TrueLife - Erik Horbacz - The Creator Economy

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/https://linktr.ee/erikhorbacz?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=c32171be-e770-4224-8687-4f09e2ec8d48http://linkedin.com/in/erikhorbaczErik Horbacz is a creative problem solver, visionary, entrepreneur and angel investor with experience related to e-learning, content creation and distribution, communities, DAOs, brick-and-mortar SMB, mobile gaming, DeFi, Web3(blockchain tech), neuroscience and psychology tech, retreats and personal growth programs, Psychedelics, and e-learning.I serve as a board member or advisor for the Entrepreneurs' Organization RDU, The Warter Institute for Consciousness and Psychedelic Research, Operation Rescue Children (human trafficking), and various other organizations and start-ups.I follow curiosity wherever it leads me.Sometimes this gets me in trouble. Most times, however, it leads to amazing experiences with fantastic people in exciting fields of research, entrepreneurship, contribution, learning and investing.".. almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know of to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose" - Steve Jobs One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies gentlemen, welcome back to True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope you got to wake up next to the person that you were in love with. I hope the sun is shining, birds are singing. I got a great show for you today.

gentleman, him and I have been trying to connect for a little bit. We finally made it happen. The one and only Eric Horbatch, entrepreneur investor, currently building and researching environments around the creator economy, Web3 AI and Psychedelics. He is the co-founder and chairman of the Avenue Agency, member of Abundance 360, co-producer of the incredible podcast chatting with Candace, a board member advisor of the Entrepreneur's Organization, RDU, the Water Institute of Conscious and Psychedelic Research, Operation Rescue Children,

and various other organizations and startup. Eric, thank you so much for being here today, my friend. How are you? I am delighted to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, man. The pleasure's all mine. I've been wanting to talk to you for quite some time.

It seems to me that you have developed this set of skills that is not only intriguing to me, but it seems like what you're doing is kind of this whole foundation for this change. that we see going forward, this idea of Web 3, the creator economy, psychedelics. Like, it just seems to me that you're on the foundation of so many cool things. I was wondering if you could maybe start with a little bit of a, you know, a little bit of a background to say how you got involved in all these things. Curiosity. So, so I started off entrepreneur journey in restaurants, actually. And that led me to trying to understand social spaces. And we built some technology around

gaming in social spaces. And so I went from like restaurants into the tech world. And then in throughout that journey, like obsessed with technology. I really enjoyed blockchain technology. We were building out like mobile games. So like back in 2017, 18-ish, we were just toying around with the play to earn ideas, especially for like social spaces because it could be used for a lot of cool things in a social space like a restaurant.

So I think like e-sports, but bringing that. into like a more real world setting. Yeah. And then from there, I've done a lot of weird and interesting things with conscious, like different like states of consciousness. So always exploring different states of consciousness. Back in 2018,

my wife and I did this thing called Biosybernaut Institute. It's a neurofeedback center. Okay. And what it is is like you sit in this black box. and inside this box you're listening to your own brainwaves. You're in there for seven days. You're in and out. Yeah, you're in and out working with a trainer.

And you go to sleep at night and you go back in and you listen to your brainwaves. And it gives you meditations and certain things to do with your mind. And that had led me to blockchain, kind of like putting on more of the investor hat. I'm a way better investor than I am an entrepreneur, I find. And making the disqualification. decision to just follow anything that I'm curious about. And that has been exactly what you just mentioned. The psychedelics, Web3, Creator Economy, AI, trying to see, like, where are these, where all these things meet towards a more compelling future? I had my first son in 2019.

Congratulations, man. So stoked for you, bro. Nice. And that will rock your world. And then especially, like if you're already a builder or an investor or someone that's trying to live very intentionally. It's like, holy shit, okay, I'm just like guiding this ushering this consciousness into the world. And here it is. Like now you're really paying attention. Like what's going on? What are we bringing them into? So it's like a lot of like what kind of energy, time, money, energy, like really investing and putting these things into places that matter.

Yeah. Man, that's amazing to me. I think that, uh, okay, so this crosses this rubicon of ideas and technology. I'm going to, man, it's hard for me to think about it. Okay, there's a, I'm going to take us way back to the ancient Greeks right here, Eric. I'm going to read you this passage about the world in which letters and language was given to humankind. I'm going to read this passage from Plato and then I'm going to get your interpretation about it. Okay, it has to do with language right here.

Let me grab my book. Okay. So this is from Famous, which is, you know, one of the books in Plato's Republic. one of his great works right there. It would take a long time to repeat all that famous said to Thuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters,

this said Thuth will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories. It is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Famous replied, Oh, most ingenious Thuth, the parent or inventor of an art

is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have.

For this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learner's souls because they will not use their memories. They will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence. And you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth.

They will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing. They will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing. They will be tiresome company, have the show of wisdom without the reality. So I think what he's breaking down there is that when we were given written text, when we were given letters and language, it was almost our demise. Like the seeds of our demise were planted in the phonetic alphabet where, and even all technologies, when you're given this technology, it takes away your ability on some other level. And I'm just curious if we, I don't kind of, I'm kind of going in depth right here. So bear with me.

I'm going to get to this point right here. So if we use this as a stepping stone and we can agree with the premise that when we provide people with a technology, it causes that normal muscle to aphetry, whether it's language and memory, or whether it's whatever technology we're interested. introducing. Do you think it's possible that what we're seeing right now is like the atrophy that language has imposed on our memory? And that's kind of where we are right now. Maybe these new technologies are going to do the same thing. I know it's kind of a wide margin right there, but what do you think about that? All right. Okay. So I've always, not always, a hat that I've put on recently. Okay.

when it comes to technology and building and expression is like it's a little out there too but nice i think it works like the if the earth um is obviously very old and we're not right so we become an expression of the earth if you believe that the earth is living and the earth is actually expressing itself in some way um i don't know why it expressed humans or had created humans in any way I know that we went through a crazy evolutionary period. Have you seen the show on Netflix, Chimp Empire? No, I have not seen it, but I will look it up. It is a blast into our amygdala.

