TrueLife - Kevin Holt - Through The Eyes of a Swiss National

Episode Date: April 10, 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/In this episode we get some insight into the world through the eyes of a Swiss National. Culture, Politics, & Relationships, from a different perspective. www.kevinholt.mehttp://linkedin.com/in/real-kevin-holtA candid, real life story about life, love, & loss. I love to read books that allow the reader an honest look inside the life of the other…I always find myself there! I Highly recommend this book. If  you know of, or have been effected by a divorce then this conversation is for you.On top of being an author of several books,Kevin also has a suite of professional services that are available on his website linked above. Ask him about the FREE breath-work course for TrueLife Listeners.Also check out the sponsor of this show Under Lucky Stars. This incredible site allows you to stop time! It provides you with an incredible star map. A perfect way to see how the stars were aligned the moment that special event happened! Use this link to receive 10% off your ENTIRE order!https://www.underluckystars.com/TRUELIFEPODCAST 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 and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. It's Friday night. Got a great show for you today. We are creating a bridge between Hawaii and Switzerland. We got the one and only Kevin Holt coming all the way from Switzerland,

12-hour gap, I think, over there. He's got a new book. He's got other books out. You've seen him before on the podcast. You've seen him on LinkedIn, and you've probably seen him, depending if you've been to Bali or New York or Switzerland. You've probably seen this guy somewhere. Kevin, what?

You're back in Switzerland now, or where are you at? I am back in Switzerland, central Switzerland, German part. Just here, like I was saying, pre-show. It just came back because I was running a little bit tight on money and I decided I needed to work a bit more and like bank some money to fund my do nothing lifestyle. Yeah. I'm exaggerating a bit. But yeah. I actually didn't tell you this. I'm saving up for a commercial diving training. So after I do this, I'm going to go to Norway for four months and learn how to dive, like work underwater basically

and seeing if that's something interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it's, well, it is something interesting. It's like underwater welding or I mean like, like, are you looking for things or what are you doing underwater? I would love to finance private treasure hunting missions. But I think most people, most people go into underwater welding. They work for oil and gas.

And some people do nuclear, which is interesting. I guess nuclear reactors have pools of water and that sometimes something needs to be happened there, which sounds scary, but I think it's actually safer than underwater welding stuff. And there are some people that do scientific diving. Like they work with oceanographers and other underwater archaeologists, I guess. Oh, yeah. Certainly for the ships that got sunk going to Atlantis and stuff like that. So that would be cool. I'm sure it's not paid as well and harder to break into, but that kind of stuff would be cool, too.

I don't really know what I would do with it if I didn't pursue it all the way. It just, I met someone that was kind of in a similar life career situation to me. Ended up doing that and really loved it. And it just kind of appeals to me theoretically as a job because it's very flexible. And you're kind of, you know, you're on for three weeks. You're off for a couple of months. But when you're on, you're paid very well. And it's sort of exploratory.

And it's kind of like being an astronaut underwater. It seems kind of cool. Yeah, I think that there's a pipeline that you could probably fix between Russia and India. Yeah, underwater pipeline repair. It's a crazy job, man. I was talking to this guy about it. He was what's called a saturation diver. Okay.

And I'd never even heard of this before as a job. I couldn't even believe that people do this. So what they do, have you ever died before? You've gone below? Just free dive. Free dive. Well, so you're aware of compression and decompression and the bends and all that, right? Right.

So the problem with deep dives, of course, is, you know, if you go down, let's say, 50 meters or 100 meters. By the time you get down there, you can only stay there like 10 minutes before you've got to start going up because otherwise you get saturated by the gases and get the bends if you go up too fast. So super impractical, too, because you can. can't get anything done in 10 minutes. So they've designed a system where people will stay at pressure for like weeks. So they go, let's say it's an offshore oil rig that needs some kind of work done. They stay on the boat near the oil rig. And at the bottom of the boat, they created this chamber that's pressurized to the depth that they're going to work at.

