The Rich Roll Podcast - Chris Jaeb: One Entrepreneur’s Journey To Wholeness

Episode Date: December 1, 2012

In this episode of the Rich Roll Podcast, Rich interviews technology entrepreneur Chris Jaeb about his life path, founding Broadcast.com with Mark Cuban (bought by Yahoo after the most successful IPO in history at that time), social entrepreneurship, the role meditation has played in his life, sustainable living at Common Ground Kauai, his take on happiness and future plans for his newest venture, Common Ground Media. Side note: Thanks for all the crazy support for the initial episode. The success and feedback exceeded my wildest imagination. Very proud to see that we have already been listed by iTunes as a “New & Notable” in the health podcast category. Awesome. If you haven't yet, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes by clicking HERE. If you would like to support the podcast, just tell a friend. Thanks for listening. Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. you listened to episode one. We put it up a couple days ago. It was my wife and I, and it was our first stab at this podcasting thing, very much an amateur at this whole thing. But I have to say, I'm completely overwhelmed by the early response to the first episode. We got a crazy number of downloads and a whole bunch of great reviews on the iTunes page. As soon as it went up, it took a couple of days for us to get configured and live on iTunes. And actually, just a couple hours ago, iTunes listed the podcast under the health section as a new and notable, which is pretty hilarious after one episode. So we're off to a great start. So thank you guys so much for the support. I love doing this and I'm really excited about getting some momentum here, having some great guests and being able to share some great content with you. It's been cool so far and I'm looking forward to the

adventure ahead. So we have a great show for you today. We have Chris Jabe with us. And if you've been following me for a little bit, you know who Chris is. Chris is the founder and owner of Common Ground here in Kauai where we're living. It is a 50 acre, 50 acres? Correct. About 50 acre organic sustainable farm and community with a cafe restaurant.

It's an amazing place. And Chris has some big ideas about what he wants to do with the property. And he's a really fascinating guy. He's got a really interesting background. And we're going to get into all of that stuff. So I'm going to bring Chris in in a minute, but just a couple of housekeeping things. Like I said, this is very much a grassroots kind of organic podcast. We're recording again in a warehouse. So I know and I understand and realize

that this sound is probably a little bit tinny. We got some feedback from the last one saying, you know, it's echoey or whatever. We're doing the best we can with the equipment that we have. We're looking into a different space that might give a little bit of a softer sound. But hopefully the content will kind of trump the technical issues that come up. And we are also looking into doing videoing and live casting, live streaming of the podcast. So

that's in the works. We had an amazing dinner here last night at Common Ground where we live streamed a presentation that Chris gave and that I gave and that went over really, really well. So we're going to try to incorporate that into the podcast for those who want to follow along live and we can make it interactive by answering questions and responding to feedback in real time, which is pretty cool. So anyway, responding to feedback in real time, which is pretty cool. So anyway, the podcast of course is free. It will always be free for you guys, but it's not free to produce. There are some costs with bandwidth and hosting and all that kind of stuff. So I did what I said I would never do, which was put a banner ad up on my website. I've got this ugly Amazon banner ad up there right now, which pains me to have.

But I just signed up with an affiliate program there. So anyway, I know most people buy a lot of stuff off Amazon. So if you want to support the show and support what we're doing, before going to Amazon, why don't you just go to my website, richroll.com, click on the banner ad there, and then buy whatever you're going to buy. It's not going to cost you any more than it would ordinarily, and it'll throw like a few nickels in our bucket so we can pay for the bandwidth and keep it going. That's all. And tell a friend. Tell a friend.

We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care. Especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem.

It's a real problem, a problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, support and empower you to find the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life and recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com.

Okay, so without further ado, Chris Jabe, how are you doing, man? Very good. Good, good. It's great to have you here. Good having you here too, man. So Chris is, like I said, a fascinating guy with a very, very interesting background. Chris is an entrepreneur. His background is in internet broadcasting, which is why he has this affinity for the live streaming. Slightly. of live streaming slightly and we're doing some interesting things here together uh chris uh chris and i have some mutual friends and and and got in touch with each other he reached out to us

about a month ago and we started talking about some of the stuff that he was looking at doing out here at common ground and it seemed to really dovetail nicely into uh our interests and seemed like it was in really good alignment. So we are here working together on some cool stuff and we're going to talk about that. But first I want to talk about your background a little bit. So Texan, yeah? Yes, sir. Well, grew up in Minnesota until I was like 12 years old, then moved to Dallas, Texas. And my father was a banker. So he got a new job at a new bank in Texas. And our family moved there.

We had six kids, three boys and three girls. Very much a Catholic family. And became Texans after about 10, 15 years. Right, right. So you went to high school in Texas. Correct. Yeah, yeah. I went to Jesuit college preparatory school.

And then I went to USC for college for a couple years, and then went to University of Texas for a couple years, and then took a couple years off, and then actually graduated from University of Texas at Dallas as a result of a wish from my father for me to finish that last class so that I actually got out of college so oh wait so wait a minute so you went to USC but you didn't graduate I did not what what happened there it just it wasn't right for me you know I basically I had gone in with the idea that petroleum engineering was something I might want to be doing and the further I got into it, the more I realized I was not an engineer. And everything I did was sort of hard to do. And after a certain period of time, I realized this was not the best, you know, really curriculum for me to be involved in. But I also at the same time

was, you know, wanting to be back in Texas just because it was so much more familiar to me at that stage in life. So I moved from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas. And I just ended up hanging out with a lot of my high school friends and sort of had a lot more of a sort of more connected to who I really was kind of a time because I really didn't get or understand the LA culture for me personally. At that stage in my life, wasn't a good fit. So you kind of hit the pause button. Totally. Well, I think that, you know, that's interesting.

And I think a lot of people, you know, don't do that enough. You know, we're on this track. You gotta go from point A to point B as quickly as possible. And, you know, it's certainly a part of my story too, is sort of, you know, being on the habit trail a little bit without ever taking time out to get some perspective on what you're doing and you know i think there's a lot of value

in uh kind of exempting yourself from whatever equation you're in and uh gaining a little perspective so no doubt you know i feel like that's sort of been just sort of the my personal mo is to sort of always be sort of asking myself, why am I doing what I'm doing? And that creates a lot of changes in direction. It's not a consistent, I'm going to do this for the next 20 years of my life kind of path. In some ways, it's hard from a business perspective because it's not like you're able to create a three to five year plan and just go on it. But it's really good from a business perspective because oftentimes what happens when you start a business is you have a vision for where you think it's going to go. But once you start doing it, it's not the place where it really wants to go.

And so you sort of learn by doing what really does work best. And for me, it was very easy for me to, once I started doing that stuff, to migrate to stuff that was really working. And in some way, that's what I was doing at an early age in my life, sort of asking myself questions about religion, asking myself questions about school, and asking myself, why am I doing this stuff that I'm doing?

Where do you think that comes from? Because I think most people don't do that or don't do it enough or as much as they should. For me, I can trace it somewhat to my father because my father was a banker and he spent some time in the army, the ROTC, so he came from a really regimented environment. And there was something about that that just was not me.

So it was more of a rejection of that. It sort of always made me ask myself, am I a Catholic? Am I a banker? Am I all these things? And I think it was, if he hadn't been so strong-willed in who he was, I think it would have been hard for me to create a distance because I think I would have been more, it might've been easier for me to go along those paths. But it made me think almost at the earliest of stages of my ability. I remember when I played baseball because he was a baseball player from like six years old to about 11. And when I got to be 11, I just said, I ain't going to do this anymore.

Even though I liked playing, it was sort of fun, but there was a rejection of that whole way of doing things and it and it really has sort of helped me and and and made it so that throughout the course of my life I've been able to get into more of a connection to what it is I really was and and even though it might not have the tremendous highs all the time I've got the quality of life at some level that makes me feel like I'm living. Right. And I think in sort of the spiritual context and in the business context, to be able to always take a step back, take inventory and try to gain perspective on what you're doing is important. And as an entrepreneur in technology, I mean, you know, technology is moving at this light speed where it's constantly changing and evolving. And, you know, I think anybody who's

an entrepreneur in that space who's not, you know, willing to kind of stop and evaluate, well, is this the right direction for this company? I mean, you see it all the time with these startups that they think they're creating, you know, widget A and they realize halfway in like, oh, there's this completely other application for this that's way better. I mean, I think we were talking about this before. I think Twitter even started as, I think Jack Dorsey wanted to help public transportation systems operate more seamlessly

or something like that. It had a very kind of limited application window. And obviously it's become this incredibly socially influential uh thing that's occurred that i don't know if he ever anticipated that no i didn't be flexible and i had no idea really when you're in the middle of doing it but as i look back and study biology a little bit more it's sort of a natural aspect of you know evolutionary biology basically it's the cell naturally is looking for these gaps and in the planet and places to live and survive and thrive and i think intellectually and sort of consciously and subconsciously that's what my

being has been about is finding those those gaps and seeing these opportunities and putting myself in them in a way that can give me an opportunity to live more original moments, you know, things that haven't been done by everybody before. So more specifically, you know, getting back to your background, you finished college, et cetera. And I mean, I think most people know of you because of broadcast.com. Can you just explain like kind of what led up to that and people know of you because of broadcast.com can you just explain like kind of what led up to that and how all of that sort of began from the beginning sure it's pretty much started in 1986 I'd just gotten out of my best friend and I had just closed down a car business and I owed the IRS about a quarter million dollars.

