Julian Dorey Podcast - #359 - Death Expert on 9/11, Ancient Afterlife Prophecy, Psychics & Reincarnation | David Ferrugio
Episode Date: November 25, 2025SPONSORS: 1) STOPBOX: Not only do you get 10% Off your entire ordernwhen you use code JULIAN at https://stopboxusa.com , but they are also giving you Buy One Get One Free for their StopBox Pro.#stop...boxpod 2) EXPRESS VPN: Secure your online data TODAY by visiting http://ExpressVPN.com/JULIANDOREY PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey (***TIMESTAMPS in Description Below) ~ David Ferrugio is a Death Expert & YouTuber. He hosts the show, "DEAD Talks," in which he discusses grief and death with guests who have lost loved ones in a light hearted, easy to digest, and often humorous manner. DAVID's LINKS: YT: https://www.youtube.com/@deadtalkspodcast IG (PODCAST): https://www.instagram.com/deadtalkspodcast/?hl=en IG (PERSONAL): https://www.instagram.com/ferrugio/?hl=en FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY INSTAGRAM (Podcast): https://www.instagram.com/juliandoreypodcast/ INSTAGRAM (Personal): https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/ X: https://twitter.com/julianddorey JULIAN YT CHANNELS - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP ****TIMESTAMPS**** 0:00 – Intro 1:23 – 9/11 Childhood, Losing Dad, Trauma, Dead Talks 13:44 — Child Grief, Memory Gaps, Public Attention, What to Say 23:26 — Age 12 Trauma, Last Goodbye, Gratitude Over Fear 35:06 — Fear Illusion, Cambodia Moment, Mindset, Unknown 42:15 — Mom, Anxiety Cycles, Rip Band-Aid, Living Again 52:47 — Fight-or-Flight, Bruce Lipton, Grief Recipe, Placebo 1:03:07 — 2020 Mortality, Big Questions, Info Overload, Sagan 1:14:16 — Inner Child, Insecurity, Life Lessons, Soul Contracts 1:22:28 — 3,000 Souls Joke, Reincarnation, Many Masters, Epigenetics 1:31:38 — Kendrick Lyrics, Past Life Regression, Hypnosis, Religion Mix 1:43:45 — Afterlife, Dogma, Mediumship, Scripture Interpretation 1:53:34 — Belief Defense, Groupthink, “I Don’t Know,” Build Journey 2:03:10 — Grounding, Choosing Thoughts, ICU Scare, Chinese Farmer 2:14:30 — Chain Reaction, Worst → Good, NDE Home, Zero Worry 2:24:37 — NDE Peace, Nothingness, Old vs New Souls, 9/11 Sign 2:34:10 — Timing, Signs, Allowing vs Forcing, Before/After Life Split 2:43:44 — Tower 7, False Flags, Small Group Theory, Anger + Acceptance 2:52:07 — Exposure Therapy, 9/11 Footage, Unanswered Truth, Helping Others 3:01:29 — David's Work CREDITS: - Host, Editor & Producer: Julian Dorey - COO, Producer & Editor: Alessi Allaman - https://www.youtube.com/@UCyLKzv5fKxGmVQg3cMJJzyQ - In-Studio Producer: Joey Deef - https://www.instagram.com/joeydeef/ Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 359 - David Ferrugio Music by Artlist.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Okay, 9-11 is just wild as hell in general.
And that's a whole other conspiratorial rabbit hole we can maybe get into later.
But I do remember someone trying to keep me away from the TV.
It wasn't until 3 o'clock when I saw the footage for the first time.
It was just a replay.
Wondering what happened, let alone is my dad okay?
He was on the 105th floor.
Building was collapsed.
My dad died in the Twin Towers, the plane crash.
It was like the end of the movie there.
So it just made me understand life and see the reality of what this world is and what can happen.
That was one of the biggest lessons I learned because...
So you have the podcast, Dead Talks, where you go through,
the nature, science, realities, and pretty much anything involving grief and death and the
afterlife and it's from your own personal story. Do you think that when souls leave, they still
exist among us? Do you feel your dad here with you? Yeah, so I have a specific story word.
Hey guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five-star
review. They're both a huge huge help. Thank you.
glad we could finally make this happen man talking about it for like a year no i didn't even know
i forgot i had your number yeah you know what i honestly there's like 3 000 unread texts in there
so i'm not a person that can ever like brag about being on top of it so don't worry about it
that gives me anxiety just hearing that to be honest oh my god man i have oCD too so like when i look at
my emails and my text because i don't have an assistant i can't really afford that yet but it's like
holy shit yeah you spend it all on these cameras yeah
Yeah, that's a sore subject for my accountant.
Let's not bring that up.
He listens sometimes.
But yeah, we're a little behind the eight ball now because of these things.
Yeah, it's worth it.
It looks sick.
Thank you, brother.
Thank you.
But it is actually always cool to talk with someone who is in my industry but does something entirely different.
So you have the podcast, Dead Talks, where you go through the nature, science, realities,
and pretty much everything, anything involving Greek.
and death and the afterlife, and it's from your own personal story. So for people who have not
seen your podcast before on YouTube or Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcast, we'll have
that link down below. But, you know, I think obviously your backstory is the driving force to
what you do. So would you mind just explaining, you know, what happened with your dad?
Yeah. So my dad was in the World Trade Center. I was 12 at the time. He was in Tower 1. And I don't
I don't think it's a spoiler alert, but I think everyone knows what happened on September 11th.
And he was on the 105th floor.
So honestly, he had now looking back, even at the time, he had no shot of getting out,
even though there were, I think there was a handful of people that a couple that had on my
podcast that got out above the impact of the plane.
But yeah, he never made it home that day.
So with the podcast, it obviously started from that day.
That's my big why.
My dad's death, essentially.
It's something that a lot of people didn't talk about.
Well, my story, I wasn't, I was very internalized.
And I think I've gotten out of that over the years.
But talking about death, the most common thing we're all going to go through, I just
thought it was important in a way that is just, I'm not a doctor, I don't know shit.
And it's just a conversation.
And I think it's something that should be normalized.
But yeah, essentially it starts on September 11th.
Did your dad work at Canter?
Yeah.
They lost the most people.
They lost, like, pretty much everyone because they were all above the 100th floor, I think, right?
Yeah, he was on the 100.
I don't know if it was only 105 or maybe 106, too, but they were all on the top floor or one of
the top floors.
Yeah, that's still surreal.
I mean, the whole day is obviously surreal, but that one, you know, I remember all the
images.
I was a really little kid, but like Howard Lutnik coming on TV, like, his brother died.
He's like, my whole company is just gone overnight, all these families left behind.
I can't even, it's still hard to process that from the outside.
Yeah, I mean, just in general, that's one of the thing, like my grief process, if you
well, it's evolved as it got older.
Like, I was 12 years old.
I didn't, there's a lot of things I remember, but depending on what you ask me,
there's a lot of shit that I don't remember.
You know, I remember that day very specifically, and we can get into that if you're
interested, but I would like to, yeah, I could start there.
Let's do that.
So, yeah, it was obviously Tuesday.
I was in seventh grade, so 12 years old.
I remember going to first period and my buddy Jeff, who was notoriously late.
So I think first period might have been a little after nine.
First plane hit at 846, I believe.
He rolls into first class.
he goes, yo, Dave, doesn't your dad work in the World Trade Center?
And I said, yes, why?
And he goes, a plane flew into the building.
And back to what you're saying, surreal.
It was like, I don't know what I don't know what the hell that meant.
What do you mean?
A plane flew into the building.
And I don't remember what he told me.
I don't know if he gave me more details, but I believe I went straight to the office.
I excused myself, went to the office to try to make a phone call to call my mom and yada yada,
and they wouldn't let me.
They wouldn't let me.
But now I understand why.
I mean, because where I was raised in Middletown, New Jersey, a big commuter town.
So everyone worked in the city.
I think we lost 30-something people in that town alone.
So a lot was happening.
So a lot of other kids were getting called out of school that day.
And I think, I'm assuming I wasn't the only one that tried making a phone call that day.
So they probably had to kind of, all right, they want me to make a call, but they just can't
let everyone just get to the phone at that time.
I'm sure I wasn't the only one.
So regardless of what their reasoning was, going to get a phone call out.
And my mom made the decision to leave me in school the whole day.
And another one that I back, like, all shit talkers in the comments, like, how could you leave your child in school a day?
Well, what, she had no idea what was going on.
What is she going to pull me into the home with the building still burning?
Not sure what was going on.
Right.
So she just let me go through the day while she was trying to figure out her own shit and what the heck was going on.
And so the reason I point that out is more, it was just bizarre because I went, I went to the whole school day not knowing what was going on.
I knew something happened.
Kids were getting called down randomly, not imagining that how it was.
resulted was going to happen because it was just so unfathomable unfathomable and so I remember getting
made fun of him by some of my friends was 12 year old boys do and eventually when the school day
ended my best friend James at the time got suspended from the school bus the year before so he happened
to be walking home with me until his mom picked him up which was a blessing to have him by my side
and I remember trying to go back to that day asked him like do you remember what we talked about
he said honestly we were just quiet we didn't really say much but I do remember
walking around the bend.
There was the last bend before you can see my house.
And when I first saw my home for the first time,
I saw cars outside.
And that was the first moment when I was like,
oh shit, like something went down.
Like this is a Tuesday in the afternoon.
Why are there 10 cars in my cul-de-sac?
We get to the house.
My mom, someone separated me and James.
And I do remember someone trying to keep me away from the TV.
But I was, I forced myself to get to the TV.
I wanted to see what happened.
And I remember looking at my cousin's eye.
I still see his eyes.
He was just looking at me.
Now going back and forth, as some of my story continues on,
I just saw this look as if he knew my life was about to just, let alone everyone's,
my life was just about to, like, flip upside down.
So I walk into the living room, and that's when I look at the TV for the first time,
and I saw the footage, and it was a replay.
And that's the weird part about going back and forth of the story of where I am today
and that day, because it was all done.
Like, while I was going through the school day and wondering what happened,
let alone is my dad okay, it was all.
the buildings were collapsing it was all finished you didn't know that in school i didn't know that
till you know no one told me anything so it was until like i knew something was going on obviously but
it wasn't it wasn't until three o'clock whenever i got home i saw the footage for the first time
it was just a replay it was all done debris was settled building was collapsed my dad was essentially
gone so i remember seeing it for the first time i don't know if it was the plane or the building
collapsing burst into tears and then it was like the end of the movie there it was like everything
went black and i think that was just my body just saying you know you got to you can't
handle the shit. We're going to shut you down for a little bit. And you've got to figure this out
later in your life to where I'm at now. But obviously, I remember things throughout from
storytelling and pieces of what that week and the following weeks were. But again, it was as
if my body just said, yo, yo, chill out. This is too much. System overload. We're going to black
you out. And that's exactly what happened. So you didn't, right when you saw that, because, I mean,
there was no precedent for this kind of thing in any facet or form. Like, obviously, it looked
horrible and people assumed the worst when it came down. But the second you saw that replay,
you thought to yourself, he's gone. There's. Yeah. I mean, again, I can't. It's tough for me to put my
self in the exact position besides what I just told you. But yeah, I mean, it was so horrific.
I mean, I thought it was an explosion. So I even at 12 years old, like, you know, this is not good.
It was just the most horrific thing that a lot of people have ever seen, let alone a 12 year old boy.
And again, I'm aware there's 3,000 other people. So that was, that was.
There's another unique part that we can get into of an individual experience that was part of the native.
You know, that's like a weird, it's a weird jumbled experience.
But in that moment, obviously, I'm only thinking about my dad.
And it was just, I think, yeah, subconscious that are conscious that I knew that was it.
Like, I've asked my mom, when did you realize when I had her on the show?
I was like, when did you guys think that he wasn't coming home?
And my mom, she knew.
I think it was just, you know, we haven't heard from him.
But we had some hope because my sisters were telling me that people that we knew were coming home a little later.
during the day so that we had our fingers crossed a little bit. But again, knowing the objective
truth of him on being on the 105th floor, and the plane hit under him, we knew that much. It was just
like, we hoped, but we kind of were just like, there's no, how could he have gotten out of that?
And he didn't. So it was just a weird day of hanging on to hope, not sure what to do. The next day,
I remember the news crew came to the town and my sister has this very difficult clip of her
crying into the camera, begging for my dad to come home. So at that point, if it was a day later,
we're still hanging on to hope, but I really feel like you all knew deep down that he wasn't
going back.
How many siblings do you have again?
Two older sisters.
So how old were your sisters at the time?
My oldest Jacqueline was about eight.
Yeah, she should have been 18 or 19, sorry.
And then Gina was just turning 18.
So Gina was like her first week of school in college up north.
Jacqueline was home.
And so, yeah, my sister Jacqueline was the first one that was home.
And then she was waiting for all of us to come home.
And there was just my mom.
My mom was like 44.
my dad was 46 you know that is one of those days it's one of the first like vivid memory days
that I have and we my family knew a couple people in those towers but I didn't lose family members
in those towers I didn't lose close friends in those towers I didn't go to school with close friends
because I was from south Jersey who lost people in those towers like it was more distant even though
it was right here I will say I do remember though every aspect of
to that day. And one of the things that really stood out was the fact that there were teachers
in the hallway. And I'm not one or two. It was like five or six across, say, grades, probably
like kindergarten through fifth grade, something like that. And there were probably three classes per
so you do the math. It was almost like a third of teachers who had close family who lived right
there in Manhattan. A couple of them, I think I had people who worked in the building. And I remember,
you know, 9.30 in the morning maybe, 10 a.m. in the morning after the towers collapsed at 10.30,
we would see them out in the hallways on their phones calling families. And our teachers took us all
into our rooms and described exactly what was happening while it was happening. And that was
seven or eight, eight years old. It's an ass. You're eight years old. So that's like kind of young
to be getting told something like that, but they told us exactly what it was. And I believe,
but this part's a little hazy
but I think when we sat down
to really learn what it all was it was
probably around 10, 30 or 11
so the towers were down
at that point and I remember
you know them explaining like they fell
we don't know what went on so when I
hear I say all that because
when I hear someone who had this hit
quite literally directly at home
in a town that had it hit
all over the place at home in a town
where people
as you said it's a community town a lot of people
going to New York every day. If you own a handgun for self-defense, your storage likely fits into
one of two frustrating categories. It's either locked away, safe but out of reach in an emergency,
or it's unsecured, leaving it vulnerable to anyone. Stopbox USA saw that problem, though. And that's
why they designed this groundbreaking solution, the Stopbox Pro. With Stopbox Pro, you'll never have
to choose between security and readiness ever again. It's ingenious push-button locking system
gives you fast, reliable access when every second matters
without the hassle of keys or reliance on batteries.
It's 100% mechanical, so it works every time no power needed.
The Stopbox Pro's mechanical keyless system
allows for fast, secure access
without the risk of fumbling for keys when every second matters.
It's also battery-free,
so you never have to worry about your lock not working.
And with the holidays coming up,
there's never been a time to upgrade your home security.
We all know family functions get a little rowdy.
Whether it's for your own nightstand
or a loved one who takes their security seriously.
The Stopbox Pro delivers the perfect balance of protection and preparedness.
Looks like your holidays just got a little safer and a lot more affordable.
For a limited time only, our listeners are getting a crazy deal at Stopbox right now.
Not only are you going to get 10% off your entire order when you use code Julian at StopboxUSA.com,
that link is in my description below, but Stopbox is also giving you a buy one, get one free for their Stopbox Pro.
That's 10% off and a free stopbox.
Pro when you use code Julian at stopbox USA.com.
Link and description, go get it.
And in school, you were never told anything about it.
That is stunning to me.
Yeah, I don't know how.
I mean, I guess everyone, like no one knew what to do,
so I'm sure there's plenty of stories like,
where you just explained, people told you what was up,
and then my school didn't.
What was the best choice?
I have no idea.
But I want to ask you, when, because you remember,
it seemed like some details of,
that day. Do you remember how you absorb that or like how you understood what they were telling you?
It actually hit me. Now, could it hit me like it would have when I was 15 years old? No, because you're
young that you don't have the full grasp, but I knew this was something unprecedented. This was
awful. I knew thousands of people were dead. The biggest city in the world, my favorite city
New York had basically like literally exploded, you know. And I remember having a
all those thoughts i remember my mom picking me up from school and just ashen face because she the two
people that died in the building she knew well and one of them it was like she knew the family really
well and she we didn't know that those guys were deceased at that point but people were like they
haven't heard from them you know and i remember all those images and then i remember going home
and i just that whole week i remember from day one all the way through like just seeing wolf blitzer
on the TV just like yeah like what is there to say you know you're looking he i think he was
broadcasting from like right there too you're just looking at this going we don't know anything
we we know some people hit this place but you know the whole world was at a standstill so it did
hit me but i would imagine being 12 years old you know that's where you're starting to think about
the world of a little more so how much could you even let the gravity of the city
situation hit you, though, when you're dealing with a way more immediate hurt, which is the fact
that your dad is caught up in it.
Well, even when you explain that you remember that day one today, that week, and even just
the details you've explained to me, it's kind of, it's a weird feeling because, again, as I've
already said, I don't remember so much.
So part of me is like, okay, how much was that just being young, but I wasn't that young,
as you said, 12 years old isn't, it's young.
For an experience like that, it's young.
It's an experience for anyone.
But I feel like I was old enough to run.
remember more. So that's been a frustrating part to, even to date. I've let, I've let, I've let
a lot of it go and just accepted it. But at the same time, it's frustrating not to remember
more. Again, I remember parts of it, obviously that day, literally until that point, that's the
weird part, because I always think about it. I'm like, my brain, my body literally went to
defense someone to shut myself down as a defense mechanism from my understanding, from knowing
nothing, to protect me. But it's only a temporary protection. I feel like that whenever you go
through anything in your life, especially that's something traumatic, your body may shut down
in certain ways, maybe not the same way that I did. But it's really the way I look at it now.
It's like, we're going to shut this shit down right now for however long that's going to last,
but it's not going to be over. That's something you got to figure out down the road. So your body
might shut this stuff down to protect you for a little bit, but it's not meant to stay in there
forever. So that's been part of my process to figure out what got stuck inside me, even though I don't
remember a lot of the things. I don't really remember how I felt. A lot of the stuff that I do
know now is from stories of asking my mom my sister like how was i what did i act like was i this was
that that i cry and so a lot of my process is unraveling all that and that's been my journey a lot of
my grief experience has been later in life becoming a man and even to the point where i started this
podcast a lot's come up from that but it's been so long that it's bizarre how you still have things
to work out and i was wonder okay how much of them that day fucked me up to what i can't do this
in a, I'm not doing this in a relationship or on this way.
Is that just from 9-11 or is that just from other things?
It's like unraveling this puzzle piece is I can't put everything I do all my flaws just
in the box of September 11th losing my dad, maybe, but some of it is just letting go of
understanding where it came from and just understanding that you want to work this out
and then just figure it out without a story behind it.
Yeah.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely.
So it's a grief, death, whatever everyone's going through.
It's a complicated experience, but I feel like I've learned to just kind of try to simplify it.
You go down a rabbit hole with anything too much, then you're starting to confuse yourself more.
But it's been 25 years now.
So it's been, I've lost people before that, after that.
So it's all kind of mashed up.
But I'll tell you, going through that at 12 years old, you kind of got to grow up a little quicker,
because you see the world differently immediately.
That's one thing I do remember.
Immediately you do see the world differently.
How's, can you explain what was so different?
Yeah.
I mean, in particular, it was more, I did notice getting treated differently.
I'm pretty sure I made the seventh grade baseball team.
team as non-eighth career because of my dad.
Like in a small detail, like, I was good, but I probably could have made it as an eighth grader.
I don't know about a seventh grade.
So I'm pretty sure I was the last, I made the cut because of my dad.
So of like a small micro example.
But besides that, like going back to school, you're the, I'm the 9-11 boy.
I'm like the Pete Davidson before Pete Davidson kind of thing where, oh, David was the one.
And I think there were maybe, maybe another person in the school, I haven't forgotten.
But I was the guy that lost his dad, 9-11.
I was the one going to the little league baseball games.
didn't have his dad and I would people would talk to me a little gently and I noticed that
and I've heard from other guests that I've had that lost someone young one girl was honest
about it's like I kind of love I actually like like the attention because it was a form of love
in some capacity I appreciated the attention because people were amazing community around me
with my family my sister's my mom immediate family friends like the support that I had that I know
a lot of people don't have them I don't know I don't know how else it would have done it without
let alone my mother and my sisters.
So I'm very grateful for the support I had because community and support is a massive way
to get through anything in life.
I'm grateful I had that.
But at the same time, sometimes the attention was too much.
Even to date, like I get text messages every year.
And like one year, I'm just like, fuck, like, let's get one 911 with no text messages.
None of this, yada, yada.
It's just a little, it's too much.