So let's say it's if it's like 200 meters down, maybe it's nine atmospheres or something or more than that. So they stay at that pressure all the time. And then there's from this chamber where they basically live in and eat in and sleep in, there's a diving bell that takes them down on the work site that's also at that same pressure, the same pressure as the floor where they're working. So they just stay at that pressure. Wow. And there's a whole like complex logistics around it because you have to be very careful doing certain things.

Like even flushing the toilet is a major operation. And then it takes them like a week to deep. decompress. So when they're done with the job, they just stay in the chamber and then they gradually bring the pressure back up the surface until they can safely exit. So it's crazy. That is crazy. Yeah. I don't know if I'll do that, but I just thought it sounded really interesting. I think it sounds super interesting. Just the idea of, you know, you made the comparison when you talk about atmospheres or the final frontier. It does seem like being under the ocean is very similar of being in space, it's alien, right?

Yeah, I mean, you're wearing this complex suit to go to work and with a big helmet that's got tubes coming out of it with air and communications. Yeah. Right. And then you're living in this like kind of spaceshipy environment because it's pretty cramped. You can't really do anything. It's a very austere and disciplined life because you have to be very careful about how you do things.

So it is kind of like being an astronaut, I imagine. Yeah. And I'd imagine you would be able to use. utilize drones down there as well, the same way they use them above ground, right? Like you're probably using some sort of, you know, underwater drone that has a camera on it, that can move stuff around or I don't know. I don't know. I'll find out, I guess. I'm just learning as I go. So yeah, that's where I'm at with career, I guess, because I've sort of given up on the

office life because I'm like, I don't know if that's for me. Trying to find something different, you know, something. And this is completely different. I mean, I've never really worked with my body. in that way before. So that's maybe give me more rounded career experience, let's say. But I don't know. Like I said, I'm going to read the course. It may not be something for me, just an idea that I've got for the moment.

Yeah, I love that. I love, one of the things I love about you is your ability to be flexible and find new ideas and constantly reinvent yourself. You know, I see you build, you have rental property in villas and Bali, and then you're back in Switzerland doing this other thing, and then you're back in Switzerland, to New York, hanging with the fam for a little bit. And next thing you know, you're taking this diving course in Scandinavia and just, I really admire the way in which you take a giant bite out of life and explore like that.

Is that something that you've always been that way? Or do you think people are born that way? Or is it something that is kind of contagious. The more you do it, the more you want to do it. Yeah, that's something I don't know, man. I really don't know. I don't know if I'm just an anomaly. or if this is some kind of a natural, I don't know,

I've always kind of been like that. I've always been a bit of a wanderer, and I think I have some degree of ADHD or something where I get, I don't like being bored, right? So I get bored of stuff. I get bored of the same location. I get bored of the same job. Strangely, I don't get bored of the same woman.

I can be with the same woman for a long time, as long as they're entertaining. But like jobs and environments, I don't know. I guess I'm a learner type. If you ever done the, what do they call it, the Gallup Strengths Finders survey, which if you've never done it, definitely recommend it. Okay. There's I think 20 or 30 or 40 different strengths that we all, a total catalog of strengths, and we all have some more of some and less of another. And you do the test and it gives you

your top five. And once I learned this about myself, it made things a lot clear because I scored learner as my number one. And that explained me why I crave change and I get bored because what happens to me is I'll do something new and I'll get really excited about it. And then like two or three years in, it just goes away. And I didn't really understand that for a long time. And the learner thing made sense to me because although you don't necessarily gain expert level knowledge in that amount of time. I get to the point where like, I kind of know what's going on. I'm more or less figured it out. I'm comfortable doing this now. All right, what's the next thing? I'm not really learning too much anymore. So then I'll stop and I'll do something else.