And I was trying to figure out how I was going to come up with the kind of money. All right, hold on a second. A car business? How did you get into that kind of deep water? Basically, when my buddy and I were in college at the University of Texas, we had been reading about

how you could import a car from Germany and because the change in the values of the currency, you could make an extra 10 grand pretty much on every car you brought in. So we put a plan together between ourselves and a third party where we would raise some money and start importing German cars, primarily Porsches, BMWs, and Mercedes to Dallas, Texas. And we didn't realize at the time, we were 23 years old, that the more business we did, the more money we were losing. So you could come into our 20,000 square foot warehouse in North Dallas and see probably over 70 or 80 late model and antique, high quality imported cars. And to a banker that was going to loan us money, he would think, oh, you guys are doing incredible business. But the reality was,

is about 80% of the cars that were in there were cars we'd work on for three or four times. And the opportunity costs and the negative cashflow created by having to do the same job two or three times was significant. And we never really got it because at that stage of business, we weren't even balancing our checkbook. We managed our business based on however much money was in our checking account. And because of the way we worked out our relationships and my limited understanding of banking, I was able to arrange a letter of credit with one of the heirs

of the Firestone fortune. And he had guaranteed our credit at the bank. So we would basically every week we would get notices. So how much negative, we were like 25 or 30,000 debt or overdrawn and the bank would clear our checks because basically they were backed up by a real credit. And so how old were you when this was going on? 23 to 25. Wow. So you're basically an entrepreneur from the get-go. I was just totally winging it.

And the street sense that we got in two years of the car business really blew away anything I ever got in college or after, really, because you're dealing with the bankers the attorneys the accountants the insurance companies the the workers the customers all in our case which are sort of questionable shady characters to start with because we're working in a gray market car as compared to sort of you know traditional Mercedes-Benz, Porsche dealerships. So right off the bat, we were learning how to read people and understanding what a real deal was and what wasn't. And one of the best things I got out of that two years

was really the awareness that if a deal's bad, don't try to make it better. It's bad, let it go. And I think that's one of the main things that hounds a lot of people in business that are kids that are just getting started. You try to make and hope that something that's not working is going to work rather than letting it go and going on to something that really will work. Because usually if you're dealing with somebody that's questionable, they're not going to change.

And the cost of you to continue to deal with them for an extended period of time is really high. When you look at your opportunity cost of working on a job that is actually making a positive cash flow, and then you're just the brain damage that comes associated with that relationship. Right, like just not being attached to outcomes when... Right. Right, right. Just letting it go and moving on. What an amazing experience. I mean, much more valuable, I would imagine, in certain respects than being in business school. I mean, to have that kind of real-world experience at that level at such a young age. Yeah, my best friend and I would always kid about that.

We'd say that we could have gone to Harvard and got an MBA, but what we got out of two years of being in North Dallas at that time in life, when things were ripping and roaring and getting a chance to learn a business at that age was invaluable. And that sort of led you know sort of created the opportunity for me to look into what was next and what was next was the awareness that the overhead is what killed me and killed us we couldn't manage the costs associated with a 20,000 square foot warehouse and 15 to 20 employees that we didn't know how to manage and all the other fixed and non-fixed expenses associated with that so the next business i started ended up becoming a business that i

could run on my own it was called promotional radios and what we did is we got like palm-sized versions of basketball soccer balls and baseballs and got a company in h Kong to put AM radios inside of them. And we would get, we'd like put a Dallas Cowboy or a Texas Ranger logo on one side and a Dr. Pepper or whatever sport mark logo on the other side. And they'd give them away as promotional items at the games. And that's sort of what led to broadcast.com because when people were given these radios at these events, they couldn't hear an am radio inside uh an arena for example because all the metal and concrete so there we noticed that everybody's trying to listen to the radio but they couldn't get a very good signal and we started

thinking shoot there's huge value in these arenas for people to listen to a live broadcast an fm quality broadcast of these events and we sort sort of took that, or I took that the next step and started thinking, shoot, the value for this broadcast is really outside the stadium. It's the whole metropolitan area. I had come from Minnesota and I could never listen to a Minnesota Viking or Minnesota Twin game living in Texas unless it was a nationally broadcast game. Right. I mean, for a lot of people listening, they're, you know, they have a hard time fathoming this in our internet age, but there was a day not so long ago where, you know, simple things that we take for granted now, you know, just were not

possible. Not even possible. Right. So, so the idea was born. And when you say we, is this the same partner that you were in the car business with? Well, I say we loosely. Basically, it was my father and I. And my partner that was in the car business had made a small investment. And he had helped me, but he was on his own path. He ended up working as an entry-level accountant for Chuck E. Cheese. And after here we are now, 20 years later, he's the number three guy at Chuck E. Cheese. And after Here We Are Now, 20 years later, he's the number three guy

at Chuck E. Cheese, which is a trip to see that we'd come from what was that place in time to this place in time and sort of migrated in a way that was really sort of good for both of us. Yeah, interesting. So we're talking right now, what is this, like 1989? 86, and Promotional Radios was 89. And then it really became apparent to me in a short period of time that I couldn't control that market. It was just as easy for anybody to go to Hong Kong, source that product, and sell it to Major League Baseball, the NBA, or NFL at a better price than I could get because I couldn't do the volume deals,

I didn't have the relationships, et cetera. So in a relatively short period of time, I pretty much said that's not going to work, but there probably is a business in redistributing these signals rather than getting locked into the hardware. So I started doing the research to try to figure out what it would take to acquire the right to redistribute all the major league baseball, take to acquire the right to redistribute all the major league baseball, NBA, NFL games, and college football, baseball, basketball, hockey, et cetera, games, and make them available in local markets using a satellite spectrum. And the idea was basically to take the satellite spectrum that I was at the time working for affiliated computer systems. And one of the main things I was at the time working for Affiliated Computer Systems. And one of the main things I was doing there

was writing proposals for outsourcing contracts where they would go into big companies and say, we'll take over your data center and run all your backhaul data around the country. And they were all... So it was really easy to understand the cost of distributing data globally. It was like...

And it really was practically nothing. For a really small amount of money, I could distribute in one six megahertz television spectrum 400 channels of high quality, at the time, four to 10 kilohertz bandwidth AM signals in a way that you could, in real time, distribute 400 signals anywhere in the world so i started doing the math behind it and try to figure out a way to receive

those signals using the at the time pcs telephone network and making it so that you could basically punch in a code on your phone and listen to anything over a sort of a free frequency that we were going to set up wow so then So then, but not too long after that, the internet came along and the need to do any of that infrastructure just went out the window and all I had to do is acquire broadcast rights, which is what I was doing at the time anyway. And that's when I met Mark Cuban. So, and I want to get into that, but first of all, I mean, the sort of theme that's rising to the surface in these ventures and hearing you talk about it is this real scrappy nature of going after it, right? Like, I mean, just seeking out these opportunities and not being afraid and pursuing them as a young person, really.

I mean, there had to be a lot of cold calling involved and knocking on a lot of doors. No doubt. No doubt. And that's really what made it work or not work, really. And that was the thing that as I look back on it, that it was what made it, it makes anything work, is your ability to communicate with your market and understand what the opportunities are and aren't. I mean, for example, when I was trying to produce, you know, create this broadcast infrastructure in a local market. I went to the FCC in Washington,

D.C. and got the right to create an experimental license in Austin, Texas to test this out. And to do that, I had to go to some of the major hardware manufacturers that could make phones that would do this stuff and get them to consider making this phone for me. Needless to say, and get them to consider making this phone for me. Needless to say, at the time, I was a 27, 28-year-old kid with an idea. There wasn't a lot of people who were interested. But that said, I learned how to communicate with those people after talking to 70, 80, or 100 of these guys

over a certain period of time. And that seasoning and that experience in communication is what really gave me a skill set to almost describe anything and to position it in a way people could understand and possibly do something about it. Right, interesting. And so, all right, so Mark Cuban comes into your life.

Like, how does that happen? I mean, he wasn't, you know, he wasn't Mark Cuban then though, right? No, he wasn't. Well, in his own way. He probably has always been Mark Cuban then, though, right? No, he wasn't. Well, in his own way, he probably has always been Mark Cuban. And that part's, I'm sure, never going to change. What put Mark and I together was his friend that he'd gone to college with named Todd Wagner.

Who's still his business partner today. That's true. That's true. Todd, I had met because my girlfriend at the time was in a course called Running From the Law. And Todd, he was an attorney that was trying to get out of the legal profession and looking for something else to do.

And the person that ran this seminar and this sort of workshop put Todd in touch with me through my girlfriend. And we just, we started talking about it. He said, I'm interested, but I'm making a trip. I'm just leaving my law practice now, the company I've been working for. I'm going to be back in a couple of months, but before I leave, I'm going on this trip to Australia. I want you to meet Mark. I think he's the kind of guy that could make this work for us. And what was Mark doing at the time? I mean, this is 1990 by now or something?

It's 1994 and it's basically roughly early November 1994. And he just sold a company called Micro Solutions. I don't know, it was like $8, $10, $12 million that he recently put in his pocket. And he was looking for things to do. I think mostly he was seeing himself more as like a venture capitalist and just sort of seeing what deals were good. And once I started describing what it was we were doing, he goes, within five minutes, he goes, I'm in. And I go, I just, it surprised me

because up to that, I had probably given that pitch, you know, 120 times or more. And nobody said they were in. What was it that you were looking for? Was it just cash? I was trying to raise, I was asking for $750,000 for 49% of the company. And he said, I'm in, but he didn't qualify as to what that was. And I was just expecting that we could work something out.

I personally wasn't overly concerned with the dollar amounts, the percentages, because the key to me at the time was just to move the ball forward. You know, I didn't, I probably couldn't say this clearly at the time, but I just wanted to get something going because I'd been working on this kind of stuff for a long time and I had never really got that bigger deal going. So I would have taken pretty much any deal. What ended up happening was about two months later, I went back to Mark because he had written me a check for $10,000 that said, you know, $10,000, 2% of the company. And after this big contract fell through, he said, I'm out. And so once Todd came back, he started working with me. We went back to Mark because we had to figure out what this 2% was or wasn't.

And it wasn't going to be very easy for me to go to third parties and raise money with this what seemed to be a hanging ownership percentage. So after haggling with Mark for about three months, Todd and I went over to Mark's house and Mark said, you know what, you guys, I'm going to do this with or without you. Todd, I want you. There's things that you can do. You're an operator, you're an attorney, you're CPA. Chris, I really don't need your skillset that much. I really don't. You can sort of go on and do whatever it is you want to do. And Todd didn't really feel very good about that.

