Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Jeremy Fall on Creating a Safe Space for Mental Health EP 365

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

Acclaimed entrepreneur Jeremy Fall, author of Falling Upwards, joins me on Passion Struck to discuss the importance of creating safe spaces for mental health conversations. Learn how to break the stigma and address mental health without shame, promoting a healthier, more open dialogue around this vital aspect of our well-being. Want to learn the 12 philosophies that the most successful people use to create a limitless life? Pre-order John R. Miles’s new book, Passion Struck, which will be released on February 6, 2024. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/jeremy-fall-creating-safe-space-mental-health/  Destigmatizing Mental Illness: Jeremy Fall Shares His Story of Healing Do you want to break the stigma around mental health and empower yourself to prioritize your mental well-being? Are you searching for a solution that can help you achieve this result? Look no further because our guest, Jeremy Fall, will be sharing the key to destigmatizing mental illness and inspiring individuals to seek help. Get ready to discover the path towards dismantling societal barriers and embracing mental health with open arms. Check Out The Improve It Podcast With Host Erin Diehl: CLICK HERE. Join Erin every Wednesday as she speaks with personal and professional development gurus about what makes this life pesky and beautiful! Click to pre-order Erin's new book, "I See You," and receive a free gift. Sponsors Brought to you by OneSkin. Get 15% your order using code Passionstruck at https://www.oneskin.co/#oneskinpod. Brought to you by Indeed: Claim your SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT now at Indeed dot com slash PASSIONSTRUCK. Brought to you by Lifeforce: Join me and thousands of others who have transformed their lives through Lifeforce's proactive and personalized approach to healthcare. Visit MyLifeforce.com today to start your membership and receive an exclusive $200 off. Brought to you by Hello Fresh. Use code passion 50 to get 50% off plus free shipping!  --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! How  Connect with John on Twitter at @John_RMiles and on Instagram at @john_R_Miles. Prefer to watch this episode: Subscribe to our main YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Subscribe to our YouTube Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@passionstruckclips Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my master class on six simple steps to achieving it. Want to hear my best interviews? Check out my starter packs on intentional behavior change, women at the top of their game, longevity, and well-being, and overcoming adversity. Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/ 

Coming up next, Unpassionstruck, everyone's human. Humans add layers of things that technology can't, right? And ultimately, it's like the rational example of the perfect restaurant with all the budget. If there isn't the soul and the story and the context around it, it's just a product. If that A is going to give you a product, then it's going to help you get a product which is great. But it's up to you to really figure out how to tell the story in when you give it context. Welcome to Passionstruck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armyles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself.

If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Episode 365 of PassionStruck. Ranked by Apple is one of the top 10 most popular health podcasts and the number one alternative health podcast. And thank you, all of you, come back weekly to listen and learn,

had a live better, be better, and impact the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. For you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, we have episodes Sturderpacks, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organize in the convenient topics. They give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com, slash Sturderpacks, to get started.

In case you missed it, earlier in the week, I had two great interviews. The first was with Kara Collier, a registered dietician nutritionist, and the co-founder as well as VP of health at NutriSense. Kara's expertise is reshaping the landscape of personalized health using Constant Kutthos monitoring, Bade, and health outcomes. I also interviewed Thomas Curran, a professor of psychology at the London School of Economics, an author of the perfection trap. With a TED Talk that has garnered over 3 million views, Heron has become a leading voice in batting, rising tide of perfectionism. I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews.

If you love today's episode, or either of the others that I mentioned, we would so appreciate you giving it a five star review and sharing it with your friends and families. These reviews go such a long way to bringing more people into the PassionStstruck community, and I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. In today's episode, we're diving into the captivating journey of a true visionary entrepreneur and advocate for change. I'm thrilled to introduce our incredible guest, Jeremy Falle. At just 16 years old, towering at 6'7", Jeremy was already a fixture in Hollywood's elite circles, rubbing shoulders with alesters, and reshaping the nightlife scene. His trajectory only skyrocketed from there. Entrepreneurial success

became a signature, marked by the opening of 14 groundbreaking restaurants across the nation. The first restaurant tour to be represented by Jay-Z's rock nation, and a proud member of the Forbes 30 under 30 class 2020. Beneath the glimmer's surface, play a battle with anxiety in OCD that he shared with many iconic figures throughout history. Jeremy embraced this as a testament to his creativity, the driving force yet, when a powerful panic attack hit him at Jay-Z's Grammy party. Everything changed. He realized that his mental health was no longer a source of propulsion, but a chain holding him back. Join us as we unravel the pages of falling upwards, living the dream, one panic attack at a time.

This book, in episode, isn't just about a memoir, it's a guide to embracing mental health, challenging societal norms, and triumphant over adversity. Jeremy's story resonates with authenticity, reflecting his journey from Skid Row's neighborhood and conquering the culinary scene, collaborating with Quincy Jones and pioneering innovative dining experiences. Jeremy is on a mission to dismantle the stigma around mental health, particularly for men and those with mixed race backgrounds.

In this episode, he shares invaluable insights on channeling your wildest ideas into a tangible career, redefining masculinity and nurturing mental well-being without compromise. We learn about some of the paradigms he's coined, like the Studio 54 Effect, Paper Clipping, and the Power of Basic. These concepts will reshape our UVU creativity and mental health. Hoonin is Jeremy Fall, takes us on a rollercoaster of entrepreneurial triumphs, inner battles, and the incredible power of embracing our authentic selves.

Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your hosting guide on your journey to creating an intentional life now. Let that journey begin. I am so honored today to have Jeremy fall on PassionStruck. Welcome Jeremy. Thank you for having me. Today we're going to be talking about your great new book, calling, Following Upwards, Living the Dream, One Panic Attack at a Time. What grow you to write this book? I started writing this book. I had a lot of reflecting time around my mental health.

It meant to have been something that's been very prominent in my life from a young age. I've had anxiety and depression from a very young age. It's something that I wasn't able to quantify until probably a few years ago, and then I decided to get help right around when the pandemic started. During that process, I was like, look, I started being really open on Instagram

about mental health, and I have a large following. The response that I was getting in my direct messages was really interesting because even though my demographic skews primarily with women, a lot of men were responding to me and were sending me messages. Some people have that didn't follow me, that I didn't follow either, were just messaging me and be like, hey, it's really great to see a man open up about these things. And it's something I obviously knew that there was a stigma around mental health and I grew up in a way where I didn't want to open up

about it as well. And being a man does play a big part in that. But it was interesting to see this shift of like, almost like a sigh of relief where someone was saying something and then it just a lot of people started responding. So I did that more. I had a lot of conversations. I decided to start a podcast called Dinner Party.

My background is a chef restaurant. It was inspired by this idea of you are having dinner party and at the end of a dinner party, after you're done eating, you talk to your friends for like a couple of hours, just random stuff and just opening up. And that was the concept. And from there, I was like, I had started writing this book and thinking about it and I was like, I need to take this more seriously.

So I really started writing at the end of 2020, really focusing on mental health in a way that doesn't feel clinical or scientific, oh, in a way that's like very loose. That's this is some crazy stuff that happened to me. I had this panic attack driving and this was this and I was like much more personal. And one of the main themes of falling upwards is this modern day masculinity, right? I identify as a straight man and I've painted my nails for years.