So that has a lot of disadvantages to it, but I think variety is one of the advantages. And one of the things I realize as well is that it makes me feel like I'm dumber than I really am because I'm in this almost like perpetual novice state, right? And I never reached that level of like, yeah, I'm the master because I've been doing this, you know, honing my skill at this for 20 years because I'll switch and I'll do something else. So yeah, that's, I guess that's kind of one of the disadvantages to doing it that way. Yeah, it's an interesting way to look at it. You know, and I think it takes a lot of courage to do, you know, so here here's sort of a paradox.

And let me know what you think. Some people say that it takes a lot of courage to go out and strike out on your own and become your own boss or the master of your own destiny. And some people say that that's risky. But then the people that do that say, well, I think being risky is working somewhere for 20 years or 30 years because you're depending on this other entity to make your life a little bit better, even though they may promise a retirement or, you know, they're promising you these benefits in the future. think one of those modalities is more risky than the other? I don't think of one's more risky necessarily. If you do the quote unquote safe way and you're smart with money, that is probably much safer. Most people, however, aren't smart with money and they live as if they're just going to have that job or that scenario forever and they maybe spend what they take in or they spend more than they take in.

And that's risky, right? When you've created a dependency and you don't have the financial stability to be free of that, then you're in risky scenario. And I mean, we're seeing also the whole the whole system really being put into question because a lot of these systems were designed post-World War II during the baby boomer generation where we had a lot more people working than retired. So they came up with the social security and the pension system. But how is that going to work out in the next 30, 40 years? Is that going to be there? Is the money you've paid into it just going to be gone or what. So I guess there's risk on that end. So yeah, I think they're both inherently

risky, to be honest. I don't think there is really a truly safe. Maybe that's why I've able to do these things because I look at both and I'm like, well, one's not inherently safer than the other. So I might as well do the one that's more interesting. Yeah. You know, that brings up a question when we start talking about, you know, working in a way that is safe or hiking out on your own or We get into the idea of boomers, or we get into the idea of money and finance. Now, you've done a lot of traveling around the world, and you've spent time in the United States. Now you're in Switzerland. What, and we've just had a pretty big crisis in Switzerland, right?

You had like the bank failure, the UBS thing going on over there. Is that something over here in the West, we hear, oh, they had this giant bank failure. What's it like being over there? Is it like the 2008 crisis here in the United States, or what's it like over there? Nah, people seem pretty chill about it, actually. So I think it's really only the one bank. And it was Credit Suisse that failed, and UBS now took it over. I see.

And the thing is Credit Suisse isn't a bank that you and I would use normally, right? It's not like really for depositors or even mortgages so much. It's more of those kind of like high-flying banks that do derivative. trading and all these sort of high leverage activities. So I don't think your average person has yet been impacted by that too much. I've got money in a bank account here. That's not one of those two. And I was just out of curiosity looking up their balance sheets and stuff.

And they seem okay. Like they don't have as much leverage as some of these bigger banks do because of specific laws in Switzerland. But yeah, I mean, I mean, the entire banking system right now is is in question. Right. We don't know, like, we still don't know how far this contagion is going to go. It's still kind of unfolding. And I think there is real concern as to, you know, where should you keep your money nowadays? Like, what is even safe?

Because in the U.S., for example, for those listening from the U.S., you've got the FDIC, what is it, federal deposit insurance something? Yep, yep. Which is supposed to guarantee up to $250,000. but I think whatever is in that fund is only like a tiny fraction of all deposits in the U.S. So like in theory it ensures it, but in practice, who knows? And then there are certain laws that allow banks to do what's called a bail-in, which is and just take depositor money.

They did it in Cyprus, I think in 2008 where they just made everybody in Cyprus give up like 10 or 15% of their deposits as like this, they just took it. So then, so it raises the question like, Is your money even yours? How do you make your money yours? Where do you put it? Banks aren't necessarily that safe. Even small banks, people are thinking, all right, well, let's leave it in the small banks.