And sort of the backstory to that was Todd had only worked with me for about three months, but I had recognized really quickly what Todd was doing and how he could organize the contractual side of what the company was. And he really understood the business pieces very well. So after three months of work, even though I'd been doing this for like four years on my own, I go, Todd, you know, whatever we, we create, we'll split evenly. And it was like, and I think that bond and that, that gift and that, that confidence in our relationship

made it, would it, you know, if I would have treated it differently and said, Todd, you get 5% for doing X, I think it would have been easier for him maybe to go off on his own and do whatever. percent for doing x i think it would have been easier for him maybe to go off on his own and do whatever but i think it created a quality of a relationship that made us feel like we were working together and that night he pretty much went back to mark and said i'm not going to do this without chris and this is a deal i think we could do with chris and it was sort of unusual i mean basically it was a deal where they both split 90% of the company and I got 10 for a company that I've been working with for four and a half, five years. It's an interesting conundrum. I mean, you know, in certain respects, it was a cut and run and there was no, there wasn't enough.

I mean, was the intellectual property not proprietary enough to prevent him from just taking your idea and running off with it on his own? Clearly not. I mean, he could, with the resource he had, he could do what I was doing. And he, especially with Todd sitting right next to him, he could make it happen. Yeah, and it was, at the time, it really needed financial resources to blow it up.

And because right at this time when we're having these conversations, the real audio player came out that made it now, so we didn't even have to build the audio software that made it possible to listen to sound on the internet it was just a question of executing on that platform that already existed so here you are and you have you go from having 98 percent of something with mark cuban to having 100 of probably what might have been nothing without mark cuban to then having 10 percent of

something back with Mark Cuban in you know a very short period of time that's exactly right and and that night that night when that was all going on I was I was good with it I was you were saying I was like going insane thinking I'm getting screwed well that night I was pretty much going to my plan b saying you guys go do it I'm go work on my own. I really wasn't that worried about it. It was really Todd sitting in the middle of the deal and understanding the pieces and parts and calling me late at night and saying, we'll give you $2,500 a month, 10% of the company or more if you want to work more, but not report to Mark in any way, shape, or form.

Basically, you can have your autonomy. At the time, I was living on $1,200 a month, so $25 seemed like I was raking it in. And to have 10% of something that those guys were going to run off and do, it felt okay because at the time, I had this idea called internet e-ads, which is electronic advertising, and it was the first fee-per-click advertising company on the internet. So I already sort of was working with some software programmers to develop that. And this would give me the autonomy to go blow that up, which I felt near term had a

lot more cash potential. And that goes back to what you were saying before about like, all right, well, just not being in time. Like I did this and now I'm moving, I'm being flexible and now I'm going to move in this direction. Truly. It's all good. I mean, I really give the majority of the reason this all happened to meditation. It was like about two years before that, a guy walked into my house and I could sense his peace. And for me, it's like something's different here. And I go, what are you doing? And he basically told me how to watch my breath for five minutes at a time. And if I look back at my life, I would say, is that singular moment that really gave me the consciousness to let go?

Basically, that's all you're doing in meditation is you have a thought come into your mind. You learn to release it, release the emotional charge related to it, and basically create your own self-identity and not be lost in all the craziness that your mind strums up. Right. I mean, I think so much of life boils down to how we react to situations. And, you know, a lot of times we just, you know, our buttons get pushed and we just react and we don't even, we don't even consciously know what we're saying. We're just sort of reacting to it based on some program that we're running that was, you know, plugged in by our parents or our genetic makeup or what have you. And then you're off and running on some path that maybe you didn't even think through. And, you know, when I got sober and was in early sobriety, I had a sponsor who used to always say to me, you never want to go through like an intense period in your life, whether it's a good thing that you're experiencing or a bad thing and look back on it and go, I wonder what

that would have been like if I was like really spiritually fit. Like, I wonder what that experience, like maybe you, you know, you can go through a great experience and be grouchy the whole time and be a jerk to hang out with, or you can enjoy it and take it in, or you can react to situations differently. And I think that that's a pretty crucial thing. Let's say that guy had not come over to your house and you had never been exposed to this meditation technique or hadn't taken to it or what have you. And here you are in this pretty intense business situation where suddenly this company that you founded know, you founded and were fostering was pulled out from underneath you. I mean, you could have, nobody would have put it

past you to, you know, have a knockdown drag out with this guy. It could have imploded the entire thing and then you could have ended up with zero and whatever. And your life would be, your life today would be, you know, maybe, I mean, I don't know who knows what it would be like, but it would probably be different in certain respects. No doubt. I mean, it's interesting when I started meditating, I stopped drinking as well. It just sort of changed every part of my life, but you're spot on. You know, I mean, the reality is, is by letting go of all that stuff, it gave me an opportunity and still, you know, there's the chance of me sitting here today would have been greatly diminished because I could very easily see me getting an attorney,

getting some family money together and suing them because I thought that I could, you know, collect on it. And that could have been a long, drawn-out lawsuit that really never got me anywhere. And you could have surrounded yourself with a lot of people who would have supported that and said, that's what you should do. Totally. It didn't matter. My best friends at the time were saying I was crazy.

You work for four years in something and you got 10% of it, go see those guys. Right. And so, all right, but at the time, and now you're sitting on this 10% of this thing. I mean, did you have any idea like where this was headed or how big this thing was going to be? You know, I'd pretty much written it off to be honest with you. I believed it had potential, but I had no idea what the scale was or what I'd really end up with just because of the way those deals go. And I knew that when we signed the paperwork that actually got me that percentage, it was like spring of 19, like late spring of 1995. And I knew it was years before there was going to be any cash out. And then when at that stage of my life, when you're looking in terms of years, you don't really put it on the balance sheet. You just sort of, for me personally,

I was just hoping something worked out and not betting. I wouldn't, at the time you would have said, you think you're going to get something out of it. I would have thought it was a 50, 50 chance of getting anything at all. I think what I was really excited about was this opportunity to pursue electronic advertising because I could see the ability tomorrow afternoon to generate a return on that. And it, to me, was the most exciting thing because it was almost like magic. tomorrow afternoon to generate a return on that. And it, to me, was the most exciting thing because

it was almost like magic. I'd also often had these dreams when I was a kid of just going to the mailbox and picking up checks. And basically have designed a company and a vision and a program that made it so easy for me to, all you'd have to do is basically go to my mailbox and pick up money. And that's what e-ads ended up becoming basically i got a programmer to write a program and then i in my i would have people that i would pay contract basically go out find websites and we'd put you know at the time because it was early internet advertising i was getting the biggest names in the internet in software and in media that were buying advertising from me because I was doing something that was much more easily verifiable.

You know, fee-per-click is compared to impression-based advertising. So you're, okay, sorry, go ahead. But anyway, I'm just sort of saying it was, you know, from Microsoft to CBS Sportsline to, you know, Adobe to, you know, go right down the list. Any of the biggest ESPN sports companies

and other software development companies were buying advertising from me. And in its heyday, you know, 97, 98, we were making like $400,000 a month just from, and all positive cashflow, which at the time was more than broadcast.com was doing. So I really felt that was the opportunity. Right. So you're all wrapped up in this and excited about it and not really thinking about broadcast.com and then what happens? And then I'll go fast forward a couple more years. You know, e-ads continues to do well, but when broadcast in July of 1998 is when broadcast.com went public. And I was in a lockup for six months, so I couldn't sell my stock. And it had the single highest day gain at the time in the history of the New York Stock Exchange for an IPO.

Right. That's what I think. Nowadays, it seems like there's a huge IPO every month. Right. And we're used to these big tech IPOs. But back at the time, and I remember when this happened, it was a really big deal. It was really one of the first tech companies to go really big.

I mean, it was the most successful IPO in history. At the time. I mean, at the time. It was crazy. And a lot of it, for me, I believe it was the idea and the quality of relationships that Todd Wagner put together. I mean, if you could sort of put yourself back at that place in time and to to know that the cable companies at the time were trying to conceive of the 500 channel cable tv network

and figure out a way to bring those parts together in a way that would make it accessible this was like the 5,000 channel you know anything in real time international network at lower costs right so it's like it was pretty easy for people that really didn't know too much about this to get their head around what it potentially could become but what todd had done really well and that we had worked on a little bit even when i was there is we had you know some of our major investors were the biggest companies at the time that were connected to these kind of issues i mean motorola was there yahoo was there intel was there i mean with those guys partners and owners in broadcast.com it made when the stock was being offered it created the credibility that made it go from you know a hundred million dollar company to a billion dollar company

yeah it's crazy so wait so how long so that was in 90, 98, 98. And so the lock of like three year period, um, leading it before the IPO where you were, where I was just sort of, yeah, I wasn't even basically for two years, maybe two and a half years before it went public. I wasn't even working there. I was just for about a year and a half, two years after 1995, I was training people to acquire broadcast rights so that basically anybody that I was working with could learn how to call professional sports teams or a radio station that owns the rights,

initially the audio rights, but eventually the video rights, and get the right to retransmit them on the internet and share the income, reproduce 50-50. Okay. retransmit them on the internet and share the income reproduce uh 50 50 okay so ipo i mean just this had to be like a i mean what is going through your mind when this happens well once the ipo happened it was like needless to say it was just a freak of nature beyond a freak of nature because even at the time i never when the ipo happened I wasn't expecting much. Then once the IPO happened and we saw what it was worth, then it was like, is it going to make it another six months at these valuations? Because I couldn't sell my stock until January.

Right, so the bottom could have just dropped out. And I expected that at some basic level. Because to me, I don't know how many people remember, but back at the time, most of these companies were getting valuations based on page views. They weren't getting valuations based on positive cash flow. So the amount of cash flow that this company had in relation to its valuation was totally fractional.