And that's where it starts getting a little melted with the individuality of a grief
experience and also the publicity that comes behind us all me and many,
other people lost someone. And that's where it's nice, but also it gets a little, gets a little
overwhelming. I think it's, you know, and I can only say this from the outside, looking at
these situations, anytime you lose someone close to you, don't care who you are, what the
circumstances are. It's unimaginable until you go through it. There is something extra in the
time afterward when you lose your parent in a very high profile way or something like that or
when you lose someone close to you in a high profile way because a lot of people, when it has a lot
of attention on it, a lot of people who you don't know feel a certain way and with the right
intentions towards someone like you or people in your family. But the way that sometimes gets
expressed is people don't really know what to do so they do things and they don't really
think about it. And they're not, I'm not blaming them, but they're not really thinking about
like how you're going through it and how you're dealing with that and how you have, you're then almost
forced to at all times carry that around because of the way sometimes random people will come
talk to you about it. Yeah, it's interesting. Maybe I'm continuing that thought in the wrong way,
but a lot of things that comes up with a lot of my discussions and specific to the grief
of them. I talk more beyond that. It's like, what do you say to someone during that experience?
And I wonder if it's, I haven't really thought about this until you just said that, but it's like,
I wonder if I've heard a lot of that because everyone knows about my experience.
my dad and reaches out to me so much even 25 years later. Obviously, that's dimmed down a little,
but I've heard so many people say a million different things to me, whether I can say a
varibatim or not. But maybe through that experience, I never really got, I never had a problem
what people said to me, whether it was the right thing or the wrong things. I don't know what
the right thing or the wrong thing is. I just always focus on what their intention was. Like some
people get pissed off. You say, oh, they're in a better place or whatever these words are that
some people might get bothered by. And it triggers a lot of people to take these words in the
wrong way, if you will. And I think I wonder if through my experience, that's why to the point
now, like, I don't let what people say to me affect how I feel, unless someone's just an
asshole, then you know someone's saying the wrong thing to be an ass, that's different. But I just
don't put too much weight on people saying the wrong thing during the time of grief. Yeah. And I know,
I know it can, if you, if you feel a certain way and you do get, get pissed off, you get more sad,
it's fine. It's fine. Whatever you feel is fine. But I think it's important to understand that
most people are coming from a good place, even if they're saying the wrong thing or not
because they don't know what to, what do you say?
Even I, I've been talking about death for six years now on the podcast.
I still don't know the right words.
I don't know what to say.
So in my place, it's just words, if anything, like the action, the things you do for people.
Yes.
To me, that's how I am.
Like, yeah, words are important, but at the same time, it's like, okay, what's the action?
That speaks loud on the words as they say for a reason.
So I don't know if that even makes sense to how I'm parlaying with what you're
say, but it's like, and it's a sensitive topic.
You lose someone you know dies or some friends going through grief.
Like, what do I do?
What do I say?
From the person in grief, I understand why you get.
triggered by certain words people say at the same time for me personally I'm just like I just
I don't know like thank you but at the same time I don't if they say the wrong thing it just doesn't
get to me I don't know it's also you know there's no good age to ever have someone close to you
die to be very clear but I would say when you're in that like 10 to 15 10 to 16 kind of range
at least from a lot of experiences I've seen of other people that seems to be like the hardest
time because you're coming you're starting to come of age you know you're starting to become
independent in some things you only know the reality in this case of like having your parents around
and you know when you lose that it's almost like you're losing it before you can get all the
proper guidance to get to the quote unquote important things in life have you have you thought a lot
about that since then considering when this happened yeah honestly i mean this isn't just because
I lost my dad at 12, but sometimes I think, I feel like, I feel like 12 is the sweet spot.
Like out of 10 to 15 range, like, fuck, like 12 is specifically a very interesting time to
have such a traumatic event because it is, everything you just said is, like, you're not
young enough, you're old enough to know, like, what's up in the world a little bit, even as
ignorant is an undevelopmental you are, but you are old enough to understand and you're still
developing, like you're still developing from 10 to whatever, 25, but at the same time, that 12-year-old
age is such a
it's such a pivotal part of a young boy
a young girl's life like you said
for many reasons so yeah I have thought about that
it's still weird like earlier again you said surreal
and it's just beyond how
wild that day was like shit sometimes it's not that I forget
it just feels like a weird dream that I lost my dad
at 12 years old but now all these conversations
I've had doesn't dim it but kind of I'm like
people always say like oh davy you shouldn't know no one should
ever lose their father at 12 years old and part of me is like
yeah like why like what it should mean like what do you mean like that's it happens all the time
yeah and it's not again to diminish anyone that's gone through a similar experiences of capacity
but it is to me it's just kind of it helps me move my acceptance understanding that no this just
happens in the world now is one of the biggest lessons i learned from what happened to me because
you put it all together it's like okay 9-11 is just wild as hell in general like that how the
how did that happen that's a whole other conspiratorial rabbit hole we can maybe get into later
but that happened. My dad died in the Twin Towers, the plane crash. It happened when I was 12.
So at a young age, I realized, oh, no, this shit can just happen. Not only can I lose my dad
and my mom or anyone in my life and the impermanence of it all, but it could happen in that way.
So it just made me understand life and see the reality, quote unquote, of what this world is
and what can happen. And so now when things happen in my life, of course, is that innate emotional
feeling of shock, like that first initial response. But beyond that, when I take a bee and think
about, I'm like, okay, no, at a young age, I realized that wild shit can happen, good, bad,
the ugly. And it's helped me process anything that comes up in my life. Even it still doesn't
say the pain's not there. But at the same time, it's like I'm not shocked about anything that
happens in this world. I say that lightly because some things are really shocking. But nevertheless,
like having that wildest experience in such a young age just taught me to be more prep for anything
that comes up for the rest of my life. Right.
you were old enough that you have a ton of memories of your dad and basically spent the formative years of your childhood with him in your life i i take it you were extremely close with him
yeah what was he like now i'm after here i've been talking to my uncle and one of my dad's friends my childhood's
father's call me and share stories which is amazing a lot like some people you know it might be painful
to hear stories some people avoid memories i i fucking love them
because it's like a new experience with my dad.
And that's why, again, I'll get back to your answer,
but that's one of the biggest things in regards to my process
of being a man.
It's like, shit, I didn't have my, my dad only knew me as a boy.
And I never knew my dad as a man.
So I kind of missed that opportunity to be a man to know the little like,
you know the not so great things about my dad.
I want to know that shit.
What did you get into?
What trouble did you get into?
I want to know like the darker side of my dad
to see like how similar we really are.
But through, with those stories,
I realize I'm a lot like him.
And this isn't trying to put a peg in...
What's the saying?
Put a peg in who?
I was about to say some...
A round peg in a square hole or something like that?
That's not an idiot.
We'll skip that part.
But I just realized that I'm a lot like him.
And as I've gotten older, because I've been told a lot of silly stories.
There's a pranks turn away, but in a good way just to get a reaction out of people.
Every time you stepped into a room that I remember, not only because he was my dad, he was just always trying to lift people up.
Like, he wanted to make you feel like, if you were in a room with someone, if you didn't know he wants to make you feel comfortable.
And I feel like that's something I've been instilled in to try to do when I meet someone.
I do my best.
I'm not always perfect out to make them feel at home to just stay positive, but in a silly way, if that makes sense.
He's very loving, very present.
He worked his ass off.
He didn't finish college and kind of started in the mailroom, American Dream, worked his way up to the top of the World Trade Center.
So he worked hard, so I learned work ethic through him.
But ultimately, from what I know and the stories I've heard, he really made an impact in people's lives.
So it says a lot about who he was.
and there's plenty of stories that I've heard about them
that I've experienced and also new ones that I had
that just, again, align with things.
I'm like, oh, my God, I do the same shit.
Yeah.
So it was a special dude.
When was the last time you talked with him
the night before or that morning?
That's another foggy-ass thing
because I have a memory of saying goodnight to him
and for so long I held on to that being the last goodbye that I had
and part of me was like, was that the last goodbye?
Am I getting the days confused?
But nevertheless, it's the last goodbye that I remember.
I'm almost certain it was the night before,
but he was not.
known for wearing tank tops shorts even a winner and my kind of guy yeah he never had a shirt on
so when i saw when i walked to you and know your show i was like dad i pretty sure it was there's
younger than me um but i'm the same way like i used i want to walk in my place i have no shirt on like
it's like him but i remember he was i think he was in his front house yeah i respect it i think he was in
his boxers and i just remember doing his little old like in the hallway about to go upstairs i was in the
kitch him and he just gave me a little like side handwaves said good night good night kid i'm pretty sure
he said he was always known for saying hey kid and that was it and now looking back it's like eerie
regardless if that's my last goodbye which i'm almost certain it was like that was it that was that was
that was it was that was it was that was it was a yankee game and again from a childhood of things
that i forget i remember that and now looking back it's one of those real experience that i
remember but okay that was the last that was that was it that was the last goodbye but i know a couple
days before i want to say two three days before i went to a yankee game so that was the last event that we
together. I even had to look up, I went back in history to find that game to verify my
memory is not all shit. And yeah, we went to a game. And I remember he did his old thing where
he snuck us down to better seats, even though he had the nosebleeds. Tino Martinez had a home
run and the seats he took us to together was the best pewter right field. And it was a couple
days before. It was like when it was September baseball and there's like the last two memories
that I had. But before that, we didn't go on vacations. You know, we went to the sea aisle,
which is great, but it's like still in Jersey. So it was fun. Yeah, see that was fun.
Yeah. It's cool. It's cool. It's cool.
But, you know, I think that's why I travel so much now because I didn't get, I didn't get that as a kid.
You know, we were fine, but we weren't, like, rolling in it.
And the beautiful part about that was my, I remember having a talk of my mother years later.
And, you know, I'm old enough to hear some of the stories.
And, you know, she was, they were working through some things still very much in love,
but they were working through some things.
And that summer trip, my sisters were older, so they went on their own later.
They left.
And it was just me and my mom and my dad.
Then I left.
I think, I don't know if I got picked up.
So my mom and dad got some time together.
Wow.
And there's a, I believe there's a photo of them, but she's expressed like that summer,
we just, something clicked.
Again, they didn't lose anything.
They weren't on the pathway to anything bad.
She was just natural marriage ship.
Yeah.
And she was like, something about that summer, that trip.
It was just like day one again.
And it's as sad as it is, you know what I mean?
It's like, okay, they got that together.
And then he was gone.
It sucks.
But it's so, like, beautiful that at least they got that.
Because there is a weight to the way things end.
before someone dies, even though I try to focus,
even if you have a horrible goodbye before someone dies,
it's like weird how weird, but understandable,
how we can hang on to that last couple days.
I didn't say goodbye, I didn't pick up the phone.
We were angry and they died,
but there's still like a whole lifetime of memories before that
that's really the truth that you should focus on, you know?
But it's hard to do, but I'm happy and really happy
for my mom that she got that moment of just like purest love
and reconnection, if you will,
or however she would explain it better
than I was this summer before.
So it was September, so it was pretty much a month or a couple months before, I don't know what my dates are, but it was a beautiful thing that they got to have that.
Like right then. Yeah, I mean, the universe works in some strange ways, man, you know. And it sounds like your mom and dad were living in the present moment when that was going on, which is a beautiful thing. Because you never know what's coming. You don't know how things are going to be. And I do feel like just on a general level, I'm not really sure how you feel about this. But in our society today, you know, like any other society, we have our problems for sure. But we're living in an amazing time in human history. And
particularly in this country, geographically and economically speaking,
we're extremely lucky to live here overall.
But it feels like people get a little complacent about life and about the day-to-day
and about things that could go wrong.
You know, I think one of the things in doing a job like this is that I do get access
to have to look at a lot of world events and things that happen in other places.
And there isn't a part of me that ever says, that could never happen here.
Going online without ExpressVPN is like not closing the door when you take a shit in the bathroom.
Even if you think you have nothing to hide, why give random creeps a chance to invade your privacy?
In the age of cookies and data tracking and big data being used against you without you even realizing it,
it's critical to have another option that protects your online privacy.
Obviously, I just had Mike Yagley in here for episode 343.
It's insane all the stuff that's floating out there about you that people can track at any given time
if they just purchase some data from a middleman,
which is why you need a VPN to help avoid that kind of thing.
ExpressVPN reroutes 100% of your traffic
through secure encrypted servers,
so your internet service provider can't see your browsing history.
With ExpressVPN, you're going to be able to hide your IP address.
This makes it extremely difficult for third parties
to track your online activity.
It's also very easy to use.
Fire up the app and click one button to get protected.
Furthermore, it works on all devices.
This includes phones, laptops, tablets, and more
so you can stay private on the go.
After I had Yagli in here,
I started thinking about all the things
that pop up on my feed even more
to target me for things that even seem like thoughts I had,
let alone things I clicked online.
And I, of course, fired up ExpressVPN
so that we can try to minimize some of that creepiness.
It's nice to be able to have something
that you can go to
that lets you surf the web
with a little bit more peace of mind.
So secure your online data today
by visiting ExpressVPN.com
slash Julian Dory.
That link is in my description below.
That's EXX.
P-R-E-S-V-N-D-C-N dot com slash Julian Dory.
Click that link in my description to find out how you can get up to four extra months
with ExpressVPN.
Once again, that's ExpressVPN.com slash Julian Dory.
You know, maybe the probabilities are a lot less.
I'll say that.
But, you know, when it comes to the worst things,
you don't want to walk around with a guillotine over your head all the time
and assume that could happen.
But I feel like if people understood that things were a little more fragile than they think, you know, maybe they would take their day to day and their relationships and, you know, the people in their life a little more seriously.
Yeah.
And that's kind of tapped into what I was saying about not being shocked from my experience of what can happen.
I think it's an important perspective, again, not to have the guise and nobody.
You don't want to, I feel like there's like many choices, but to simplify it, it's like the fear or the gratefulness kind of thing.
Yes.
You go through whatever anyone's going through, you could be fearful of something happening again
or just happening in general, or you can just be grateful.
It's a choice.
I honestly, it's tough.
It pisses a lot of people off when I say about how much of a choice we have about just the way
we think, the way we feel, and I think the outcome of our external world, but I really believe
it's a choice.
And sometimes it's as simple as that fear or gratefulness.
Again, to personalize it, I can be fearful after my dad died.
Oh, my God, I could lose my mom.
I could lose my dad.
And I can live with that guillotine over my head, which I think you're saying, and just
live in that fear or I can be grateful I still got my mom I still got my dad right and even
if I got 10 bucks in my pocket I got 10 bucks in my pocket and it's it's a choice even though it sounds
like a fantasy choice I it really is a shift and it does go back to what you're saying living in that
that present moment because everything every all our fears are stressed it's either something that
happened in the past or something hasn't happened yet but there's that sweet spot of the present
moment of just being here and shutting our frigging phone off and just being in them that's why
I love these podcasts because it's like my phone's on an airplane mode.
Exactly.
And regardless of what happens, other people love or hate this episode, we get an opportunity
is to be here now.
That's my podcasts are just so beautiful because you live in that sweet spot of the present
moment because it's all we have.
And yeah, something may happen, but the way I think about is we, if we're creating,
again, I think a lot of stress is thinking about something that may happen, not all
of it, but some of it, if not most of it.
And that, okay, that hasn't happened yet.
We're thinking of the most worst outcome.
I may do that.
This might happen.
that may happen. I'm feeling the stress as if it's happening now. So when you put yourself in a
place of gratefulness and flip that script of feeling as if something good may happen, if that
makes sense, it's the same fucking, it's the same thing. We're thinking about something in the future
that hasn't happened. That's a bad outcome. And your body doesn't know the difference of what's
happening now and what's happening then. So you feel like it's happening now. But if you just
think of the opposite as if like the same exact tactic, I'm trying to explain this the best way I can.
No, keep going. But when you're thinking of something,
fearful that happens in the future, you're putting yourself in imaginary state. So why not
to the exact opposite? People like, how do I pretend something that has that? You're doing it all
time in a fearful way. So it's literally the exact, I look at it's the exact same thing, but just
putting yourself in a more positive thought that will make you feel happier and safer in the
present moment. A hundred percent. Does that sound half silly? No, that was perfect.
Working it out. Basically, you know, the old science of your thoughts become your mindset, your mindset
that becomes your actions, your action become your reality.
That's essentially a part of what you're saying right there
and combining it with the idea of being present
and not just waiting for that guillotine.
I think that's so important because what I don't want to come across
and the point I just made before that is that you should live everything
like, oh my God, you can be dead tomorrow.
You don't want to think like that.
What I am saying is that you never know what's going to happen.
So when you're in a moment and you have a chance
to have a really good experience with someone you care about,
fucking do it.
You know what I mean?
And enjoy it.
That's, that's all I'm saying to people.
Yeah, and it takes more power and energy and practice for people that are in more dire
situations.
Like, I'm aware of that too, where, you know, I'm blessed to be in a certain position that I'm at
and maybe vice versa.
But at the same time, I know people have it, like, how are you going to tell someone
that's starving in some other country?
Like, well, think positive people.
You know what I mean?
Like, your next meal's coming, I promise.
But the same time, like, I remember I went, I was in, I was in Cambodia one time and
I was, I paid this driver, like, whatever.
That's a tough place, Cambodia.
It was a tough place, but some of the people, most of the people, most of the people
it seems so happy. And that's kind of what I'm saying. I was like, when I think about these people
that are in third, like a third world position, I was, I paid whatever I paid him to be my driver
literally all day. I was by myself. And I was like, yeah, you want to get lunch? And he's like, sure.
So we sat down on the side of the road, eating on the floor, traffic going by us, eating rice and
stuff from our hands. I was wanted to learn about him. He's like, yeah, I make whatever was
it was seven bucks a day working in the fuel all day. Sometimes I do this. And I didn't hear any
negativity. I didn't hear complaining. He was, he didn't express that he was sad. He seemed
happy at his family. And I always go back to that moment. How much of that is just his mind state
and also how much of that is just ignorant of not knowing what else is, like what else is available
in the world? Maybe it's a blend of both. It's a blend of both. It's probably a blend of both.
But then he sees so many, he's driving tourists around who's like me. I'm not that I don't wear
anything fancy, but he's got to be exposed to some of it. He's not completely ignorant.
But yeah, he wasn't complaining that I'll make $7. He's just, no, that's what I do.
I work that. I do this. And this really stuck out to me because I was like, what is, I just want
and get into his mind, he's like, what is he constantly thinking of for him to stay in this
state? Because he's not living a life of luxury. He's making 10 bucks a day, max, living wherever
he's living, eating on the side of the row with me. And it just always made me think the power
of what's going on inside of our head and how much that creates, how we react in this,
how we exist in this world. And it used to be very woo-woo. Now it's still woo-woo, but it's not
as woo-woo as it used to be. Now it's a little bit more scientifically based. I believe in it.
And I think that's part of the choice I was trying to point out. It's not woo-woo at all.
It is quite literally scientifically based what you're talking about.
And I'm not one of these guys that excoriates technology at all.
I love technology.
I think it's a beautiful thing about human existence like this, you know what I mean?
But this is a great piece of technology with so many tools in it.
The problem is that like anything else, it can be abused and used wrong for people listening,
not watching, I'm holding up a phone.
And the guy you talk about right there in Cambodia, and you heard my reaction, like, oh,
it's a rough place.
Exactly.
You know what I mean?
And I've heard, I've never been there.
I've heard so many people talk about, I think I'm thinking of the right place.
Cambodia, like in all, how war, yeah, how war-torn.
It's been and stuff like that.
But people like that who have understood the worst traumas and the least amount of opportunities,
they're not sitting on this fucking thing all day, you know, live tweeting or whatever.
They're not wasting their life away comparing themselves to what their friend down the street has.
they're taking joy in the very small things.
And I'll be frank, like to call myself out sometimes, you know, when I get into those
situations where you have a little bit of that self-pity or that all shucks kind of thing,
it's not good.
And sometimes, like if I'm alone here and I find myself getting there, to rewire it,
I will literally stand up and be like, you are living in the greatest time alive.
Shut the fuck up and have fun.
Go smell some roses, go outside, take a walk.
Things are great, you know?
And sounds dumb, but you do something like that, you realize, oh, you know, you're right.
I was in my parents' house a couple years ago.
I'm not.
Now, that's a win.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And there's a little bit of, I love that attitude because, you know, I try to be as compassionate
and gentle as possible with the way I was raised with my mom, she's a bull.
And it's similar to what you said.
It's a little bit of, a lot of bit of for me.
Maybe it's not for everyone, but I think it should be is kind of got to be a little bit
of a soldier and get your fucking, a lot of a.
way more accountability for yeah something's happened that we have no control over if not most of it
but at the same time there's got to be a little bit of get get up pussy kind of thing yes and shake yourself
out of it kind of like what you were doing even if it's in a little moment or a big moment there's got
be a blend of yeah be gentle yourself don't be so hard on yourself but also like get up we got
get up what else choice do we have because we find ourselves in these pity mentality there's that
what is that doing right it's doing nothing but it literally makes it work
It's like the same thing with worrying.
It's something I work out of, but I'm in a good place in my life of just letting go of worry
because I just realize it literally does nothing.
There's only one outcome out of work.
Sometimes worry and fear can be a let you can leverage it for sure.
I think that could be a driving force, but that's again, that's reusing an emotion in a positive way, I think.
But if you sit in there and get frozen by it, it's, there's no benefit.
So that's just like a zero end game where it's, okay, this is not going to do anything for me.