I was raised by a single mom and my friends are women. And it's like, there is this notion of what modern masculinity is. And growing up, like you don't talk about your feelings, like all this stuff, that there's a lot of the, the stigmas. So my whole thing is just breaking those barriers down. I'm a man who talks about mental health. I'm completely open. I'm trying to somewhat redefine what that definition is of what it is today. And I am someone who has achieved success, but also I feel like I'm still growing versus like sometimes you'll read a lot of these celebrity books from like big celebrities and I felt that there's a bit of a disconnect with relatability.

At some point when people are it they're like yes of course but now your life is whatever it is and I am able to relate to people a little bit more right like I've achieved success so I can point them in the direction of how I got to this point but at the same time I'm not a Kardashian or whatever it is or like I can still have that relatability. Well, I think it might be helpful to give the audience some backdrop of, you just explained why you read the book, but I think we should talk about how you got to this point.

So something interesting I discovered is that you and I both started working at about the same age. I started like 10 or 11 with a paper out and you started busing about the same age. I started at like 10 or 11 with a paper out and you started busing tables around that age. Can you take us back to your early childhood years and teenage years where you were already becoming a prominent figure in Hollywood?

How did that early exposure shape your perspective on success and fame? Yeah, absolutely. So I started out like busing tables. As you said, my mother imagined a cafe in downtown. We actually lived above the cafe. There was like this back loft situation like our home kitchen was the restaurant's kitchen. It was a really interesting way of growing up. I was extremely immersed in the industry with my mom being hospitality. So busing tables, which to this day I will say has probably built more character for me than anything else I've done, especially starting at a young age. And so, at the time, my mother especially was like, you're never going into this business.

It's really, it's a very difficult business. So, I always saw that as cool, like I'm gonna make extra money, I'm gonna help out my mother. And then I had this idea, again, still in hospitality. I had this idea, I'm from Los Angeles, born and raised, this cafe was off of Skittaro and downtown and I had this idea, I was like, there's nothing to really do

if you're a kid in Los Angeles during the summer. And now it's, it cringed to think about this at this age, but I was like, we should be able to have a nightclub for kids our age, like something that's just like fun. Like cooler than a school dance, obviously you can't have alcohol or whatever it is, but like cooler than school dance, like a little bit more produced, but bringing kids from 11 to 16, 17 who have nothing to do during the summer, other than walk around the mall at the time we used to go to malls, or go to the movies or whatever it is.

So, I pitched this idea, one of the biggest night clubs in Hollywood, the Avalon, and I came in super hot with this idea. They helped me find someone to fund it, and I was like, cool, I'm going to do this. Super easy, it's a great idea, everyone loves it. I'm going to open it super easy. It's a great idea. Everyone loves it. I'm gonna open it. Thousands of people, whatever. The model was to charge at the door and do red bull cocktails or whatever it is.

The first one I worked on for five months promoting it. This was the early my space days. I really tried to use social media to my advantage. I was like, this is interesting. This is a good marketing tool. I saw the advantages of it. I didn't know what obviously social media would become, but the first one was a failure. Complete failure. Failure in the sense that 200 people came, which sounds like a lot, but this was at a time

where I had no idea what I was doing. And I booked a 2000 person venue. I had someone that the Avalon had introduced me to that put up money, that lost some money. It was like a very tough time. Obviously, like, when you're that age, especially in your whole life revolves around that and growing up with insecurities. I was just like, this is really hard. Try it again the following week because it was a series. It was even worse. So anyway, we ended up canceling it. It's supposed to be eight weeks. We canceled it. And I get a call from the Avalon probably like six months later. I get a call from the Avalon that I, Hey, this is sharing me fall. And I was like, yeah, theyvalon, probably like six months later. I get a call from the Avalon that I,

hey, this is Jeremy Fallon. I was like, yeah, they're like, you do this event, unfortunately, didn't go well, but we really like your work. And keep in mind, I'm a six foot seven man currently, and I stopped growing at 16, so I was six foot seven back then. I had facial hair, so knowing the right minds

thought that I was 16 at the time. And so, we'd love for you to come back and see if there's something to do. And I was like, hey, by the way, I'm in high school and I need to do this internship for college. Like, I could do desk work, would you accept it? And they're like, yeah, sure, this is when they found out I was young. And so, I ended up being an intern at the Avalon on Payton, it was a time where the clubs were very much top 40. It was a time and nightlife that was very much fueled by the show The Hills and Paris

Hilton and Lindsay Lohan era and all those people. And my background, I'm French, right? So my mom is from Paris, my grandparents of in Paris, and always been very connected to French culture. And there was this musical movement called electro that was really starting to pop in France. So I was like, you know what, I told the devil and I was like, look, this is going to be like the next thing, like I'm telling you, this is going to be huge. And I ended up convincing them to give me a budget like the world's smallest budget. It was like five grand which booking international acts is like literally nothing. I used the avalan's name because they were like so procedures. I got like massive artists to come

and it started doing really well. So the avalan end up wanting to keep working with me, hiring me and then I end up working there running these nights still in high school. Not everyone knew that. I was completely sober. I didn't drink or anything. Now I realize it was actually like a pretty impressive thing, because that age did not get into that.

So basically I didn't drink or anything, and I ended up just like really building this huge network in night life. And then other venues started asking me, trying to poach me, I ended up just like really building this huge network in night life. And then other venues started asking me, trying to poach me, I ended up doing nights everywhere. And then I built this huge network of people, including celebrities. And going back to your question about fame, it's really when I realized how much perception matters in this world. I was like, okay, so the standard of success and fame,

it was like very early days, it was like social media. So I was like, people determine your, call it worth, right? It's like your personal, happy people talk about like credit scores, right? It's like this way of determining. And when you think about it, it's really absurd that people really, especially back in the day, were focused on followers

and all these things. Like now we've become a little bit more intelligent with the whole philosophy. It's still a big thing. Like it still comes up all the time. But I was like, okay, I'm on my space. My number of friends, these were friends at the time. They were in followers.

You become a friend by adding someone they accept. I was like, this is very easy to manipulate. So I spent hours, all night, adding people. They didn't have limits at the time. Like, this is really early social media. So I added people. I got like 15,000 friends, which at the time was like a very big following. And I started using that as social currency for doing things. And then they rolled over into the Twitterers and the Facebooks and Instagrams, whatever Instagram's whatever it is inside of my career using social media. But when I realized that was such a determining factor as we were going from real life validation to digital validation and social media, I really

focused on building this online persona because that was how people were going to start judging me at face value. And all these big celebrities that would come in, their cards would decline and they didn't have money. And I would see like a very different side to Hollywood. I was like, well, this person's on TV, they must be rich. And then they come in and their cards decline and they're like, hey, can I pay you next week?

And I'm like, wow, like this is really interesting. And from there, I realized the power of perception. Like that perception matters more than reality. And if I had goals, it was really about focusing on PR, marketing, whatever you want to call it, following. And then from there, I could turn that into a career versus going the opposite route, of figuring out what a talent is,

and then gaining it that way. I was like, this will allow me to do whatever I want. It's interesting. I have some friends who are and were some of the top talent agents in the world. And I've asked them, what are these stars you work with? And at the end of the day, they say, they're just like everyone else. They've got financial issues. They've got mental health issues everything, but what they're able to do is to convey a presence about them that makes people attracted to them. So I think what you're saying about this perception, a lure is definitely something that the agency as well. 100%.