And if the world was ever going to change in that six months prior to it, and it went to a reasonable valuation, then my equity interest would be you know who knows a tenth a hundredth so are you waking up every day and and you know checking it to see in one in one hand i'd sort of brushed it off because for the first four months i didn't even watch it but after for the like the last two months of the lockup i was watching it regularly just because it's like there was one day that they actually halted trading because it was like the last two months of the lockup, I was watching it regularly just because it's like, there was one day that they actually halted trading

because it was like the, it went up like 96 points. It was like the largest single day gain in the history of a stock on the New York Stock Exchange. And that day, you know, if you did the math on my shares, it was like off the charts. And for me, it was like, as I started doing the math on other people that were big in the tech world

and seeing what this money was in relation to that, I was like, this is incredible. And if it holds on for another two months, it's going to be a gift from the God and beyond. So that's what happened. Basically, the numbers sort of stayed the same for that remaining two months. But the day that we had that day that my lockup expired and I was at Goldman Sachs in downtown Dallas getting ready to sell my shares into the market, they had the Argentinian peso crisis. And the stock, which was at 250 bucks or 220 bucks that morning, went to 100 bucks. So at the time, we don't know if it's going to go to five bucks or if it's going to come back to two and a quarter at the time, we don't know if it's going to go to five bucks. Right. Or if it's going to come back to two and a quarter at the end of the day.

So it took, it was a, talk about, you know, just a weird twist on the whole thing. It had been steady over those last couple of weeks. So you're like, all right, I'm out. I'm going to go. I'm going to sell. I'm going to cash out. And then it's like half. It's like, oh, I lost half of everything. But so thank God I just had, I, you know,

sort of was listening to my father and others that were just saying, have patience. Markets change. Don't feel like this is the last day of a market. So I sold probably, I don't know, I'd probably say 1 20th of what I owned that day. And at the time it was still obviously more money than I'd ever had. It was in my pocket at one point in time.

So it was an incredible day in the life. And then about three months later, I sold the remaining 80% and then sold the rest of it like in the middle of the summer of 1999, which is about nine months before the Internet crashed. Oh, wow. middle of the summer of 1999, which is about nine months before the internet crashed. And so when the internet crash happened, I was a hundred percent out and pretty much willing to shut down e-ads because I didn't want the brain damage of dealing with an internet advertising company. And it was going to be like 10 times harder to make e-ads work because the internet, you know, stock bubble had burst. Right. So, wow, so that's very fortunate. You'd been completely cashed out before the crash.

And so here you are, and you're sitting on more money than you probably ever imagined that you would ever get. I mean, it's really an incredible story to have this happen in your life. And I think that this is really what I wanted to, you know, talk to you about and what I find fascinating, which is, you know, with this comes obviously opportunities and a myriad of decisions and directions

that you could take with your life. I mean, the whole world is open to you. You could do anything you want, right? And I think most people in your situation would kind of go the Gordon Gekko route or the empire building route. You know, they'd go and they'd say, hey, I've got the golden touch, you know, let's do it again.

Or like, where's the next deal? And, you know, it's an aphrodisiac. And I'm sure that, you know, the sort of adrenaline and the kind of rush that comes with that experience is, you know, very intoxicating, right? Like, when am I going to experience that again? And as humans, we're always like, it's never enough, right? Like, oh, that was good.

Like, well, let's do that again. Or how can I make, how can I do that? And even better the next time it's going to be, you know, and then you're off, right? You're off running on this route or whatever. And, you know, you see people do that a lot. And I think that probably would have been the expected course for you to take is to go off. Yeah, it's really interesting the psychology that happens in that environment. Because you're thinking at one level, it's like, I got enough to live on for the rest of my life.

Why would I go keep doing more of that same stuff? But most people do. And you know what it is or what it was for me, I sensed that same energy, needless to say. I, you know, I was super competitive as a kid. You know, I just, we, I had my next door neighbor that all we did every day, every waking moment of our day was making up games and competing. It could be anywhere from a new way of playing ping pong to playing a new way of creating a golf course around his yard or playing football with some friend.

Bottom line, it was all about competition. And the reality is I sort of felt that same energy. It's exactly what you're describing. It's like, okay, I've got X. I want to make it 10X. Right, I mean, because there's always somebody who has more, right? And you're probably like, well, that guy over there did it. And, you know, well, look what he did.

Like, I want to see if I can beat him now and all of that. No doubt. So that was, it was something I felt. And it was something that was definitely part of me. And I, in some way, took a half step in that direction by moving to Santa Barbara California or actually Montecito and buying a a huge house that was beyond anything I would have ever imagined as a kid and I you know bought an interest in a jet and I uh good for you and I did

those things you know I bought all the nice cars and and then you know know, it was weird, you know, I was in bed one night with my wife, and we were talking, and we're, you know, it's like, what is this, you know, is this making us, are we happier, is this happiness at some level, because we have these things, and it's like, I would have people come over, and I would be, it was interesting how initially I was showing them the property as though I was really excited and wanted to offer it because I so wanted them to experience the feeling of seeing it. But after a really short period of time, I almost felt bad because it's like I really wasn't getting anything out of it.

And I felt almost sort of sick inside. It was weird. It was something that just came over me that made me realize this is not an end point. And it wasn't something that really made me a healthier human being. And it's like right then, just the world started switching

and everything started going off inside my mind. It was like, I need to get out of this place. I need to get into something that's more real, more grounded. My wife was great because she was right there with me. She didn't need more stuff. She didn't really need anything. And she was an incredibly, she was like the ideal grounding instrument because she was right there. She wanted simpleness and peace. And actually the beauty of Kauai was inspiring for her, like nothing you could imagine so we had

actually we started traveling around the country and in different parts of the Caribbean trying to find the ideal place to live and after going to the Caribbean and to you know different parts of Mexico and to different parts of you know the California. It's like once in different parts of the Hawaiian island, we got to the North Shore of Kauai and it's like it became this little six mile stretch between Kilauea and Princeville. It like to me just became God's gift to the most beautiful part of the world

because of the natural beauty and just the way the weather comes through this place. It's real. I mean, it's sometimes a stormy North Shore of any, like any coast and any small island in a remote part of the world. And there's that and then there's the community that's represented on this North Shore of Kauai.

You know, it's like there's an authenticity here that I really was able to feel right off the bat. And it's got the full range, you know, in some way it's sort of real, in some way it's sort of rugged, in some way it's very native Hawaiian in some ways. And it was, to me, it was much more, you know, an opportunity for learning more about myself than living in Montecito, California, where it was so much more who you were and what you were as compared to what you were really doing and what it is you were about. Well, yeah, I mean, that's really cool. I mean, you sort of, you know, started to build the gilded cage a little bit and had a course correct. I mean, other people I think would have said,

well, yeah, I'm still like, why am I not happy? Like I have all this money and I have the, you know, the house and the cars and all that kind of stuff. Well, oh, it's because, you know, I don't have that car, you know, I'll get that car and then that'll fix me or, you know, I'll get this and then I'll feel better about myself. But you had the insight to say, you know, chasing that dragon is not taking me to the best place yeah it really didn't take too much to feel that the more stuff i got i wasn't getting happier and it was interesting you know right off the bat i was getting a lot of stuff and it really became apparent that i would have that new stuff whatever it was whether it was a new car or a new computer or a new phone or whatever it was. And within a week and a half, the coolness of having that new thing was gone.

Right. And, but I still had the stuff. And then it started to realize, you know what, not only do I have the stuff, I now have this because of my family history and values in some way, I now I have the obligation to maintain it. So I really quickly became sort of like this, I was possessed by my possessions. And I had a certain amount of obligation, I felt, and still do, you know, to maintaining what I own because I don't want to waste. There's something really genetically clear inside me that when I waste, I feel a lot of pain at whatever level. So it was really interesting how quickly that awareness came and then the decision to sort of just get to the most basic things you need and if you only have those things those are things you

want to maintain rather than having all that other stuff that's very superfluous it takes a heck of a lot of brain damage just to keep track of much less to keep it in a good working order and i call that the burden of the rich because there's so many wealthy people out there and they, if anything is out of place in their house or if there's a scratch on their car or if the maid hasn't done their laundry just right, their day's upside down. Exactly, yeah.

I mean, just living in Los Angeles, I'm exposed to quite a few rather wealthy and successful people. And I can assure you that it's not a recipe for happiness. Not all of them, but a fair number of them are relatively miserable people or fair to middling. But the common thing that I always hear from them is, yeah, they become a slave to their possessions.

It's all about kind of holding onto what they have and the fear that comes with losing it and trying to their possessions. It's all about kind of holding onto what they have and being, you know, the fear that comes with losing it and trying to maintain it. And suddenly they're, you know, they spend all their time managing other people who are upkeeping their stuff and it becomes a full-time job. And, you know, they think like, oh, you know, my life's going to be easy and simple now. And actually it just becomes complicated with all that stuff and i i think a good you know that's that's western cultures export to the third world really when you really look at what we what we are exporting today is this consumption lifestyle we are trying to through media and through all the subconscious and conscious ways we market america more or less and you know europe in some ways many very much in the

same boat but doesn't seem to be quite to the extreme as a concept as a lifestyle yeah we it's like the more stuff you have the more successful you are and the more happy you are and the more knowledgeable you are because you've learned how to acquire vast amount of things. And even if you've gone, you know, 190% in debt to acquire more stuff and you have zero income to live on, the perception is that you have all this stuff

so you've figured it out. When reality is, you're almost like the government of the United States. You've created so much debt. It's questionable whether you're going to be able to get out of it

without printing money or declaring a bankruptcy. And what is that life like you know as compared to one that really doesn't need that stuff i don't think the government can wants us to think that thought because they need big big business to work if we decide to stop buying the system stops it's completely predicated on consumption lifestyle and consumerism. I mean, you know, the famous George Bush quote, you know, go out and shop, everything's great, you know, that kind of thing. Exactly. Yeah. So, all right. So, you discover the North Shore of Kauai and you have this epiphany that this is where you want to relocate to and settle to. And I'd be remiss if I didn't bring this up,

but it's so fascinating to me. I don't know, have you been following, we didn't talk about this, the sort of unfolding saga of John McAfee right now? Yes, yes. So this is a very, very fascinating, interesting thing that's occurring right now. So John McAfee, who's a software entrepreneur, he developed McAfee virus software, incredibly successful guy who is, I guess he's retired or he sold his company.