I can choose to sit there because it's kind of comfort.
like the sadness that pain is comforting because it's oddly safe because you know what you're
going to get the scary part is trying to do something about it because you're not because again
we're trying to do something about not knowing the outcome we're so constantly scared of the unknown
which I think is why a lot of people fear death is because yeah some people I think some people may
know what happens sure they're more confident religion yada yada but I also think that's leaning
into finding the known and finding security in what we know and the fear and the fear and all the
opportunity is in the unknown but I think there's a great opportunity to
to use the unknown to your benefit.
And that's like where the excitement happens.
That's where the growth happens.
That's where the gold is.
It's in the unknown, but we're so scared of the unknown
because we think not knowing we're not safe.
But like my mom, my mom went to cardiac arrest in 20, 23,
heart stopped for 10 minutes.
She was gone.
10 minutes.
10 minutes, gone.
And she's alive.
She's alive.
That's a whole other rabbole, we can go down.
But the point of saying is her mom was very healthy.
She has like a pharmacy in her cabinet of healthy herbs and supplements.
in the showshake, she, I think she wrote 11 miles the day before it happened.
Skinny, like, no issues.
And then I talked to her about it, just had her on the show again.
She's like, you know, I did all these things.
I was so healthy.
I was scared of something happening from my health, so I took care of myself.
And the shit still happened.
So part of me is like, how much of that, how much do we have control besides what's going on in here?
Because shit, shit is going to happen, whether we like it or not.
But the more we worry about something, I wonder how much that is magnetizing that event to come to us.
I think that's so true, man.
you know and like i i have amazing parents and and they i they instilled a lot of positive things
in me and like they're my idols no parents are are perfect and and if there's one thing i talk
with my parents about sometimes that is definitely passed down generationally from their parents
probably the parents before that it's that they're always saying like well be careful with this
because this could happen or whatever and that's where a lot of my like internalized some of my
internalized anxiety comes from because I'm like, you know what? Fuck it, dude. You can't,
and I have to say this out loud because I'm wired to think like that, you know? Like I was talking
with my producer, Dief, who's a really close friend of mine, a long-time friend of mine,
and we were talking about like getting so caught up in work and, and how I've just been
going for six years, coming up on six years with this thing, seven days a week. And he's like,
know, you got to live again.
I say, you're 100% right.
And he left here and I went out there and I spent a lot of money on plane tickets in
December and hotels for the two of us.
Again, I'm not taking calls from my accountant right now.
It's okay.
We'll figure it out.
And I was just like, fuck it.
What's the worst that happens to kick me out of here?
You know, I can't pay my bill.
I'll figure it out.
You'll figure it out.
You know, and there's something so freeing about doing that.
And I think, you know, if there's people out there that can relate to what I'm
saying you have to remind yourself this because you may be wired like I am to think the other
way. So you have to rip off that band-aid and be like, I'm going to think this way, you know?
I mean, I relate to that. Again, Ma, I love you. But it's been, it's very, for lack of better
words, a little neurotic in regards to kind of similar. You're like, but this could happen.
That could happen. And I think it was a process for me. I feel like I'm the black sheep in my family
and the decisions I've made. I am the black sheep of the family and the decisions I made.
picture out there is it black sheet yeah like with open that door both us just open that door
open that door look right to the corner holy shit dude that's fire i didn't get that that's like
i fuck i got the chills yeah um that's amazing okay i thought it was a chris farley movie that's even
better but to parlor off the black shit that's how i felt but not in like a outcast yes outcast
but in a loving way they supported me everything i've done so it's not even not
it in a negative way. I just kind of went my own way. But I think that was, I wonder how much
that was forcefully because of the way I was raised. And it was all love. This ain't a knock on anyone
that raised me. It was just like very, if this can, that might happen. So be careful, yada yada.
And I forced myself to, you know, take solo trips or move to California when I was 22 and jump
into shit. Like, I don't know what's, I don't know what's going to happen. And part of it was,
I was, I made it, it made it, it never seemed like a risk for me, honestly, because I know I
always had a bed. Again, we're not like a wealthy family or anything. We were fine, but I always
had a bed, it was a full size bed or whatever it was. I had, I had, I wasn't, I didn't want to think
like that. Oh, I'm going to do this because I always have somewhere to sleep, but it was a little
bit of an easier choice for me. But nevertheless, it was going through these experiences of
taking a solo trip again, moving to California and just diving into let's just see what happens and
whatever happens, I'm going to figure it out. And that's kind of how it worked out. I truly believe
everyone has that in them. It's just what you said. It's pulling the bandage, just, just,
jumping into the ocean went on life fest and figuring it out. And I think everyone has that
capability. And they think, yeah, you're scared, but you do it anyway. I got this silly little
story. I remember, like I said, the name, but when I was in high school and me like freshman
sophomore, every town has one dude that was like the tough guy, the tough guy of the town,
beat the shit out of everyone. He happened to be thankfully on my side. And I remember one side,
there was a fight that was going to go down. And we were getting ready to like just be behind my
homie and his brother was lacing up his boots as we got ready to walk up and I remember him he's
the tough guy like I just saw him as fearless fearless and he's like shaking off he's like he's nervous
I'm like what you're nervous and he goes yeah I always get so nervous for I'm at the stomp on someone's
face first of all I'm not supporting that not supporting that but the lesson the lesson in this is
I was like holy shit this dude's still scared to do what he's done a million times and he's the guy if
you will, and always stuck with me, because I was not that guy. And I was like, oh, damn,
that was like a profound lesson in something that I'm not supporting. But nevertheless, like,
no, you're still scared. I'm still scared. Even the most, the bravest people, it's not an
absence of fears, doing it anyway. And I think that's a big lesson. Whatever we do is just,
yeah, you feel the shakes, but it's like once you get in it, it's like, you kind of,
it kind of gets released once you're in it because you have no choice. And how you handle it.
And how you have, yeah, it can still go bad. I'm not saying like, it's back to acknowledging, oh,
this could happen, but okay, then you figure it anyway.
I think Louis C. Bill Burr, I think Bill Burr even said he's like, you know, don't worry
about it. What does it do? I'm paraphrasing. He's like, but don't worry about, but then if
shit goes bad, then worry about it then. Then you'll figure out again. So it's just, again,
it just comes back to how we perceive it and doing things anyway. And it's much easier
said than done, but then again, what the hell is easier? What isn't easier said than done
anyway? But it's just, again, it comes back to this, just the way we perceive it.
How we, it's, everything.
Everything is everything. People have the same, the first impulse of wiring, I believe.
like that very first synapse is the same in every person but everything that happens after that
is based on how people have handled perceptions throughout that life yes i heard john bone jones john
bones jones say once that he gets scared or not scared he has some fear and butterflies before every
fight but it's about taking those butterflies and putting them in fucking formation you know which is
so good because he's saying like oh that means it's okay for that to be there that's normal i'm like
I'm like, yeah, I'm going to get myself.
I'm going to get ready.
I'm going to go stomp on this motherfucker.
And I'm nervous in here.
But when I get in there, Zen and those butterflies, I say fly there, fly there, fly there.
Boom, we're good.
Now we channel it.
We perceive that as that's the energy that now I can transform into something else,
which involves me killing this person in front of me.
But I'm getting paid for it.
Different choices, whatever.
But even little things, even not even profound moments.
I was on a panel recently for some.
live event. It was one of the first, I've been on stage before, but this is the first time
I did it for what I'm doing. And I was nervous. I was nervous, even though it was a panel,
I wasn't the only one. So it wasn't in my hand, like, this isn't that big of a deal. But I still
had those butterflies. But then once I just, I went up there and it wasn't not going to go up
there, sat there, started talking. And then all of a sudden, like, after I said my first word,
it was just, it was gone. I was like, oh, I'm home right now. I don't care who you. I don't care
who you. I don't care. But like, it didn't matter. But it was, it took just pushing through the nerves,
pushing through that.
And this is just a small, silly moment that doesn't mean anything, but I think it applies
to anything we do.
100%.
It's putting those friggin butterflies in formation.
I love that.
Do you remember you had said, going back to your story, you had said that when you came home
and you saw the replay that day on 9-11, you just kind of blacked out.
And it was like your body just went into protection mode.
Do you remember, you know, was it a week later, two weeks later to where you kind of, for the first time,
came to the point that you can now recall?
what happened during that day, whenever that was, and what life was like and how you felt?
I remember shit, man.
That's the, that's the crazy part.
I mean, again, I remember moments.
I remember people always being at the house.
I remember my brother-in-law, just playing video games with me.
And as small as that seems, I think he was just trying to give me a sense of normalcy.
Right.
And kind of not distract me, but kind of.
Just kind of, let's give you something familiar in the most unfamiliar of times.
And again, I don't know how much of it's because it was 25 years ago, the trauma or just being a kid and just lack of memory.
I don't know if it's the weed I smoked.
I don't know what it is, maybe everything.
But I, no, I don't.
I can't even give you an answer on remembering, oh, now I'm kind of clear-headed
because I feel like it was a fog until I got maybe into like college
where I started waking up a little bit.
Wait, that's a long time.
It's a long fucking time.
But it's not waking up.
It's like everything was clear.
I just don't, I think a lot was bottled up for a while.
My mom would always give me the opportunity to speak.
She would, again, it's something I don't remember when I talked to her on the podcast.
She would say, yeah, we used to have, we still have our dinners, whatever once, we got Sundays, or whatever it was.
And it would kind of be like a roundtable where everyone would get a chance to just, she wanted us to express, but she wasn't forcing it, which I think she handled gracefully and amazing.
But she said to me, he's like, yeah, you would just sit there and observe.
You just sit there quietly.
You wouldn't say anything.
You'd cry and just take it all in.
And that makes sense to who I am now.
I'm, I like to think I'm observant.
I see what's going on.
And I might not say a lot.
Now I say more because I learn the importance of talking about it.
And I think that's the ironic part of what I have now because the conversations that I
have, even though it's focused on my guest, it is understanding the importance of expression.
And there's always that to be words.
Even though I talk about it, I don't know if that's always the answer, but some form of
getting whatever's inside out because whatever stays inside us is going to turn into something
else.
And back to that woo-woo scientific shit, it's like you get a trauma that you're not dealing
with or expressing that's going to manifest into either rage or it's
going to manifest into a disease and then 40 years later when you get a tumor and you're
not even going to relate it to whatever we experience and fact check everything I'm saying by the way
but also there's something to that there's something to that I had bruce lipton on the show and
he is he talks about the manifestation of these diseases i know james lipton uh doctor bruce lipton
he wrote biology of belief biologists and he was kind of shunned from the scientific community for
so long for what he believes what he's expressed for so long and now all of a sudden what do you know
It's like, there's some truth to it.
Yeah, shocker.
Big shocker, because you can't form energy in a pill, so they can't sell that.
But that's a whole other conversation.
Well, there's a pill that will form some energy.
Yeah, yeah, by aga.
But no, I mean, I'm kind of going off the rails right now, but one thing he did say was
kind of relation to what I said about the trauma of how I had that experience,
my body, my defense mechanism was bottling it up and you have to deal with it later.
He explained it very simply that really resonated with me.
He's like, okay, back in the day, day, day, when the saber-tooth tigers are chasing us,
your body goes into fight or flight.
And two, so all the energy from your immune system and the internal organs
literally goes to your arms and legs either fight or flight.
And your body can survive, fighting this or running away from the saber-tooth tiger in the
moments, it can survive for 10 minutes, whatever, that's fine.
Even if all the energy is going through your important bodily functions, it's okay.
And your body comes back to normal, and then all of a sudden your body's operating
in the way it's supposed to.
But it's when you are constantly running away from that.
saber-toothed tiger when this disease happens because all of a sudden all the
energies in fight or flight and your body can't operate the way it's supposed to,
your immune system, et cetera, et cetera.
And that's where the danger is.
When you have these traumatic events and we don't work through it, it's okay to be there
for a little bit, but we can't live the rest of our life in this constant stress because
that's what's killing us, the fucking stress.
But then big million-dollar question, okay, how do we've released that?
And I think there's a million of, millions of ways.
And that's part of like the kind of, how I say is like in grief in the specific conversation,
but you can create grief as an X variable to whatever you're going through.
It's like a grief recipe.
Someone gives you a recipe, hey, this is how you handle it.
You make this lasagna, you make it.
It's either really good or whatever.
You know, I'm going to add a little salt here.
You know, I'm going to take that salt out.
I'm going to add a different type of meat, make a vegetarian.
But it's about trying it.
Create your own recipe.
See what works for you.
Like, take the blueprint, because I think there's some good shit there that books or
whatever may read, but it might not resonate for you.
But it takes action and movement to try different things.
I don't know, microdose mushrooms, to talk to your therapy, whatever works.
I don't talk to a therapist.
but my podcast is my therapy, to be honest.
So it's about creating your own recipe and finding out what works.
But if you're just sitting there not cooking, then you're not going to stay where you're at.
And if you stay where you're at, staying in that stress mode where your body is not operating
the way it's going to in that trauma, in the constant stress, and you're going to get fucked up by it.
Yeah, and like I talk to, you know, these different literal geniuses who are like neuroscientists
and neurophysiologists and stuff like that.
And they're always talking about plasticity and neuroplasticity and how.
you form these pathways and it's you know goes right back to habit building and things like that i hope i'm
not fucking this up but you know when you start to put yourself into thought loops that you don't
release in some kind of healthy way or get out there in the different forms that even you laid out
right there you create these pathways that normalize that and then that becomes your base and
that's what your body does and to your point it internalizes everything and
And this science is absolutely proven at this point that when you are forcing your body into modes that include stress or severe mental discomfort or, you know, certain hormones firing at times that they're not supposed to be firing, fucking up with your sleep, fucking up your circadian rhythm.
I mean, the list goes on and on.
It's a domino effect.
And it absolutely, I love the saber-tooth tiber example, because it absolutely is like that in the sense that your body's not meant to function when it has to put all its.
resources towards one thing constantly that's in like five alarm fire mode.
And the thing is the saber tooth tiger is now it's the bills.
Now it's the whatever we went through, the trauma we went through.
Now it's the relationships.
Now it's the shit we see on the phone.
So now it's a herd of saber tooth tigers in this day and age.
So it's how do we operate with that?
Again, back to the same shit we've been saying, it's the way we see things.
Those neural pathways are talking about.
When you say the same thing over and over again, it's going to create those neural
pathways.
And from my understanding, the only way to deflect.
those neuropaths to create new one,
which that's where the habit comes.
And that's when the, like, the Joe dispenses
or whatever you want to call them
that are saying the repetition of these thoughts.
So it's not, you could be a lunatic,
and what's like I've, I sometimes write over and over
the same thing just to build that daily repetition.
All of a sudden your brain does kind of become tricked
in a way of starting to believe it after time.
And people just think that you do this meditation,
you do whatever for two weeks and you're like,
nothing's happening.
It's like, okay, you're not that good at it.
Keep going.
So you go to the, my easiest analogy is you go to the gym,
you work out for three weeks.
You're expecting to be ripped.
No, it's a process.
Sometimes it clicks a little quicker.
Maybe some people's metabolism is a little better, whatever.
But it takes that it's the best practice is a daily practice.
And even if it's a little bit constantly doing those reminders,
paying attention to how you speak to yourself, I don't think we do that enough.
Oh, yeah.
Like a little micro thought, a little annoying roommate in your head.
I get it all the time where I'm about to like, if you go to talk up, go to talk to a girl,
what if she says, no, it's like, no, just do it anyway.
And regardless of what happens and replace that example for anything, it's like,
how are we talking to ourselves?
It's constantly, it's most likely negative.
And it's not because, I don't know if it's because we're negative by nature or more,
we're just survivalist by nature.
And so we're looking for the negative just to survive.
And if we could train ourselves just to, when you catch yourself saying something negative
yourself, just catch it.
And even that's a start just to like be aware.
Yes.
I think being aware is probably the first step.
Even if you don't do anything from it, just be aware.
You know what I'm talking to myself like shit right now, even though it's just for one thought.
And now you're aware of it.
And then once you get to the awareness part, now you're paying attention to it a little
bit and now you can just literally say it sounds like it might not feel immediately better even
though sometimes you might like you said when you're getting that zone you're clapping yourself
up and now you you woke yourself up so it can have an immediate effect but I think just being aware
of how we're speaking out loud how we're speaking to others and then just slowly try to just flip it
even if you sound like you're lying to yourself that's okay like be a little bit of an actor
because at some point when you do it over and over again now it's going to be habit when you talk negative
it just flips.
I think there's also a line because people get caught up in this like, oh, well, if you're
always telling yourself how great you are at something or how great your mind is at that time
or whatever, you start to huff your own shit or, you know, think you can't fall or you're
better than other people.
I don't think that's the case at all.
I think that's something I always feared as well.
There's a huge difference in how you express yourself to other people and how you express
to yourself.
How you express to yourself is to be able to serve yourself in the best possible way to put
your mind in the best place that you can be a positive impact on other people. I think it really
just comes back to that. And, you know, you're speaking my language right now because these are all
things that I'm working on. I am that guy who my motivation in my head has always been,
you ain't nothing, bitch. Fuck you. You're not going to work. It can work, but I overdo it.
I do it at everything. It was to the point that, you know, until a few years ago, I never thought
I was good at a single thing and sold myself short and spent my whole life kind of hyping up all other
people, which that's great. And I continue to do that. I literally do that for a living now,
which is awesome. But I never hyped up myself. And I couldn't get myself to a place where I could
say, you know what? You have talent at this. Or like, if you try hard at that, you're, you're going
to get there. Or like, you deserve to get this thing if you work like that, you know.
So what switch? It's still, it's still in the process of switching. I've had to, I'm in the
process, I'd say. Like, there's some things that I'm, I'm better at. But I think it's also,
So when you get to really low moments mentally and things feel like they're all wrong and
when you've lost a lot.
When you've lost a lot of things, now I have not lost a father or a mother or something
like that.
So I think I've been very fortunate in that type of department.
But in other things in life, I've lost everything I've done.
And I think when you do that enough, especially when you're putting the work in and you take
some else, which not always everyone sees, obviously, you know, you have to have some honest
moments with yourself and when other things are going wrong in your life and that all combines
together you have some honest moments and you start asking simple questions like well how do I talk to
myself you know so I'm not sitting here saying oh I figured it out I'm doing great like trust me like
even this morning I was struggling with it a little bit on a couple things but you really hit home when
you said when you said even just catching the thought and recognizing that it came in is important
because I do have probably, you know, 75% more awareness than I did a year ago on catching
those thoughts. Now, turning them back around and saying, now, how can I turn that into a positive?
I'm from New Jersey. It's a little hard. I got Italian-Irish blood. But, you know, we'll get there.
We'll get there. But it's everything you're saying, like, even when you're saying stuff, like,
well, if this is woo-woo, it's not, man. Like, these guys that come on and, you know, say some things
and people are like, well, they're not a doctor,
or they get this wrong or that wrong.
Everyone gets shit wrong.
We've seen doctors get some things wrong in the last few years.
Yeah, what was it?
Yeah, I must have.
What was it?
I don't know.
There's a little error there, right?
So, you know what I mean?
It's like Bruce Lee said.
You take what's good, you discard what's bad.
And sometimes these guys got some, you know,
the Joe dispenses of the world got some amazing ideas.
There's some things he says.
I'm like, yeah, he might be cooking a little far on that.
Yeah.
But then there's other things.
I'm like, at has evidence to it.
And then when I put it into practice,
I'm like, is that a placebo effect or is that, no, that's real.
Yeah, it's real.
You know, you can't fool yourself for too long.
Yeah, but let me ask you about that.
I was just talking about this from my sisters the other day, that placebo effect came out.
A lot of people used the placebo.
Yeah, it was just placebo.
I'm like, okay, well, what's placebo?
Red pill, blue pill.
I take both at this point.
Let's fuck around and find out because, like, what the, like, people say, it's just placebo.
Okay, but why did that work?
What's, because you, was it had anything to do with the fact that you thought this is a real pill?
and you thought it would work.
And what's the key word there?
Thought.
It's like, what the fuck is placebo?
Belief, dude.
It's crazy.
I think, I don't know if we could go down the conspiratorial rabbit hole, but it's like.
Oh, feel free.
Yeah, I mean, that 9-9-11, I guess the definition of conspiracy.
But it's like, I feel like we've just been, we're constantly brainwashed, first of all, constantly.
It's been like that forever.
It's, oh, it's like, everyone's like, we're in this age of brainwash.
You know, it's literally always been like that.
I just think it's been progressively getting.
more fierce with technology.
It's always been there.
People like, though, the government's always bad.
The bet so bad, yes, it is, but it's always been that way.
And I just feel like we've just been shut down and shut down and shut down further and further
from the original truth.
Whatever that truth is, I don't know.
But you think about before, like, church and state, it was, I feel like it was more philosophical,
like ancient times, people were thinking of who are we, where to we come from?
I did these weird ass sacrifices and these weird drawings and thought about these existential
questions and all of a sudden it started evolving less and less about existential
and who are we to just technology and advancement and this or that.
And I feel like we're in a moment.
So one thing I realized from my, even just from my little podcast is people are really
coming back to this question about thinking about the afterlife, whether you believe it
or not.
Where do we come from?
Why are we here?
Purpose.
And as crazy has been the last five years, I do think 2020 was a big awakening.
I'm outside.
I don't even care about the politics.
I'm just talking about people facing their mortality.
Being alone and facing.