But the small banks are kind of risky too because they don't have those too big to fail guarantees that the bigger banks do. So maybe that's risky. And then people think, oh, I'll store it in crypto, but that's becoming regulatoryly also burdensome in a lot of countries. So, yeah, I think we're in this strange. huge money transition right now. I don't really think anybody knows where it's going to go in the next two years.

Because there are some people that I follow that says this is planned. They're transferring the world to CBDCs. In order to do that first, they've got to tank the old bank and Fiat system first. Maybe that's what's happening right now. Yeah, it's interesting. So you've spent time in Japan. You've spent time in all parts of Europe. You spent time in Bali.

and, you know, your first book, young, successful, and miserable, there was an underlying tone about the way in which we get value from what we do. And I'm wondering as someone who has a background who, after writing your first book and after traveling around a little bit, to each of the countries have like a different idea of what money is? I think they have different ideas of maybe not necessarily what more. money is, but on how it should be managed. Okay. For sure. Because, I mean, Japan is an interesting example because they've, they've been going through what people call the lost two or three decades now since the 90s.

They've had increased debt, but not really any growth. But also, it's hard to say if that's bad or not because, I mean, obviously, too much debt's not good. but if you look at growth and inflation, right? Because somehow they're tied together. In the U.S., you have a lot of growth, but you also had a lot of inflation. In Japan, you had no growth, but also pretty much no inflation. So, and I went there, I did a 20-year gap.

I used to live there in 2005, and I went back like 15 years later. And everything still costs exactly the same amount. So it's like people were still in. making the same amount of money and spending the same amount of money. So yeah, they didn't go anywhere. But if you ask somebody today if their living standard was, how their living standard was compared to 20, 30 years ago, it's roughly the same. I mean, they might have lost a little bit like maybe 5% of the real income.

But it's more or less the same. But then you look at a place like the U.S. where real incomes have gone down quite a bit, like what people earn based on what things have like gone up in price over the last two decades. I think most people would say they had, they felt they had more money, disposable money, 25, 30 years ago than they have today. So I don't know what the answer is. You know, we're always told that we need to grow and we need to inflate and inflation is good.

But is that true for the average person? And then you look at a place like Indonesia and we're talking with banking just now. And I don't know how much people are aware of fractional reserve banking, but it's normal for a bank to only keep, let's say, three to five percent of their deposits actually on hand and then they use the rest and they loan it out and they invest it. Where in Indonesia, I just found out that actually they're required to have over 100 percent in reserve. Wow. So for every 100,000 they get, they can only loan out like 80 or 90,000 of it. They have to keep. Every loan has to be backed by at least the same amount or more in cash.

And I was talking to somebody about this the other day who was in the finance sector. And then they go, yeah, but, you know, in that system, you know, they're not growing, right? And I'm like, no, they're not growing as fast as they would in a system where they're loaning out, you know, 20 times what they have. but they're also not subject to the same level of risk. And how many, this is what the third banking crisis that the, you know, Western countries have had since 2001 was the first one in the last 25 years, 2008 and that was another one. They haven't had any in the last 25 years.

So that's the trade-off. I mean, it's always this trade-off of risk versus reward, which kind of like ties back to what we said earlier. It's like how frugal, how risk-averse you want to be versus how security you want to feel. you know so yeah that i'd say that's the main difference i saw is their attitude towards towards risk and regulation seeing what happened in the past yeah it's i've noticed a few ideas that seem to be permeating at least the world i live in and it seems on social media too and i think it's this idea of money is changing like it's it definite like if you read biographies or you

started listening to some people that have made a ton of money in their lives and then they, you know, they're, they get older in life. You know what they never say? They never say, they never say, I wish I would have worked harder. They never say, I wish I would have spent more time at the office. They never say, I wish I would have gone and, you know, built one more business. But they do say, I wish I would have been a better husband. I wish I would have been a better father. I wish I would have taken another vacation. And so when you look at it from that angle, you can see that money has a discount rate. And then when we stack inflation on top of that, We can see another discount rate.

