I have nothing to hide from her, but I always put it upside down and I put the time to learn who I'm with, to enjoy the time, right? It's so important. And one thing I really was fascinated about when I was learning about you was you suffered from a sickness and you healed it yourself from the Chinese, from this holistic

medicine. This is not just a regular sickness. Like you were, where you met? but were you deemed medically blind? Yeah, let me explain you. What happened is that I went to a regular check for optometrists, and when he finished the check, he said to me, I think I need to send you to a specialist, ophthalmologist. And I went, and the ophthalmologist said to me, you're very lucky he sent it, and he's right.

I said, what's happening? He said, you have something called AMD. I said, what is AMD? He said, and at the time, I was studying in the Chinese medical university. And he said to AMD is immaculate degeneration. It's when the cells in the back of your eyes start to break down. And I said to him, and then what? He said, well, then it leads to a tunnel vision.

And in the end, you go blind. I said, well, how blind and how sure is it? He said to me, it's true thing that you have it and you're going to go blind. And I said, in which eye? He said, both. And I said, when? He said, you have maximum in year before you go blind. And I listened to him.

And I said, that's not going to happen. And he said, look, we're going to give you some numbers. And you have to start to call some people. And we're going to make sure that the transition is easy enough for you. I said, what transition? He said, well, if you start to learn how to be blind before you go blind, then it's easier for you after that to know your, you know, space and everything else. So I said, no, no, no, you don't know.

It's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. He said, we understand. We have a lot of people that calm you with this attitude. and it's good to have decided you, but you also have to be realistic about things. I said, okay, you'll be realistic about what you know. I'll be realistic about what I know.

I immediately go to my professor in the medical university. He started to tell me about certain things. He told me about the man that actually passed away. His name is Dr. Ote. He was in Arkansas. He does acupuncture only for the eyes, an expert in his field. Went to the two sessions, two weeks in Arkansas. From there, I went to my teacher who was a,

89 years old at the time. He was one of my teachers here, Master Jia Chow Tran. He passed away by now. And he said to me, Rafi, let me connect you with the Medical University of Beijing. I'll introduce you to the head of the Qigong board of China. And I connected with him.

He said, come to me. We will teach you the medical Qigong course, but you'll have to do it privately because you'll have to condense everything in two months. I said, okay. And while I was there, my 89 years old teacher said to me, let me connect you to my big brother,

who is 104 years old. So I went to China, Beijing. Every morning, until evening, I was going to the medical university of Beijing to study Qigong with my teacher there. And after that, I would go to the teacher that teach me what they call sound chigong. And Qigong chi is energy gong is exercise.

So it's exercise of chi. And when I finished that after two months, this matter said, let me please introduce you to my friend, who is a teacher in Wudan. Wudan mountains are the mountains of Laotse, the mountain of the Taoist people. Those are all monks that have long ponytail, and I used to have a long ponytail too.

And everybody lives there and practice Tai Chi and Qigong all day. That's what they do there. And I went to the Pepper Cloud Monastery there, stayed there for a long time, practice, came back, Went for a check and it's gone. Wow. And they said, we don't know what you did. We never seen it, but whatever you did, keep on doing it.

So I will. And then you just kept with it. Kept with it. It's amazing. What's your favorite quote? Of course, Bruce Lee would be like water of my friend. Number one. You know, I thought about it the other day.

I said, my biggest hero died at age 30. 36, much younger than me. And he's still my biggest hero. How did he die in 36? You know, there's various theories. Various theories. The last theory that came out lately that he drowned, actually, that he over drank water. When you over drink water to a big quantities, it also can kill you.

There's so much. People say drink as much water. No. Too much of anything is not okay. And maybe he drank too much water. That's a theory that came right now by the medical society. So I don't know. I know there was conspiracies about him teaching to the foreigners Kung Fu

and that he was cursed by other big spiritual Chinese leaders. I don't believe that. Even though I do believe that the Chinese society at the time, Kung Fu was a very secretive thing in the 70s at the time that he was alive. But I really, if you ask me, because I experienced something quite similar. In Hong Kong, when I train, I train like I said, 10 hours a day. And the food that you take or eat in Hong Kong is mainly dimsame and other things that are cooked or cooked. No fresh vegetables or nothing.

So in the end, I couldn't sleep at night and I had hot perpetrations. I over-trained. I over-trained. And my teacher called my students and we had a meeting and he said, please tell Rafi that the only thing that stay alive in his body is his eyes and he needs to live. and he asked me to stop training because I was overtrained and I think that that can kill you and I think that Bruce Lee overtrained.