I remember my friends mess.
you're like, damn, Dave, you're thriving.
Like, yeah, I'm good.
I love being by myself.
And I was more creative, yada, yada.
But there were so many people in my circle that really were struggling being by
themselves and being fearful for many reasons.
We don't have to get into the reasons.
But it was facing a mortality in that moment, I think really shifted a little bit in a lot
of people's mind, maybe the consciousness of asking those big questions again.
I think that's important.
I think going back to that because we're so distracted that after all these paradigms,
we've been shut down to think, to think less, to be honest.
And I think people need to think more for themselves.
And it's hard to know what is even your own thought these days.
It's really hard because sometimes I'm reading like, do I think of that?
Was that something I read?
Is that even true?
Is that a headline?
What is my thought anymore?
So it is important to kind of shut the world down a little bit.
As much as I want to pay attention to what's going on, part of me is like, I need to,
I also want to stay in my lane and be compassionate for as many people as I can.
But we do have to kind of, to shape the world, we got to shape our own world.
And you have to ask, to your point, you got to ask the questions that pop in your head
around you. You know, I agree with you. I think that there's something to society being programmed
over time, even if it's not intentional. Everyone always wants to put, you know, the man with the
hand on the strings up here. And don't tell me wrong, that stuff exists. But sometimes it's just like
the way that groups form and conformity happens around new paradigms and stuff like that. And I always
think of a Carl Sagan example. You ever hear him talk about like kindergartners? Not specifically, but I know
So he has this great clip and people can pull it up online.
I think about this literally like once a day.
So when you walk into, this is from the 90s too.
So Carl Sagan's talking to someone on an interview and he says when you walk into a kindergartner's class, the questions are amazing.
Kids say, why is the sky up?
Why is the grass green?
Why do the animals live around us?
Why does the lion eat the deer?
You know, all these simple things, but they're just observing the world around them and
whatever pops in their head, they're wondering about it and they're trying to get farther and
closer to truth. On the contrary, though, when you walk into a 12th graders class, everyone's
quiet. Yep. There's no curiosity or imagination, very little. And he said something terrible has happened
between kindergarten and 12th grade. People, kids have been systematically told explicitly,
implicitly or both, that their questions are stupid and they should shut up and let other people
deal with wondering what the answers are. And that is in no way positive for society. And for a guy
of his stature to say that decades ago and see before any of this and see where we're at now,
I think it goes to exactly what you're saying. Like there's too much of us having this
most ubiquitous access to information of all time to the point.
that we internalize anything or just allow the latest headliner, the latest click or scroll
to influence how we think and don't think farther from that.
You know, it's like we have so much that we have so little.
Yeah, I think, I wonder if it's people are, besides everything you explain about the progression
of, I guess, the system and what we've been told and taught.
But I think we're also just scared sounding stupid.
Yes.
I sound stupid.
I think I've sounded stupid on every single episode.
It's just ask, I don't know, like, is that child.
like wonderment that is so important. I love my nieces and nephews because of that reason.
They ask these questions that an adult would never ask. Yes, because they're learning about the
world. They just don't know a lot. But at the same time, that childlike wonderment is so important
and that curiosity because I feel like a lot of people think we know every we have all this
information. We know everything. We have the answer to that. We know. I feel like the more we know
I start learning, I know nothing. Right. I like literally know nothing. And it's interesting.
The more I know I want to seek more. And it's just I like asking questions.
even if I don't support the quo, I want to know both sides of it.
I want to see different angles.
And I feel like my life is like a smorgasbord of understanding where you said something
about Joe dispens.
Like, I think 75% makes sense.
Then there's some like, whatever.
That's fine.
I'll take what makes sense to me and what resonates with me.
Right.
Thinking on my own and then also be being open to other people's thoughts.
Maybe they'll change my mind.
But it's that curiosity is.
I think it goes back to what I was saying maybe of having to know.
We're a species that wants to know.
You need to know because I think knowing equates to safety.
security. Everyone wants to be safe. There's a foundation of what I think humans all relate to.
It's like, we want to feel safe. We want to be loved. We want this basic kind of foundational
aspect of life. And I think it does come back to understanding that we're not so different,
even though we are very different. There is a foundation that we could all relate to. And in this
world of divisiveness, it's so important to just, let's just, we can agree to disagree. It's a
world where I think we have to either agree or fuck you. And it's like, no. I mean, you don't have to
have a beer with that guy all the time, but it's okay to think different.
because I don't know what you know, I don't even know what I know.
And we have to find some kind of camaraderie and also think for ourselves.
We're in a world that's being told what to think.
Yes.
And so important to think for ourselves.
Yeah.
And we fall right into the trap.
I always say divided society is a compliant society.
100%.
When you get powerful people to get the 99% fighting over bullshit,
that's not actually moving the needle more than 5% in either direction.
There is no greater cover for being able to then take the actions that no one's.
C's, you know. Bars. Yeah. I mean, I've talked to enough people at this point that that's one of
those things I'm very comfortable with as the truth. You know, there's things I can affect. There's
things I can't. But if I can at least see where I don't need to waste my time, then I think
that's positive. Yeah. And that waste near, there's so much to pay attention to. There's just
almost too much going on. That kind of goes back to what I was saying about staying in my lane.
Like, I know what I'm doing now.
I know what I want to do.
There's a lot of things I want to do.
But I can only, I remember I got called out for not.
I don't remember what the cause was.
There's a million different things that people are rallying for, and that's great.
But I'm, I posted, I don't know what I posted, but I posted something and someone gave me shit for not talking about or not doing some kind of solidarity for whatever was going on in the world.
And I don't know if it was what war it was.
But I remember looking at it because I get a lot of shit talk in the comments.
I'm sure you do too.
And so I love you all.
I remember, I love you.
No, yeah, I don't know your comment section as well as mine, but I just remember looking.
I was like, even if I did what he was hoping I would do and I said what he wanted me to say, someone else would have said whatever.
That's exactly right.
And so I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.
And I realize you, I, we, everyone can't, we can't please everybody.
Can't please everybody.
When I say stay in my lane, I know, I know what I want to do.
I know what I feel like I'm here for.
And if I, unless I'm going to go down.
the political rabbit hole or medical rabble hole. I'm not. So I don't know. I don't have to speak
on everything if that makes sense. This is what I feel like I'm here for. So I'm just going to do
and keep my world smaller and still have opinions on whatever else is going on. But I think it is
important for me to understand that stay in my lane. And there's so much distraction out there that
is all very important, all very important, but that's not my lane. So I don't know what I do with
that. Do you, did you have points in your life where you were,
worried i don't really know how to ask this but this might not be the right way but did you have
points in your life where you were worried about being disliked by people yeah yes for sure i think uh
maybe i was a little self-conscious i think i was always pretty self-conscious but i also think
because i had very terrible acne growing up so as weird as that's a relation i used have horrible
horrible acne and that was a weird time of my life
to be honest. You look right now. I got a couple
pimples, but when you're fucking cameras are going to see it.
But I think that parlays into like me
I did, I used to, honestly, I'm being very vulnerable
but I used to like, for a while I didn't want to turn the light on in the bathroom
and look myself in the face because of how bad my face was.
And eventually I was like, but I remember during that time, even when I had, I'm
talking like, I used to go on, you know, acutane?
Accutane is like the last resort. You take this pill and it's
horrible side effects. It's a pill that you take.
I think I had like the generic version, which is even worse.
And it brings everything out before it gets better.
And there's a lot of less than that because I imagine, how are you going to hide your face?
Like, I can't, I was in college.
She was 18.
He was like, he was 18 years old, probably a very pivotal time of my life where I looked like this.
And I just learned to, all right, this is what's on my face.
And my point of that is, I think during that process, I just presented myself as I was.
And, you know, it was very visual.
But people, A, don't care as much as usually you think they do, even with all their schmutz
in my face. And how I carried myself, people were able to look past it, if that makes sense.
Even if they did care, because you can't ignore it. It looked like a fucking pepperoni pizza.
And the way I carried myself is really that all that mattered. And regardless of how I carried
myself, people are always going to have an opinion. And there's one of those things of just like,
I can't control that. If I'm an asshole, I can control that. But outside of that, it's just,
I eventually got to a place of I just don't really care.
So you learn from it. I learn from it. But it's not perfect. There's still moments. Someone says
something. I still feel that. But then I think the real great.
is even when I feel that initial, whatever you called it earlier,
like that first initial beep, okay, now I take a breath
and then I can overcome that.
So it's not the disappearance of being perfect in Buddha about it.
It's like everyone thinks these people that are on this different wavelength
don't feel it anymore.
It's like, no, I think it's feeling it,
and then what do you do with it?
And then it's how you respond to it as opposed to react to it.
Do you still feel like that kid sometimes?
Yeah, dude.
Yeah.
See, that's the hard part.
Yeah, for sure.
like you can the only time we see ourselves is in the mirror when we look right so you the way you
feel inside internalizes outside and you have to change that mindset i relate to what you're saying
a lot because i i had i was really banged up for like four years there lost 45 50 pounds my
skin was burned out you know my eyes were bulge i just looked terrible i looked like and i felt
terrible i looked like the shriveled up little guy and i started getting treatment two years
two years ago and you know got my life back in order put on put the 45 pounds back on and like
now you know if I look over here like objectively I look pretty good at least comparatively
I saw you with your shirt off you look great yeah but you know there's a strange thing that
I'm dealing with where I realize I still feel on the inside like that weak little shriveled dude
you know what I mean and there's something where you have to and I'm working on that there's
something where you have to rewire that thought and be like, you know, not that I'm going to go
out there and, you know, look for a fight like it's O3 Russell Crow, but you know what I mean?
Like, you got to know, like, hey, you could handle yourself. You're fine. You're doing okay, kid.
Yeah, you still got, it's just like it's like deflating a balloon. Like, the balloon could be full
then little by little that sometimes there's still some air in there to be let out.
Yes. I mean, that turning the light on thing, it's not like it hasn't happened like this
year. I tell I catch myself sometimes and I turn on it. What I do? I look at myself.
I'm like, all right, well, this is what you got, dude.
no fucking this is what you are what am i do i could work on the physical you can always work on
and people think the internalized stuff that you can't see you can work in that just the same
and yeah so i still have a lot of those childlike insecurities um and sometimes it's just pushing
through it anyway kind of like what we already discussed but it's not it's never perfection
and it's not even chasing perfection it's just the work that we do and it's it's not like
it just disappears kind of like you learn to manage it a little better and just as long as we're
i just like movement i just i'm just a very big believer in moving
and just trying to be better and not be so hard on myself when I do have those days
if I don't want to turn the light on kind of as an analogy, you know what I mean?
Like it feels like a step back for a, oh my God, I did this.
I had that donut or I yelled at my wife, whatever.
Don't yell at your wife, but nevertheless, it's like, it's okay to have those ups and downs.
That cliche analogy of when you zoom out type shit, everyone thinks there's a straight line up
and then it's squiggly up and down.
I think that's what just life is.
And sometimes that drop is pretty heavy, but then all we can do is learn from it.
And that's a lot of the conversations I've had about that spirituality, there's near death
experiences.
A lot of those people are, whether you take it with a grain of salt, I'm very skeptical,
but a believer at the same time, more believer.
And a lot of things that those people are saying, whether you believe them or not,
it's like we chose this life.
And if we did choose this life, we're going on a whole other angle of the conversation.
This is great.
It's all, it's all a lesson.
I think it's truly just all a lesson.
And what do we do with that lesson?
So, yeah, this is something I did want to talk to you about because it is fascinating to me, the near-death experience people.
Because on your show, you talk with people who are from all different lenses of dealing with death and grief or, you know, having nicks with it, whatever you want to say.
But the near-death experience thing is wild because there is something, I mean, if I really want to get physical about it, like literally chemically, that certain people that go through something like that have had a chance to go through that.
is touching the surface maybe of the ultimate unknown that all of us are going to have in
common, but we all don't know what happens.
And they have this little extra perspective into it that, I don't know if it gives you clarity
or makes it more confusing, but it is quite interesting.
So first question, like, you've talked with at least several of these people before on your
podcast.
Do you think there's something to it?
Yes.
and you know my my again my objective brain and uh the other side of me definitely
combats it a little bit because i have my jersey ears up once in a while because i'm aware
i like i see a lot of people oh scam artists are they're selling a book i'm not listening right
listen i understand that but like an accountant anyone does if there's fraud everywhere we go so i
understand that that possible i'm sure there's plenty of people out there so you got to kind of
listen up a little bit but i've had several on my show i've listened to a bunch i've had at least like 10
I want to say. And there's a lot of patterns. So unless everyone's in on it, just getting in some
boardroom and just discussing how we're going to scam the world about our experiences, maybe. I don't
know. But there are a lot of similarities, all different experiences. And a lot of the patterns that
I'm seeing is that, yeah, we chose this life, which is hard for people to swallow, if that's true.
Can you explain what they mean when they say we chose it?
Yeah. Again, this is, I'm sharing stories. And I also partially believe this. We essentially choose our
life where it's it's not a blend of predeterminism it's also a blend of free will as well like i
i'm kind of explaining this from my understanding not verbatim of some of the people said but
maybe i'm whatever that size of a soul whatever you want to call it and they say um based on past
lives i still need to work this out so i want to know what it feels like to go through deep grief
i you're gonna i might not know it's september 11th i just know this my life david like swiping
through an ipad or like soul tinder i'm gonna see this that looks interesting
he's going to experience this and he's going to try to do this with his life just for the soul's
experience because the soul experience can't have this human experience and that's what's so enticing
for them to come down here and evolve if you will so by the nature of choosing this life it kind
of gets you can take it two ways people might be from the human aspect i'm not going to from the human
aspect i'm not going to why would i choose to lose my dad on september 11 why would a starving kid in
africa decide to live that life or horrible things to happen from a human aspect it makes no sense
But what if we did choose that life, then it gives a little bit more meaning to what we're doing.
I say I chose this life.
Okay, I chose this for a reason.
And that's where the free will comes in, where you still can get it, quote, unquote, wrong.
But also, I've been told in this near-death experience that you can't really get it wrong.
Because we're just here to literally just experience and literally just learn for our soul's involvement, evolvement.
So there's a whole other veil behind that that I can't answer.
And maybe they haven't seen it all, if you will.
But several people have said, we chose this life.
And we literally, all we are here to do is learn.
and we can't get it wrong.
And that's where it gets hairy
because like, what about fucking Hitler?
Like, what do you mean?
He got a pretty wrong.
They should have let him in the art school.
I'm just saying.
That wasn't his fault then.
That would have solved some problems.
Yeah, but that's when it starts getting hairy
where it's hard to comprehend.
Like, what do you mean?
What about those most evil people in the world?
How do you mean, don't get it wrong?
The way I'm understanding it,
please correct me if I'm wrong based on...
I don't know if I'm correct.
Well, how they've explained it at least.
But like when you choose it,
it's like if I'm outside of life right now and I'm not born yet and I choose.
I go, I'll take that one.
And then black hole brings you in and now you don't remember the other side of that black hole.
So in reality, that free will that you just explain comes in to the point that based on the
environment you're born in, which you don't choose, allegedly.
Allegedly.
Allegedly.
But more importantly, the way you develop and the decisions you make formulate you into this person
is either for the better or for the worst.
Yeah, and I think what you were saying,
how you don't remember, a lot of people kick back
and it's like, when I bring up the question,
what happens when we died, you hear people's perspectives?
Like, what was like, do you remember before you were born?
Exactly, that's what it's like.
I'm like, okay, well, that doesn't definitively answer anything,
in my opinion, because I think we have to forget,
hypothetically, if we're believing in this whole theory in general,
we have to forget, if we've remembered all our past lives
and what it's like before,
we're going to have a normal podcast right now
and have a conversation like that's part of the journey is to forget
have this amnesia so we can have this pure experience for our soul and then it comes then it gets
really hairy because i always i've had plenty of um conversations about child loss and to me i often
don't put a hierarchy of loss but child loss whole different a whole different i think i haven't experienced
that but it's there was the hardest experience like that's unimaginable to me that's that's probably
the hardest one and um and then it's like how do you explain child loss and i again i don't know but i've had
incredible people on the show that have worked with that child loss experience, managed it
at the best they can, and turn their life into helping so many other people. So I'm not saying
any of those, I think every one of those people, including myself and my dad, I would choose
all these lessons. I would get rid of my podcast just to have my dad back. So in the human
aspect, we would exchange these lessons to have our kid back or our father back, whoever we
lost. But maybe, just say maybe certain things happen to expand our life. And that's
the home of conference, soul contracts.
Like, it's like, me and my dad shook hands in this
handless soul world.
It's like, yo, we're going to figure something out.
I'm going to, I'm going to dip when you're 12, but it's going to launch you off to
what you're doing right now.
Like, the whole reason to have my podcast, which is helping a lot of people gratefully
is only because of my dad's death.
And so it kind of, this theory and this belief gives more meaning to everything to me,
whether you believe it or not, as hard as it is.
Because, again, we're not, we're thinking from a human brain from as, from David, which
is, I would never choose my dad to die, but we're choosing.
from this way. I think maybe on that side just makes complete sense. That's sole contract thing
that's wild. Yeah. I asked a medium recently. I was like, okay, so you're telling me if sole
contracts are real, did 3,000 people make a deal up there? We're all going to be in the same
building in 2001 so we can work some shit out for our kids and our genial line. Like, what are you
talking about? He's like, it's very complex, but yeah, kind of. But at the same time, why not?
I don't know. We think we live in this world where we think, again, we think we know,
but people are listening to this podcast where they can't see us
and radio frequencies are delivering it from somewhere for us to listen
and I just think it's an invisible world that we live in all day
but we used to explain, oh, yeah, it's radio frequencies.
Okay, well, explain that to me.
I can't.
I'll Google it, but it's like everything is so invisible.
Everything we're doing in this technological world is invisible
that we can explain from smarter people, but like, why not?
Just because we don't have the answer or can't comprehend it, doesn't dismiss it for me.
So that's part of the reason of, like, I'm not shocked by anything and we'll see.
And yeah, I can listen to these stories.
I can believe it or not.
But as wild as it sounds, I'm like, I don't know, maybe.
Like, why not?
Yeah, you have a very open mind.
I like that.
Yeah, it gets me in trouble for sure.
I'm not like a sucker.
You shouldn't say that, though, I don't think.
Which part?
Like getting you in trouble.
I think having an open mind, especially dealing with the most unknown thing there is, there's
nothing wrong with that.
It doesn't mean that the things that you see, it doesn't mean that when you bring on a psychic
medium, you're saying, I support and agree every single thing they're saying, their evidence is
perfect. You're saying, I'm just curious. Yes. Because even if, even if this person is crazy,
but one per, and I'm not saying they are, but I'm saying like, just bear with me here. And one percent
of what they say, though, is like, ooh. Yes. Then it's, then it's worth it to kind of sift through
that. That's exactly, again, the Joe Dispensy thing. 75%, I'm, what I'm doing, and a lot of people
type, I'm sure if you have someone on your podcast, people like, oh, Julian must
support that guy and I was like, no, we're just asking questions because we're curious. And that goes
back to the childlike wonder, and what Sagan was saying, it's like, we should all be more
curious and just hear it out. And just because you hear someone or engage in a conversation with
someone about something that I might not necessarily believe, but I do pull a little bit from everything.
That kind of makes sense. Maybe I think you're bullshitting about that or even if you are,
I don't know. Let's let everyone else decide and think for themselves about what that person said.
And I think it goes back to that listening and, yes, being more open-minded.
and my thought process changed about the possibility.
Before this podcast, I didn't, I didn't even know what a sole contract was.
I wasn't sure about reincarnation.
And the more I read, the more I listen, I think there's something to that.
The reincarnation thing is very fascinating to me.
That makes that, I, I, I kind of buy into that.
Even if I believe in something fully, my fully is like 99.9.9%.
But there's a, you've heard of the book, Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Weiss, I think his name is.
Fascinating book.
I'll try to be quick with it.
But take your time, well.
We're chilling?
Yeah, we're chilling.
So, I don't even have a flight book, so we're good.
He...
I do.
What time's your flight?
I think like 6.30.
We're good.
So we're on the same boat.
So Dr. Weiss, from my understanding and recollection of the book, was very institutionalized,
very brilliant man, went to, I might be screwing up the schools like Harvard, Yale, very scientifically based.
I don't even know if he, I don't think he believed in reincarnation or past life regression,
but he got assigned this woman that he knew on campus.
Excuse me.
And she had some issues.
he got recommended to see her because he was a very prestigious psychologist and hypnotist.
And he takes her on.
He knew a little bit about her, a little bit of her background.
So he's just hypnosis to her,
where it starts regressing her back to early memories.
That was part of his process, hypnosis, where whatever,
I think she has some relationship issues and something with swallowing water and something
physical.
So he took her back little by little, took her back all the way to like three years old,
where she almost drowned and related to the water issue she was having.
And long story short,
after that session, he was like, oh, she's probably healed. This usually always works. She came back
worse. So he was thinking, like, how, what happened before three years old? What memory could
have happened before three that would have her, have these issues. And so he kept just doing his
normal thing. And from my understanding, this book is from audio recordings. I believe they
taped their sessions. So a lot of it is like actual transcripts. Check me on that. But he kept
taking her back. And all of a sudden, she starts going to these other wild-ass memories,
like explaining her as a different person, ancient environments.