It's incredible. There's politics and there's like, it's crazy. Watching these chimps operate either in a hierarchical structure or a tribe or wake and then seeing which ones actually thrive versus are really struggling. Anyway, yeah, so as the Earth expressed us and we have been expressing tools and we've been expressing things since we've started developing that capability to help us survive. Really? Everything's a fitness payoff. Right. Everything helps us survive. So as we, and we keep doing that and we keep operating from

that place of survival. Now, I don't, I don't know why like the current technologies are converging the way that they are, but they seem to be, what I do recognize is that they are an expression of us. So if we are an expression of the earth and these technologies are an expression of us, then in some way it's all divine. So there's, there's, there's an ushering. As this stuff comes through us, I think we have a choice to make. Everyone that's a builder or an investor or an entrepreneur or someone, it seems like there's a choice to make on, are we going to allow this stuff to come through us in what form? right so like it has it comes down to intentionality it's like well I can build this and take away people's

memories and take away their freedom and take away their control or I can build this and it can enhance life on earth in some way and it just comes down to a choice it's a simple choice it's like goes back to like the good and evil and the thing that like when you were reading that the thing that popped up in my head because it all it all kind of traces back it's like well what seems to be happening and maybe this is just part of our evolution when it comes to technology. I don't know, but we are losing sight of who we are. We're losing sight of ourselves in a lot of ways. And the reason why, I don't think it's a mistake that something like psychedelics is coming up at the same time for the second time as artificial intelligence, as blockchain technologies, as all these exponential age technologies are occurring.

All of a sudden, here comes this second wave of psychedelics. And it's like, it's like the earth saying, look, you need to upgrade. Stop upgrading your software. Upgrade your software. Right? Get there. Yeah. I'm going to download some new software to our necktop.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, again, the hardware is a couple hundred thousand years old. And it's ever changing and ever evolving. There's an organization I found out there recently that was called Bits and Adams, I think it is. Okay. So Bits and Adams is, I'll give you like, this is not, I am, I am in technology enthusiast. I study the way, like the trends of the world, right? Like I studied the macro economy for, for years and then startup investor, I invested in a ton of projects. So it's always been like, where does my interest meet the most compelling future? So I'm not like a scientist. But I find things to be very interesting and then I start following that rabbit hole. And one of the things, it's always been quantum computing, I think, is absolutely fascinating. Bits and Adams is an organization that through their research is leading them to there being no difference between a bit and an atom.

So the material world that we see versus the digital world really has a place. And you go as deep as deep as you go. If you can go deep enough, there's a place where they come together and become one. It makes sense. sense. I mean, I like to think that the earth grows people the way apple tree grows apples, right? So it's all, you know, it's all, it's all us in a weird sort of way. If you want to dig down, it's all you in some weird sort of way. Yeah. If you go deep enough, it is. It's why it's called inner work. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great point. Yeah. You know, sometimes I wonder too how I've been

zooking out like a lot on Marshall McLuhan lately. Man, this one's called the Gutenberg Galaxy. man, this guy, this guy I think was 50 years ahead of everybody. Ironically enough, he was big in the last wave of psychedelic. So it's interesting that I'm rereading him now and it's becoming so much more relevant in my life. But he talks a lot about, too, the different ways in which technologies affect not only us, but he talks that when a technology is introduced like either from within or from without a culture,

and it gives new stress or ascendancy to one or another of our senses, the ratio among all our senses is altered. And that blows my mind a little bit to think about. Like all of a sudden we've entered this digital age. So not only are we consuming media differently, but it changes the ratio of our senses in which we see the world. Right. Like we're beginning to highlight maybe the way in which you heard things 20 years ago

is different now because you're combined. it with a different type of media and that changes the whole the gears on the whole machine right that's a pretty fascinating concept to think about totally yeah i mean if you like we man the internet the internet in general just sent us on such a trajectory yeah right and it's like well here's a bunch of here's as much information as you could possibly handle at one time right and we thought that was going to be a good idea and i think it is a good idea i think it's a natural part of our our evolution in some way But it's still, it's like over like, okay, let's overwhelm the human mind so much so. Like if you look at like the narrative, it's like we got flooded with information and everyone started believing everything that they read on the internet. Right. And then all of a sudden it became like the internet was creating the narrative. I mean, you, I mean, all the sciop stuff like that all is there, right?

So the internet is now is then starting to create the narrative, the memes, creating the narrative. we're entering the internet meets artificial intelligence where now I'm thinking what's going to happen is the narrative around like the internet inside our heads is going to be like well now I can't believe anything so instead of like going from I believe everything I see and read on the internet and it's like there's an immediate doubt it's like this thing was created by an artificial intelligence so then what's the next iteration of that or where where does our trust start going and I think that's where so we talked in the beginning about creator economy.

Yeah. I think that that is the most important piece of individuals like you who are out there talking in the world. It's like we need people we can trust. And the only way you can know if you can trust someone is if you really download their digital selves into yourself. Like is this person feel right? Is this person like really have the values and beliefs that I think need to exist in the

world for whatever reason, right? I mean, hopefully there's more people that are looking for like a good, good reason. I mean, there's a lot of, I don't know. No, it makes sense. You know, I, that I'm curious to get into that idea. Like when we, when you look, I noticed, too, that when you wrote AI in your bio, use lowercase. Was that like a, was that like a message to say that I think that AI is not as big as we think it is? Yeah, you caught that.