Absolutely. And that's such an interesting thing because now we live, obviously we live in this world where that's all that matters now. But when you think about before, it really didn't matter. Like, I remember, I've opened a lot of restaurants, I helped open clubs and bars and everything. And I remember there was a time where you didn't know what the inside of it looked like.

Now, if I hear about this exclusive bark, and I'm not a nightlife, I don't go out honestly. I'm like having dinner like six now. I feel like I'm like aging by the second. People are like, there's this new exclusive club in New York, and this stuff. No one can get in, and it's crazy inside. I can go on Instagram and look at tagged photos and see what the inside looks like. See what the people are inside. Get this like somewhat inaccurate experience, but still understand I can go online, find photos.

It's so accessible in a matter of seconds. Like that the mystique has been definitely ruined by that. I remember there was a place called Hyde in LA still exists, but there was a smaller version half a block away. And well, first of all, at the time, people were valuing their cars, which is so crazy. I think that a bar had valet because they still do. But now with Uber, like things have changed so much. But people would value their cars and the valet would waive to see if they would get in before parking their car,

because it was so hard to get into. And people would be like, what does it look like inside? Like we didn't have camera phones. We didn't have all these things. Like some people didn't have cell phones and the ones you did, they didn't have cameras. So we had to really imagine this mystique, right? And there's something about that that I really miss as much as like

social media has made my career. I think without social media, my career would be nowhere where it is. It really helped me because it allowed me to really be able to define who I am and ultimately I'm a good marketer and it's really helped me for that. But there was this really nice, But there was this really nice, very natural thing about going to a place or hearing about a place, like actually through word of mouth and then going to this place. Like, there was a different emotion tied to it. Now, I think I'm all about the information age and everything we have. And I love that these platforms have allowed people that are like the age I was back then making millions of dollars because they took up a baking hobby on TikTok and they're whatever they're selling pancakes or whatever it is. I love that

side, but there's something about this completely open everything is public. That is a bit of a shame in the sense that these experiences like I saw the progression of building concepts, restaurant concepts, bar concepts that were really about the emotion you had when you went it, right? It didn't matter if it was four walls, just painted in one disco ball. Like, I've been to places that were amazing that had no design. And that's someone who's a designer, like, I love design and everything. But there was something about that where people were just present to, okay, we have to design this place so that it looks good on Instagram. Where are people going to take pictures?

The bathrooms have to have something because people spend time in the bathrooms taking selfies. We have to start thinking about this. Or then if you have this celebrity culture, then they don't feel safe. Some places are like, we'll take your phone away. It's a really weird, it was a really weird transition. When I feel like we all had to adapt to it fairly quickly. And so yeah, that's my foot.

I live in Tampa Bay, the opposite side of the United States from you here in St. Petersburg. We have a new nightclub that opened about eight or nine months ago. What they're trying to do is create something like Studio 54. And now they're opening one, I understand in Nashville, and they're going to open one in Austin, et cetera. But in the book, you talk about how you had this fascination

for Studio 54 because you felt it's when American Nightlife peaked. The paradigm of the Studio 54 effect is pretty intriguing. Can you share an experience where you harness this approach to turn seemingly wild idea into a successful venture? Yeah, absolutely. I'm still doing it today. But as human beings, what I think social media has done also is I think I'm seeing a reverse effect where we're going back to people wanting to have these

experiences that are really emotional where they feel like they were somewhere that other people weren't, right? To a certain extent, people like doing that because they like to brag to their friends. So, social media does play a part in that. It's very basic human nature to want something that you can't have to desire to be somewhere that other people can't be, right? It's something people like feeling special and there's obviously, there's an element to it that becomes people can't be right. It's something people like feeling special and there's obviously there's an element to it that like comes can become pretentious or whatever lead us or whatever you want to call it, but ultimately we like feeling special as human beings. I think as human beings we want to feel special. So Studio 54 did that right. It's exactly what I was talking about in terms of an example of it was a place with four walls, disco balls, they took over an old studio,

a CBS studio, and data scientists throw a party, right? And people wanted to be in there because it was the place to be, and they felt special. And once you were through that velvet rope, you were somebody, you were a part of something that was bigger than yourself, right? To a certain extent, like I did that with my restaurants,

I was fortunate that my restaurants had the demand that I could do that, and not an exclusive you can't get in way. But when you think of an experience, right, you think you go to a restaurant. When you go to a restaurant where the reservation was hard to get, there's already this excitement that builds up and I get it. I get it all the time. There's restaurants that are very hard to get in my friend zone and even when they get me a reservation, I feel cool, right? Even though like my friends and I have direct access,

there's something about this, like it's special. It's an event, it's a memory, right? And everything that we can do to pile up and I think layer onto memories, I think, is very special, right? When you go to a restaurant, you have good food. That's cool, but to me, it was always about the context around it. It's, would you feel, aside from your meal, aside from your drinks?

Because there are places out there with chefs that will make way better food than me. I'm never going to claim that I make the best food. I think my food is really good. I'm not here to compete for the best pork belly. To me, it's really about how do I make you feel something different? And that is completely, I think, with what that 54 formula is, right? It's like layering in an experience that you can't quantify because you're curating spaces and experiences that are meant to become memories that are not replaceable. So I look at it in all sorts of aspects. I look at it from like how I built my restaurants, right?

And how I curated people there. And how I made them feel special and they're coming. I was giving them something different. I gave them breakfast for dinner, playing hip hop. At the time, restaurants didn't play hip hop. And in Los Angeles, people weren't eating carbs and dairy. And I did one completely in reverse. And I made people feel like they're a part of this

really cool breakfast club. So I did that. And then now I do a lot of things where, a lot of things I'm working on is like limited edition food drops. I'll go in the middle somewhere. I'll drop limited edition food. Like actually, it's just gonna be a hundred of these burgers

in this cool packaging and whatever it is and people line up and they get it. It's really about this formula that one, it's definitely a perception base, right? It's perception base. I like to think there is something about, yes, you have to have the reality to a certain extent. Perception is important. You have to be able to back it with something once people get there, right?

Because expectations are high, so it's this balance. But I want people, like, when they come and I do a limited edition burger, it's not about the burger. It's about, from the second they've heard about it, the second they got it, to how they're going to think about it. Like, how do I increase that perception? How do I increase that experience in a very subtle but intentional way to make people feel special?

And to me, that's what the formula is. So your 54 was like, we're curating all these insane people, Andy Warhol, Michael Jackson, like all these really interesting people. What the time, by the way, were big celebrities, but they're not icons out there today because they become icons over time. But we're also going to mix that with random Joe, who owns a hardware store and all these people, and we're going to create conversation with all these interesting humans. when people are gonna leave they're not gonna say oh I like this club because they have the best drinks or they have the best lights They're going to go because it's what they felt. It's something that they can't quantify right?