I'm not sure exactly, but, you know, a very, very wealthy guy, uh, relocated to Belize and, and sort of built this compound in a, in a, in a tropical paradise and has been living out his life down there. I think he divested all of his money out of the United States or, I mean, he literally has been living down there in this compound. And essentially from what I can gather, and I'm not completely read up on everything, but I just heard an interview with him the other day on, on the Joe Rogan podcast. And I've been reading I've been reading John McAfee's blog. There's some evidence that he's kind of going off the rails right now and they don't know whether he's experimenting with designer drugs that he's creating at his house and bath salts. There's some indication that maybe he may

or may not be doing and he's got a young girlfriend and his neighbor turned up dead and there's some indication that maybe he may or may not be doing, and he's got a young girlfriend, and his neighbor turned up dead, and there's some suspicion that he might have had something to do with it. And he's claiming that the Belize government is out to get him and that this is a giant conspiracy. And long story short is he's essentially on the lam right now, and he's running from the law. But meanwhile, he's tweeting and blogging in real time, and he has enough technological savvy to cover his tracks and conceal his IP address. But it's pretty amazing because, and to bring it back to this conversation, to see a guy who, you know, I don't know, maybe everything that McAfee is saying is true and people are out to get him. I have no, I have no idea. All I know is what I've heard. Um, but it would seem like there's some instability there and a, and a definite imbalance in kind of how he's living his

life and, and all the drama that isn't, that is sort of circling him right now. Uh, and, and when you see a guy like that, who, you know, kind of has everything and we have this notion, this American dream, this idea that, hey, you know, in America you can make it big and anything's possible. And, you know, everybody's got a startup and wants to, you know, cash out. And this idea of moving to a tropical paradise and, you know, I'll just sit at the beach and, you know, have my house and live out the rest of my days in peace and solitude. have my house and live out the rest of my days in peace and solitude. I mean, how many people actually do that and how many people actually do that and do it so that they're happy, you know, and don't go off the rails or become imbalanced or, you know, create some kind of, you know, insane drama that is unfolding. So as I'm watching this and I'm contrasting McAfee with the choices that you've made, and it's fascinating really. So you

come out here and, you know, what is the idea? I mean, was it, was part of that the idea of like, I'm going to, you know, be out here, I'm going to simplify, I'm going to, you know, I'll, I'll be by the beach. Well, a lot of it was getting sort of back to meditation was what I, what was coming up for me is I have to get out of the environment that I was in to find myself. And Kwai ended up being a great place for that. I sort of felt that early on coming here because the natural vibration here is so strong, you know, that you can be here for a relatively short period of time and go to any of these beaches or just, out near a waterfall or just sit out on a quiet night and feel the energy of this land. And I definitely didn't feel that at any level.

I lived in the same house in Dallas, Texas for probably 20 years. I couldn't tell you where the sun was rising or where the moon was setting. I can tell you the cycle of the moon here. I can tell you when the high the moon here. I can tell you when the high tides are going to happen. I can tell you the time of year because of where the sun sets. I can tell you what's happening today and tomorrow somewhat by the way the winds are blowing today. There's just these aspects of connection to nature that are almost rudimentary here that when you're sitting in the middle of a

city they're not even on the radar so that piece was was really interesting but the the thing that was what it really moved me was just the idea of getting my head out of the mainland energy and getting it into a space where it wasn't so influenced by all that stuff that i was part of it and that that was the the piece that i sort of held on to in the back of mind and was motivating me to come out and just see what it was like to be in the middle of nowhere for a while and see what effect that would have on me and just play the game, see what happened. Because I felt worst case scenario, I'd learn more about myself. Best case scenario, I might do things that I'm really excited about

that are fulfilling me at the deepest level of my psychological and spiritual self. So you move out here. So it started really as an experiment. Did you come out here like temporarily to spend some time or? Yeah, initially we came out here

just sort of saying and we'd go back and forth. And then we came out, we came back after being here like for about six months. And we looked at each other and said, why would we go back? What are we going back to? It's like, this is so exponentially better from what we are giving to ourselves and what we're giving to our kids. At the time my wife was pregnant, it became a very simple decision. So at the time though, even though we decided to have our child and start living here, in the back of my mind, I was thinking it was going to be a three or four year kind of a run and just sort of see and sort of play it out. But then one thing led to another

and it was really, after a relatively short period of time, I felt myself sort of almost like a tree with every passing week, with every passing month, I was rooting in. I was sort of becoming more connected, whether it was to the community that I was living in, just the land that I was living in, the connection with myself. There's so many parts of sort of my natural biological self and then the natural world itself

that I just was becoming more aware of that it made me sort of now think it's it would be really hard to move it's sort of but at the same time I see the value in balance too because it's almost like you have to go to appreciate what's here it's like and it's true even on the most you know simple ways of looking at life you know for example when you're staring at something, you can't really see it, but you have to look away to look back. And it's that, you know, they even train pilots to look that way, to be able to see what's in front of them better. And I feel like the more I go and spend a relatively short period of time in what I'd call higher energy cities around the world, in what I'd call higher energy cities around the world,

and then come back here, it's really, it's sort of, it creates a connection to, you know, those things that make me understand those, the proportions and the reality and sort of more of an identity around the pieces and parts that make this life unique and what make me the way I am.

Right. I mean, you know, this area, the North Shore of Kauai, it's a really special place. And for those of you who haven't had the opportunity to visit here, it's very different from the other Hawaiian islands in its terrain and in its energy field, I feel. I mean, it's a very lush, green, know, tropical foresty kind of area. I mean, if you've been to the big island, you know, most people go to Kona, it's, you know, lava rock and very arid and Maui is very populated. And obviously, you know, Oahu is almost like a, you know, a mainland city. Kauai is very untouched in certain respects and the mountain ranges and the sort of overgrown fields are so remarkable in their dramatic appearance and colors.

It's very vivid. And I always joke, it's like, it's almost like you could just see King Kong, you know, walking right out of the jungle. I mean, it's really quite remarkable. And I think that you're correct. I mean, the's really quite remarkable. And I think that you're correct. I mean, the energy field here is really strong. Like I can feel it.

And that doesn't mean it's always good. Like it goes dark and heavy as much as it can be light and good. The pendulum swings. You can't have one without the other. And you need them both. And I think that's sort of the missing, you know, people think, oh, I've got everything or whatever. I'm not talking about me in particular,

but when you have everything you want, that all of a sudden life should be on the straight path towards upward happiness arc. That is so not connected to reality. Life as in everything goes through cycles of ups and downs and you need the downs to know the ups. If you had nothing but ups, you would never appreciate anything other than more up.

And you'd eventually, in my mind, die just because you'd, you know, like I think what happens a lot of times with people into drugs and whoever else, they just want more of a high all the time. And at some point they just, they die. No, I mean, I don't think no one's walked the earth that just, you know, had highs all the time that worked out. And that's not what happiness is. I mean, what is happiness? I mean, happiness isn't just you know had highs all the time that worked out and that's not what happiness is i mean what is happiness i mean happiness isn't you know sort of this this

adrenaline rush or this you know crazy enthusiasm 24 hours a day i mean it doesn't work like that i think happiness is a much more complex thing you know it's it's a range you know it's unique to an individual but it's a range of life for me personally it's a range of experiences related to those those times in life that you're aware enough to feel them at whatever level they are they aren't really good or bad they're just things that are happening and if you can be open enough to feel them with an open heart and feel them with the depth of your being you've had an experience that's unique but usually our mind is so busy with stuff, we don't wanna feel, we don't wanna look,

we don't wanna know. Well, we live in a system that's not designed to encourage that. We live in a system that encourages us to consume as a recipe for happiness rather than accumulate experiences. Exactly. I mean, it's completely backwards, in my opinion. Well, not backwards,

but the emphasis is on the wrong side of that equation. Well, yeah, just to think that you can have more stuff and that you are going to be happier because you have more stuff. I think there's a, I was reading this thing, it was saying once you get beyond a certain level of income that makes it so you can survive there's the difference between having let's just say that number is seventy thousand dollars a year

the difference in happiness between the guys making seventy thousand dollars and seven million and seven hundred million is not even noticeable and i i totally can make you know that makes total sense to me because once you have what you need your happiness is more based on what it is you are and what you're doing as compared to how many more things you have and for me it's more being channeled now into

what can be created with my limited light force in a way that makes me and the people I'm connected with feel more alive and healthy I think also that the thing, the thing really that, that gives me the sort of a sustained feeling of wellness or, you know, you can call it happiness is when I'm giving back, you know, when I'm trying to get out of myself and my ego and my problems and what I need

and all that kind of stuff. And I kind of try to get grounded and just be of service to somebody else, which I'm not saying I always do. I'm right there with you, man. But when I do do that on the rare occasion, I generally feel really good. I feel better about myself.

I feel a contentedness that seems more meaningful to me personally than other things. Which takes us to what I want to talk about now, which is how, you know, Common Ground came to be and, you know, what the birth of this idea was and what you want to do with it now. So let's talk about that a little bit. Very cool. Yes. Common Ground is a unique place in time, basically. And it is all about place at one level, but it's also about the range of spirituality, emotion, and life forces that happen when you're connected with things that are based on values that are elemental to life experiences.