I don't honestly it was like I never I don't know the right way to do it yeah I mean either and to me it feels like a lowercase okay but it's yeah I agree like a lowercase like I don't know why everyone keeps putting it in like uppercase that just didn't make any sense like we we made it yeah like it was an expression of us and it's like it's art right like the artist is the uppercase right art is the lowercase and it sooner you know maybe it'll become conscious one day and we can have that conversation and I'll start uppercasing my A's. I love it, man. Anybody listening to this, you should always go AI lowercase. Like it's junior. Hey, junior, come over here. You know what I mean? But it's fascinating to think about it.

So if we get back into this idea of the creator economy and as someone who has begun to build the lattice around it, I'm curious what you foresee happening. In my mind, it seems like the live format is the one thing that really authenticate you. It's like the stream of consciousness. is its own heightened state of awareness. You're here, you're present. And if we look back to, you know, the Sufi poets,

or we look at psychedelics, or we even look at the people we love in our life, it's that immediate conversation between you and me here and now that really has the juice. Is that something that's going to be incorporated and be purposeful for the creator economy? Yeah, I hope so. I think it's the only way to do it.

And I think, I mean, I find it wild that we don't have presidential campaigns and debates on podcasts. I mean, it's because like you said, it's authenticity. And you're not going to get the authentic version of somebody when they're sitting up on a stage getting asked very specific questions and then waiting for an answer. Like you're going to get the authentic version of them when they're in a dialogue with somebody. And that's the way, it's just the way it needs to happen. So yeah, I think that, I mean, the real big challenge there is that it's still the same problem that there's so much content. And it's like, who do you trust?

And are they going straight to the source? but we'll get there and I think that's you know that's where web 3 can come in and and you know start validating certain things but yeah in the end I do think that authenticity you can is the most important part of the creator economy moving forward and that that's not to say like someone that just picks up a microphone and starts talking doesn't mean that they're an authentic person they're just really good at talking right it's just that doesn't mean that they're really good at talking right it's just that doesn't mean that they're this doesn't mean that they're integral to like when we use like the psychedelic work. It's like, let's sort out the stuff that I'm not in order to get down to the stuff that I am and then let me express that stuff. Right. And then that's where that's where the authenticity really comes in. So what I look for is people that are integral, not just authentic. Because you can be authentic and still be talking from a very hurt part. Right. And it's still authentically your body and you,

but it's not integral. It's not the not hurt part. It's not the magic part. Right? Yeah, it's true. That tends to, I think you can identify that on some level. Maybe that's that attraction that we feel

when we meet a close friend or we find someone that we really want to build a relationship is that you can recognize the thing in them that resides in you. Like you see the mirror there, right? Like, hey, this person's an asshole, just like me. or hey, I know why he's doing that.

Or, man, this person really cares. Or, hey, this person's really been hurt. I know because I've been hurt that way. And that's where you can get that real bond in there, right? And you can, I guess it goes to show that we're communicating, not only through our voice and our facial features, but, you know, Lord knows how much pheromones or what's being exchanged between us when we're sitting next to each other.

Like maybe that's where that integral part comes from, too. I guess. Yeah, what do you think? I think it's part of the gifts. Like someone that's had, and I know this, my wife is a perfect example. She had a rough, a lot of challenging situations growing up that created an automatic response in her

where she can smell bullshit way better than I can. She's just like the queen of smelling bullshit on anybody. And it's not just any bullshit. It's not like someone that's just lying or something like that, but it's more like, are they coming from them? Right? Or is there something else that's that stirring up? And sometimes she can't even identify and she'll bring it up.

Like, babe, like, okay, you got that sense. That's good. Appreciate that. Love that part, right? Because it's part of the gift. I don't know how to recreate. I mean, man, we can use technology to recreate something like that. That'd be really good.

But then again, it's like, well, that's why humans, that's part of the special magic of being human. And I do think that in person, I mean, this, this is fine. Like, this is okay.

I'm getting a pretty good sense of you, but it's not, yeah, in person is just so much better because, yeah, there's energy, that energy connect.

But then you get into quantum stuff and it's like, well, do we really need that, right? Yeah, I think that one of my favorite authors from like the old and olden times,

one of my favorite authors in the world of religious studies is Marseille, and he talks about this idea of, like the felt presence of the other, you know, and sometimes you can really feel it like on a high dose psilocybin trip or in any heightened state of awareness, being next to somebody, you really begin to have a truer understanding of who they are. And I'm hopeful that maybe one day we will be able to feel that felt presence of the other through the internet. Maybe that

comes through, maybe that comes through some of the ideas in gaming we're doing now. Eric, I talked to this gentleman from a, I'm going to butcher the name of this school. I'm so sorry. It's Mastriac University in Amsterdam. And he is studying the effects of DMT and gaming and talking about creating new games where, and the way he describes it is so awesome. Zeus, if you're listening, I love you, buddy. It comes down to this idea of, he says, you may have to take a psychedelic to prepare your brain for the immersive experience. So my question to you is, would you take a psychedelic in order to prepare your brain for an incredible new game. I don't think so.

I don't know if I would be interested in a game that you needed to do psychedelics in order to experience. I would rather take it the other direction. It's like a game that prepares you for a psychedelic experience or something like that. But, I mean, that's fascinating. I was just at Maps last week. Oh, nice.

You went to Denver. Yeah, I was in Denver. And there's projects that we were introduced to that are there that people are creating. And you probably already know. I'm like VR experiences that really get you into an altered state. And it's incredible. I haven't tried it. But I love that people are working through that and working on that to help guide people to those states.