When I look around and I talk to the younger kids where I work at, you know, I see a lot of them like, you know what, this isn't for me. I don't want to be working slave wages for 14 hours a day. And then at the end, I don't even have enough money to have a family. And it's a weird paradox that I see because I see the older generation, primarily boomers, say, well, these kids are just lazy. And these kids are like, I just don't want to do what you did. That was ridiculous. You got burned. You made almost no more.

money and you funneled all your profits at the top and now you have nothing and you're bitter. So there's this weird kind of thing going on. And I think us as exers are almost like a bridge between this weird sort of relationship. Have you seen it that way? Well, I think it's both, right? I think it's too easy to say that kids are just lazy. Right. I mean, kids are lazy. But it's true that you, you, you, what you earn just isn't covering the costs anymore because of inflation. You can't, like back in the boomer generation, you could do that. You could work those, you could work minimum wage jobs in those hours,

but you would actually put money away like you were able to save money. And the U.S. is, I think UK is another kind of like extreme example where that's becoming very difficult. And it's gotten just more difficult over the last 20, 30 years. It's all due to the way countries have managed their currency and their central bank. And the countries that didn't sell out. to like a very huge central bank are still doing kind of okay like Switzerland didn't join the euro they're still managing euro money they're doing kind of okay Norway as well there's a few examples

like that I forget where I was going with this but um it related to the idea of a money itself like you sort of you sort of brought up the idea of money and it's when you think about it it's it's nothing more than a belief system like anything else right because it's not Most money isn't backed by anything at all other than the trust in the government issuing it. And that trust is at an all-time low in a lot of countries, and they're over-indebted. So I don't know when it's going to happen, but obviously it's not sustainable because every year, these governments just pile on more debt, and that's going to make the money supply go up and things cost more. So, yeah, it's just, I don't know what's going to happen, but it's going to come to a head at some point.

Maybe not in our lifetimes or maybe in two years. I don't know. Yeah, it's a good point. It's interesting to see this talk about money and this talk about value and then to see where technology is kind of taking us. You know, I remember when I was Peter Thiel is famous for saying we were promised flying cars and we got 120 characters. And it seems to me that there, you know, there was all this promise of. of self-driving cars and self-driving trucks and robots on factory floors. But it seems what's kind of happening now is that we have new technology.

Like chat GPT could be coming in and maybe taking jobs from lawyers or judges. It seems like chat GPT may have the ability to cut out the middleman and kind of cut the fat in the middle where we thought it was going to get rid of the worker. It seems to be kind of coming for mid-level or even white collar jobs. What's your take on that? Yeah. I think that's another reason the dive thing appeals to me because I'm looking at AI and the type of jobs I've been doing and I'm going, well, AI could probably do this job eventually, maybe not now, but in a couple of years. And I've read similar articles that discuss what you just said is that we all thought that AI was going to start with self-driving trucks and things like that.

but it looks like it's going to start with the white collar jobs and the stuff like very the very manual jobs that's eventually probably going to be roboticized as well but you need a very advanced humanoid robot that's capable of making those like on the spot environmentally variable decisions which i think is a much more advanced type of AI right right whereas a thing that can just look up um can read all the law the legal precedents and all the the law books in the span of two seconds and write an opinion, right? That's going to happen first. So I think that's a real concern. And I guess that's why Elon Musk and a few others have cause for applause on this. And I believe Italy has banned chat CBT. So we're going to have these

little like pockets of resistance. But I don't think it's inevitable. I think just think the ones that don't resist that are going to outcompete the other ones and it's going to happen anyway. Yeah, I was listening to Martin Screlli. Do you remember that guy that was, he ran like a pharmaceutical company for a while and he Jack. Yeah, he tried to gouge people on the price, right? He did. He did.