And he's thinking, like, where is it?
And she's speaking it out loud.
And he knows the girl.
He's not, she's not crazy.
But he was like, thinking is she schizophrenic?
He was thinking very scientifically based and clinical and kept doing it over and over again
where he was like, I think there's something to this.
Because at the spoiler alert, at the end of the book, he took her back to like 80-something
different lives as he took it.
And in between each life, he would like understand what it was happening as she
would explain it, different people.
She was a different person, different environments.
And we would fast forward.
He's like, okay, essentially die in that life and what happens.
And within each life, before the session would end, he would come, she would have these spirit
guys, these voices that would say something very profound about the life or about the way we're
supposed to live.
And in between each life, it was the same thing.
And every time she would explain a life, she'd like explain a certain character like this
older man that lived on the farm for a terrible example, like, who's that?
And under hypnosis, she'd like, that's you.
And he was always the wise man, the teacher in different bodies, different people, different
genders, but would always be the wise man in her life.
the guy that she's currently having some kind of relations with, I think he was having an affair,
that's kind of a moot point. She was having turbulence with that relationship. He would always
be someone in that life that would have a similar tumultuous relationship, even though it might
be a different guy, they might be different ages. And that's where the sole contracts come in,
where they all have sole contracts in a soul family, if you will, that constantly keep reoccurring
in their lives with maybe similar karma, if you will. And that's why we maybe have to keep coming back
to work out that karma, work out those relationships. But you and me may have met in a different life
and you and me are not podcasters
were brothers or me and my sister are,
I'm her father, as weird as it sounds.
Same souls, but different bodies.
And this guy completely changed his school of thought.
He was institutionalized.
And now after this one woman,
this one experience through months of work,
he was like, past life regression is real.
We live in a different life or have multiple lives.
And this is from one guy that, again, he's not,
yeah, again, people like he sold the book from it,
but he was already established psychologist,
whoever you want to call him,
and then had these experience and completely flipped his script.
So that's just one book.
There's countless, countless, countless stories of little kids, again, remembering past lives.
I had people in my family remembering stories that didn't make sense, but only how would they know it?
And it's all out there.
But again, the scientific does show me the proof.
Like, where's the proof?
Maybe right now we just can't prove anything in the court of law outside of testimonies.
And it's up to you to believe it or not.
There's a lot on the bone there, man.
So, have you ever heard of Dr. Balangelo?
I can't even pronounce that.
Balangelo?
No.
A friend of mine, he was just in here.
He's coming back in here again in a couple weeks.
I haven't even released the first episode yet.
Like, he is unbelievable.
But he is a Harvard neuroscientist, neuroscientist researcher.
And looks like Michael Jackson, too.
He's got like the-
Which Michael Jackson?
That's a great question right there.
I'm talking like early 80s Michael Jackson.
the skin was still tan.
You know what I mean?
Like the whole bit, he's got the fedora with the hair hanging out.
But he's Kurdish and brilliant, brilliant dude, very into what he does.
But his expertise within the brain has been specifically like dreams and illusions.
And I think you could have a very fascinating conversation with him and tie it into some of these things.
I don't think I got there in the first conversation with him.
We were doing a lot of different things.
It was cool.
But what you're talking about with...
about with feeling past lives and stuff like that.
There is also, you know, a realm of science
that looks at a similar concept that I think,
call it a cousin, call it a brother,
but it's in the same wavelength,
which is like the epigenetic stuff.
You know, if you're, if four generations ago,
you know, your ancestors were massacred
or something like that, without even knowing it,
there's something built into your genes
and your DNA from that.
And I could see there,
being the next layer to that as in literal reincarnation. And I've heard great people talk about this.
I've heard great people talk about what they were, like, who really believe it. You know,
great fighters have talked about, oh, I was, I think like Connor was like, I was fighting on the
Celtic battlefields in the 12th century. I was there. That was me. And I'm like, you know what?
Makes sense. Before you do them blow. You know, maybe actually during too. But there was a long time
there were like, I'm with you, brother. And there's something to like the way that you're wired that I think,
Not to bring my science degree out because I don't fucking have one.
But I think there could be an explanation that's beyond just, you know, the X's and Y's in your chromosomes and your DNA.
I agree.
I mean, I think Kendrick Lamar dropped a song called Reincarnation.
I didn't research it.
Just listen to the song because it was called Reincarnation.
And he talks about a past life.
I'm curious, yeah, see if you could look up if he actually did past life regression because he was, unless it was just a storyboard.
But he was talking about something about being a musician.
if I got the lyrics right in a past life.
And the whole song I think is called reincarnation.
Double check that.
But it does.
Let's do the lyrics.
I'm not going to do it like.
Yeah, you should wrap it.
You should wrap it.
I got this fire burning in me from within, concentrated thoughts on who I used to be.
I'm shedding skin.
Every day, a new version of me, a third of me, demented, cemented in pain, juggling
the pros and cons of fame.
I don't know how to make friends.
I'm a lonely soul.
I recollect this isolation.
I was four years old.
Truth be told, I've been battling myself trying to navigate the real and the fake, cynical,
about the judgment day. I did pass life regression last year and it fucked me up, reincarnated
on this earth for 100 plus. Body after body, lesson after lesson, let's take it back to Michigan
in 1947. My father kicked me out this house because I wouldn't listen to him. I didn't care
about the influence. Only love what I was doing. Gifted as a musician, I play guitar on a grand
level, the most talented where I'm from, but I had to rebel, that I had to rebel. And so I'm off
on the sunset searching for my place in the world with my guitar up on my hip is the story
unfurried. I found myself with a pocket full of money and a whole lot of respect. While the
wreck of business loved me, I was the head of rhythm and blues. The women that fell to my feet
so many chews, but I manipulated powers. I lied to the masses, die with my money glut and he was too
attractive, reincarnated. Very similar, by the way, to a guy that he walked on, that he walked
on to the set with when he was just a young, two-year-old buck. But I'm talking about another
West Coast rapper, Tupac. Tupac would talk about this shit all the time. And I grew up on that
shit. And I, that was when I was first thinking about, I was like, ooh, he could have been
someone else before. Dude, straight up. But I'm back, reincarnated. Yeah, yeah, incarcerated. And I'm
I'm forgetting the lyrics now. But yeah, I'm saying that that song gives me chills because
obviously everything I talk about. But it's like that, like, maybe in the next light, he's still an
artist. He's not doing blues, but he's doing hip hop. And it's like, maybe that's what
deja vu is outside of actual event. You know what I mean? Like, we have deja vu, of course,
because maybe we actually been there two years ago. But that maybe that's deja vu. And all I'm saying is
maybe. All I'm saying is maybe, and the more I look into it, again, even if I believe in
something, no matter what it is, I'm like 99.9%. I'll leave a little wig around because I'm a little
bit of skeptic. You know, nothing's absolute. But there's some wild that shit out there. My buddy
did a past life regression. I know him. He's a homie. He's not cuckoo. He's yada yada. How does the
past life regression work? What's the process? So I shot it. Nothing happened. So I'm,
I need to go back here because I think I'm a little blocked off. And that's the weird part,
because my objective brain overrides, even though I say it out loud what I believe. And I got some
shit going on.
Turn the light on in the bath.
I need to turn the light on in the bath.
And honestly, honestly, it's literally what that shit is.
And I, I did it over the phone.
The woman I'm still talking to, I'm actually working with her on some other shit.
And your girlfriend?
No, no, no girlfriend.
Okay.
And, uh, yeah, no girlfriend.
And she said, uh, she takes me over essentially hypnosis.
I think she puts some music on.
She talks to you, whatever she said, just puts you under hypnosis and she starts asking you
questions.
Like, I think she said, visualize you're here.
She puts you in a place.
And then after that, she works you through it.
and starts to ask you questions, what do you see?
What do you see?
And then whatever you bring up what you see, you go a little deeper, a little deeper, a little
deeper.
So you're under hypnosis, and then you kind of just let free flowing what happens.
But I'm a bad example because nothing happened.
I didn't, nothing happened to me.
And she was actually shocked because usually she gets everyone under.
So I think I need a little bit more work.
So it's essentially just an hypnosis process.
I'm sure everyone does it differently.
I'm pretty sure you can find on YouTube past life regression tracks and you can do it on
your own, maybe those exist.
but yeah it's just an amnosis process everyone has their different ways of doing it but it seems like you just allow
yourself to be relaxed get under hypnosis and then whatever flashes of imagery come in you kind of slowly piece together and keep moving from there like what do you see on your feet what do you see on the ground and you start slowly describing your environment
my buddy told me about one where he went deep under and he was some he was in spain and he was some kind of um i want to say detective or something like that
something along those lines. And right now, just to fast forward and come back, he's a true crime
podcaster. And that's what he does. He investigates unsolved murders and stuff like that.
And he was getting very specific on location and dates. And he was like, let me look this shit up.
He looked it up. Wasn't like a famous dude. But in history, he was able to track down this very
specific guy that aligned to exactly who he was. So he thinks he actually identified, quote, unquote,
who he was. So there's sometimes in history where if you were like certain figures, you can
historically look it up to see if it at least tracks his track like on the nose and again it
back to like kendrick and what they're doing now it relates in a different angle of what he's doing
now so it's maybe we have to come back it sounds miserable because in my i'm like i don't want to do
this shit again this has been already a roller coaster that i don't want to do again but up there maybe
just makes sense it's like looking at a pretty sure rogan mentions it only to aliens of course he said
something like you know that chimp crazy whatever that documentary was about chimps a really good
documentary about how the humans are hiding the research are hiding in the woods and just
studying these chimpanzees like a wild-ass documentary and watching their life he's like i think
rogan explained is like that's how aliens look at us like why would aliens come here to look at us
if they're so advanced they're just like studying us i look at that as maybe souls looking at us like
little chimpanzees like they're living their life they're experiencing these things but
they don't know they don't know yet but they're not supposed to know and they're just kind of evolving
and growing and I feel like that's how we're that's their understanding up there so
totally different level that we just can't comprehend we can't theorize I and just we just don't
we don't have the capacity to understand it because all we know is how we feel in this world in
front of us but I truly think this ride that we're on is just it's not that I don't want to take
it seriously because it is real obviously we feel it every fucking day like I feel a little
anxiety right now could be the coffee but I feel I feel it like the shit is obviously real
it's not to diminish the horrible and beautiful things that are happening in this world
But it's taken a load off just contemplating this idea as like, let's just, let's just go for a ride.
I don't know what else.
We're here.
Let's just fucking go for a ride and rock on.
Let's see what happens.
Part of the reason it not only makes sense, but I almost want that to be true is actually.
Death guy.
Yeah, I always write just something random on the mug before someone comes in.
That wasn't very original.
You were like, you saw me.
I was running around when you got here.
That was just, oh, right.
all right yeah death right got it's hilarious but you know a lot of people get very dogmatic like
very religious people get very dogmatic about their specific religion and first of all i think a lot of
people use religion for great things so it's it's an awesome thing gives you peace in life but there's
people that will get so dogmatic about it that they feel like if one percent of it isn't as it
actually is you know the whole house of cards comes down which i think is total bullshit because
it's like nothing's that we're going to learn more as time goes on even if like the themes are right
and get the general idea then you have a lot to live for but you know when you look at something
like reincarnation and people are like wow that doesn't line up with Christianity or heaven or
Judaism in heaven or whatever insert religion here in heaven I think it could I think it very much could
because to me we can't conceive obviously of what happens when it's all over or what
time looks like or what space looks like or what thoughts look like because you are a soul you are
outside the physical human realm right it's impossible to understand but i've always struggle with the
idea that like you're here for this blip this instant on this radar detector of life and then
you're gone even if you live a long life 100 years you're gone and you go to this heavenly place
where you can eat donuts all day and not get fat you can laugh with everyone at all times and
live in the clouds and just be happy looking on for the rest of eternity. There's something about that
that feels like it would get Truman Show old. Yeah. You know? And there's something about that to where,
you know, when a soul leaves this earth good or bad and then is in wherever the afterlife is,
to me, there's something too like a creator, which I do believe there's a creator at the top of all of it.
I'd love to get your thoughts on that later.
But, you know, a creator would be like, ah, this,
and I mean this in a good way, this can be recycled.
Now in this type of simulation, let's see what they do.
You know, it would get, it would, and I don't mean this to make light of it at all.
It would kind of gamify it in a rather beautiful way.
And it helps, it goes right back to what you were saying earlier,
which then you inject and insert whatever you want to say,
the human free will experience and let it fall where it may.
Yeah, I mean,
so many directions I want to go with that so I'll just choose this path but there is the with the
religion aspect like I believe whatever you want it's it's it's all good I was raised Catholic
went down that rabbit hole and you know I get a lot of the you're going to hell shit constantly
if because you don't find Jesus or you're going to hell find Jesus you're going to hell find Jesus you're
going to hell oh yeah all time and that's not it's not representative of all catholics are Christians
because it's just like it's it's a common section and I know and I know plenty of Catholics and Christians
that are unbelievable people in my life.
I actually, I go to Bible study
when my friend's father's in town,
I'm the least religious there,
but it's like he relates the stories to this life
and it's wonderful, accepting, it's great.
Anyway, when I go deeper, I'm like, okay,
so let's say that's true.
So God, Jesus decided to put thousands of religions out there.
You get the choice to believe in what you want,
but if you get it wrong, you're fucked.
You're screwed.
That's it.
One life, one chance, that's it.
But that, okay.
Maybe. I don't know. Maybe. Again, we'll find out. But I'm like, what? I had another conversation
similar to that. Someone said the same thing to me. I was like, usually I don't respond. It was in my
DM. I was like, no, let's, let's go. So I went to a Hindu temple in Jersey, which is awesome.
It's in a- Oh, my head of content, Alessi actually did a documentary on that. No shit.
It's nuts. Have you gone? I haven't been high recommendation. I said it was crazy. I went
there yesterday. It's like this third, second largest Hindu temple in the world. Went there and I posted,
that's supposed to a photo of it.
And he said something like,
oh,
if you believe in Hinduism or whatever,
you're,
that's not the way to heaven.
I was like,
okay,
so you're telling me 1.2.
I looked it up to the fact check myself.
So 1.2 billion people aren't going to.
I'm like,
Hey,
cool.
That's cool.
That's you.
But what?
It doesn't make any,
it just doesn't make sense to me,
but neither does anything.
So maybe again.
But when it comes to the religious aspect of it,
I,
I just question it as I do everything.
And again, I'm sure that could happen, but at the same time, if we're thinking logically
on something that's illogical, I just don't, I just don't, doesn't vibe me at all.
I agree.
You and I are on a very similar wavelength with that.
I was raised Catholic, too.
I'm not.
I respect people who are.
And I think that there's, I think when you look through different religions, there are amazing
teachings.
You look at a guy like Jesus Christ who was a historical figure no matter what, you know,
seemed to be a pretty cool homie.
like seem to get a lot of shit right i think that's a great guy to follow but i have always been i don't know
if it's like being a free thinker but i don't want to like make myself sound like a sage or anything
it's just more or less like i'm open to the possibilities and i'm humble in the face of what
i don't know because by the same logic that you just applied that image which i will add is from
a fictional movie back there but that image of maximus means that he was going to hell in that
picture because they didn't have Jesus right like that's not that's not what he was doing and to me
what you do in life we're all human we fuck up we make mistakes but you work as hard as you can
to leave this place a better place than when you found it to treat people as great as you can
and when you fuck up recognize that and improve it and put forth you know some happiness into the
universe and remain humble to the fact that it can end at any point
you have no control over that.
I think if you do those things, wherever it ends afterwards,
whatever, if you got to go through fucking 12 intergalactic overlords
to get to like the big man upstairs, I don't know.
I don't care.
But when I got an answer to that motherfucker,
I'm going to be like, hopefully be like,
I did the best I could and he's going to be like, yes.
Yeah.
And that's it.
Love that.
That's it.
You know?
And if there's things that come out with evidence later that it's like,
hey, we can prove this thing now.
we're like, we know this thing, I might be like, wow, all right, I'll get behind that.
I'm open to that.
But the dogma of having to get into group think and everything or nothing, it is what it is.
And, you know, I don't like that.
And I'll say, I also have like a lot of, I'm thinking of a lot of Christian friends I have
who have joined, like, other denominations of it because they don't fuck with, you know,
being told that it's just this one way with things.
And I respect that a lot because they're like, in my opinion, they're more like we love
the major themes and we want to choose to live our life that way, but we don't want, you know,
some fucking whole monitor telling us every single thing and checking it off like it's a to-do
list. And that, that to me is like a great use of religion. I, yeah, I agree. I think there's
amazing, that's why I kind of take parts from everything the best I can, but what you said in regards
to that one way, I think inherently, whenever there's someone says, this is the only way,
I instinctively look the other way to see what else is out there because I don't buy into that immediately at least.
And then I know someone that's going through something interesting where she was raised, still is, very Catholic, very Christian.
I don't know which one she is.
I know there's a difference.
But she, you know, believes in the Bible wholeheartedly, but she also has now discovered this ability to connect to the other side.
And she's in the process of figuring what that are.
And from my understanding, from people that know her, she's been pushing this aside for a long time again because she's fearful.
of what our beliefs are.
And in regards to you're saying
the house of cards might fall,
I think that might be part of it
where the Bible says one thing
specifically about mediumship
from my understanding
and lack of understanding.
So anyone that's watching the listing,
you know, take this with a grain of salt.
The Bible doesn't dismiss mediumship as existing.
They say it's real,
but they demonize it.
They say it's likely dealing with demons.
You shouldn't do it.
Only trust in the Lord.
And there's only one example of a story
that I know at least.
I think it was King Saul
Again, in fact check all this
But King Saul was going
I don't know which one it was
One of them was going into battle
His right homie
Who is his right hitman in battle
D-D-Baddle died
And he needed advice
Before they went into battle
So we contacted the medium of Endor
E-N-D-O-R
And she was like
Yo, we shouldn't be doing this
He's like let's do it anyway
And however that resulted
My understanding
It didn't result in the best way
So it was the only one example
Of tapping into mediumship
That has gone bad
King Saul
Okay
So this was in the Bible
this is an AI overview. I don't know if the AI is Christian. Probably better than me.
Right. So just take that with a grain of salt, but this is what Google AI says,
okay, the CIA. King Saul facing a Philistine battle visited a medium and endor in a desperate
illegal attempt to get divine guidance after the Lord stopped speaking to him. The medium under
disguised by Saul called up the spirit of the deceased prophet Samuel who foretold Saul's
and his son's defeat and death in the coming battle. The story also notes that Saul had
previously banished mediums and that his sons along with him would die in battle with
David ultimately taking the throne. Okay. So it wasn't so far off. Yeah, no, it sounds
kind of lined up. Yeah. I mean, the whole point of that was my rant was that's the only
example that the Bible gives. So first of all, it's only one small example in the entire Bible and
the rest that says don't do it. But in relation to her story, she's battling the idea that
she's having these experiences and validated experience that have come to fruition in regards
so connecting with certain people, and she's still learning the process, but she's been pushing
it away for so long because of her beliefs, and she's trying to understand it, but the Bible
tells me this is bad, but everything I'm experiencing is good. So it's conflicting. And I remember
asking her, I was like, okay, I'm just curious. I trust yourself with this is what she's trying
to learn to do. But how does that feel, what does that mean for everything else you believe with the
Bible? How does that have that domino effect on your beliefs, knowing that the Bible demonizes
is something so aggressively
when you're having these experience,
but you know it's not bad.
You haven't had these demonic experiences.
Not saying those don't exist either,
but everything you're doing feels good.
You've been helping a couple people.
You're helping yourself.
You believe in it.
You know it's good.
But everything you believe in is telling you it's bad.
And it's like that could be,
I can see how that's contradicting.
Yeah.
And it's like with anthropology and archaeologists now,
just been for years teaching in schools,
civilization started 6,000 years ago,
but now there's more evidence of civilization
a lot longer than that.
And there's people standing on the throne
saying, no, that's wrong
because it's the pride
and what you believe in
when I think it's very noble
and important to just be open
to new evidence and new things
that come up just because it tears down
your beliefs, but I understand how that's hard
if you've lived your whole life believing something
and finding out that it's not exactly entirely true,
but that's okay.
There's nothing wrong with that.
There's six words that are really difficult
in the human language.
I don't know, and I was wrong.
you know, and I think to be effective at the job we do, you have to be willing to say both
of those things. And there's a lot of people in our industry, by the way, who aren't, but
you know, I think it would serve them well to be open-minded to these things. But when you talk
about, like, your friend using that example, just staying with that, there's two things in
people that really matter to me. Your intentions and how much you're actually honest with yourself,
i.e. listening to your gut. If your intentions are good, which doesn't excuse everything, right,
the second layer of it is your kind of governor which is over time what is your gut telling you
and if your gut's telling you like something like well i don't know but i can't say that this is
wrong and you start with the good intentions on something and you have a self-awareness like she
did with her own beliefs and things that are taught and what she should look out for then i don't
see any problem with exploring something in the human condition that just might go against
what a fucking text says that could be interpreted six ways to Sunday.
I've had a black Hebrew Israelites sitting in that chair, okay?
He can quote every single line in the Bible perfectly.