And there's a lot of amazing technology out there. Gaming, though. Man. So are they saying that? the game itself, like as you play the game or as you experience the game, it helps you release DMT? Well, he couldn't get in, he couldn't, he's got

like a bunch of NDAs and so he couldn't really get into it too much. Oh, okay. And at first I had that same reaction like, wait a minute, man, well, you're going to take me into Brave New World? What's wrong with you? I'm not going there. You know, but then I started thinking like, well, shoot, I take some, I take like a light dose to go to a museum. I'll go to a concert and take one. Yeah.

I mean, if I had some sick, and he was using like that new HTC set, which according to him was better than, Apple. I've tried neither, but, you know, he said that, you know, it's similar in that, I'm paraphrasing here. In my belief, what I got out of the conversation was something along the lines of, if you have the headset on and you have like a heightened sense of awareness, all of a sudden, you can start seeing stuff from the corner of your eyes that maybe you wouldn't see if you were in a normal state of consciousness. You know, sometimes, you know, maybe your pupils are dilated and so more light can come in. And that's going to allow you to,

you know, see a different dimension in the game or something like that, you know, it's, and so I was like, whoa, okay, I get it. You know, when you look at it taking a substance, not only for gaming, but for any sort of immersive experience, I could see, like, I would, I would definitely try it. I think that there's something to be said about being in a heightened state of awareness and playing a game. I don't know how true to reality it would be, but I think it would be fascinating, but it seems dangerous because what if it's really, really, really fun. And how old will the kids have to be to take this drug? Is it safe? I mean, there's so many roadblocks in there, but it's still pretty fascinating to think about.

Yeah, I haven't thought about that. I mean, I guess we're already taking these, taking substances and watching TV or playing a regular game. Totally, man. Not that. Well, so in my, so in my gaming days, one of the things that I found the most interesting was the psychology behind it. It's not like regular software, right? And anyone that's been involved with a software company or a SaaS company, it's like they're, it's very, um, it's usually very business oriented. It's like you know, B2B or B2C and you're building something that solves some problem

for some business or for some person. In gaming, it's art, right? So like, uh, I've been to SaaS conferences and, and it's very like, very businessy. Everyone's got a title and like, uh, but you go to GDC, the game developers conference. and they are like they're they're beautiful starving artists like indie game developers trying to create they're just trying to create art through gaming and the coolest part of it is the psychology that goes into it because like you can't just thrust someone into a game it's about how do you guide them in order to make sure that they understand the little components of it and then it's like a constant

guiding so what does that sound like right using gaming like in a psychedelic experience or a psychedelic journey if you don't have a proper guide that takes you on that journey in order to make sure that the experience is it's most effective that gaming the gaming in general HR or VR um AR I can see enhancing that guiding journey like how do you get there like it's even like I've always I believe since through my research and psychedelics and stuff that um it is a journey that starts way before. It's almost like that you choose to do a journey, a psychedelic journey,

and then your journey begins, right? It could be six months away, but then right there is where it begins. And then obviously you do it, and then you have to, the next journey is the integration process. And I think gaming could be used very effectively in that process. But I don't know.

You know, it's like, even with these substances, they're altered states. Our phones are altered states. TV altered states. Everything's, you know, and it comes,

for me, it always comes back to you doing it for entertainment and avoiding. Right. Right. Or are you doing it for, whether spiritual growth, personal growth,

personal development, some sort of creative outlet. Yeah. Yeah, when I think of gaming, like I love the idea that you brought up about a guide because even the games I played. Like,

I grew up on like, my, my, I have the Atari. I'm dating myself. First Atari, then I had Nintendo, then the Sega Genesis, you know, and I kind of tapped out at the PS1 right there. But, you know, in all those games was like the hero's journey. You know what I mean by that? Like, it's just the, it's the evolution of the great storytellers and a different medium to tell the story.

And, you know, it's interesting because when I was talking to Zeus, we were talking about game design and the way in which the best way to get in someone's head and keep them there is through these old frameworks of mythological structures. Zeus was brought up in the world of voodoo, man. And so I was like, okay, so is there mythology in voodoo? And he started telling me about conjuring. And there's an entity there that has to have a top hat and a feather and like a glass of wine, you know?

And so as he's telling me all this, like, I'm like, oh, crap, I don't know anything about conjuring. that might also be an incredible way to build a video game framework on is all of a sudden, you know, and it kind of coincides with the world of psychedelics and some native, you know, some native different ideas of spirituality where you bring the being inside of you. You know, you could almost see like you put on a set of goggles and then, all these things pop on to you and, you know, you become conjured into this game. And that would help on the whole psychedelic range.

But yeah, man, I really love the idea of behavior and frameworks and the hero's journey. And in some ways, it seems like that's what we're all on, right? Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I mean, it's interesting because, like, I've been thinking a lot in my journey.

Like, I've done the gaming thing. Right. And not as a gamer. I've actually never been a gamer, but I built mobile games. Right. in a company. But the, I do,

you know, the conjurer, I was told one time that there's no such thing as a new idea. Right. Right. They're all like,

they're all just repurposed. Right. We're all just keep going. So all these things that are coming through us have all happened just in a different flavor. Yeah.

Right. So when it comes to, yeah, when it comes to gaming and, uh, and psychedelics, and how those things come together. Hero's Journey sounds pretty fun.

One of the projects that I'm working on right now, and this is like behind the scenes, like we're not public about it. Okay. Not yet anyway. I'm not really public about much yet, but this fall we'll be talking about this stuff a little bit more, but it's called the Human Promise Initiative.

And the idea is to use, we've been working on this for about a year now, and I've been studying a lot of these, these technologies, including gaming and thinking about them, on how, including psychedelics, right? I do consider psychedelics to be like a raw material. And the technology portion of it is what comes through us. Right.