So that's a lot of sort of ambiguous stuff, but the reality is I'm really trying to imagine a sustainable resource center that makes it easy for people to get connected to things that make their life more worth living. And for them to see a way to connect with a range of activities that make them feel more willing to get engaged with community and sort of a new way of doing business

and other people in a way that sort of creates a very noticeable difference between the way things are traditionally being done. You know, I feel like there's so much apathy in Western culture about getting involved in anything because we really don't feel like it's worth supporting community activities or government or a lot of non-profits because

we don't really feel like our time's being very well respected or we're getting much back for that investment. I'm trying to imagine an environment that creates a sustainable path forward using food system as the foundation in a way that combats disease, creates economic opportunities, creates a better environment, and does a lot of things that make life healthier for the long term, so that when we look back, that our kids can say,

wow, that was something different, that was great. It's not the path that it seems like the rest of the world is on, and it's standing out as something different. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, I think that people are starved for community. And, you know, by community,

I mean like a real connectedness to your neighbor or your fellow man. And just speaking personally, living in Los Angeles, you know, we are very blessed and live in a really beautiful spot of the world. And in many ways, it's really phenomenal. But the one thing that it really doesn't have or that I haven't experienced is any sense of community with my neighbors, my environment. And we don't really know our neighbors very well.

And in like the closest town, which is Calabasas to where we live, there is no town. It's essentially an outdoor mall. You know, it's an outdoor mall with a road going through it and that's it. And so people sort of convene at Starbucks to hang out and talk. And that's really, I mean, Starbucks quite honestly has taken the place of the town square because there is no town square.

And, you know, I don't know if this is good or bad. It's just this is the way that it is. And I think that for myself and my wife and my family, you know, one of the reasons that we were attracted to coming here was because we were lacking that sense of community and mutual support. We would remember days, there are days when we couldn't drop Trapper off at soccer practice because we were doing something else or another kid had to be somewhere else at that time or whatever and just trying to find somebody to help us out to like, hey, can you get a ride home or can you find somebody who can give you a ride or even carpooling, something very simple and basic.

It was like incredibly difficult. And this is, I don't think that we're wired. I don't think that our DNA is suited for this kind of lifestyle that we've created, the cul-de-sac lifestyle, where we're all kind of on our own. I mean, we, you know, mankind kind of habitated for eons in these villages where, you know, tasks were divided appropriately and

everybody works together and, you know, the Hillary Clinton that takes a village or whatever sounds super trite and stupid, but, you know, it's really true. And we don't live that way anymore, you know, unless you're in some remote Greek village or, you know, in some third world, you know, country or something like that, where they're still rooted in traditions that we've gotten away with. And what I think is really cool about Common Ground and you personally is your interest in trying to recreate that. And I think we're in a very interesting time where people are fascinated and attracted to different ideas about how to live their lives and lifestyle and and a way of kind of getting back to something more primal like that of living

communally and at the same time it's it's bifurcated because you have that which is sort of on a um this aspirational plane and then you have the preppers and the militia people and all these sort of end of the world apocalyptic groups that they're kind of weird cousins because they're kind of doing the same thing. Like, but they're just doing it in a kind of a dark negative way. And then there's the sort of new agers, you know,

that are trying to do this in a kind of a hippie way. You know, you have people who are, I think in some respects, wanting the end of the world to come so that they can shoot their guns and, you know, tell everybody that they were right about what's happening and the currency isn't worth anything anymore

and blah, blah, blah. And that makes for great reality TV because these characters are larger than life. And then on the other end of the spectrum, it's, you know, it's the hippie free love, you know, kind of commune. And so what you're doing is really grounded in something very neutral and sustainable

and accessible for a normal human being to wrap their brain around, which is like, let's figure out a better way of living that's more sustainable ecologically with our food, with our pooling our resources and finding a better way of living and i think that those ideas are are really powerful and and interesting yeah it's very ambiguous and fairly amorphous when you really look at it at the highest level but at a basic

level it's common ground and the the reason we chose that name was basically all of us, when you look at the range of values and issues that humans around the planet Earth deal with, have much that are the kinds of things that are the same to people in the most remote parts of the world that are on the other side of the world from us. But yet, that said, we seem like when you look at the media and you look at the way things unfold, it's like we are constantly slicing and dicing and judging all these little pieces and parts that we don't have in common, you know, whether it's religious kind of stuff or it's other values that seem to be a little bit different than ours. But if you just stacked up the values that all humans have in common and what they need to live a healthy, basic life, you know, the love for their family, the quality of food, air, water,

the access to resources, all those things we know that are needed to create a high quality and evolving and growing human being. They're pretty simple. And so my thought was, is there a way that we can create a very fertile environment and create some demonstration environment that makes it so that the second people step on this property, they feel that energy. And it's a very supportive energy, but it's a very clear energy in a way that they can see how to engage and grow in their experience of themselves and the planet by doing certain things. And the three things we're starting with is creating a great organic garden, creating a really good organic food service or restaurant,

and then creating a market that supports that. And it may seem sort of redundant when you look at these similar restaurants and gardens and markets around the planet. But what makes these three unique is they're all bound by a vision that's basically saying, let's do what's best for this community in this place. And if we create and make the best soil, we make the best plants, and we make the best food from it, and we start working with other growers of food in the area and other people that can contribute products to the market, this becomes a hub for the creation and distribution of local products. And eventually, hopefully, we'll start creating more products and training more people to learn and see the

benefits of keeping money in the community rather than giving it to Walmart and 24 hours later only having four cents of every dollar left back on the island. In this scenario, when we grow our own food, make our own products, and sell our own products, we maybe import, in some cases, maybe as little as 4% of the ingredients to make those products, and we retain 96% in a community. And the multiplier effect, that's 24 times right there,

is incredible when you look at it over time, done right, you know, with a vision that really brings people together rather than pulls them apart. Right. It's closing the loop, right? It's closing the loop and keeping it within the community and supporting the community in doing so. And it's sustainable in its own right for doing that. And I think it's an incredible model. I think it's hopefully, you know, a model that will not only thrive here, but will be replicable in its own, you know, versions and incarnations in different areas of the country and the world. And I really think it's the future.

I mean, you know, you and I, we talk a lot about, you know, the unsustainability of factory farming and not just in its implications for health, but in terms of, you know, the economy and the long-term vitality of the soil and, you know, the future of growing food and GMOs and all that kind of stuff. I mean, it brings all of that stuff into focus. Yeah, to me, the top four issues are the economy. Basically, if we can maintain and create our own local economy rather than be dependent on the U.S. dollar and a basket of other foreign currencies that are going to be constantly printing money to survive, that's a huge step. And that creates a lot of financial security and economic security for the community. Food security, you know, even though it's sort of, for the general public, not perceived to be much of an issue today

because they can go to a grocery store and get food, but the reality is having 100% local, fresh, organic, local food that you're buying and growing here is compared to bringing food in from another part of the world that has a lot of toxins in it that gets redistributed in the environment and the residual effects of that over time are dramatic. And fundamentally, it's creating disease, which gets to the number three issue, which is drugs. Supposedly, 45%

of the American public is on prescription drugs of some sort. If you have a healthy, local, fresh, organic fruit and vegetable diet, I would argue that you probably don't need 99% of those drugs. And if that's the case, what does that mean, again, to keeping money in the community and creating long-term productivity and overall health? Preventative medicine starts with the plate. You got it. Everything starts with the food. So those are, in my mind, huge issues. And the last one being the environment

and basically maintaining and supporting the health of the local environment rather than degrading it and destroying the ecosystems because of the way big business and government has traditionally looked at the use of resources. When you just look at those top four issues, a new food system done right in a community, being supported by the community,

and educating the community on the value of it is really huge over time. And I believe the hypothesis that I'm describing there can be borne out in reality. And I really want to be able to prove that to myself and to prove that in a way that others say, shoot, I want that for my family. I want that for my community. And what do you think, what are the obstacles? I mean, what are the impediments? What are the walls that you've been bumping up against, whether they're

political or social or? You know, the biggest wall for me personally is it's probably more of a personal issue than it is an actual issue within the business 101 issues of making it happen. And it's more like it's fair exchange, basically. I don't want to feel like I'm doing it. And I really need to be in service of the community and be in service of the people that need these things in the community

in a way that the business and the financial sustainability and the economic feasibility of the product can sort of create and have a life of its own rather than feeling like it needs somebody like me to fund it or to to manage it at some level right i mean i think it can't it can only be truly healthy once it's completely self-supporting bingo bingo and so that's the trick so you're getting it to that place but you've been having to double down to get it to that place no doubt to believe right and a lot of it you, as much as I've gone through the learning curve,

and by no means at the end of it, of what it takes to do these kinds of things, the biggest lessons I've had to learn is dealing with my own baggage that I bring as a result of being a kid that grew up in Dallas, Texas, you know, from 1970 and 80, and having a mom and dad that came from a certain place and their parents coming from a certain place that have instilled a set of values and ways of looking at life that I have subconsciously accepted

and have made my reality. And to get rid of that baggage more or less so that I can have my own identity and look at things clearly and make healthier long-term decisions is really the piece that I'm trying to get clear enough on so that I can give and commit to different aspects of this in a way that really make it work naturally

rather than with that sort of that push-pull thing that otherwise happens. Mm-hmm. But the ultimate sort of end game, or not end game, but the sort of ongoing result that you're looking for is to get to a place where common ground is a self-supporting community where the individuals who are either residing here or working here in a communal way are contributing in such a way that they're all able to support themselves and support the greater good by doing it, whether it's through harvesting the fields

or creating food products or managing and running the restaurant and store, et cetera, but that it will be this ecosystem that would be able to operate in a healthy way without you having to be. Yeah. Imagine an organism that lives on its own it's all it self-organizes and all i've maybe done is created a fertile environment for it to thrive and and i'm not really telling it how to thrive i'm just giving it the opportunity to be great and and and i really don't see this location as necessarily as a community in itself

i think it's more of a community in the emotional and intellectual sense that people that believe in these values are a community. And there's a number of people that care deeply about these values enough to continue to support the vision by contributing their time, buying the products, showing up at meetings and saying yes, basically doing those range of things that support the values

in a way that bring more people to it and make it naturally sustain itself. Do you have entrepreneur friends or friends from your former life who think you're crazy? Every one of them. What are they telling you? I don't even bring it up to them. It's interesting. You know, it's like I don't really,

this is not an area that I can really have a conversation with very many people with just because it is so relatively outside the scope of normal business. So the number of people that I could even describe what we've discussed to and then have a conversation about a way to design and build that self-organizing structure, for example,

is very limited because it's like most people don't see the financial game. It's really got to, more often than not, the beginning in this conversation ends with most people thinking, what's my return over what period of time and how much am I going to put in and how much am I going to get back?