And I think when people launch things they don't focus enough on the story around it They don't focus on the why they don't focus on like the things you can't explain. There's this connotation for people around the things they experience, where they want to feel things that they can't necessarily quantify and explain. Yeah, it's interesting. A lot of what you're saying resonates with me. And I happened to interview my friend, Will Gadero earlier in the year who I'm sure you're who will is, wrote unreasonable hospitality.

It seems like your approach and his approach have a lot of similarities in that you both discovered that it's really about the experience. And he told me, and I love this line that service is table stakes. Hospitality is everything. And I think what he means by that is it's going above and beyond Where a person doesn't expect it and it exceeds everything that they think is possible when they walk into a restaurant. Is that kind of the same approach that you took? Yeah, 100% 100% and I love Will, by the way. Yeah, absolutely.

The part of the restaurant business for the hospitality business that is unfortunate is that it became very trendy, right? I grew up with a mother who managed a cafe, my ex-step father who passed away, was a chef training colonics school, and never call himself a chef because chef was something you earned. It was something especially in France being a French family.

It's like it's title. It's something you dedicate your life to and it's like this mission, right? Essentially, to restaurants becoming trendy, the term celebrity chef being coined were like you were 22 and had a food truck and you were all sent a celebrity chef because you had people show up on Twitter and you won a game show on Food Network, right? I like that it's become democratized. I'm not about like titles and I want the hospital industry to be welcoming. That is the whole point is to why we're in hospitalized. We're so welcome people with open arms. But the only thing that's a bit of a shame

is that it's watered down a lot of the true hospitality people, right? It became trendy to be a celebrity and invest in a restaurant. Now, a lot of people that it's their dream, they're like, I have money on open a restaurant. I don't understand why anyone would be like, you know, but it's become a cool thing to do. It's become a flex.

And unfortunately, when you have that, it comes through very clearly that it's surface level. There's no story, there's no mission around it. Like the experience is very fabricated. And you feel that the second you go in somewhere, I feel the difference. I don't care if you spent $15 million to build your restaurant. That doesn't mean anything. I've gone to restaurants that are whole in the walls,

in the middle of nowhere, and I have felt the best experience paying 20 bucks for a meal. It doesn't matter ultimately. It's really about how you puree and how you make people feel, and how you tell your story. Food is the biggest thing in the world that is the most acceptable way to explore other culture. People are more likely to eat Mexican food or Chinese food or whatever they are to listen to the music from that culture. People are more open to trying food than they are to music to film to everything else of another culture. That's very powerful. That's how you open the gates to people discovering other parts of the world. Everyone always says, I went to the strip,

oh, the food was amazing, or the food was terrible. Or we found this little cafe that made these things, that's always what you hear first. People talk about that before they talk about anything else and they visit anywhere. So to me, that's powerful, right? So why not use your upbringing, your roots, your inspirations, like things that your mother, your father made when you were a kid,

like why not tell a story, like why only focus on spending 200,000 dollars on a sound system, right? Like those things are fine. Like I'm not against building these like really upscale experiences, but ultimately, when people sit down, they're in their world, right? Like, I see restaurants as like, they're a big building. And then there's a ton of many restaurants inside of it. And that many restaurant is like that table, people in their world, their experience. How are you going to make it

perfect and make it as good as it can be? Because it is the only industries where when you sell your product you get to see people appreciate it in real time. When you sell a t-shirt you don't get to have that communication with the person who buys it on the other end. Even in retail stores, the person who is designing the shirt is rarely at the retail store seeing the consumer consume the product. Here you have like one and a half hour to two hour long

time frame where someone is appreciating your product and you can talk to them. You can guide where things are going. You can suggest things. They might not like fish but because you did it differently, they might like it. You might open their eyes to other things. You might open things, their eyes to things they'd never heard of before, right? There's so much you can do in that world that I think people don't realize and it's become like a list of things to check off for. It's like cool food, good, this, go to Yelp, whatever, but we've missed a lot of that true

authenticity. One thing I truly love about your approach is how you integrated music art and experiences into your restaurants. And I was hoping you could share an instance where a collaboration like Robin Thick curating a brunch playlist or Quincy Jones contributing artwork or Brandon Boyd from one of my favorite bands, Enki Bus, also contributing artworks sparked, not only meaningful conversations, but hidden layers that enhanced

the overall dining experience. Yeah, it was really interesting because again, I've tried to think outside the box within a box, because ultimately restaurants are very capital intensive, they're businesses, they're people to support, right? I got very lucky. I got acquired in 2019 for the pandemic. I didn't have to go through that hardship that a lot of my peers did, right?

I had 14 restaurants all got acquired. So I got very lucky. But the biggest hurdle I always had with restaurants is I'm an extremely creative person, creative to the point where sometimes it can become esoteric, and ultimately it's a business. As much as I want to do all this crazy stuff, you have to sell food, and so you have to have a chicken dish,

you have to have some sort of like a Caesar salad or whatever you want to call it, some sort of basics out. There are boxes to check to be able to keep the lights on. Very few people can afford to do something completely out of the box crazy, and still be able to sustain a business without having a massive amount of capital behind them, which I didn't have. I was like, okay, I'm a big, I'm a big music guy. A huge music guy, I'm passionate about music.

I a lot of my friends are musicians and I was like, it would be really cool to do my version of a mixtape. Like my version of a mixtape in restaurant, I'm not a musician. So I did dishes that featured other artists collaborate with an artist on a dish. So just like a feature in a song like featuring acts artists. You do this. I went to a bunch of artists. You mentioned Brad and boy, you know, you mentioned Quincy Jones. I was like, I want to get stuff from you guys that isn't what you would expect. Like you're sitting at a restaurant. You might not know what mixtape is, you might not know the story, but I made sure the way the staff would communicate

the way the menies were everything was clear. So you could be sitting next to a Quincy Jones sketch, right, he did a sketch. And Quincy is one of the most legendary, iconic, most amazing, beautiful human beings in the world. And I just was able to have people have these moments and memories that they wouldn't have had anywhere else in the world. There's no other place in the world that had a restaurant similar to that. It was awesome when people came without knowing what it was because it was layer after

layer. They would sit down, oh, this food looks, oh, the bar looks fun, whatever. Oh, what is this art? And then at first, I didn't want to put any names as the art, who the artist was, to have the staff walk them through and everything. Then I ended up putting the names because it came a little bit of a nightmare and people kept asking, but people would peel layers. They're all the way to the bathroom, all the way. I didn't know this person drew or painted. So I thought there were musicians.

It's like, yeah, but you got to think outside the box. You got to do things that are different. Like, yes, I could get a bunch of musicians to just and play their music. I'm sure that's one thing, but I want to give you something different. I want to make you think that the more you learn, the more you realize how much you don't know. And I want to strike that nerve with people where it's like, I just open their eyes because they're like, okay, I thought this was what a burger experience looks like.