So that could be gaming. It could be like, so it's like set, setting, all that stuff that we know about. But then also it's the other tools that we're using and how they're put together in such a way. And the framework, right? The mental framework behind an actual, the set and setting. That to me feels more like technology because it's an expression of us. So what we've been studying and creating is we're going to do a summit in 2024 where we're bringing together all the technologies, artificial intelligence, Web 3, psychedelics,

trying to discover how they can be interchangeably used and converged in order to do what feels like to us and through some of our teachers to be the highest good, the highest purpose for humanity and the earth. And that means basically it's sorting out your shit. It's like, how can all this stuff be used to sort yourself out and be more of the, like we talked about before, not the authentic version of you, but the integral version of you. and that which leads to more people in the creator economy and web three like all that stuff comes together but um yeah the project itself is called the human promise initiative and if anyone's interested in technology web three artificial intelligence even gaming and see psychedelics as a tool to be used

for a purpose um and maybe not quite sure what that purpose is like this is the place where we're going to discover that and it's like a mastermind type of thing but um yeah it's coming out next we'll be figuring out next year i have a a link tree on my on my socials and if anyone's interested just follow my socials like on twitter i'm going to be i'm not on twitter very often i'm not on social media very often i am going to start in the fall when these projects start launching but um yeah there's there's some really fun stuff going on in the psychedelic world and technology and we're going to be on the forefront of it for sure no doubt i don't know yeah i don't know about like what's going to come out of it as far as like gaming and all that but i do know that it's important that these substances are used for for that purpose yeah i think if you already had an idea of what's coming out of it you would be just loading yourself up with limiting beliefs right because you can't really know but on some level it's sounds to me like, it sounds to me like the human, human promise project. Did I say that right?

The human promise initiative. Human promise initiative. It sounds a lot like spirituality to me. It sounds like you have like the triton of Poseidon with like gaming and psychedelics. Like you have this three prong thesis that kind of dances around or maybe gives credence to or breathes life into a new sort of spirituality. I know that word is charged pretty much, but what's your take on the relationship between those in spirituality. Well, who knows? Right?

What's the word? Agrigur. Agragor. Right? You got to unpack that for me. I have like a cloud of what that could be, but I don't really know. Well, the basics of it is that we create collective. It's collective consciousness targeted towards a particular thing.

Okay. Right? It's just, it's made up. which is like you know matthew mcana hay style fagasy fagasy fairy dust right so spirituality it's like uh that's funny um i mean there's 4 000 something like 4 000 religions right so in a lot of ways yes it's spiritual but like what isn't right the way that we choose to go about our day is spiritual the way that we choose to get a job and like the reasoning behind going to get a job is spiritual if you allow it today. So yes, it is like fairly, you can call it spiritual, but it's,

it's like to me, Egregor, right? It's no different than a bunch of people getting together with a similar belief trying to build something towards something, right? Like, I'm a part of the, we talked about in the beginning of Abundance 360, Peter Diamandis's leadership program and Singularity University. And they teach something called a massively transformative purpose and how to come up with your massively transformative purpose. And this is for entrepreneurs and business leaders. Like, okay, well, if you can come up with this massively, wildly transformative thing that you're here on earth for, and it has to feel like it has to have energy drawn into

it. It needs to feel real for you. And it's hard to come up with for people. I mean, it's hard for me. And then once you have that, you start building and guiding your life towards it. And it gives you purpose, right? If that's and if you have a company, a couple of things happen. One is you have someone talking about the purpose of the company.

And when they're public about it, more people will funnel in and be like, hmm, okay, that interests me because you're, you're hitting on something that's like a curiosity button to people. And then an audience starts forming. And then from there, um, a community starts forming like psychedelics has done this on its own. Like you see like communities forming around. the substance, right? Which to me, it's like the sacred calf, like the golden calf,

like I think it's going to be a little bit careful around building communities around a substance. Like what's what is the spirituality here? Like are you really like what are you here to worship? You know, we've been told this story before. Ideas aren't aren't new, right? Right. They've happened before. So yeah, so I think there's got to be careful with the golden calf thing. But yeah, so massively transformative purpose. Someone expresses it. An audience starts forming. You see this. Creator economy. Audience starts forming from that audience. A community starts building. From that audience, there's very skilled people, people that are not just skilled in what they're doing, but super interested in your mission. So then you have staff on demand. There, include

Web 3, right? That's how a lot of like the Web 3 stuff kicks in. Staff on demand, meaning you have pool of humans that have some skill that could be used to insert into your mission in such a way that that makes sense. Peter DeAmandis teaches having a moonshot, right? You have a purpose and the moonshot is something that's fairly achievable, almost achievable. It's like this thing's wild and out of control, but here's metrics behind it and it can actually be done. So then you convince people like, yeah, this thing can really be done and more people can start following it.

More people start following it. Then you get skilled people on it. And then, um, you know, that's the way Peter Diamantis teaches it. And then you build the community. Now there's a challenge there because

if anyone's been through like the startup world, there's like a sort of incubator or accelerator program. Like what they teach is, um, survival. But not even the survival that keeps like a company or initiative or a project alive.

It's like the survival. that gets them to the next level where they can go get some more money from somebody. And that gets them to the next level again where they can go get some money for somebody. So this all thing converges at like a new like bootstrapping type of world where the survival activities are really just cash flows feeding a community. And then and then building that community. So that's the way I see. That's the way I see some of these hopefully some of these like if you're talking about gaming or these convergence of technology. with psychedelics and these psychedelic communities that are already existing pin a purpose up on the wall

bound together with skillful people and go achieve something right because then you're right because then it becomes spiritual it becomes like another church like i i have no interest in building a church right that we've been there done that i think that um we don't need to get into religion but like I don't know. I don't know if it really worked the way that we've been doing it. So, yeah, I'll stop there. It's beautiful, man. I like the way in which it's described.