Yeah. I was listening to him and he has been working on. So this is all a speculation. I don't know. I heard this in a podcast somewhere. But according to this podcast that I was listening to, someone has dumped the potential AI unit that Facebook is working on on Reddit or something like that. And so you're able to get all the code there. And Schrelli and this team of guys were working on building their own AI machine that didn't have any governors on it. And he was seeing some pretty interesting things. Like, you know, wouldn't it be great if we could get the AI to accelerate it? Like he's he's on the opposite side of the fence where, you know, Gates and Musker, like we should pause it. And he's like, no, we should. We should. accelerate this thing. Like, let's get rid of all these jobs that you don't need. Let's get real

health care. If you had robots or, you know, surgeons that could do surgery, you know, you could cut so much fat out of the health care system. And it was an interesting angle to think about, instead of pausing, accelerating. And it made me think maybe that gets us to the same spot. Like, if you accelerate everything and it does come in and clean out the middle jobs, the high jobs, or even some of the labor jobs, isn't that also going to create opportunity and push us where we want to be? I think it's, I mean, pausing it is really just that. It's just delaying what's going to happen anyway. So maybe that is a point there.

Let's just get it over with, like to speed it up to its inevitable conclusion. Right. Instead of kicking the can down the road like I usually do about everything. Yeah, I guess I don't have an opinion either way. it's like it's going to happen we just accept what comes really i can have no control over it myself yeah um bill i know bill gates wants it to happen like immediately he said something like that yeah it it just seems like stagnation is not the way to go i mean if you try to put the brakes on something especially like this i just don't know how this genie goes back in the bottle

no i don't think it does i think the only thing that is gained by pausing it is maybe trying to work out some of the societal fallback of when it happens. I mean, because they're what, what are we saying? 80, 90% of the people will not be able to be productive anymore. So what do we do with that as a society? Do we need to roll out CBDCs first so that everyone has some kind of universal basic income in their crypto wallet every month? I don't know. I think that's the only benefit to pausing is try to work out those

solutions. But then there's something to be said, Well, it happens anyway. You know, necessity is the mother of all invention. Yeah. And some innovative solutions will come out to solve these anyway. It just might be a bumpier ride. Yeah. I was playing around with this idea that the biggest obstacles we have in the future

is the collapsing of the old models. And when you look at psychology or you look at these models, like even Freud's ideas of like the ego and the id and the super ego, like if you can just look back in history, everything is beginning to, to look a lot like a Copernicus moment. Like, hey, guess that's not right? Hey, guess what that's not right?

Well, if that foundation wasn't right, then everything we built on it is probably either like the leaning tower of Pisa or like it's, it's not going to work. And maybe that's why we are where we are. It's because the models that we had were faulty. All I can say is what an amazing time to be alive. I mean, if you can choose to be born any time where like hundreds of years go by and nothing happens.

and now stuff is happening so quickly or we're on this huge turning point and we just get to watch and see what happens. I mean, you have to be somewhat detached with how your life turns out, but if you're able to detach and just look at it as a play, it's super interesting.

Yeah, I heard a great quote. Yeah, I heard a great quote that says something along the lines of there's decades where nothing happens and then there's days where decades happen. You know, it's like, it's just like it's just the acceleration of it too. And I would like on a positive note to everybody that's listening to this, like there's never been a better time to take a look at your life and decide that what you want to do.

Like, you know. Oh, yeah. Right. There's so much opportunity. Like you and I are talking across, you know, seven different time zones in two different countries and talking about in real time, what's happening where you are and where I am. And just connecting these bridges and making connections. It's such an exciting time.

Yeah, you talked before about the safe versus the risky way. Right. I mean, as you just said, there is no better time. Just go, fuck it. I'm going to try it anyway. Yeah. Because we literally at this point don't know what's going to happen in six months' time. Right?

We've got, we've got, we're on the brink of World War III. We got people like Dr. Fauci and Bill Gates saying the next pandemic can come anytime. We've got the banking system on the verge of collapse. We've got CBDCs and all this communist control. stuff coming through. Like, fuck it. Like, just really at this point, do whatever you want because nothing's guaranteed beyond another couple of years, I think.