Bruce Lee was a perfectionist on every level the way he conduct his body what he did with his body he made sure that every muscle I was following him since I'm 13 years old I used to walk in the street for one year with weights on my on my ankles not taking them out

just because I heard that that's what he did. He perfected his body to the T. And he's the first one that used impulse electric exercises, you know? He took electric impulses on the arms and used to punch and do resistance with the power. So I don't know to what level it impact his body, his heart, many other things, you know? So I... He'll do an experimental training. He was a Taoist master. No matter how you look at you know how many books, he was a

philosopher. He was the first M.MA fighter. He's the first one to combine Taekwondo with karate, with Habkido, with Kung Fu Wing Chun, with Pasi Ulam, North Shaolin, kicking. Shui Zhao wrestling, he combined boxing, he loved Muhammad Ali. He was the first M.MA fighter. The only difference between him and other M.M.A. fighters is that he stays solid to his philosophy. Most of them do not do it. They do it more for the entertainment part, which is sad because I'm a martial artist, and I have to say that.

But not a lot of them have that teacher, the teacher of the philosophy and the dignity and everything that comes with being a martial artist. You know? Fascinating. You know, we don't know a lot about Bruce Lee from the public eye, right? I only know movies. I know posters. I know. You know, I forgot even the name of the book because for my birthday, Alonzo, one of the guy that worked here.

He just bought me a book that I didn't start really. reading it because I'm reading another book and I'll read it out after, but it's called Be Like Water, My Friend. And it's by Shannon Lee that she compiled all these writings together, all his notes. And I'm very excited to read it next. But that's something probably that he wrote a Tao of Jit Kondo, which that I read many times. But that all these notes, it's definitely something I'm looking for it to read. Wow. Be like water, my friend. Yeah.

Yeah. That sounds awesome. It's a doubt. It's a favorite quote. Yes. So one of the, I'd like to end the podcast with some personal goals. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself

and a business goal that you have for the business? Well, personal goals are, I think the main thing for me is love. I think I want to surround myself with people that love, with people that love me. That's the number one goal because if not you have nothing. I can have the most beautiful place over the water, are to be in the most romantic places in the world, if you're not with the one you love, if you're not doing the people that you love with, then you're staying still alone.

So that's really, really my personal goal over and above everything in the personal, personal life. I also want to be very healthy. I reach a stage now that staying healthy is really key. It always have been, but now so much more. And I want to really see how I incorporate new technologies and biohacking. and I'm studying it inside out to really allow. And I'm really believing one thing, by the way, again, that I keep reminding him, but it was really, I love what he said.

But Dave asked me when he say here, that you tell your soils have a consciousness. When you tell them I'm 20, that's what they're going to understand. If you tell them, the other day, I had a woman here coming here, and she said to me, here and her husband, and they come from Australia. And I said, so, and they're younger than me. And I said, what are you doing? He said, well, we're making a plan now.

We want to retire. Then we're going to see. We're just going to retire now. So we're planning how to retire. I said, why would you even use the road to retire? You're so young. And you want to sell ready to your retired change. He said, what should I say?

I said, say something like I want to change my life to a different direction. I want to do another chapter in my life. Don't say retired. You're telling your whole body that you retire, that you're done. You know? So I'm looking. Retire means I'm going to die soon. Exactly.

Yeah. I'm in the waiting room for God. Yeah. Right? Don't do that. Don't do that yourself. I'm so energetic. I'm so, I've got so much more to do.

I've done a lot. I've been, like you said, I've been a soldier in the army. I was a, I had a nightclub in South Africa. I had a Kung Fu school in Africa. I was a Kung Fu monk. I had a clothing line, jewelry line, art. I have that. And there's so many things I want to do.

You're just getting started. Exactly. Exactly. That's a winner's mentality. though. Yeah. And you're making winners, breeding winners, instilling winners here. And I'm enjoying it. It's because you're serving. Yeah.

And then a last question I have for you. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you? I'm a man with sense of human. He's going to joke and say, how was it, Raffi?

He's going to say, how was it? You know, we're always looking and we said, okay, was it, was it what you expected? It's like almost we go into a movie and we go out and we say, was that what we expected? And the most important thing that we need to really think that God is going to ask everybody, did you use your time correctly? Did you use your time correctly?

Are you looking back right now? How many people before the gates, you ask them the last question and they will say, what else do you want to do? They would say maybe we want to visit another country I didn't see, spend another meeting with my loved ones. How many people say, I wish I could make another dollar before the day? No one. Not one.

Think, maybe that will change everything of how you're looking at life. Rafi, it's been amazing. You've been an amazing guest, amazing facility. I look forward to a mutually prosperous relationship. I myself want to come here and I, I, myself, want to come here. come here and I wish I could spend months here. You're more than welcome, always. It's a great thing and I feel that this needs to be amplified.

And this definitely needs to be amplified. Now, if people want to get in touch with you, how do they do it? Well, we have an Instagram, raffirelounge.com. And by the way, I micromanage this one. So whenever people drop a note or whatever, drop a message. I'm the, yeah, I'm the one that always answer. And if everybody has a question, even about AMD or something like that,

I'm always happy to help and give them and stay in the right direction. Or if they want to come here and that Rafi Lounge, we have, we post weekly everything that we have here and all the different happenings. And people can come if there are members, they can buy a yearly membership, or they can come for a class or for a daily visit. So everybody's welcome. Founder and CEO of Rafi Lounge, an incredible human being. This place is just magical. Thank you, Raffi. Thank you.

Appreciate. Thank you.