I thought this was what a traditional restaurant is. I didn't think that you can have a restaurant that collaborated with musicians. Why? Because it hasn't been done. It hasn't been done. And if it hasn't been done, people necessarily think that they don't even think and go there. I want to go to those places that make me uncomfortable,

that might make people uncomfortable, that might seem weird, but it pushes the boundaries, it inspires people to keep pushing, right? Because some of the things that happened today, if you had told me 10 years ago, that kids would be able to just grab their phone and do 30-second videos and become multi-millionaires and just dance and people watch them dance and watch them cook and watch them sing. And it's like TikTok created the world's biggest talent show ever. They democratized that ability to just show off your talent. I would have been like, that's too much mass adoption. At that point, we were barely using our phones in that sense. Okay, 10 years ago, we were using our phones. But 15 years ago, we were just, I think that's

around when the iPhone came out, like probably a little bit more than that, but we weren't even conditioned to use it beyond a couple of things. Right now, our phones are a whole lives. And so when I think about that, I'm like, okay, the internet was much more of a stretch. Social media was much more of a stretch.

AI was much more of a stretch. Like, I can create a restaurant that collaborates with musicians. Like, that's not that much of a stretch. AI was much more of a stretch. Like, I can create a restaurant that collaborates with musicians. That's not that much of a stretch. I don't have to go that far, but I'm able to just open people's minds to food being more of a conduit to conversation than anything else. So I'm going to go back to the book and thank you

for sharing all that Jeremy, because I do think it's fascinating about how you approach this and what led to your success and ultimately becoming recognized as a 30 under 30. And as you said, hitting it just at the right point where you were able to sell all your restaurants just before the pandemic hit, which was incredible timing. In the book, falling upwards, you delve into your experiences with anxiety, and we all have defining moments in our lives. Can you share a defining moment that made you realize it was time to address your own mental health? Growing up, I didn't know what anxiety was, right? My

mother tells me about when I would go play on the playground with kids and go up the stairs for the slide, I would go one foot and then bring the other foot on the same stair and go one foot and the other foot. Kids were running up, falling, whatever. I was so anxious about everything. I was so anxious about everything. I didn't understand what anxiety was. I always felt these panics and the fear of the unknown and what's gonna happen if,

and then growing up, you hear about medication, medication is the devil and big farm on where all this stuff, and it's, there's something still to this day that I learned as a kid that either my mother told me or that I learned that I was like convinced as heck. Stupid stuff, I probably learned seven years ago, six years ago, I was like in my mid 20s that like turning the light switch on and off fast

is not going to cause a fire. Like, it's like some of the stupid things I think about, I'm like, wait, was that BS or was that some things like that that like you have these preconceived notions of things that you've learned from being a kid. But for me, it was like, I didn't understand what anxiety was. Like, actually was that I had an anxiety disorder until I was probably in like, my early 20s, I was like, I think I have this. And then mid 20s, you got worse, and then I realized how anxious I was. I went completely untreated until not that long ago, right? Like, I really started writing a book, I really started writing, flying upwards. This, it was part of my taking care of my mental health. I was like, okay, how am I gonna,

how am I gonna do this? I'm driving, I'm leaving meetings, I'm leaving, like I, the book opens when I talk about leaving the rock nation branch, I had 40, Forbes 30 and the 30. I had all these things. Everything was like theoretically perfect when my life had sold my rationality. I was just like, this is like a peak. And I hate it. I'm like panicking. I don't know what to do.

I'm like binge eating and all that stuff. And I left early. It's like the most exclusive hardest to get to event. And the world people dream of this. And this was like my second year. And I was just like driving home. And I would see a yellow light. I would see a green light.

And I would be like panicking that it would go yellow. What I would do if it was yellow. And it was yellow is panicking. Why I do if it go red? Like I was just, I had to pull over. And be like, this is, this is becoming actually physically dangerous. And this is becoming actually selfish dangerous and this is becoming actually selfish

because it could affect other people. You could do something stupid on the road or you could essentially, you could kill someone with this thing. So with that said, it was just like, I was like, okay, I got to seek treatment. Luckily, I say that luckily, very loosely, this happened around February, right?

We went into lockdown in March. I was like, I didn't really, I was like, I'm going to get help, but I didn't have time to really let it run because then I got sit down, stuck at home, and I was like, okay, I said, I was going to work on this, I'm not brush on some more, and I'm going to go, we're stuck here. This is the time to do it. This is the time to do it. And then I talked to some friends and whatever it is. And I got referred to a therapist. And I actually did therapy for a pretty long time, like probably, I don't know, like a solid, probably seven months before considering medication. And I tell her, I was like, I'm worried to lose my creativity. And this I can't

do medication. Therapy will fix this. I'm going to write a book. I'm going to, it's going to be my therapeutic process. Even if this book never, like, I can't do medication. Therapy will fix this. I'm going to write a book. It's going to be my therapeutic process. Even if this book never, like, I'm going to write this book regardless if I get a publishing deal or not. I was lucky to get a publishing deal. But I was, I was going to write this book. Like, I need to tell the story even if it's to one person that reads it or whatever it is.

I really need to write this story out. And I then end up considering medication because I was understanding things better and therapy really taught me the wise and the what's. And I really started to know myself better and I would understand why I was doing the things I was doing. And then when I got that perspective, I was like, okay. So this is a disease.

This is a clinical, physical thing. The way my brain is wired. I'm not saying it can't be fixed without medication. I have friends that meditate and it's changed their lives. I can't meditate, I can't sit still. But I was like, you know what? People are always like, yeah, then when you start, like what are you gonna do,

you can't stop taking the medication. And I was like, how long does it take to put a pill in your mouth and swallow it? I don't know, a second and a half. I was like, if I have to take a second and a half out of my day, every day, for the rest of my life, and for the remaining 23 hours and 58 seconds of my life feel better, why wouldn't I do that?

Even if I have to do it for the rest of my life. But it's like, when you ask people why they're scared of medication, I was one of these people. It's really interesting. It's just this fear of then not being able to stop the medication. I understand when it's not a treatment, right? I understand when it's I'm scared to take Xan Axe or Vykidin for pain or whatever because those are addictive substances that can kill you. X or Fyke it in for pain or whatever because those are addictive substances that can kill you. And when it's pills that you take one out of time feeling something, I understand the fear of ganghood. I have that fear. I'm an addictive personality. I'm not going to start popping Xanax even though I have a prescription because I'm worried to get hooked on that. So I understand it.

But when it's a treatment and everyday treatment that works in the background, right? Like, I'm on Lexipro. And it works in the background. It's not like I take my pills in the morning. Like, I took my medication two hours ago today. It's not, I'll start, I'm like laying down and lax. This is a treatment every day. It works in the back of your brain.

It's like taking vitamins. I'm like, you're willing to drink your coffee every morning. That takes longer than a second and a half also, just as addictive by those caffeine. You take your vitamins, you take all these things, you have a headache, you rush to the pill cabinet to take ad-villia, you have a cold, you take 17,000 different de-congestants and all this stuff. Like, why are we so worried about our mental health? I mean, so sensitive about taking medication, but we're willing to do all these things for a cold. I would argue that having a mental illness is much, much worse than a cold.

It's much more dangerous. So I started looking at that and I was like, you know what? I'll stick these pills. Now I understand the science more. I was referred to a psychiatrist and I was like, well, happens if I lose my creativity and I don't feel like myself. And she was like, well, if you don't feel like yourself, we'll stop the medication and then go on to another one.