It is amazing.
And yet his interpretation of it is he's going to enslave everyone who looks like me
because that's what the 11 tribes of Israel are supposed to do.
You know what I mean?
So, I love you, Captain T, but disagree.
You know, at the end of the day, point being like,
you can take all these things so many different ways.
So when, you know, you see the stereotypical old white dude, like, telling you, this is what you got to believe.
It's like, fuck off, pal.
Yeah, you made a key point there where it's still, like my buddy who had on the podcast, he has, his whole career is based on Bible interpretation.
And the keyword is interpretation.
Yeah.
Like, we're still interpreting.
I know some things are very seemingly black and white, but we're still interpreting a book that was written so long ago.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong.
Again, it's just, but the keywords, we're still interpreting a book.
because it's interpretation.
Yeah.
So that means inherently there's wiggle room there,
let alone there's the wigger room of human belief in general
that choose to believe what you want to believe.
But I just, it's just like, again, people just seem so certain,
and that's fine with me.
But it's just when I, not how I'm a problem with it
because I'm at a point in my life,
like you're on your journey,
no matter what you say to me, okay, I don't know what to do.
But it's when people are so aggressive
and leading with the fear ideology of,
you're going to hell, you're going to hell.
If you don't do this, if you don't do that.
I don't buy into that.
When there's so many loving Catholics and Christians out there in my life, I know
they're probably the majority that are like, I hope you find Jesus.
I think it would really help you, but I love you either way type of show.
That's beautiful to me.
But it's the forceful nature and the leading with fear in anything in life, let alone just
these beliefs that I don't get the right way.
And then I had a conversation with someone off the record the other day that was talking
about, I don't look at the fear, I being this person.
I don't look at the fear as like fear.
It's more like a humbling.
It's not like a fear of like, I should fear God and quiver.
It's just like, oh, it's just a humbling of something bigger than me that's out there.
You know what I mean?
I like that angle.
If that's the idea of what they mean by fear, that actually makes sense of just being aware
there's just something bigger than me.
And that's kind of how I feel about the whole God aspect with your question is like,
I think God is just energy.
I think God is literally everything, whatever the heck that means.
But I just think there's just something.
I know there's a lot of things bigger than me.
Even like sometimes I relate to what I think the work that I'm hoping.
I feel like I've accomplished and hoping to continue to accomplish, it feels bigger than me.
I think it's humbling and maybe interchangeable with the word fear, not in the way that we know
it, again, quivering and shaking, but just the fear can maybe be interchangeable with the idea
of humbling to know that something is greater than me.
And that's kind of how I see, I think maybe they're interpreting it in the Bible.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I've just seen the opposite where fear is like, no, you should fear this because you're going to go to hell
if you don't do X, Y, Z.
Yeah, quiver down at the altar and, you know, hold your head in fear.
I agree with how you're looking at it. It's being humble. And that's, and that is, I'm biased. That's how I look at it too. It's like, I don't know where, why, and how. And I'm going to probably find out later unless the atheists are somehow right. And it's really from nothing, which I, we can't even conceive that. I don't know how that would be like possible. Like even with physics. Like it just doesn't make sense. How does something come from nothing?
Yeah. And listen, I've had Lawrence.
Scrowse sitting there who literally wrote a book called, like, something from nothing.
At least that was the byline.
My bad dog.
I haven't read that book yet.
You know, but like, and he's so smart.
But the funny thing is when I was sitting here talk with him, I actually don't think even he believes it.
I think he thinks he believes that.
But I, like, he's got a lot of other things that, that he thinks about scientifically.
Then I'm like, I feel like that flies in the face of your core belief.
Do you think people that really get riled up and defensive?
when you question their beliefs
or just bring up your own beliefs
that really respond defensively?
Do you think that's a sign of people
that deep down might not believe in it?
Ooh.
Ooh.
You know what I mean?
Because if you're so, if you're so,
if you believe in something
and someone challenges you,
either, I got to.
I think they fear, you know what?
That's an amazing question.
I don't know if anyone's ever asked me that.
But my first inclination to answer that
would be to say, I think they fear confronting the idea that anything about what they believe is
wrong because it will take away the entire meaning of their existence and their self-confidence.
House of cards again?
Yes.
I don't know if it's like they think the whole thing's wrong.
I think that they have injected so much faith into something that there's no room, there's no
wiggle room.
There's no ability to change their money.
mind. You know, I, I, you see fucking dime bag politicians flip and flop with the wind, right? But I think when we
ought to, and I don't like politicians a little bit, but I think when we automatically, the minute
someone changes their mind, call them a flip-flopper every time, that's not fair. There's sometimes
where it's absolutely true. Right. But there are other times where it's like, no, that person just
was given better evidence based on how they're explaining this. And you know what? Like for once,
maybe you actually applauded politician
for not doing something that's scummy.
Agreed.
You know, and we tend to demonize those things,
but I mean, the strange thing about doing what we do
is we can run tape on this over the years.
I changed my mind like I changed my fucking underwear.
Someone gives me better evidence.
No, I do change it also.
But, you know, it's like, I get better evidence on something
and I'm like, wow, that's interesting.
And then someone will come back
and give me better evidence on the first thing.
I'll be like, oh, maybe I'm back on that team, you know, but I don't, I don't care as long as I'm not
being facetious about shit, you know, or just going with whatever is going to get clicks or something
like that, then, and I got to answer that question for myself. I got to look myself in the mirror.
As long as I'm not doing that, I'm fine with that. And I think we should celebrate that more
than demonizing it, but people get into these group think scenarios where you have to conform
to what people are thinking and you get afraid to say something otherwise. I've told a story,
on the podcast before, but I will never forget Management 101 in college.
They, you know, one of the first days, they put out three key terms for the semester.
And it was like efficiency, effectiveness, and group think.
And I remember looking at the word group think.
I didn't, I thought it was a term they invented.
I didn't think it was a real word.
I'm like, that's interesting.
And then I read what it meant.
And it was basically, you know, when people get into a group and start to go with consensus
regardless of evidence that they may think of for themselves, yada, yada, yada.
and I looked it up and I was like, wow, it's a real word in the dictionary.
And it was a life-changing moment for me because everything in my life after that,
I was 19 when I read that, everything in my life after that, I started to notice where that word
would creep in more and more and more.
And I think that unfortunately, within religion and beliefs, there is a massive, massive group-think
short-sighting that happens regardless of religion.
I've seen it again and again, including with many people who use it for good and
well-intentioned to where they just have a blind eye towards how they talk about things or how
they talk to other people. Someone says to me like, oh, if I don't agree with this thing in their
religion, they love me, but like your band to hell, fuck you. What the fuck do you know about it?
Fuck off. You know, I don't get mad about it like I used to, like I used to. But in my head now,
I'm just like, oh, there's another one. You know, I don't like that. I think you have to be
open-minded on a subject that we don't know the answers to. Yeah, it goes back to what you
I don't know.
And what was the one?
I don't know and I was wrong.
And I was wrong.
Yeah.
I think that's a, it's hard, it's hard to come by these days.
And I'm going to respect people that are okay.
So I say, I don't know a lot.
I definitely am fine saying I was wrong.
And obviously, sometimes it's harder to swallow the other time, but it's not as bad as people
think.
If anything, I think a lot of people actually respect that.
I think, I think more people respect that than we think.
I just don't think we see it enough.
Yes.
And you can't listen to like the,
know it all is in comment sections who are like oh how could you not notice listen
it's that that those are the people that comment no disrespect to you guys love you all
but deep in the comments those are the people they comment you know they want to just
be like no i need to get my point out there and i'm right you're wrong yeah if you want to say
you're up one nothing all right cool man i didn't even know there was a scoreboard but uh yeah
it's uh it's just so it's just i don't know it's just flowing with it man i think we we again we have to
we feel like we have to know all the answers and I don't even think it's getting the answer I think
it's just the seeking yeah and it's what it's like when they say enjoy the journey kind of shit
I've never felt that more this again everything that I'm working on right now I've gotten to a
great place which I'm really happy about is truly enjoying this journey because I'm far from where
I you know I plan and hope to be and whatever happens happens but I used to get really
frustrated at the tedious shit I'm still doing a lot of tedious shit like my I don't know like a big
team or anything but like the tedious work of like a small quick example I went back to all 200
and whatever episodes and rechanged the titles the descriptions I had you twice because I upload on
Spotify and this and I was doing it and YouTube so it's like a thousand times wherever it is and I used to
stuff like bang my head stand up and breathe now I'm just working through it I realize no this is
this is how it gets me to where I hope to be and it's like I'm actually enjoying this because at some
point I plan on having all that handled I'm not there yet but it's like
there's no need to get all worked up along this journey as long as we zoom out and
understand that we're just on a journey, dude.
100% just on a journey.
And it's just taking,
it's,
I'm trying to make things simpler,
just simpler because our brain makes this way more complicated.
It is,
it is complicated,
but it's just simplifying the complicated.
Like,
I understand this is complicated.
I don't,
everything we talked about is a big,
I don't know,
to be honest,
but so is life.
And I don't know again what else to do.
I don't know what else to do,
but just enjoy where I'm at right now.
And then hope for the best and whatever happens,
we'll work with it then.
Focus on one thing at a time,
stay present and appreciate the process,
which sometimes is hard to do.
I'll speak from experience.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
But it's also like one of the beauties I see in doing things like that,
which is exactly what I've done throughout my career doing this,
is like I'm never going to ask someone to do something
I haven't done myself or wouldn't.
You know?
There's nothing that I, that is on this podcast that anyone, whether PLSC or Dief or Danny, who's on our team now editing, that I'm having any of them do that I have not done a million times myself or taught myself to do.
And I think that also gives them a lot of freedom to, you know, go for it and things because they're like, oh, he gets it.
You know what I mean?
So when you go do that, it seems like a simple, oh, God, all right, I got to change that.
I was doing it myself updating some thumbnails the other day.
You know what I mean?
It doesn't change.
I still do all the thumbnails for the channel.
It is what it is.
But that's a good lesson to think about.
I mean,
I've been doing this similar amount of time and everything you built is incredible, by the way.
But it's,
and honestly,
I know you kept apologizing like,
I'll be done.
I was like,
I respect the hell out of it because I get it in some capacity.
Obviously,
we're doing different things.
But I understand that because I'm still doing that.
And probably even at you built what you built probably even more,
still doing it more.
um but the idea of not asking someone to do what you haven't done it's like it's like having
a manager for a baseball team that hasn't played baseball it's like a different level of respect
now this dude's been here before so i'll listen a little more but also having to do what we've
done the tedious stuff the little things like i'm still doing i'm still posting i'm still posting
everything i'm still doing all that and having done that for so long
it just helps in the process for other people to understand and find similarities
or camaraderie, if you will.
Yes.
And that kind of applies to, I guess,
everything we do in many ways,
but it also, we've been doing it for so long
that you've done everything kind of at some point,
you know what I mean?
And then part of that journey is trying different things,
being frustrated, doing all this shit,
and all it does is just make us better
and everything else we do.
And it's not just about a podcast.
It's about everything everyone does,
that whoever's listening.
Yeah, everyone listening, like,
regardless of what you do,
but especially anyone who started anything
on their own. It doesn't matter what it is to your point. There's all kinds of little, you can do
what you love, but then there's a lot of little things in there. Like, if you're being honest,
you don't love it. It's just a part of the process. And it's part of building that gene and
building that discipline to be able to appreciate it afterwards when you do get to a point where you're
like, wow, look what we've done. You know, I haven't gotten there yet. But at some point,
there'll be that day where I'm like, hmm, you know, I remember I hated that, but I'm really
glad I did that. I do have some of that, like where I can look back.
and be like, oh, remember when I had to do that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm like, wow, that sucked, but it's pretty cool now, you know?
Like, that's cool.
That's important, though, because I think we're similar in the same.
Like, we see, we see the potential angle, even though I don't know if it's ever ending.
It's just we see something that we're not there yet, but it is important for everyone, I think, to zoom out once in a while.
You know, like even, like you said earlier about, you know, you're at your parents' house and now you're at your apartment.
And sure, maybe you want a doper place or whatever place down the line.
I'm good with you on that, believe.
I'm just for example period.
It's just, it is important to zoom out when you feel like you're not somewhere, which, again, I feel like that.
It's like, you know what?
I remember when I was first posting videos, I was getting like 10 views.
And regardless of what I'm getting now, it's not even about the views, but it is a metric to see where you've come from.
It's not a, it's not a quiteifiable measure for my ego.
It's just, okay, it's a reminder to, I also don't want to be like, okay, I remember when I was excited about 100 views.
And now if I don't get 10,000, I'm like, what the fuck?
I'm like, dude, shut up.
Right.
I remember when I was, I was getting excited about 100.
And it is important to be too humble yourself to realize what you're at to bring you back to the present moment and not too ahead of the future.
It's good to have goals and be excited about that, but you're not going to get to your goals if you're not here right now.
100%.
I have a I have a thread on Twitter that I started on March 31st, 2021.
I was just over a year into doing this.
And I had, I think it was 261 subscribers at the time.
I just started a thread that I've done every late Tuesday night.
or early Wednesday morning since then, never missed a week to where I just write the sub number.
And it's just one a week.
It's at 261 period on the first one.
And eventually it said, you know, 10,000, and it said 100,000 or whatever.
And so it is a really good hourglass for me to go and look to when I have low moments,
and I do, to realize that, like, I'm very lucky that the goalposts have moved to where they
are because now I'm not kicking at.
least on, you know, the pee-wee football field anymore. I'm, I, you know, I'm playing D1 college
football. And we're going to get to the draft at some point. What are we playing on the big
stage? You know, but it's important. You're making it a great point. It's important to
keep that perspective because it is easy to get caught up and just see the latest thing that like went
wrong or, you know, whatever. It's like you said, you got to catch that thought and then
turn it back around. Yeah. And then there's fucking thoughts, man. It's crazy. Sometimes I feel,
I used to feel like every thought was true.
I used to think every thought I had to latch onto instead of just looking at thoughts
and just letting them go by, if that makes sense.
Because again, I think we think of everything.
I think of the worst case scenario, best case scenario, and which one do you latch on to?
And I think it's making a choice which one you want to latch on to as opposed to catching
every thought that goes by.
We think about so many frigging things every day.
It's like thousands and tens of thousands of thoughts.
And which one are we going to latch on to?
And that's where I think the choice comes in.
And I think simplifying it and just choosing this thought is what else.
what am I going to do?
Am I going to chase every fucking thought?
No, it's impossible.
But honestly, everything we spoke about always comes down to what you and me and anyone
all listening has gone through.
It's like even little things.
Like the path that my sister brought it up, we were talking about what, you know, the show,
yada yada and all the other jobs.
I've had a million different jobs.
And then I look back because as much as important is to be the present moment, I think
I like to look back again as a humbling experience as opposed to like a dwelling experience.
And every job that I've had got me to where I was now.
and I'm able to look at what I learn from each job.
When in the moment, now I don't look at it like that,
but in the moment of those jobs, like, this is fucking bullshit.
I don't want to do this.
I'm literally working a pyramid scheme,
selling frozen cheesecakes in a Costco.
Like, what the hell am I doing?
But now looking back, I'm like, oh, no,
I learned so much just from that job and that experience.
And sometimes I'm at a point now where whenever I'm going through the shit,
as psychotic as it sounds and almost toxic positivity,
I'm like, there's something in here I'm going to use later.
Yes.
There's something here I'm going to use later.
I don't know what it is yet.
And it's not about.
about always finding the shit now, but it's, I just feel like everything I go through, I'm like,
not everything sometimes is whatever or whatever experience, but for the most part, like,
no, there's going to be something, there's going to be something here that's going to benefit me
later instead of saying, oh, this experience is going to screw me up later. It's a choice to make,
like, yeah, it's going to, it's changing me up. I'm going to take a different path because
of this, but I don't know what it is, but it's going to help me out down the road sometime,
and I think that's what the choice is. Yes, and it's a choice. It's a choice how you look at it.
You just, in the moment, you tend to, you know, like we get afraid at, we get afraid of time, right?
You think about that thing you've got to do.
And what you don't consciously realize when you're thinking about it is the reason you're dreading it is because, oh, if I go to redo those 100 thumbnails, that's going to take nine straight hours of sitting in front of the computer.
But like, I put in nine hours now, it pays off, gets X amount more eyeballs to my business.
which is what I want to do,
then I'm going to be happy about that in nine days.
I'm not going to be thinking about those nine hours.
Yeah, with also the thought, like when I've done that and still do it,
I'm like, I might not even do anything.
And I've had episodes I've revamped and nothing happened two years later or wherever
long.
And sometimes I see a random 10,000 view boost and it works.
But I understand as I'm doing, I'm like, oh, this might, I think it should work.
It's definitely going to be a good thing.
But also it might do nothing, but I'm still going to do anyway.
I know this is the move to do.
But also being like, okay, if it doesn't work, I'm so happy I did it.
So it's like the idea, it's not living by the guillotine, like you said earlier,
but being aware of the guillotine and being okay with the guillotine.
Yes.
You know?
It's like you've seen that image, the picture of the man digging underground through the dirt,
and it shows two different men digging through the dirt,
and one stops, it gets pissed off and tired and turns around,
and you can see the gold is like a meter away,
and the other keeps going and finds the gold.
That's what it is, man.
You're not going to find gold at every spot,
but you have to keep moving in that direction because like these 10 things that didn't work
lead you to the idea that goes, aha, that's going to work.
Yes.
You know?
And that's kind of part of the conversations that I have where it's if I say something
that is something I don't believe in or listen to something I don't believe in, even if you
don't agree with me or the person talking, it creates other thoughts.
It's like there's no bad idea type shit.
That's why I love, I spew out, like most of my conversations and my friends, I don't like
talking about people.
It's either ideas, cracking a joke or something like that.
And I like, I'd rather say it or spew it.
because even if it's stupid or this, that, and the other,
even I don't think anything stupid,
it, they might disagree with me or you might just,
I might disagree with you,
but then it creates another thought process
that takes you somewhere else.
And that's the idea of dialogue and debate
and sharing and disagreeing because it creates
a different thought process when I said earlier,
that people don't, I feel like people need to think more
on their own.
And it's confusing.
It's very confusing.
It's all confusing.
But I did want to say one thing about the,
kind of not finding the lesson in the moment,
but back to what I said earlier,
about my mom in 2023 when she went to cardiac arrest.
I do remember while I'm like by her bed in the ICU, breathing tube, not sure
if she's even going to make it from there.
I found myself so present in that moment where I feel like normally I would be, you know,
crying, sweating, worried about what to do next, but me and my sisters, I mean,
they'd have to speak for themselves, but it was, I was like, okay.
It was weird.
It was very weird being so present and in the moment knowing that not only that I believe
was going to be okay, even if it wasn't going to be okay, but it was just staying calm under
this most stressful situation that I realize I don't think I would react this way if we hadn't
gone through what we'd gone through when I was a kid. And again, it's again using what we've
experienced as a little tool belt for the rest of our lives. And it's not, it doesn't make it,
it kind of made it easier, to be honest, but it's still not easy. It's just gives you, we've got to
look at these experiences. It's another, another notch. It's another notch that you don't know how
you're going to use it later, but I believe that we will.
And that was an exact moment where I was like, I was very present.
My mom's looking like she's about to die in front of us.
And me and my sisters are still cracking jokes, because I know my mom would want that.
But we were able to, that was just staying present as opposed to hyper focusing on,
is she going to be all right?
Of course, that's part of it.
But every time we would get news and finally when she got out of bed and she was like,
I've said this before, she's like Nemo from our Dory from finding Nemo.
She would forget every three seconds.
And of course, at that point, I was like, oh, my gosh, she can be like this forever.
I was like, let's see.
Maybe it's the Chinese farmer dog.
Is the Chinese farmer, let's see?
Maybe let's see.
You know the Chinese farmer's story?
I don't.
I was going to go with it.
Cool, thanks.
I was letting you run.
I was not and I was like, yep.
You're a real podcast.
Sometimes you just got to let them go, you know, but you're free to explain it.
Let's explain it for some context.
He's like, it's like the Chinese farm.
Yeah, maybe that's my thing you might want to pull up.
So I don't, I don't, I don't butcher it.
Well, we can say that at the end.
But it was something along the lines of, and maybe,
it's better for you to read it varibatim, but it was something along the lines of this
Chinese farmer and his son were farming and all of a sudden this stray horse comes about
and the sun gets excited. They found a brand new horse that they're able to keep. A neighbor
comes by and goes, oh my God, you're so lucky. You found this horse and now it's a free,
beautiful stallion, now it's yours. And the Chinese farmer goes, we'll see, or maybe or we'll
see. Next to know the Calgary comes in and, oh, no, sorry, the son is riding the horse,
practicing on it, falls off, breaks his leg. And the neighbor comes up. And the neighbor comes
by, he goes, oh, my God, if you didn't find this horse, you're someone in a felon broke his
leg. And he goes, maybe, we'll see. And all of a sudden, the Calgary comes and starts drafting
kids from around the town and go to this next battle. And all of a sudden, the neighbor comes
by learning that he didn't get drafted because he had a broken leg. And he goes, oh, my God,
if you didn't find that horse, he didn't fall off his leg, your son would be at war right
now. And he goes, we'll see. And I feel like it's that. It's a balance of, you want to be
optimistic, but it's kind of a neutral sweet spot of like being grateful still, not focusing on
this and not being, it's like a high and low, just like, let's just see. Before you panic, before you
get too excited, I'm not saying don't celebrate the winds. Don't enjoy the positivity. I think that's
part of it. Maybe that's the one hair on the story, but nevertheless, it's kind of in this neutral
zone of will see. And that's exactly where I found myself by my mom's bedside with the breathing
tube. And I was like, okay, this is where we're at now. Do whatever is necessary. Take action.