And that brings me to another question about Web 3. It seems like those two modalities you described are almost, it seems like they're working together now. But is Web 3 going to be something that takes out the old model of the survival and asking for money model. Like it seems like that kind of is antiquated to me. When I start looking at the way in which people are coming together, when you start talking about staff on demand or, you know, just you and I talking

or, you know, someone meeting someone and then, hey, you can do this, I can do that, you know. But it seems like that is kind of growing together the same way mushrooms grow together. Like it's just these connections coming together and then the fruit pops up, right? That's it. Yeah. Well, and it's going to be. be a hybrid, right? Like, you can't get rid of institutions. Right. I hope that a lot of these technologies can be used for as for anti-inflammatory purposes. Web 3, I think, is like the ultra anti-inflammatory drug. You insert Web 3 into,

I mean, it's, you take the word big and put it in front of anything, big pharma, big tech, big finance, big whatever, big government. And you can identify the inflammation that exists. in the world. And once you find the inflammation, you can be like, okay, well, we got a bunch of cool technology, artificial intelligence, Web 3, you can start plugging it into that and hopefully be that anti-inflammatory drug. Web 3, I think, is, or blockchain technology, I think is the ultimate for something like that, especially in finance.

Yeah. But, I mean, all right, psychedelics, big pharma. How inflammatory is that? They keep you on the treadmill of pills and stuff. But once we really dig into healing, right? So I think that we are, I'm hope. I think that if we guide these things in the right direction into an anti-inflammatory direction. Yeah.

And we have, we are on the cusp of having a really cool world. And I think we can do it. It's just a matter of a lot of people. And, you know, back to spirituality. I mean, yeah, if you want to make a purpose, a spiritual endeavor, then I think, yeah. Yeah, you should. Right, because we should make meaning of our lives in some sense, some way. At least I'd like to.

Yeah. Yeah, it reminds me of the saying that in life, you can't control what happens to you, but you and you alone get to control the meaning of that event. That's helped me through some pretty deep tragedies. And I know some other people that have used that too. And once you begin using that sort of framework in your life, all of a sudden you realize that you can see the world with fresh eyes. because you realize this thing that happened to you,

you thought was a huge tragedy. Holy shit, it's the greatest gift you've ever been given. And you've just figured out that it's a tool. You've just figured out that this thing that hurts you so bad has actually given you the strength to go through anything because nothing can hurt you as bad as that thing did. So now you have like this power behind you, you know? And when we start talking about meaning and purpose,

I think those are beautiful ways in which to begin looking at yourself through the mirror. And then once you do that, you can start seeing other people's purpose or allowing you to help them with their meaning. And then that helps everything grow in a way. And when I think about, I love the idea of the big and inflammatory. When I see psychedelics in big pharma, I see a Trojan horse. You know, when you see the idea of psychedelics weaving their way through the bloodstream of pharmaceutical industries, what you see it is is going in there and rooting out all like the negative stuff.

There's a lot, like for so long doctors in our world, they no longer took the medicine that they were giving to people. people. Like no doctor is going to take a bunch of subbox and then give it to somebody who's a heroin addict, right? But if you're going to take ayahuasca or if you're going to take some mushrooms, the chances that you take them by yourself are probably not as good as taking him with a friend for the first time. You know, and a friend is kind of like a doctor. But I think that that sort of idea is permeating the inflammation of the pharmaceutical industry. A lot of doctors now are like, yeah, I should probably try this before I do it. I'm like, that that only goes so far before it becomes systemic, you know. But I've never heard the idea before, man. You're really good at pointing that kind of stuff out. It's probably why you're so successful, man. Yeah. And like I said, I was just that map. So the whole doctor, it was wild how medical the, I felt.

Yeah, it was like, there was tons of good spiritual stuff. There's tons of personal development. But the people I talked to were very medical. Like, they're very, they're interested in the medical application of it. And like, I do believe that psychedelics is best done in a community setting. And I do think that they are working their way. Man, it pains me to think about how the institutional players are just, and I watch it.

I'm seeing it happen in real life. I went to an investor meetup at Maps, VCs and everything, but like they are coming at it with the same hat that they've always had on it, which is I have to take ROI back to my investors. Right. And they're and they're only looking at the ROI is cash. And like not only that, but like there's and this is everywhere. It's across media and everything. Like there's a big focus in anxiety, depression. And these things are like, of course, please, like let's try and figure out how we can use these substances.

and solve those problems, but those problems were also symptoms of something much bigger. Right? Like there's like depression, anxiety. That's a symptom. And right now we're focused entirely on profiting off of that symptom. In my perspective of maps and the industry, and so far as it's going,

and I hope it doesn't keep going in that direction, but it doesn't feel good to me. It feels more like let's try and point in another direction, and say, well, let's use these for this because this thing right here solves all these other problems. And unfortunately, the leaders of Big Pharma, they're not going to see it. They're not going to see it because they don't care. Right. They don't care.

They care about what they're taught to care about. So I think that we need new models, right? We need to take on these inflammatory industries through some other. model, some other way of building a similar company or a similar institution. Like, if you think about an entity, like, what we're doing is we're building entities. Like, we've built these inflammatory as a community. I'm not saying, like, I never come from the standpoint of pointing my finger and blaming an institution, whether a government institution or whatever it is.

Like, we collectively had thought these up, built them for a purpose. Like, we needed them. Let's honor our past. However, let's use innovation and recognize where we've, where we've done. it wrong and let's innovate our way to creating a new one and we got the tools sitting right in front of us to do that. I don't know the right way to put them together yet.