And I was very lucky. I found an amazing therapist and I found an amazing psychiatrist. I had this support system from these two amazing women that really helped me get through it. But I was just like, oh, I guess I didn't think about that. If it doesn't work, I can stop and then try something else. These aren't pills that are going to ruin my brain forever.

That's just not how the science works after trying it for a few weeks. So I tried it. I had an extremely horrific experience with medication. I tried my first medication, made me dizzy to the point where I would walk and stumble and have to grab on a walk because I would be like falling down. Like it was a very weird reaction and every medication, you know if it works after six weeks.

So it was awesome because they were like, oh, it could be side effects. After six weeks, it was still flying down. I was like, this is a disaster. Then I tried another one. I tried, I actually tried lexapro, which is what I am on now, at a much smaller dose. And it knocked me so hard into a depression, I was in bed. Just I couldn't get out. I was literally to a point where I was like, I don't care if everyone dies.

I died. Like I didn't care about anything. I was so emotionless. I had a very weird reaction. And then the next day made me ramp up where they thought I was bipolar. And I'm telling this because like, I am a product of having had the worst possible, one of the worst possible experiences with medication. I'm still on and I'm still grateful and I would do it again if I had to. I turned into, I became very manic that thought I was bipolar

the, for a day, because I thought I was a superhero. And I was like, calling my therapist and I was like, I think I can fly. I really thought I could jump off building fly. Very terrifying stuff. And then it stopped working. And my psychiatrist was like calling my therapist and I was like, I think I can fly. I really thought I could jump off a building fly. I could very terrifying stuff. And then it stopped working. And my psychiatrist was like, look, like you're very resilient. Do you want to just stop? And I was like, no, it says six weeks to work.

It wasn't working. I was anxious. And there was this one thing that was really bothering me with one of my friends. And that was very upset. I had anxiety and like, I was mad at me. And there's like this, this stuff you go on, that's like really just ridiculous when you look back, and it was really bothering me. And then I was in the shower and I thought about it,

like the day after it was bothering me. And I was like, okay, and then I just realized that moment, I was like, that spiral is gone. Like get the anxious thought, but the spiral that comes after the anxious thought is gone. And that's what medication does, right? It prevents the spiral. It's not gonna remove your anxiety. If I had no anxiety at all, I probably would have shown up 45 minutes late to this call.

Because I'd be like, Oh, it's like, you become too loose. It ruins your life. Like, if you become loose to a certain extent, where I don't care about anything, I would have probably missed the alarm for going to put it on. Like, I would low, whatever, but I'm still very anxious. I have anxiety about a lot of things, but the spiral is in control and the spiral was really the hardest part. It's not the thought, it's the dwelling and all that stuff. So to me, I always tell people that medication mitigates that. Well, I appreciate you being so vulnerable about that. And I have had my own circumstances

where I have tried different medication myself, some have failed miserably and put me into some of the same circumstances that you have and others for the time that was on them, serve their purpose and help me to get through bad times. So I do think there's a time and a place where if you need these things they can be very advantageous and taking you out of dark places or places of anxiety or panic attacks and

getting you back to where you can function and be yourself. And similar to you, I was worried that they were going to impact my creativity, but I never felt that ended up becoming an issue. Yeah, it's, and I appreciate you opening up. And would you think you would have been as open 10 years ago talking about that? Well, definitely not. That's interesting, right? Well, it's interesting for me for a number of reasons. The first being the way I grew up and we just didn't talk about those types of things

in my family setting. The other thing then is I went into the military and especially doing what I did was working for NSA and then I worked a lot with special forces. No one talked about mental health. One, because you could lose your securities too, because of the masculinity factor of trying to show any weakness at all to anyone else. And then for a lot of my life, I spent time at the highest levels of Fortune 50 companies. And so it was definitely something that you didn't want to have out there. But when I look back upon it now, a lot of these things, I think we just manufacture in our head as repercussions. And for one, but I also think as time has gone

on, people are waking up more to the fact that these things do need to be talked about. We're all human and we all face adversity, whether it's big tea trauma, little tea trauma, something else, we all have these things and we all need help at one point or another in our lives. Thank you for your service. And I appreciate you sharing that. It's true, especially I can't relate to the military side. I can imagine in a world where your brain and being understanding of every single action, every single thing that's happened being so alert all the time that, I mean, the idea

of any pill that could mess with that, I can imagine it's terrifying and especially being told that it being vulnerable is not manly. I didn't have to go through that. So it's very interesting to hear other people's stories. I would have definitely, obviously I was in the military, but the idea that 10 years ago, like I was hiding from this so much to a point where it's really weird to think about now, being like, what did I think was going to happen? I don't even remember what I thought would happen if I opened up. I just, and what's now 2023, it's better. It's not there yet. I'm doing a ton of podcasts because people are like, oh, it's nice for a man to

talk about mental health. And that's a lot of the narrative around this book. And I'm grateful for all these opportunities, obviously, but I'm looking forward to a world where I'm not just going on podcasts because I'm this crazy exception of a man talking about mental health. I hope that becomes the norm where we go deeper than that, right? We go deeper into some of these issues and inspire more people to open up because it's crazy with all the progress in the world. We're talking about AI taking over jobs and doing like all these crazy things. But we're not talking about how we feel or when things are hard. That to me is so crazy. How much progress we have from a text and point out these different industries, but from the personal industry, from the human industry, you can call it an industry, it's this dichotomy between big farmers, the enemy,

and then mental health is a personal thing you don't talk about. And therapy is a weird stigma around therapy. I still tell people it's nice because I'm very open. My God, I'm in therapy. Are you okay? I'm like, yeah, why? They're like, why are you in therapy? I'm like, I'm in therapy. Are you okay? I'm like, yeah, why? They're like, why are you in therapy? I'm like, I'm in therapy every week. It's not some weeks. I talked to my therapist and I'm like, oh, actually, I had a good week this week. Because to me, that's when the work starts.

It's not when you're having issues. It's when you have them under control. That's when the work starts. That's how you build and that's how you understand yourself. And that's when you start digging and you start thinking, like, why do I think the way I think? Why am I doing these things? Why do I have these patterns?

Why do I feel insecure about this or feel like I have to lie about this? Or whatever it is. It stems from a lot of our growth. And to me, it's like the work starts because once I have gone through the current issues, I want to understand what I've been doing for the last 33 years and how it got me here. Like how my, like my therapist and I do it in decades, like every 10 years of our lives, like, we talk about current stuff all the time, but we're still in the first decade. I've been with her for three years.

We're still talking about zero to 10 and how that formed my next decade. And then from there, like, really understand yourself and really understand what you do the things you do. And it's been so interesting to me, to be able to be open about how flawed I am as a human. Like how, where I can have a conversation and be like, I grew up having to lie about so many things because I was so insecure about the way people would think about me and anxious about them finding out this fear of like where I really was that I felt like I had to create this entire persona.

They got me an amazing career. They only had me wrong because that then turned into what I did with social media and faking paparazzi stunts to get into Grammy award shows and that's in my book and like all these things. But when you go to the root of it, it's an insecure kid trying to be someone that they're not and going as far as to staging all these things. Instead of working on myself, I worked hard on creating a persona that I wasn't. Again, it was great. It landed me a career. It ended up as time passed.