Look out for my sisters. Look out for my family. But we'll see. It's out of my control. Except
What's going on up here again?
It keeps going back to the same shit.
You're talking about letting the butterfly effect take place.
And maybe form those together, like you said.
I don't know.
You ever seen the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button?
I haven't seen all of that.
I just remember that one scene that I remember that one scene.
Do you ever see Secret Life?
I mean, you could talk first.
No, no, go ahead.
Do you ever see Secret Life of Walter Middy?
Actually, no.
It's phenomenal.
One of my fair movies.
There's a scene of Ben Stiller making fun of that movie in that movie.
and that's my only recollection of that movie, so I haven't seen it.
Well, there's a great scene in there, spoiler alert, where, you know, the concept of the movie
is also, it's one I watch from time to time because there's such a great lesson in it.
Essentially, this baby is born as an old man and lives backwards.
And it's exactly what it sounds like.
And so Brad Pitt is playing the baby old man that eventually turns into the baby.
And, you know, he falls in love with this girl who was his age, but looked a lot younger than him, obviously, because he was old when he was a kid.
But he falls in love with this girl who becomes Cape Lanchette.
And, you know, they're kind of going through those years where she's out dating other guys and he wants to be with her but can't.
And she's like this award-winning dancer and ends up, it takes her to Paris.
And he tells the story of a day where it all ended for her.
And he describes how it starts with this other random woman
whose alarm didn't go off and went off two minutes later.
So then the cab driver took an extra two minutes
and then decided to get a coffee with his time.
So it was an extra four.
And then the lady got in the car,
which meant they got caught behind this bus and so on and so on.
And then eventually he said,
if one of these things hadn't happened,
she would have walked through
and it shows Kate Lanchett walking out of the back of the studio.
And she would have been two steps ahead
and the cab wouldn't hit her.
but instead the cab hits her and she didn't die but she broke her her leg in five places so she
couldn't dance anymore and the reality of it is it was one of the impetus is that ended up bringing
them back together despite the fact that that was a very low moment for her and like the love
kind of came out of that and so you know you asked someone like that in this fictional example but
you ask someone like that oh would you kill to be able to dance like you had your entire life
and been a Michael Jordan level type dancer traveling the world doing it and you can't do that
anymore. Yes. But if it also got you to a place where you went through that low moment and
then you got maybe the most important thing in life figured out in which she came together with
someone she loved and then ended up having a kid with them. Spoiler alert. You know, it's like there's
something very beautiful about that. And I always think about that with examples like your story
because you'd give anything to have your dad back and to not go through that.
But you know that you can't change that reality.
That is what it is.
You got 12 great years with them.
You have amazing memories with him.
Your family got to be raised by him.
So you had a lot of positive there too.
And now you guys, and focusing on you in particular,
you've had to take that challenge and formulate your life through it
and respond to it in ways that also has helped you find your own meaning
and purpose and allowed you to help a lot of other people as well and give that perspective.
So, again, you'd love to have your dad back.
I'm not saying you wouldn't take that trade in a second.
But seeing as you can't change it, you have used that for positive forces.
And you know, you're a young guy where a lot of things are probably still going to happen
in your life that are going to be great that are a result of that butterfly effect.
That's a it's a mind fuck to think about.
I'm glad I can't relate to it.
But have you ever thought about it that way?
Yeah.
And I think it comes back to, and it's a.
a beautiful story. I think it's the will see kind of thing. And the weird thing is I'm blessed
to be in a position that anyone else can do, first of all. But this platform that I have has
really, I'm seeing it now now that has a decent following that it's really, it's genuinely
helping people and which helps me keep going. But that was like a longer will see. Like obviously
there's a lot of, there's a lot of will see moments that have come through fruition. That's
like what happened to my mom in 2023 to see how me and my sisters operate at.
together with seamless. And I understand the family dynamic for so many experiences that I've
heard are very complicated about anything you go through. The relationships aren't this tight
and one person reacts like this. And it just complicates it. So like the family dynamic,
relationship dynamic can really throw a hair in a lot of situations specific to loss and
this and that. But we just operated in such a way that I was witnessing live and appreciating
and being grateful for in the moment that came from that experience. We're always very close.
But granted, if that didn't happen, it was my dad for the first time two years ago.
go, my mom for the first time I had both my parents. I don't know who knows if it would have been
like that. And that was like a will see moment that came through fruition of we, we were able
to operate this horrible situation in the most beautiful way possible because of that.
And then we're so much closer because of it. So my friends are so much closer. I see the world
differently because I chose to choose that path. And I'm happy the way I see the world. And again,
this podcast was born and now because that's like this whole weird contract we were talking later.
Who knows if, which I've been told by medium, several different ones, who knows if they're just coming up with the same theory.
But again, they're telling me the same thing, which is like, listen, I hope you take this the right way because it is sensitive.
But your dad died so you can be on the journey that you're on right now and now look how many people you're helping.
And again, it's one of those balancing act that you just said, you sure, I would take my dad to not have this.
But because my dad died now I have this podcast helping a lot of people.
and that's the will see that's like a longer road of the will see and like look what happened and again
i'm not trading it but it is a blend of the best thing that could ever happen to you might not
might not turn out to be the best in the happening but the worst thing that happened to you might
turn out to be a beautiful thing and you can't change the worst thing that happened once it happened
right like what you were saying you do what you can with what you have and look what it turned
out to be even if you got fired from your job and it's like now you're screwed you're
stressed for bills six months later now you're working your dream job i don't know like a silly
example like that, like it's just a, it's a we'll see. I don't, I don't know what else to say by worrying
about what hasn't happened yet. It does nothing for me. Agreed. It does nothing for me.
Real quick, David, this is going great. I just got to go to the bathroom. Yeah, take a shit,
piss me what we got to do? All right. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. You and I had been
talking and it came up through a lot of those conversations, but we were specifically starting to get
into some of the near-death experience stuff a little bit ago. And like I said, you've talked with
with some people who have had that on your podcast.
Is there anyone you've spoken with whose story resonated or stood out the most?
Yeah.
I mean, again, a lot of them are similar, but very different.
I want to say Dr. Mary Hensley, she had an outer body experience, which a lot of them have
the similarities are they come out of body and they're able to see the scene below them.
Some things that they were able to verify later, I believe her story, I don't have to,
for them not butchering it, but it was something along the lines of her explaining when she came
out of it to the doctor that something happened that he was like confused because he was like
there's no way you would have known that that kind of verified her seeing where she thought
she saw. But there's one specific moment in the way she explained it that I believe it's going to
be like and it was kind of what I explained earlier. When she started transitioning and she had like
that buffer zone through the tunnel, whatever you want to call it, and then she gets to the quote
unquote other side, she started saying, oh, oh, of course.
And I think that's what it relates to is once you get to the other side, that's when
you start comprehending the things we can't comprehend here, where she had this reflection
as she's been here before.
It's just a return to where she's always been or still exists.
And everything made sense once she got across from there.
So I don't know if that makes sense into what I'm explaining, but once she got to the other
side, it was a return to home.
And that kind of relates to the reincarnation thing that we've been there a billion times
and we've been here a million times
but once she got to the other side
she was explaining like a oh my god
of course of course of course
and I think that was the moment where
what we were saying that it's not comprehensible here
but over there everything makes sense
and that's another thing that I keep hearing
is that it's always a return home
it always feels familiar
and it's just this eternal peace and love
where you're not even really thinking about
so much as to what's happening here
like when my mom had essentially a near death experience
where she fell in a minute she was gone
you said her heart was stopped for 10 minutes yeah i mean i know it's at least seven because my
the ken the guy she's with has been with forever is uh he had the phone on talking to the hospital
giving her resuscitation and that phone call was seven minutes and then the few minutes of them
coming up the stairs and resuscitating her but my mom had a similar explanation of when she was
in this place then she's not super religious or this or that she still doesn't know what she experienced
but was similar to what dr mary hensley was saying where it was like it felt familiar like it felt
like she's been there before.
She wasn't even thinking about us.
My mom is a neurotic Italian mother.
If she was just dreaming,
she'd be thinking about her kids and her grandchildren.
She'd even, like, fathom us.
But they were both on this side
where everything made sense.
It was like all their questions were answered
without even asking questions,
which I had a similar experience being on DMT,
whole other conversation.
But it was everyone,
including Dr. Mary Hensley,
how she explained of that O moment,
where everything just,
once before it was fuzzy,
everything just made sense.
And it was a return home.
And that's where I think wherever we go,
it's just going to feel like we've been there before
I think that's what it is
whatever else goes on there
have people whether it was her
or other people you've talked to
have they described
seeing from that place
their family that's left behind
and how they felt when they saw them
I believe it
I want to say Penny Whitbroth
writ brought it was one of my early
near death experiences and I
think it was her
I'd have to refer back to the episode
but it was something along the lines of knowing
that they were going to be okay
like in the grand scheme of things
and feeling and seeing exactly the panic
that was happening when she was overlooking the scene
she said she actually saw her sister
when she was at a bike drive to the scene
and feeling exactly how she felt
and somehow something was verified
about what was going on in the car
that her sister confirmed I don't know what it was
but to answer your question
she was able to see or feel
what her sister was
going through, but felt detached from it in a sense that she knew everything was going to be
okay, and that even though she felt that in the moment, she was literally felt zero ounce of
worries.
And that was kind of the incomprehensible understanding what we go through as a human and what
is perceived on the other side, if you even want to call it perceiving.
But other than that, it didn't seem like I can't recall any other stories, including my
moms, of thinking about the people that were still living here.
It was always what was going on on the other side because that was really the big picture.
it's so i mean some of the people that go through something traumatic to to have to experience that
but then come back i in some ways i'm like jealous that they have some sort of even if they don't know
the full picture anything they have some sort of zen and comfort with living here and living
in the moment because they've already seen something you know and then you've had other people
he was Al Pacino he's like yeah I died once I didn't see anything there's nothing that
happens you know so it's like there's different there's different interpretations of it I guess
I've actually asked that question who I remember one specific girl on several of them but
there's a shit ton of people that have no heartbeat or have a near death experience that see nothing
yeah a lot of those people that see nothing and I was asked like what about those people
how come some people have a near death experience and some don't and a lot of those people that
see black I've again heard testimonies from
a shit ton of people that always mention nothing happens when you die because of their experience,
because they saw black, because they experienced nothing during their near-death experience,
which happens often, they believe nothing happens because of their experience.
Then I asked one woman who's a medium and had her own near-death experience, like,
how come some people see nothing?
Is that, doesn't that contradict everything that you're saying?
And she explained it somewhere along the lines of believing that those are certain souls
that if they had a near-death experience, if they saw the light and experienced how
ridiculously comforting and loving that side of the whatever you want to call it is,
they wouldn't come back when they had to come back.
So they had to see nothing to not have that temptation or that draw to come back.
So by seeing nothing, maybe that means they're newer souls,
which I don't even understand.
What does that mean new or soul?
How are souls born?
That's a whole other question.
But they're younger souls.
Everybody people say old soul, new soul.
So the newer souls or the younger souls might not see anything.
They might see black.
So they have to come back.
because most of the near death experience
there was some sort of choice
or they were sent back.
Like I know a couple of them were said
like you can stay here or you can go back
and they knew deep down
and for whatever reason
that they had to come back
there's still work to do
or however they felt
if you even feel
but that was my understanding
of a potential idea of why
which kind of makes sense
from what not making sense
and making sense
if there was a reason
for why some people see black
and don't have a near death experience
with all these visuals and experiences
that if they did have an experience
where they were given
that choice they're like no i'm staying over here because over there's our hell over there's like
sucks why the hell would i go back to that why the heck would i go back to that when this is over here
which also relates to like even my mom i think i think she was like had a near-death experience
hangover which i hear is a common thing too when they come back from this experience they're back to
this not the kind of shitty reality and then it's experienced this eternal love and light that is
quote unquote perfect and they come back to all these human feelings and the pain they might have gone
through physically. And there's a little bit of a hangover from that experience because they're
kind of adjusting back to reality with having felt that eternal whatever you want to call it.
So there's like a near-death experience hangover.
Allegedly.
Yeah, they come out.
They're like, fucking eggs cost seven bucks.
What is this bullshit?
Yeah.
I want to go back.
Yeah.
It's kind of what that's come how I'm trying to understand it.
Yeah.
So who knows?
Do you think that souls prior to reincarnating, if that's indeed,
what we do. Do you think that when souls leave, they still exist among us in some ways?
They're still like, do you think, do you feel your dad here with you? Yeah, I don't know if that's,
yeah, there's, I mean, I've, I have a specific story where, again, my objective brain try to
counteracts, but I don't know if it's leftovers or they're just connecting from wherever they
are. You know what I mean? Leftovers. I'm trying to understand you're saying that they're still
here. Like the soul. Like, you know, you're doing something cool. Yeah. And your dad.
I don't know. Again, yes, I believe in that. I feel like I felt that. But then again,
my other side of the brain is like, no, no, no, even though I believe in it. You know, I had a story
where I'm curious what you think about this. So my girlfriend at the time, she was visiting New York
with me. We came from Jersey and we get off downtown, which is right by the World Trade Center.
I was like, I know you've never been to the 9-11 Memorial. If you want to go, let's go.
I've been there a million times. So don't go for me. Contemplating it. So it was very unawain
a whim, which is kind of part of the timing.
Have you said that movie story where two seconds later?
So we end up going through there.
That's like the only plug I have in my life is skipping the line for the 9-11 memorial.
And it's kind of a flex.
And then I, we get to the memorial.
We be lined for one section.
There's one memorial section that they overplay, they overlay audio from past
anniversaries where people read the names.
So 20 plus years of footage of, I don't know if it's the same one, but there's people
reading names, like kind of light in the background. As soon as we get to the section that we
just randomly went to, there's a million areas we could have gone to, I all of a sudden hear
and my husband, David Francis Ferugio, it was my dad's name, my mom reading my dad's name.
It's one of those things that you can process it quicker than you could say it and immediately
instinctually recognize the voice and then automatically heard my dad's name and my mom saying.
It was one of those things like, sure, I can chalk it up to. I just happened to walk in that
moment. And it was just a happy coincidence, but I'm like, I got me and my,
my girl at the time looked at each other and got a whole body was vibrating and we felt
it just felt differently outside of just the wild coincidence where it's one of those I just
felt like it was like a quick little wink from my dad just saying like here you are that's why the
timing worked out that's why we slowed you down here so you can walk in that exact moment and it's
I feel like these things happen more often than we think and sometimes we either just ignore the
signs or we just chalk it up to just coincidence when if we really pay attention that gut feeling
the intuition that you brought about, I think that's what we got to listen to.
And at the end of the day, it's the meaning you give it.
So regardless, if I can go down the court of law rabbit hole of trying to figure out this
is real enough, I'm never going to get the answer to, it meant something to me, and that's
enough for me.
And I felt it.
So I feel like maybe that's the way that the soul speaks to us is countless stories I've
had in my podcast and people that share online or it just feels bigger than the objective
truth, however you want to define it.
And I think that's how it talks to us.
Like the movie, what's with Jim Carrey and the God.
movie, Bruce Almighty.
Bruce Almighty.
Yeah, he's, it was, yeah, exactly.
But there's a moment in the scene where he's driving through traffic getting frustrated
and there's one guy holding up a sign that says, stop, he gets a car cuts him off and it says
stop, caution, don't go.
But he's just ignoring it in a chaos of this of this overstimulated world that we're
living, ignoring all the signs.
But it seems too obvious to be a sign.
But I truly think that's how the universe communicates to us, whether it's a certain
person dropping a story out of nowhere that just resonates with you or a billboard even or
these electronics are another way that seems to be the connections, electronics are easy for them
to manipulate according to what I'm told. So my whole point of that is it's like, yeah, it's
whether you want to try to counteract these experiences that we have and just define it as
coincidence, if it felt like something, just trust that. And then it's the meaning you give
it like everything we friggin do in this life. Yeah, well, I for one, when I think of God,
picture Morgan Freeman. So that movie got that part right. Yeah, maybe God's black. I have no idea.
But listen, I don't care what he is.
He sounds like Morgan Freeman.
That's the voice in my head.
They casted that perfectly.
I literally, if God is Morgan Freeman, I'd be stoked.
I'd be so stoked.
I'd be so stoked, honestly.
That'd be great.
But no, I, I, I, what you're getting at to is the thing that's beyond death as well,
which is like when the universe lines up in just a way and transmit.
We've kind of talked about this in other contexts today, whether it be the butterfly effect
or, you know, the way things happen and the timing of things.
I am a huge believer that, you know, the deja vu's, the butterfly effects and the lining up of
strange details is, like, that is, there is something scientifically underlying the reason we're
all here that that kind of thing happens because, you know, like you'll do things, you'll go through
processes with people, go throughout life and, you know, accomplishing things or going through
different things and whatever and then after words you'll be like wow i met that person because i
knew this person right there and when i met that person they have the same birthday as me and you know
like like all these little weird things and you're like but how did you know like my head of content
a lessee who was like here day one working for free lives in california we had no connection to
each other i got really baked one night early on doing this podcast like late at night and saw a blank
account in a Lex Friedman comments section asking for his equipment. And I'm like, I know it was
spoken equipment. So I DMed him and said, you want it. He's like, yeah, sure. So I took a picture
of a bunch of equipment. He's like, wow, I'll give you a follow. And then we became friends. He has,
you know, he's seven years younger than me, but he has the same exact birthday. He has a lot of the same
interests. He has some of the same flaws I did at his age. And, you know, I'd like to think,
more importantly, some of the really, like, good things going for him as well that are like
similar to things I had. And I look back on that now and what we've been able to build together
here, because he runs my second and third channels. Like, he's a genius, bro. Like, he's, he's
figured it out and you can't spell. But other than that, like, he's fucking amazing. And, you know,
I'm always making fun of me, but I look back on that. And it's such, it's not only like a really
wholesome story, but it's like, why did that happen? Yeah. You know, many times I was baked at night,
like, building this podcast? Never. That was like the one night where I'm like, well, my buddy
has left a nice jay here that's what i'm saying that's what i'm saying i think uh i think part of it
is kind of everything we talked about it's uh it's an awareness but it's allow it's kind of allowing
allowing things to happen like that even if you just get like you say it like you say is for
people just try it gamify ask for what you want like put it out put it out there and allow things
to kind of cookie crumble and follow the cookie crumbles just be open to even if you don't believe
it just try it out if you don't believe it just do it for a while just pay just
be aware of what's going on and just question it, even if you think that's a coincidence,
just, what if you just say, all right, maybe that is a sign.
Follow it and then see what opens up.
I just notice a lot of people, when they allow these things to happen as so much as believing
it, all of a sudden, just kind of like, you're like in this weird little current.
You're like in the current of the ocean.
It just kind of guides you.
But you're still making these decisions.
It's still free will, but you're kind of just like following the cookie crumble and
then following the next and one by one, there's things happen.
Yes.
Things happen.
And that's, I think that's following the flow.
It's kind of staying positive, sure, but it's also just the universe, I do believe, guides us in the most unexpected ways.
It's the hardest thing, but you have to detach from outcomes.
This is something I work on myself because, like, I am so driven to an outcome on every little thing.
And like I have written on my board out there right now, let go.
That's for me to just look at in the morning because I'm like, you don't know how this video is going to perform or how you're going to do it.
Like, you don't fucking know.
Do good work.
Put in your time.
let the universe take care of the rest.
You're not going to win every time, you know?
Yeah, I actually had that, I was tripping on,
it was probably the deepest mushroom trip
ever been on my life.
I had a moment where it was mostly just having fun,
but then I had this moment that kind of relates
to what you're saying where I was like standing up.
My friend was somehow on his face listening to me
like I was preaching the word of the Lord.
And I was closing my eyes yelling.
I remember just being in this room.
Like I was visualizing this room,
tripping balls.
And all the doors were closed.
It was like several doors there
that I wanted to go through.
And I was screaming.
out loud like what now like what now i'm here what what do i do now and then i had a pivotal moment
where it's kind of carried me this is the beautiful beautiful part of mushrooms i realized like i
was getting frustrated because i showed up i feel like i did the work i had good intentions i'm
just putting my head down but not like these doors aren't opening for me and that's the metaphor
i took from it then i was like okay just all i can do is just show up and the door might not be
open right now. Right. Just trust that it's going to be. Whether it is or isn't, you figure
out, you've knocked a hole in the wall. I don't know what that means. But it was this moment that
just relates to everything I do. And I think what you're saying is we can only do so much.
I can't, the door's not open. The door's not open. All I can do is show up and do this and do that.
And it's, it's letting go and letting go of the outcome. And whatever the chips fall,
it's just back to what I said earlier. He's like, we'll see. I don't know what else to do.