I think I love being a part of doing it. But if we can create through a similar structure that we were talking about before like Peter DeMannis and the community stuff, but if we can create more decentralized

versions in some way without sounding like utopian and like it can be done in a hybrid model where you have people that believe in in what you're doing and building the pharmaceutical company the way it's supposed to supporting each other where like doctors are willing to take the medicine because I don't you know how many doctors out there prescribing medicine they're not willing to take themselves like it's it's garbage yeah and then the other piece of that I would say then this is kind of like a word of caution to um psychedelic communities almost

through my research and experience so far talking to doctors and people that have been working with these medicines for 50 years it's obvious to me that it's not a panacea right you're not going to psychedelics aren't going to solve everything

and we've heard that before but at the same sense like if I'm not going to if I broke my leg I'm not going to go to a doctor and go get penicillin right it's like it's the same concept I believe in psychedelics. This is why we have like shamans or practitioners, psychologists, people that have been studying the brains.

People have studied in a lot. This is, it's important that they do that work so we better understand, um, not just on a spiritual level. I do think we need the whole, you need the whole body, right? You need the spiritual body and everything. But, um, I see a lot of people throwing heroes dose at like, like, you know, some very specific depression or anxiety or fear and sure it might do relief like some relief might come out of it like the pressure cooker kind of like okay let me just get a little relief but it kicks back into

gear and sometimes it kicks back into gear a lot stronger than before and it's because like it's people need we need more elders like we need more people out there that are studying the neuroscience and the chemistry and everything that's going on in the mind but then also teamed up with the elders of the community that are like yeah they've been experiencing in and added interdimensional like you name it like worlds for a long time and like deep inside the human psyche and deep inside like the quantum world inside a human being and understanding like the molecular how it all connects if we had that and some more stories around like it's more science that's more specific towards like towards a specific disease or an ailment of mental ailment or whatever

it is, I think we can target using psychedelics those things much more clearly rather than giving penicillin to a broken leg. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. It brings me back to this idea. I'm going to try to tie the ideas of psychedelics that you just spoke about to quantum computing. We don't really have the tools to measure what the fuck is going on. And that's a huge problem.

You know what I mean? Like we can measure things with science, but we don't have. the language to explain the actual observation. There's a lot of subjective things that happen. And when I use language as a tool, you may see that tool as something else. You may not understand the way I'm using that tool. I may not be explaining that tool the right way. But I think that we can't allow the subjectivity to not be measured. We just don't have the tool to do it yet. We don't really know what's happening, but we believe it's working. Maybe that's enough. I mean, maybe placebo tied with psychedelics equals a panacea.

Wow. You know what I mean? Like it's in the quantum. Yeah. You're right. But we have to get there, right? Humans have to get there. Right, right.

Right. And it's a dangerous thing, man. I was in a, uh, because like, you can, you can have a, a belief, but if it's not rooted. Right. In like, authentically you, like I can have a belief and then manifest, you know, whatever it is, but it's rooted in grief and pain and greed, right? And then I'm still finding myself in like a cesspool of stuff. Sure.

Right. Like small business owners find themselves there all the time. Like they create this thing and they literally, they created it. They manifested it. But it's coming from a place of scarcity and greed. And then they find themselves in a decade of depression because of the place that it all came from. And I think that that. Yeah.

I never thought about it like that. Wow. You're talking about cultural, like trying to guide a cultural belief towards something. I think, yeah, we can get there someday. But, I mean, we got a lot of baggage. We do. Like as people. I don't know.

Yeah. What do you, Eric, like so as someone who's in the investor community and understand startups, you know, it seems to me that cannabis went the way of, a lot of companies, let me just say like this. It seems that in the world of psychedelics, a lot of the startups are failing. Is that because they're rooted in trying

to get ROI the old-fashioned way? It just seems like there's a pattern. You take a psychedelic company, it fails. Take a second-a-company, it fails, right? What do you attribute that to? I think you nailed it. I think, I mean, startups are wild.

Like, they, that's what they do. They fail. I mean, the founders tie their identity to them. And then when they're not doing so, like the first time they're not doing so well, your identity goes down with the company, right? And that becomes depression. Like, that's like the burnout stage of an entrepreneur. And if you are, this is why the, like having a why have a really strong purpose is,

is important because you get through those, those downspots. If you're doing it just for money, then you're, you're going to get depressed. Like you're, it's, it's not going to be that fun. Now, psychedelics. Yeah, I've, well, one. it's illegal. That makes it hard. There's that.

There's that. Yeah. But I guess we will see more and more coming out. And I've seen them. Like we're, I was sitting just at maps. I was pitched. Some guy had microdosing,

like a little packaged microdosing things. And he did a really cool way of putting it together. It's like a little loziger. And it was a each little one was, I think a quarter of a great. of psilocybin in there. And he packaged it really nice. And who knows?

Like maybe when it's legal and he can start selling it, then he'll do well. But first we need legislation. And I don't, I am on the fence on, like, there's the school of thought where, you know, how do you put legislation and how do you make it illegal to have a plant?

Right? That's absurd, right? The cannabis thing, like, I don't understand how you can do that. It is absurd. It's ridiculous. However, we are who we are as humans. And we've done this thing, which was create a giant law that banned something.

Right. It is just unlikely. And as much as I believe that it shouldn't be illegal, it is unlikely that it is unlikely that it'll go. Like they're just going to wake up one day and federally make it legal. I don't think it's going to go through a big process. And in the meantime, these, man, this stuff is magic. Like, it originally was held very sacred

by indigenous cultures, by shamans, by people that had some serious, serious, sacred reciprocrisy. reciprocity reciprocity yeah and they held that sacred they're like yeah this is the stuff

like this is how I can speak to God this is how I can speak to my soul this is how I can really navigate the world and they become priests they become you know whatever that's kind of the way I mean from my education so far in the field

like every religion at some point if you trail it all the way back someone's using psychedelics it's like yeah stealing fire i always come back to stealing fire uh steedacotler right it's uh yeah prometheus yeah it's like man do as a society we rebound together and we create these rules and these laws and these things in order to to progress right let's say it that way now there's a school of thought of like

let's do it for control and obviously we know that's not good but let's but if we bound together and we do this as like a group it's like well you know maybe that guy over the there who's already connected to in some way to the earth and the heavens naturally like that guy maybe we let him do the journeys and come back and bring us like the fruits like it does seem like it makes sense rather than just going out there like all right now everyone like the Vikings right right the Vikings like all right everyone do a bunch of mushrooms after you go out and kill everyone of course that works because you you have to you cleanse all that murder yeah you can go it again.