It ended up getting me up more opportunities. That were actually authentic until they weren't, right, until I was doing things because it was just because I felt like I had to do them because I had built a name. But now I'm like going back to my primal years, I'm trying to learn again, I'm trying to like drop a lot of these things that I thought I knew before about myself and be like, huh, this is why you did this. That actually is not good. It's very unhealthy. How do you not do this again? It's interesting to get to know yourself again. It's like meeting a person that you always knew was there, but it just was like dormant for three decades in my case.

Thank you for sharing all that, Jeremy. I have my own book coming out in February, and two of the things you touched on are poor attributes of it. One of those and it's something I talked to my kids about all the time who are 19 and 25 is that in the next 10 years, 400 to 800 million jobs are going to change. Just sit here and let that sink in for a second. Because having been in these Fortune 50 companies and knowing how they have outsourced all these roles and we've taken out the entire middle class in the United States because we've outsourced it everywhere else. What do you think they're going to do when they can replace you with AI, robotics, automation of some sort, they're going to do whatever

they need to bump up the bottom line. And so a key message that I try to talk about as much as I can is this future is coming at you like a train that's going 250 miles per hour and is suddenly coming off the rails. And you can choose to let that thing smack you in the face or you can start preparing now because we are the ultimate learning machine, and you can start positioning yourself in a way that you can pivot and adapt when that train comes your way. And the other thing I think that was really critical that you brought up is, I think so many of us today wear this mask of pretence. We are trying to be something that we are not, and we are living our lives that way. A lot of it is because we define success based on extrinsic motivations for success or

we want to be like this influencer, we want to do this or we want to do that. Instead of focusing on the joys that come from intrinsic drivers and really knowing yourself and being happy with who you are and excelling and doing the thing that you were put here on earth to do that no one else can do. And when you're trying to focus so much on these extrinsic motivations and you're not looking at the intrinsic value system of the purpose that you have in life, you have this huge chasm in your life, which is causing so many people out there to experience loneliness and hopelessness. And this is fundamentally why I started this whole podcast was to help people see things in a different way. So I'm so glad that

you brought that up. Sorry, myself, we're going out of tangent. But people need to realize that you look at serenow Williams, best tennis player, maybe on the history of the earth. Has she had mental health issues? Yes. Has Alicia Keys had mental health issues? Yes. Has Matthew McConaughey had mental issues? Yes. Has Matthew Perry had mental health issues? Yes. Has Jennifer Aniston. But you can, the list goes on and on. Everyone has their moments of self doubt. But the key secret to life, I think, is truly getting inside your head, getting to know who you are, and falling in love with that person.

I could not agree more. It's funny because I am definitely aggressive in my approach when it comes to work and business. I don't take no for an answer for things. I will figure it out until I come up with a solution, a vulver die. I'm like, AI is taking over. I'm not gonna fight AI, I'm one person. I'm gonna fight with it. I'm gonna figure it out.

I'm gonna adapt. And so, part of me is like that. And then on the other personal side, I'm very obviously, I have sensitive mental health and everything, so I'm all about trying to understand situations and face them less aggressively. So it's an interesting paradox but I agree with everything you said I think that those are definitely lessons to be had and the world is going to evolve. The world is going to grow. It's going to faster and faster.

Instead of sitting back and looking at it and being like, cool, I'm going to get replaced, figure out how to add value in a different way. Use these challenges as advantages, right? For me, I'm thinking like, AI is going to replace a lot of things. And it's going to replace meal plans. It's going to replace a lot of these. And that's not necessarily the business something, but it is in a sense, because it's food. And I'm like, well, how do I leverage AI to be able to duplicate myself and scale things?

I'm only one person. I can't necessarily serve people food in other countries like a musician can upload a song on Spotify. How do I use AI to be able to feel like people have access to me in a way that can think like me and give recipe. Can I create an AI personal chef for you? Can I manage your meal plans that way through my thinking, through data input? Like, all these really interesting things with that technology that I can do that you

couldn't do before. As much as people are afraid of it, think about AI, it's never gonna replace creativity. That's the thing, I don't see replacing creativity. Yes, it will take your idea and pour gasoline on the fire shore in that sense, but there's no way I'm ever gonna let AI replace the way I think creatively or the things that I come up with.

AI is, you're not gonna say come up with a restaurant and it's gonna be like, yes, you're gonna do a mixtape inspired by yours. It's not gonna work, it's not gonna happen. There has to be like, yes, you're going to do a mixtape inspired by yours. It's just not going to work. It's not going to happen. There has to be, create to be on the other side. They have to be people that get creative on how to use it as well. So in that sense, I'm not worried. And I don't think anyone should be worried aside from the fact that if they think

that their entire worth is knowing how to write and now, yeah, I can replace that. Like, they should realize their full potential and realize that they're much more than that, that they add more value than just a task. Everyone's human. Humans add layers of things that technology can't write. And ultimately, it's like the rational example of the perfect restaurant with all the budget. If there isn't the soul and the story and the context around it, it's just a product. And it's like, that AI is going to give you a product,

and it's going to help you get a product, which is great. But it's up to you to really figure out how to tell the story and give it context. Well, I'm glad you brought all that up because I'm going to end talking about this. So today, we've talked about your journey from a less-boys server to being a gatekeeper for some of the biggest nightclubs in LA to becoming a mega restaurant or to becoming a media company

founder. And now you're into this world of crypto and fts and the metaverse. And where I wanted to go is this idea of defining oneself and a rapidly evolving landscape like the W like the web 3 space can be quite intricate. How do you encourage listeners to approach this challenge, especially with the diversity of everything that's hitting them now? And maybe you can do that in a way by touching on your new venture, probably nothing while you're doing it.

Yeah, it's interesting. So I think a lot of the misconception around what I do in Web 3 is so the same way I used social media to incorporate, like social media to build my career, I'm someone who uses modern day technology to amplify my career. We talked about AI, we talked about social media,

the MySpace days. To me, Web 3 is the same thing And it's funny because there's such a bad Connitation around NFTs and crypto and web 3 and what people I think don't understand like a lot of people think I Shifted and to me it's not shifted. I've layered in to the things that I do. I've layered in web 3 technology a lot of things I'm doing in my world, layer Web 3 and NFTs, and you wouldn't even know about it. All the stuff I do is email-based.

You enter your email, are going to buy, let's say I drop a sauce, you're gonna buy my sauce, you're gonna go here, and you're earning points, badges, whatever you wanna call them, right? Those are all NFTs that you're collecting things. I'm dropping food like McDonald's did with the Happy Meals and the digital toys.

Those are NFTs, right? I'm a fan of the blockchain technology. I'm not a fan of the money hungry, capitalistic side. And look, I'm all for making money, don't get me wrong, but that sort of quick, NFT get rich quick mentality. And people talk about like the scams and everything and it's funny because no one talks about how emails

that we use every day used to be like scamming central, people used to be like, do not touch email, do not touch the internet, chat rooms are the devil, like all these things. So it's just a natural progression, right? So for me, I'm someone who I started where my craft was, what can I do in these four walls?