No, it's good. It's good to hear someone else describe it because it's really hard for me.
It's hard for me too. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard for
me like there's things I'm like I want that my soul feels drawn to that it feels drawn to having this
w you know what I mean but like I don't get to control that sometimes the door will be open
but I'm going to make sure I knock on all of them yeah it's the knocking it is the knocking but
also I think what you're saying I heard recently something along the lines of there is actually and
I relate to this because I find myself wanting wanting wanting and I feel like I'm enforcing will
almost too much and I always felt this way, then I heard someone say it and I had no supporting
evidence or any thought behind it, but there's something to the heavy wanting and heavy
desiring, I want this, I need this, I need this into an outcome where it's actually creating
more resistance. I feel the resistance when I do. I don't know if it's me creating it or just
what that resistance is, but I feel resistance pushing for something or trying to put a square
peg in a hole like we were trying to figure out earlier. It's that wanting, that needing is actually
hurting us more than helping us when we think our enforcing our will is actually part of the
perseverance, but it's actually letting go of the outcome, like you said, and say, I'm going to do
this. It's almost thinking instead of, I need this, I need this. It's, I want that. And if it doesn't
happen, it doesn't happen, but I'm going to do my best to make it happen. It's when we, that's, to me,
that's letting go. It's, I want, yeah, I do want this to happen. It's okay. It's almost like not
caring. That's why I see so many, you see so many people, successful people in my life that are like,
just so lack of day, like, I'm going to do this, I don't care what happens. And it happens
for them. I think that's the art of letting go no matter what happens, but still focus on still
attaining it. But it's a perfect balance of, you know, wanting to achieve something, but don't
give a shit about the outcome. And that's when the shit happens, I feel like.
Think about everyone has two types of friends, right? And a lot of times there's people, you know,
you have friends that have been in both eras of this. But the one type of friend is the one
that wants the girl and can't get her and it'll just do anything to do it and what are they they need
it so they're needy yes right i've been there the other one the other one is the type that wants it
realizes that's not an opportunity right now and doesn't take it personally completely detaches
and you know let's it happen with other women and ironically sometimes then that girl comes
knocking at some point it is absolutely like that example of like males and females in a relationship
It is downstream, true, and everything in life.
And like any time that I have fucked up, most times at least, you can, in whatever situation
it is in life, it's more me taking the route of I need that outcome and I become needy for
it rather than, okay, I want that outcome.
I'm going to work to get it, but I'm not going to tie the meaning of my soul to that
happening when there are things there that are out of my control.
that's the perfect example we don't control the algorithm for example you know we may i'll bet you
you your best podcast ever is one that is not a top view a thousand i've had massive guests on that
episode didn't perform like i thought it's a massive guess someone that no one's ever heard of even
that you're like bangor that's the greatest conversation i've ever had and the algorithm was like
dave fuck off dude literally even like an episode i posted from from my standards it was like oh that
episode performed wait i put it out there's like i enjoyed it
but this is probably not going to do much numerically.
And I was like, oh, why is this before me?
Was it the title?
Was it this?
Or was it me not giving a fuck?
Yeah, not giving a fuck.
Being like low expectations suddenly got met and passed real fast.
I'm telling her, I think that's the secret.
That's part of it.
One of the many secrets.
I think that is one of the, it's just, again, it goes to the way we carry ourselves
and it still comes back to the same shit we'd be talking about.
It's just let the cards fall where they fall.
Yeah.
And then whatever comes, I'm good with, I'm going to make it work regardless.
Would you, this is, this is.
this is almost a harsh way of putting it and i apologize if it comes across the wrong way but
would you say your life is kind of could be divided simply in a before and after your dad yeah yeah
i mean it talked about changing trajectories it changed it changed it was two different dimensions
to completely i always try to i'd never be able to get the answer what my life would have been
like with him but if i tried to imagine it i don't know if i would have moved to california that's
been here for 15 years i probably would have went to the city
I still was always a little out there in regards to trying different things, I think.
But my dad might have tried to get me into his company and I would have taken that path.
And that's exactly what I was avoiding by moving to California.
I didn't want that I didn't want.
I didn't know what I wanted, but I knew what I didn't want.
And it wasn't that.
But if he didn't die, I might still be back east, might still be living in Jersey right now, this, that, and the other.
So, yeah, a thousand percent.
I think everyone has their different chapters in your life.
So I feel like it's been multiple lives for me, to be honest.
but that, a 12 years old, a thousand percent,
even though life continued the same for a while
because I still growing up, still lived in Jersey for a while,
so it wasn't like I just 13 years old moved to California.
It wasn't until I was 22.
But because of that, once I graduated college,
I knew I didn't want to stay there.
Even though it was the opposite of everything my heart told me,
leaving my family, that was the hardest part
and still is the hardest part of being so far
is based on that experience of realizing
the impermanence and the importance of my family,
I'm very close to my family.
They're everything to me,
still went across the country and moved further from them. So that contradiction kind of messes
me up. But then I think about it, I'm like, no, I need to do this. I come home all the time.
I'm very close to my nephew, so nothing's been missed out besides the consistency of always seeing
them. But that was a weird contradiction. And I, again, I don't even know why I moved to California.
It was like a pull. I didn't question it. Made the decision just went. Even when I got there,
I'm like, I don't even know what I'm doing here. But it was like a weird kind of listening to
the way things are supposed to go. Yeah. That makes sense. It's kind of like the predetermined.
It's like I'm supposed to be there.
And then whatever I choose, it's just let's do it.
And yeah, absolutely.
It was, again, it was two different worlds.
And I feel like that's a common thread when you lose anyone,
no matter of 12 wife, husband, brother.
It's a totally new world.
Minus the obvious changes in, you know, experiencing death
and certainly having to go through years formatively in a new reality.
Would you say that your personality changed a lot?
or would you do you think you're still kind of the kid you were growing up to be in that way?
I think I'm still, I think mostly you have to ask my homies that and my family.
I think I feel like I've been pretty consistent in who I am, but I've just gotten better.
Like in the way, in regards to still not there yet, so I have a lot of growing to do, but I think just the way I see my relationships and how important they are and being loyal and showing up for my people.
I think that's evolved into growing
and to understand the importance of that.
But I think in regards to my wanting to make people feel,
it goes back to you asking about my dad
and how I realize I'm a lot like him.
I don't think that came from him dying.
I think that just came from the foundation of who I always was.
And as I got older, I just realized I'm like him.
If I'm like him, that was when he was still alive
so it's nothing to do with his death.
So I think foundationally and personality-wise,
I would like to think my friends think I'm pretty consistent.
And as you see me on even on shows like this,
So you talked to me off the mic.
I'd like to think I'm the same person.
I think that kind of relates.
It's just, yeah, just like the values and understanding the fragility and, you know,
those existential moral decisions, that's continually evolved for sure.
But ultimately, I'd be then I think I was 12.
You know what I mean?
Like, who the hell was I when I was 12?
That was the same that I am now.
I don't know.
Well, you alluded to it earlier and I do want to ask you about it because it's with,
and I fully understand this when you talk to different people who,
lost family and friends in 9-11 sometimes it's a very sensitive subject to even talk about like that
day and the bigger picture of what happened. It's my job. That's what you think. Is that what you're
getting at? Yeah, I'm asking, I mean, there's a whole bunch of different theories out there. I've always
actually gotten cooked for some of my thoughts on this day because I think a lot just went wrong.
There's some other things. You know, I'm always developing on that. But, you know, I didn't,
I didn't lose people in it.
You know, you, you lost, you lost your father in it.
It's, that's, that's what the event is for you.
But zooming out, if that's possible, 24 and a half years later, you know, what, what, what do you think happen here?
Yeah, it's, it's all, uh, so it doesn't add up to me.
Like, I think we've been lied to an incredible amount.
I think, um, I think there's a lot of bullshit in there.
but in regards to who did it, those hard answers,
I have obviously no idea.
I can only theorize, but I, the biggest one for me
that makes me question it the most is Tower 7.
Mm-hmm.
Even like, it isn't just avoiding everything else.
Just questioning that, why did that go,
why did that go down?
Like a perfect, what happened?
Like, how did that collapse?
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
The fact that that went down in perfect,
I'm just going to use the word demolition,
it's a whole other question that raised the most flags like why did that go down apparently you
have to I'm curious actually I don't if you want to look it up like pretty sure there were very
important things in there very important offices very yeah CIA CIA had an office there
secrets I had every pump horse in here her secret service office was in there yeah you know what I mean
so it's not it's not it's not even of course it doesn't prove anything but it's one of those things
where you walk into your girlfriend's apartment you see someone else's shorts there yeah I didn't
see you guys having sex but what are those shorts doing there it's like it's like at least raise some
questions and that one beyond anything else we can go down the rabbit hole of that always just
doesn't make sense to me so in my head i'm like there's something be i don't know if it was
the our our side turning a blind shoulder i don't know if it was our side just being in on it
but then you go down the whole war aspect of it that turned out to be from my ignorant understandings
to be bullshit but obviously there was a reason why we went to war and it wasn't for
the weapons we thought we were going to find that turned out to be bullshit there's other
motivation as to why they would do that, then you want to go deeper.
Even if you could go back into like history, I think it was Operation, you know Operation Northwoods?
Yeah.
I think it was Operation Northwoods, which was the false flag operation.
They presented to JFK.
He turned it down.
Within those documents, without me be able to verbiate them explain it, I'm pretty sure they put in their, like, real or simulated planes.
They were supposed to blow up a ship and blame it on Castro.
So my whole point of bringing that up that has, that seemingly has nothing to do at night.
9-11 has everything to do at 9-11 for sure yeah just the ideation of a false flag for people to think that
something like that is impossible or incapable that's a real proven dot it's a real document it's not
even like it's not even made up so just my idea from trying to tie the two okay that was 60 years
ago whatever it was and that was regardless if it was executed or not which it wasn't
was turned down i believe from jfk right that was proposed 60 years ago
years ago, that was proposed to create a false terrorist attack just to blame it on other people.
What was 9-11?
A terrorist attack to blame it on X so we could infiltrate and get the public backing to a war.
The whole reason for that, from my understanding, was to blame it on Castro, we can go into Cuba.
Is that right of that correct?
You have enough correct.
Enough correct kind of thing.
So it's like, it's the same playbook, just on a ridiculous scale that it's so absurd.
There's like, no, it's like, there's no way.
There's no way.
In my hand, I'm like, why not?
I think something that people forget is that it doesn't take many and what I mean by that is we use these terms right though we'll talk about a country or we'll talk about a specific agency or whatever that comprises of millions or thousands of people and in your head you start to think oh so they're all in on it or something all it takes is having three people in some various compartmentalized power positions you're just no what's going on to let something go through.
and then at baby out with the bathwater,
everyone takes the bath for it
and takes the blame for it,
and they may not even know that it happened.
And regardless of what direction this went
or who all fucked up,
I, for one, the more and more I look at it,
just think there were fuck-ups everywhere.
And my opinion on some of it has changed.
You know, like, what could have happened there?
I also think you had multiple allies
around the world who had intelligence on this
and just didn't share it.
for, you know, selfish reasons, but, you know, everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
And if there were, if there were a handful of people who maybe allowed that to be facilitated,
which is like the worst crime ever, by the way, you know, I could totally, I could totally see that.
I just don't know, I don't know how I, I mean, I'm very impressed with how calmly you comprehend that.
I don't know how I would comprehend that if I were in a position like you where I lost someone in there.
Well, honestly, I mean, I feel like I didn't start questioning it maybe until later.
I don't remember how I felt in regards to the first 10 years of going that deep on it.
I know a lot more has come out now.
Yeah, when I really sit in it, I don't know if I just detach myself from it because I don't know what I'm going to do or what can I do about it kind of thing where I try not to let it override me.
But when I do go deep on and think about it, it's just, again, it's not solidified.
I'm hoping it's just mistakes, but even those, even the mistakes piss me off.
You know what I mean?
It's either, it's either a horrible mistake and an incapability of doing your job or the other one.
Either one, it's not acceptable.
It's not acceptable.
There's nothing about this.
Either one, it's not, either one, it's not acceptable.
So it's, it's weird.
That's what makes it even weird, like the experience, besides the fact of what happened.
Now, this is just a possibility, and I'm hoping it's not.
Maybe it's just mistakes made, and people make mistakes, but fuck, you know?
And I don't know what to do with it.
And I try to, I don't know if it's me ignoring it because I don't ignore it.
Obviously, if I'm talking about it, but like, what would you do?
Like, do I'm supposed to turn 18 in a list of war?
That wasn't in me.
I don't even know about, you know what I mean?
Like, sometimes I think about that.
Yeah, you were 12.
Why wasn't I so, why wasn't I made more pistol?
I think my anger came out in different ways.
Definitely came out in different ways.
But it wasn't that like, I'm going to go fucking enlist and do this and that.
That wasn't me.
And you also, to remind from the beginning of our conversation, like, as you said, there
was literally like a shutdown kind of blackout moment, right, when it happened to, which lasted seemingly
for the relatively long period of time, to where you're not even, that's not in the ethersphere,
even.
Not that you could have done anything about it to your point.
You're only 12.
You're not 18.
But, you know, I think that some of that's like a blessing, too, because.
anger ain't going to bring your dad back to you that's and that's the thing and it's a human emotion and
i i remember i felt a little of it i was fucking eight you know what the fuck am i got to do with that but
it's not it's not going to it's not going to change anything and that's where i guess you know
the professionals are going to go do their thing as they did yeah and i i thought i sometimes got
frustrated at myself like fuck how come i didn't have i didn't do this how come i didn't do that that's i'll let
that shit go. But it's, again, my anger, for whatever reason, operated my anger. I did do it physically.
I remember being like eighth grade, maybe like maybe the same year. My dad used to have a punching
bag. And I know, like I have plenty of friends that let out anger and the story I told you about
the lacing up the boots in different ways. Maybe I was a pussy. I don't know, but it was more me
letting it out physically. I remember going, I remember literally blasting hybrid theory Lincoln Park
probably saved me because I used to blast that album when no one was home.
and just lay into that punching bag to point where I had gloves on then I took it off
then I'll just go bare knuckle to my knuckles bled and that was my way of letting some
physical physicality I think helped I don't know what I was doing at the time that's a healthy way
to do it and but it really like physicality then I then down the line I read a study like physical
it doesn't help you I don't understand how it wouldn't but that was part of it that I got that out
and then I used to rewash the footage over and over again I used to like for years and I think that's what
eventually yeah I think that's what eventually later on took me down a rabbit hole from seeking
new footage and I accidentally went down the conspiracy rabbit hole, but I would constantly
rewatch on replay, go back, go back, watch them, the plane hitting it, watch it again,
watch it again, watch it again, see the towers go down, watch it again, watch it again.
Where I was contemplating, like, am I going to be a psychopath for constantly putting myself
here? But then years later, down the line again, I was like, no, I think that helped me.
I think that, I think that's what exposure therapy is. I think it put me in the place
because all I was really trying to do was cry, because I wasn't crying. I was like, I want to
watch this until I cried, and I would do it until tears came out. And when the tears came out,
I would lay the Dell computer down, whatever we had.
And I realized I think I did it to a balancing point where it wasn't unhealthy,
where it was putting myself in the place, allowing myself to feel,
whether there was a punching bag or just allowing these tears out,
but I allowed myself to feel.
I put myself there, no distraction.
I wasn't just sitting in the corner getting busy.
I was like,
I'm going to watch this shit over and over and over again,
like a lunatic.
And I think that was one of the best things I ever could have done because I got comfortable with it.
It didn't make me numb because even sometimes I watch now.
I still feel it.
So I'm like, okay, I didn't completely lose it, but it made me face it.
And I think there's something in there with that exposure therapy of instead of avoiding
everything we go through, we have to face it because by facing it, you see what it is.
You find the quote unquote reality of it and you kind of forcefully get emotions out that
may normally be stagnant.
Some people are just blessed and have the way of feeling.
My sister Jacqueline's wonderful at expressing and feeling and you know how she's feeling.
Me, I'm more internalized, but this forced me to feel everything, to put myself outside
of being at ground zero, which I've been plenty of times even the next year, but it was seeing
it and just facing it. And I think there's something to that of facing whatever we go through,
again, not to the point of numbness, but to the point of just allowing yourself to feel it and face it
and get through whatever you've got to get through. I think that's what did it for me.
But I didn't know what I was doing at the time. Maybe I was doing it for the wrong reasons then,
but now looking back at it, I think it did something that helped.
Well, I'm glad it did something to help. I think.
I can't, while you were talking, I was really trying hard to, like, put myself there in those shoes.
But again, it's a strange thing because it's a public event that affected all of us.
But, like, I'm not in the shoes of, like, every time I see it, I'm like, ooh, that's the floor my dad was on.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, someone said to me, the guy responded.
I was like, how does it, very directly, it was, how does it feel to, I don't think he was asking you in a sick way.
I think he was actually curious.
He's like, how does it feel to watch your dad die over and over again?
Like, oh, shit.
yeah that was kind of a new thought like obviously i knew it watching like my dad's in that building
he's dying but it's like yeah i get to watch my father's death obviously not face to face
but yeah i've seen my dad's death in many ways it's fucked up did he make any phone calls while
he was up there if he tried i don't know but he didn't it's another thought so what what was
going on in that floor was his floor rattled and destroyed was he gone in a second because he
was so close or did he have time to like try to get out what what about you talked to ron d'i
Francesco, right? Is that his name? No. Oh, oh, I had a Brian Clark on. Brian Clark,
who was another guy with Ron D. Francesco. Okay. So these are guys who were like right by where
the plane hit who got out. They were like the last ones out. He was on, I know Brian was on
the 78th floor of Tower 2, I believe. And I had Michael Hinkson on who was on my dad's building.
How did the survivors, especially the guys who were like the last to make it out,
have you broached any of these conversations with them
about what really happened that day
or asked them about their experiences in there
to see if there's some new light that can be shed?
No, I'm actually not thinking about I'm pissed off
that I didn't go down that route.
I'm going to reach out to one of them right after this episode.
Like, yeah, what did you think happened that day?
But I feel like the way they were talking,
I think I should have gotten more direct
now that I think about it was on me,
but from the way they were talking,
it didn't, I forget what they said,
but it didn't seem like they were,
implying anything funny business going on right at least during the storytelling that they didn't
mention any i would think hope naturally that they're like oh i heard this explosion and it didn't seem
like this or that none of that came up but i am curious as to what they think yeah i mean it
it beats me there's a lot of possibilities i will i will agree building seven the more i look at
that is and it happened later too that was so strange that there's there's a lot of strange things
at a minimum it's just a little it's just there's questions that should be here and you know i think
there's a lot of things that still haven't been released. You know what I mean? Like there's still
documents that are redacted that they're not giving information on. It's like what's, what's
sensitive information in there that would harm the public now? Maybe, maybe early on for like public
security, sure, I can see. There's always something. There's always something. But what now? 25 years
later, what's in the, what are they, what are they potentially holding back that they think would be
do the public worse? It's, it's JFK all over again in the same thing. But the JFK example is that
there were multiple people in CIA and Pentagon who had that guy killed and even if you just admit
that that's true 60 years later the public Main Street will say then that organization shouldn't
exist it's an existential you killed president it's an existential thing and so even if it were
best case scenario just some huge mistakes that haven't been reported and we there have been a lot
of mistakes reported but think about that even worse that was so much that people are like oh this place
shouldn't exist, then it's, they view it as an existential risk.
And I, you know, there's a lot of possibilities.
There's a lot of possibilities.
Yeah, hope for the, I'm just saying, it's one of those things of not being shocked
if anything happens, if we, if we got like the cold cut evidence that this, so
it's the worst case scenario happen, I wouldn't be up and up in arms is one thing,
but I wouldn't be like, no way.
Right.
That's kind of where I'm at.
Right.
I don't know what to do with that.
I don't know what to do with that.
Well, I think your attitude on it and, and the way you can at least talk
about it and the way you also talk about your own experience studying it yourself is admirable
because it's got to be very difficult with the with the personal touch to it but there's no doubt
that you have taken all of your experiences and this journey of life that you've been on
and put that to incredible use i do have to say your ability to hold space with some of your
guests when they're talking about the most vulnerable worst things that have happened to them
when it comes to loss is tremendous.
I appreciate that.
And you're really good at it.
I know some of that comes from, you know,
you understand your own experiences and being able to relate to it,
but some of it's also just talent talking with people.
So I'm glad you do what you do.
We'll have to link to Dead Talks down below so that people can go subscribe.
I appreciate it, man.
Thank you again.
And check it out.
You're the man.
Thanks for making it with them.
Thank you for doing this.
We'll have to do it again because there's a lot on the bone here.
And I think people are really going to like your perspective.
but I also do not use the light in the bathroom, just seeing it.
For different reasons or what?
No, probably about the same thing.
Yeah, probably about the same thing.
Is that weird?
We just got to turn the light on.
It is what it is.
This is what it is.
We'll both get there.
But thanks so much for doing it there.
I appreciate you the man, brother.
Thank you so much.
Everybody else you know what it is, give it a thought, get back to me.
Peace.
Thank you guys for watching the episode.
If you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button
and smash that like button on the video.
They're both a huge help.
And if you would like to follow me on Instagram and X, those links are in my description below.