As soon as you go there, an energetic thing happens that moves it away from building the strongest, healthiest community to let's get the most dollar in and the most dollar out in the shortest period of time. Well, it's two completely different paradigms. Clearly. Clearly. And that's sort of the test. Can this new paradigm tell a story that's

extraordinary? And to see that it's supporting the emotional and personal and spiritual health of the individual in a way that anybody that comes in here, almost like that guy did to me, you know, 20 years ago, when he walked in my room and I sensed his peace and his confidence and his 20 years ago when he walked in my room and I sensed his peace and his confidence and his his his inner joy can other people feel that when they come here and see their reason to engage because of what it will mean to their health for the rest of their life that's a beautiful thing totally yeah that's worth fighting for too oh what's that's what a better thing to spend a human life trying to understand. Right. Because you're right. There's a million other things that I could do to keep myself busy

and we all could, but if you're going to describe the kinds of things you could do that would have the most meaning and purpose in your life, what would they be? You know, they're unique to every individual. This is just an, this is a piece of art that i've been trying to figure out and draw so the other part of this equation that that uh that's going on with common ground is this common ground media idea that you know i'm here to help you work on a little bit and so i thought i'd let you you know give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about that and you know what you have in mind and and where you see it going and what you want it to be. Sure, no problem. Common ground media should stand in contrast to what I'd call traditional mainland or Western culture media from the standpoint that we wouldn't put things on it that would degrade the human condition.

the human condition? What would be the purpose of putting things in a video format that people around the world would digest that would make them feel less of a human being and degrade their health and their happiness at some basic level or steal a part of their soul? I feel like standard Western culture media preys on the weaknesses of human beings at a basic level.

And I would love to imagine a range of media that would be the kinds of things that would support our soul and support our happiness and support those things that we're great at and build those up and show us how to do those things better. And I'm really sort of starting with sustainability one. And the way I'm describing it is sort of the inner sustainability, those kind of things that come with personal growth and those things that make you healthy individually.

And there's outer sustainability. It's the range of things we know you need to live as a human being at this place and time and be healthy. It's the food, energy, water, housing kind of stuff. a human being at this place and time and be healthy you know it's the food energy water housing kind of stuff so i'm trying to put some stakes in the ground that people can understand that those those two worlds in a way that just by seeing those reference points in those contexts that they can have the awarenesses they know they would need to be healthy and and if all they do is get that they can have some deeper connection to a real world rather than what I'm calling this sort of crazy imaginary world that the general media seems to push in these ideals of perfection

that sort of makes everybody at some level feel less than human or less than good. Well, and also is incredibly fear-based and salacious and exaggerated in every regard. So, yeah, you know, aspirational wellness-related content does not test well in the Nielsen houses. It certainly does not. And so that's a good point, you know. And one, you and I both know that just putting that information out, it's not going to create much of a draw. You know, it's not going to create much of a draw. You know, it's not going to be the kind of things mainstream America is flocking to.

Yeah. But what is the purpose? The purpose isn't to, you know, sell advertising on it. Clearly. And the purpose is to create something transformational. You got it.

And I think that, you know, the kind of primary marching order is to stand in the light. I mean, I think it's more powerful to be a magnet of attraction rather than promotion. You're spot on. I believe the work we can do can create an example of demonstration environments around these things

where people say, oh, they can do it. They did it. We can do it. I can do it. And we can open source that information in a way that makes it easy for people to see how to do it. Right, exactly. Because I think there's probably a lot of people

who are listening, who are thinking, well, that's great, you know, but, you know, I don't live on a farm in Kauai and, you know, I have to be at the office at 7.30 every morning. And, you know, I don't have on a farm in Kauai and I have to be at the office at 7.30 every morning and I don't have this kind of flexibility. And so I would like to be more sustainable both inside and outside and the choices that I make and the way that I feel about myself, et cetera.

But how can I do, I don't know how to do that. How do I, what am I supposed, are you telling me I'm supposed to quit my job and, you know, move to Hawaii and live in a tent? You know, like what can I, what are the, some of the things that somebody can latch onto to try to just begin to move in that direction or some tools? And I'm not, I'm not saying you have the answer immediately, but I think, I think common ground media is media is a is a sort of is the idea is that this is a means of speaking to that no doubt no doubt uh you know i agree with what you said at a high level uh but the reality is is once you have the awareness around things you can do for personal growth you you can be anywhere on the planet Earth and experience those things.

I mean, meditation is a great example. Yoga is a good example. Eating good food is a good example. Walking in nature is a good example. These are not things the normal, you know, the mainstream Western culture does every day. But they are transformative. And equally, on the other side of the coin

for the outer sustainability piece, there's a range of things you can support in your community because you as a human being buy something every day almost almost every day your life you're either buying some food buying some gas buying toilet paper whatever it is if you can consciously support the right things with that money and vote with your time and your money that way, that's slowly making big change happen. And this is a generational thing or maybe many generational things. It's not an end point tomorrow and the next day. This is not something that's going to change and be done in two quarters. This is going to take a lifetime and it's going to be something that you'll experience throughout the course of your lifetime, hopefully in a way that adds value to every part of it.

Yeah, we definitely, you know, I think the real vote in this day and age is the dollar. It's not the ballot box. And we have choices and we have domain over where that money gets spent. And like you said, every day we're spending money. All of us are spending money on one thing or another. And there are choices. There's never been more choices available to us in the way in which we spend those dollars. So I think that that's critical.

And I think the other thing is it really does, you know, it's an inside job, and it starts there. It has to start there because the other stuff won't mean anything if you don't address the inside first. And, you know, that's a tough pill to swallow. I mean, it was for me and it continues to be for me because I don't want to believe that meditation is the key or the solution that is going to help me address the other problems that I face in my life. That I don't wanna,

it's been proven to me time and time again, that when I am meditating or I am very diligent about, you know, sort of my inner life or my spiritual life, that my life gets better. There's less drama in my life. The breaks tend to kind of break in my favor and, you know, things generally kind of work out, you know, maybe not the way I expected them to or predicted them to, but my life is easier. I'm calmer, I'm more grounded, and I don't seem to have as many problems. Or the problems that I have are more easily managed and sort of navigated. And that's been demonstrated to me countless times in my life.

And yet still, I want to think, I don't need that anymore. That's not the answer. The answer is if I can just get that thing, you know, I want to, I want to, I need the new iPhone. I'll be happier when I do that thing. The iPhone 5 came out. Right. It's got a better camera, you know.

So, you know, that is the human, that's the human condition, you know, that is. We want to be slightly better than the person next to us in a lot of ways. Or just, or I don't even know if it's, yes, it's that, but it's also just, you know, this sort of insatiable need and belief that like, that outside circumstances are the solution to our problem. And I think that that is. Or when I get to this certain thing or place in time,

that is when I'm gonna be happy. I mean, I think we do this. If I move from my house or my town to this other place, then everything's gonna be better. Or when I retire, when I get to be 76 or whatever, 66 and I retire, then I will be happy. In the meantime- Well, that's the greatest lunacy of Western society.

Crazy. In my opinion. But maybe not the greatest, but that's a big one. That's a big one. But yeah, I mean, you're living proof. I mean, you're somebody who is sort of, you know, had an extraordinary life experience to this point and has had the luxury of being able to see

what it would be like, you know, to walk in the shoes of something that, you know, most people kind of aspire to. I mean, our culture, we all like, you know, to walk in the shoes of something that, you know, most people kind of aspire to. I mean, our culture, we all like, you know, we're going to hit it rich and then everything's going to be good or whatever. And you've been in that place. You've felt the emotions that come along with that and have made, you know, the choice to be here rather than somewhere else and to be sitting here and talking about your interior life you know i think that speaks to that that speaks to a very strong character well you know i think that you know you obviously you've been through similar processes and i think it's really hard for me or anybody to really put

themselves in vulnerable positions we don't we don't like to not know we don't like to look inside ourselves we don't want to be uncomfortable at all. At all. And that's the reason we do all those things to distract us. When I look at the way I was living before I moved out here and just the manicness of a normal day and the consistent routines that were all just sort of subconsciously ingrained in me and how I considered that a fulfilling life in relation to the range of things I've come to know that are the experiences in life that can make life more fulfilling. It's amazing. It's not surprising at a basic level once you've been able to step far enough

back to have perspective. I think that's the hope for CG Media is to begin telling some of those stories in a way that other people can get them. And I think one aspect of that, because I agree with what we were talking earlier, a lot of the context that we were talking about, sustainability, inner and outer, is not the kind of things that people are going to gravitate to in numbers to learn. Because it's just not the kind of information, generally speaking, unless it's done in a really entertaining way, that's going to make people excited. And the way I see the answer to that being is working with artists like yourself and others that have a message that resonates well

and to support them in a way that their message can get out and let that take on a life of its own, just in some way similar to what we're trying to do at Common Ground. As much as I'm hoping we can create a fertile environment for the most fantastic food and a range of products that support the community here, I would love to imagine that we can create a range of technological products and a range of services that support artists

in a way that they can become really valued in the digital age. And they can be able to do their best work and not worry about the range of things they've been having to deal with up to this point. You know, I mean, when you just look at music as an example of how much, what a musician would make 20 years ago and how hard it is for him or her to make a living in the online world today. Yeah, it's crazy. We were just talking about this the other day and Tyler had sent my wife and I an article that was written by a musician. Who was

that, Tyler, that wrote that? From Galaxy 500. Yeah, because there's this concept that with Pandora and Spotify that now finally musicians are getting paid because it's a paid subscription. And so, oh, I pay my $10 a month for Spotify and a portion of that money is going back to the artists that I listen to when I play my playlists or what have you. And this band wrote an article and said, their song, I think their song had been played 75,000 times

over a period of, how long was it? Was it just like a couple months or something like that? And their royalty check was like a couple dollars, not per play, for that 75,000 plays. Like it was literally like five bucks or something like that. So it's not working, you know, it's not working for the artist. And, you know, it's this incredible period of time in which every artist every creator every creative person has the world at their disposal to to share and distribute their own product but yet there's you know how do you get the message out how do you connect with your audience and how do you do it in a way that is that is sort of sustainable and self-supporting for you and fair, quite honestly.