It's very limiting. With a restaurant, you can only do so much. I'm limited to the people in the room at that time. Then I was like, how do I use my creativity and hit other people? That's what we were just talking about. AI, for me, Web3 technology, the sense of ownership, right? There's something about counter-culture,

and it feels punk. It's like Bitcoin was dropped in the middle of the earth. No one knows who created it and it's completely freaked out all of our governments, the SEC banks and everything. And I think that is very, quite love disruption so much. Right? That's why I'm a fan of Bitcoin and a fan like to me. It's not cash, it's gold. It's this thing that you can't explain and it has value. And like wherever it goes, I believe in it, but even if you didn't go anywhere, like being a part of that counter-cultural movement and modernity technology is important to me. It's not that, so probably nothing was basically, and it's a used term in that space, was really just like an experimental brand that I have to funnel web through,

like, web-free-based projects. So I have a creative label with Warner Records. So it's basically like a record label except like our mission is also to sign artists that are not musicians. So and it's Warner Records. So we're using their resources, sign artists that like very untraditional. So it's not like a traditional record label. We did a bunch of projects in NFTs. We found a Hawaiian rapper that was undiscovered and we gave him a platform through NFTs and he sold more tracks than a lot of big artists. So to me, probably nothing was just an experimental brand where I would do a lot of these things under it.

But everything has a food tie. A lot of things I do have a food tie like I was talking. Like I did a collaboration with the D-DIS in New York called Probably Pizza. I know it was a pizza truck and all the packaging was collaborated with the D-DIS and we did all this limited edition packaging so it felt like it was collectible. And then you got an NFT, but you've got no idea. It was an NFC you entered your email through a QR code and you got to take over a leftover pizza piece of art that I drew right? Left over pizza slice. That's this collectible image Starbucks is dropping NFTs almost every day that people they're calling them stamps

that people collect and they can sell them whatever those NFTs Right this technology is prevalent Nike is using a Starbucks using Adias is using it. I'm using it as well under the hood Where it helps amplify what I'm doing. It's not a pivot into the athletes. It amplifies what I'm doing I'm using technology where blockchain allows you to have a sense of digital ownership of something. Before I couldn't, like I can make you, John, a recipe that is your recipe, that I authentic it on the blockchain, that is yours, you own it. It cannot be duplicated. It is yours. It is original.

You have this recipe from Jeremy in this file image. Whatever you want to call it You can have something on lock it like I can give you something that you can actually own digitally and when we live in the digital world through social media It was only the matter of time where we can actually own things online with authentication and to me that's very powerful like a lot of things I'm looking at right now is if I cook a bowl of pasta and let's say you buy it for me, how do I use blockchain to be able to validate from where the eggs, the flour come from in the pasta to the bowl. I want to be able to authenticate step by step where you could look and be like, this is actually real and validated because it's on the blockchain and then there's USDA or GAC is on the blockchain and they're stamped it and you could see because this is this central system, Bell Z to verify things like if I can get you food and use this technology where you can verify like what you actually know

what you're eating and where it's coming from A to Z, that's extremely powerful, right? People don't realize that the check mark on Instagram is basically an NFT. It doesn't live on the blockchain, but it's a form of authentication. You can't just put a check mark, it has to be authenticated by the system. In this case, it's Instagram and blockchain is decentralized, right?

But like you're able, it's something that can't be duplicated, can't be falsified. And when people see the Instagram checkmark, they trust it. And that's why Twitter, why is people so left it? Because now it can just buy it. There's something about this authenticating process that I think is very important in the modern day. So to me, it's, I do very deeply into that because I'm like, my whole loop around and how it connects dots is like sustainability and transparency and food is one of the biggest problems in the world. We don't know

where stuff's coming from. We eat it. I think it's 33 or 35% of it to be organic. You need 33 or 35% of your ingredients to be organic to be able to count to be organic. It's not 100. So if I put a third organic ingredients in the rest is like all these chemicals, I can still call my product organic. That's a big problem. And we don't have that sort of education. And for me, it's, I'm going to be able to use this technology to actually educate people in a way that they can actually know the truth and validate that truth. Jeremy, thank you so much for explaining that. My last question is always this one. If there was one thing that you hoped a reader of your book or a listener would take away

from your experience, what would it be? I don't want to say anything you want to be because everyone says that. You can really carve your own path. I'm a guy who became a restaurant how to cook who became a chef who became a restaurant tour On a record label with one records. I dropped a collaboration with the dearest of design clothes I done web3 and an FTZ. Yeah, I'm a chef. Whatever you want to call it restaurant or chef. I'm a food person at Heart. That is my core if you had to label me in a position Sure, that is what I am

but there's no reason why I have to look at what my peers have done in Beggio. Okay, so this is what the trajectory of a chef or restaurant towards. I'm a stick to that. Why can't I just rewrite the rules? I want people to read this book and be like, Oh, this guy wrote the rules for himself. And successful card for your own path. I would argue that it was harder for me growing up because I didn't have all these opportunities like these kids do now. Going back to the TikTok example, you can become a TikTok chef and get more views than any episode on the Food Network. Like, think how powerful that is. Like, you can do that yourself. I didn't have that growing up. You know, I mean, and so I had to get creative, right? So I think now is the time to be whatever you want to be in carve out path and try things, not be afraid to fail, keep trying things, try them again, do them differently. That's my whole thing of this book is this is how I manage my mental health because it's very hard. It's easier said than done. So to me, this book is a guide of like how to fall your dreams, but staying

sane throughout it. Jeremy, thank you so much for joining us today on Passionstruck and sharing all your incredible insight and congratulations on such a remarkable career so far. I can't wait to see what you're going to accomplish in the decades ahead. I appreciate that very much. Thank you. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Jeremy Fallen. I wanted to thank Jeremy, Laura Rosenthal, and Heshatt Books, for the privilege and honor of having him appear on today's show. Links to all things Jeremy will be in the show notes. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books and the guests that we feature here on the show. All proceeds go to supporting the show. Videos are in YouTube at both John Armyles and PassionStruck

Cliffs. I have some exciting news that my brand new book, PassionStruct, 12 powerful principles for unlocking your purpose and igniting your most intentional life is now available for preorder. Links will be in the show notes. Avertiser deals and discount codes in one community place at PassionStark.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. You can find me on all the social platforms at John Armiles where I post daily.

You can sign up on LinkedIn, or my LinkedIn newsletter work intentionally, or you can sign up for my personal newsletter, live intentionally at either JohnArmiles.com or passionstruck.com. You're about to hear a preview of the PassionStruck podcast interview that I did with Dr. Vanessa Bonds, a social psychologist and professor

of organizational behavior at the Cornell University ILRR School. Vanessa is the author of the brand new book, you have more influence than you think, where she draws from her original research, this shed light on the power dynamics of consent. A lot of the studies I talk about in the book are about these social comparisons we do where we fall short. A lot of psychology is about overconfidence and how we take risks we shouldn't because we think that we'll surely be able to beat the lottery and make these things happen and that we're better at doing these calculations and other people, but when it comes to these sort of social contexts, it turns out that we wind up comparing ourselves

to these people who are the absolute most social people you could imagine. The fee for the show is that you share it with family and friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who could really use the insights that Jeremy Fall gave on today's episode, then definitely share today's episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show, so that you can live what you listen to. Go out there this week and become a passion star. you