Yeah. And rape and pillage, right? It's like, I don't know. So that's where I'm like, I'm on the fence. I'm like, well,

should everybody be doing psychedelics? Like, no, I don't know. Like, can we keep it? I don't want to, like,

we don't need the Vikings again. And I'm part, like, my, my, and I'm like Viking. I have Viking blood, right?

Right. Right. Like, and I'm just saying, like, come on. I don't know. Yeah,

it's, it's fascinating to think about it. I know we're getting close on time, but I have one more question. And then I've been, I'm big on semantics. I love language. And sometimes I see the language. If you take a high enough dose of mushrooms or anything, you can actually see your language, right? So I try to look at my language.

And I'm really upset about the word retreat. Like, I don't think that people should be going and retreating from your problems. So I'm thinking about we should make a move to have psychedelic confrontation center. What do you think? I'm glad you brought this up because I recently inspired a group to start calling them summits. Nice. Very well done. Yes.

And I totally agree. And that's one of the things. It's like I've been in psychedelic circles and communities where it is very retreat-esque. You go there, you do some yoga, you meditate. And then I've been to the ones that really wake you the fuck up. The ones that really like poke at those. those non-integral pieces of yourself in order so you can show up in the world with more integrity and authenticity. And those are hard. They will beat the shadow. And if you have a proper teacher,

he's not going to coddle you. Right. Like a good teacher isn't going to coddle you. He's not going to make it all comfy cozy. He's going to say, go deep and go hard. Yeah. You see the dragon, go into its mouth. Yeah. You taste. Yeah. You taste. Yeah. Totally. I love it. That's true. Yeah. Man. Eric, this is awesome.

I know you got, I know you're on a time restricted right here. Where can people, your friend Aubrey over here is bust, is, he's, he's busting your balls. He says,

Eric, do you have any regrets? Do I have any regrets? Yeah. I do. I have, I have regrets, but I don't,

I have an insane amount of gratitude for the history of my life. There you go. But there are certain things. where I was like, fuck, Eric, you probably didn't have to take it that far. Like, good thing you did that. And like, you did that journey. What a great journey. You just went on. But like, ooh, like you, every bit of your body, every bit of your soul was telling you not to do that thing. And you didn't listen to it. So I do regret the times I don't listen to myself, my true self.

And do you think gratitude is sort of the elixir of an antidote for regret? An antidote for regret. I think it will help sort through true regret versus false regret. Waters it down a little bit. Yeah. Kind of makes it pass through the system. Yeah. And it's just an essential for looking at the history of your life.

Yeah. Absolutely essential. Yeah. That's well said. I'm thankful for that. And I'm thankful for your time. And this has been really fun. I really enjoy getting to learn and talk to people who are powerful.

passionate about amplifying good ideas and trying to throw some light under the world and have a creative soul that helps build frameworks for other people to stand under. And so, Eric, before I let you go, though, man, what do you got coming up? Where can people find you? And what are you excited about? Yeah. So I would just follow my socials, Eric Corbeck on Instagram and Twitter. Like Instagram, man, I took a hiatus from for quite a while, just in my research

hole and investor and just doing that stuff for a while. But I, this, this fall, I'll be far more active on Twitter and Instagram based on, because we have a couple of projects that are launching. And then I'll be kind of spearheading a little bit. So I'm in the creator economy, artificial intelligence, web three. And then the human promise initiative is more of the psychedelic version, the stuff that I'm working on. And those are summits. And you can follow my socials. I'll post those.

I think there's a link tree in my socials that you can actually go to the one of my teachers. His name is Carlos Warder. Carlos is an absolute genius in the psychedelic space. And it is not the type of summits or retreats that you're going to do a bunch of yoga. You go there to figure your shit out. But a lot of the future ones will be more geared towards like there's an internal history for us to clear up. Right. And then what?

then we need to drive that energy towards something. So a lot of the future summits are more of like the full picture. Forward. Yeah. I like it. I like it. I think it would be unfair to, not to mention that you and your wife have a family own podcast where you guys go and do a lot of other stuff too, right?

People can probably check that out. Yes, please. Yeah. Chatting with Candice. Right. She is the host. I'm more of like a back behind the scenes producer. type stuff her and i were thinking about potentially doing some some more stuff together this fall

too right now so we have uh almost a one year old and a three year old so our lives have been yeah so our lives have been very just like kind of focused yeah we're starting to like anyone with kids understands it's like okay he's still got a few years starting to like poke their head out into the world what's happening in here it's it's it's yeah it's why we're here and uh so i'm super stoked, man. Thank you very much for today. Is there anything else that you want to the shout out before we go? No, no, that's it. And yeah, you can follow my wife, Candace Horvac. The last name spelled H-O-R-B-A-C-Z. My first name is E-R-I-K, not C. And yeah, chatting with Candace. You can follow me and her, Candice Horbeck, Eric Horbeck. Fantastic. Well, hang on

one second. I'm going to talk to you for one more quick second, but I'm going to hang up with all the audience. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to put the links and all the show notes. If you're curious about Web 3, if you're curious about gaming, or if you're curious about anything that we said in this particular conversation today, check out Eric, check out the podcast. And that's all we got for today. Aloha.