Yeah, I think the main issue when I look at it is mostly artists nowadays are run by managers that are still in more of a traditional way of looking at business. It's almost the old record label way of doing things as compared to really recognizing the value and the values of the digital age i mean if you're an artist today and you're you know you're really doing great you're basically

generally speaking having a relationship with itunes where they take the majority of what they create and you get a fraction of it and you hope to market it in an incredible way that you continue to maintain your right to your fraction of that fraction. As compared to looking at it from a different perspective, right now iTunes in that scenario has its relationship with your audience. So you have created an audience for iTunes that they're deciding how much you as an artist are going to get paid. Flip that around. I mean, you know, Tom Petty is a great example.

How many people or or Jack Johns, or any well-known artists, they have, let's just say, 15 to 100,000 people in some cases see an event of theirs. How many of those people that went to see Tom Petty out of that 15,000 can Tom Petty get in touch with tomorrow afternoon?

Probably not one of them, not many of them. You know, if he really wanted to, he should be able to push one button and get to every one of those 15,000 people in whatever way they most readily wanted to hear from Tom Petty, whether it was a phone call, a text message, or a podcast, or an email, go right down the list. message or a podcast or an email, go right down the list. And people should be able to, you know, in some way, artists should be able to control the access in some way, manage the monetization of the audience they create over an extended period of time. Because right now, an artist in the iTunes scenario we described, they download one song and they go on to the next. In the iTunes scenario we described, they download one song and they go on to the next.

What you should be saying to iTunes is, I got that guy to you one time, and now he's bought all this other stuff, and I should get the residual value of every time he buys anything else from iTunes. Instead, you gave me a fraction of a fraction, and I created a customer for who knows, years or longer than that, and you got all his information that shows what he likes and doesn't like. And you're marking them all this other stuff. Right, who's really benefiting.

So why don't I take that in-house and work with an entity, like possibly something like a CG Media that is really working more on the artist's behalf to say, Mr. Artist, you create this net of a range of whatever, tens of thousands or millions of relationships, and we'll give you the value of those relationships over an indefinite period of time. As long as those guys or people are buying something from the network, you're

getting something for it. Right. It's working as an ally for the artist. Bingo. Because, you know, there's, of course, the example of Radiohead that released their album on their website and kind of circumnavigated iTunes altogether and did it their own way. And you're seeing that in other mediums too, like Louis C.K. released his comedy album, you know, on his website and other people that have audiences are able to leverage their own audiences and circumnavigate that system. But most of them have achieved their sort of notoriety or have those audiences as a result of their success through more traditional avenues of media. I mean, Radiohead, you know, was on a label that, you know, pushed them and got them to a certain

place that allowed them to have this audience and et cetera. And Louis C.K. is on a television show where, you know, millions of people get to see him so he's able to build and develop his audience but now he can release his comedy album not on hbo but do it himself and and completely control that so but if you're not radiohead and if you're not louis ck or or one of these handful of other people that have that kind of audience you need somebody to help you develop your audience that is going to be artist-friendly as opposed to something like iTunes that really isn't interested in that.

They're just interested in the reasons that you just articulated. I think you're spot on. Whether it's CG media or whatever entity, the bottom line, there's a range of web tools out there. The artist should really find the marketing entity, a marketer, hopefully an individual that totally believes in them, that gets the range of digital tools that are out there.

And they're creating those range of relationships that Radiohead has. There's a range of sponsors, there's a range of appearances, there's a range of events, there's a range of stuff that a great marketing company using online media and others can really efficiently and at low cost navigate on behalf of the artist in a way that adds tremendous value. And that's the piece that I'm wanting to get my head around and do in a way that really cultivates large numbers of fans for artists over an extended period of time in a really thoughtful, trusted way. And that other piece of the equation that you haven't even gotten into yet, which I

think is the piece, is the idea of giving back. That every sort of transaction that would take place in this environment involves giving back to support local communities, local agriculture, or a nonprofit or charity of that artist's choice. So it's really embracing this new, you know, we're talking about paradigms, and this really is a new paradigm of business that's finally being recognized and embraced by, you know, traditional business, which is this idea of building in the nonprofit or the giving back into the actual business plan. So you have these companies like Ethos Water or Tom Shoes or Warby Parker, which made my glasses, where for everything you buy, somebody is getting something back out of that. And I think that that is really an amazing

model. And it's so great to see those companies doing so well. And I think that that is really an amazing model. And it's so great to see those companies doing so well. And I think that that's really the future of business. And I think that because it's also, it's not just the giving back, it's about involving the consumer and understanding that their dollar is a vote and what are they voting for. And that vote is going towards a good product at a fair price where a portion of that is going back to support something that is important to the company and important to the consumer who's voting with that dollar. Yeah, I think there's been a huge,

and this is in market research information over the last 10 years, like I want to say, I don't know what the exact number is, but roughly 40% of the consumers out there are now basing their buying decisions on the on what they perceive the ethics and the business uh uh you know moral values of the brand to be and if that's the case and if we in some way through the through our efforts can create relationships with consumers in a way that they understand and they actually see through a positive feedback loop

that the nonprofits are being not only well-funded, but they're actually seeing programs take place and that they're seeing the economics of that really make sense so that it's not going through overhead and administration, but like 95 or 99 cents out of every dollar actually makes a program happen. That's huge. That's what I'm like in a vision.

Rather than going to pay X to see XYZ great performer, you're giving maybe 50% of the online income to a non-profit that goes straight into a program that you really want to see happen. In our case, it might be training people to do green jobs or organic food preparation

in some way or feeding kids at the local skate park because we found out a lot of the kids at the local skate park on weekends don't have any food to eat. But as an example, those are great examples of the kinds of things that when it's leveraged, and really now the nonprofit is cultivating these relationships rather than the artist creating these relationships. For me as an individual, I would feel much better seeing that

because I want to see the artist do well, but I would love to see the things he cares about do great. Right, and then also creating a relationship to see the artist do well, but I would love to see the things he cares about do great. Right. And then also creating a relationship between the end user or the customer or consumer with the results of where that dollar went. You know what I mean? Because I think that we're in a disconnect with, you know, giving right now in many ways where there are these behemoth charities and, you know, it's sort of like, all right, you know, Hurricane Sandy hits, it's, you know, give to the Red Cross or give, and not to say there's anything wrong with that, that's great. You know, it's sort of like, how do we give back and support what's going on? But then you have no idea what happens with that

money. And you can go online and go to a charity watch and find out which the good ones are or the bad ones are and how much spend too much on their, know overhead etc but you know who has time for that but i think what's what's important and what i think is a big part of the new model of giving and non-profits is really creating a connection um between the person who is donating that dollar and then what actually happens like like engaging them in the chain of command or the sort of chain of custody of that dollar all the way to where it ultimately gets spent and the effect of that spending on it.

Actually, to have a real-time or close-to-real-time feedback loop. So if we get 50,000 people to pay $3 to see an online event and $1.50 out of that of that 50 000 goes to feed the kids 50 000 times a buck 50 is what 75 000 buys x number of meals in some way that you might visually in video form see delivered and then actually maybe even be able to interview some of the kids that have been eating there for six months saying this is what it's meant to my life and this is the things that have changed as a result of this. And that's huge.

And that's the kind of change at a really systemic level that makes me excited. You got big plans, Mr. Jay. How are you going to make all that happen? Just patience and time, patience and time. Patience is a tough one. Oh, no kidding. That's the hardest one for anybody that's been in the tech world

because when you do tech stuff, it happens in 10 minutes, you know, as long as it takes you to do it. Whereas in the organic gardening world, it doesn't quite work that way.

You're not creating Instagram here, right? Not exactly. This is... There's a longer incubation period physically and metaphysically, right?

Yes. Very cool. All right. We should probably wrap this up here but Chris J you're an inspiration right back at you you're a fascinating

guy it's an honor to know you and to be here and to talk to you and to be working on some interesting

stuff with you so thanks a lot man it's the fun stuff great to be here yeah thanks for making it happen

thanks for taking the time to sit down and talk to you. I think people are going to really dig, dig your message. So perfect. Bring it. Cool. So that is episode two, everybody. How long did we go here? Whoa. An hour and 46. That's pretty cool. So, um, I have some other cool guests lined up. I'm going to try to do this podcast two or three times a week. And like I said, we're going to try to jerry-rig the video in the live stream and maybe do some interactive stuff. So I'll keep you posted on that. Most importantly, if you want to learn more about what's going on with Chris and Common Ground, check out Common Ground online. The website is cgkawaii.net. And I'm sure if you Google Common Ground or Chris or whatever, you could probably come up with some interesting stuff

about what's going on there. And I will continue to keep you posted on the developments with Common Ground Media and the stuff that we're working on. It's some really exciting, cool stuff. So without further ado, we'll wrap it up. Again, if you want to support the podcast just and you've enjoyed this tell a friend help get the word out early subscribers would be great to have since we're just launching this thing and if you want to support us financially don't send us money but

click the amazon banner ad on richroll.com if you're going to be buying something on amazon anyway and that'll throw a couple bucks in our pot and help keep this thing going so anyway that's it thanks a lot and until next time thanks for joining us thanks chris Thank you.