Yeah. Maybe this is what freedom looks like. And maybe all these things are distractions on some level to keep people from doing whatever the fuck they want. You know, it's like, you got to stay under the authority. Look, you're going to die. There's a virus. You know, like money's going to collapse.

But like, but in reality, when you pan back a little bit and you do disassociate from this world of control or this world of authority, you can begin to see people like, yeah, I'm not going to do that anymore. Ever since COVID hit, I think a lot of people change their lives because they got to see what they were missing. They got to spend time with family.

They got to stay away from traffic. They didn't go in and put 50 or 60 hours in. And they're like, what am I doing, man? This is so much better to be here with my family. You know, I just downsize. Maybe I'll get rid of a car. And, you know, I just, I work part time. Why not?

Yeah. Well, it was a great resignation that happened. I think a lot of people came to that same conclusion. They just thought, man, you know, scary viruses. I could die at any time. Life is short. Fuck it. And that's not going away. It's only like more so now than a couple years ago. Because yeah, there's just so many things that could go chaotically wrong right now. Yeah. Yeah. I think what is it? Finland's in NATO now and they're going to put Ukraine into NATO. Like they're just doing everything to make this war go on and get bigger. That's what I seems like to me like all the decisions being made are not diffusing anything they're just it's like they're trying to make it bigger so let let's let's check that out for a minute it's like i listen to this journalist named matt errett and uh he's a he is a scholar from the american university in moscow something along the lines of that and he made some interesting parallels saying that what we are seeing in the United States is what we saw in Moscow when the when the wall came down. Like you saw private enterprise and oligarchs run what, you know, public private partnerships.

And all of a sudden these individuals and corporations are just taking stuff over. And if you look at the U.S. and you look at some of these things that are happening, I'll give you an example, Norfolk Southern is this rail line company where there was a huge disaster. And they came in and they pretty much took over East Palestine. They got their own security force. They have their own government in there now. You know, they're doing what I call real estate acquisition and, you know, buying up land for pennies on the dollars. And it does seem a lot like this corporation just came over and almost took over a state.

And that kind of seems like what happened in Moscow. You know, it's interesting. Do you think that maybe what we're seeing is in this war is a, is, is, uh, oligarchs versus nation states? That is definitely one angle you could look at it. I look at it through a different lens of idle military money that needs to do something. So, I mean, Eisenhower warned about it about the military industrial complex after World War II. And that money was very occupied for a long time with the Cold War against Russia.

Right. And then the, you know, the Soviet Empire fell. All that money got funneled into the wars on terror. And for now, it seems like that's kind of over. I mean, there aren't too many huge operations against terror. You know, the U.S. has pulled out of Afghanistan. They're still around doing little operations, but I don't think there's a huge war effort there anymore. So now you've got all this idle money again.

It needs to be spent on something. All right. Well, let's relaunch the course. Cold War then, right? So then this is a great excuse for that to keep happening. And then I like the term oligarchs because we only use that for Russians, right? Yeah, that's so true, man. Yeah. In the West, we just call them billionaires, you know? But they're just at a fundamental level, even with the language, there is a anti-Russian spin on everything. And I'm not pro-Russian. I've never been to Russia.

I have no attachment to Russia. I don't think that it was cool of Putin to invade Ukraine. But for me, I can see what seems to be like a period of buildup of popular opinion to get them ready for a conflict. I don't think that normal people want to go fight and die, right? I don't think you can overnight just make someone. a bad guy and say we have to go fight for our freedoms. I think there's this buildup that happens over a course of time where a lot of stuff has to happen. A lot of news has to be spammed at people over a period of years to kind of like build up animosity. And we've been seeing that over the past

few years and it's just increasing, you know, towards Russia and China or the other way around on their side too. I'm sure they're doing the same thing versus the West. And of course, there's also these other financial things happen in the background where the BRICS countries are becoming more united. I've seen news now of certain countries no longer transacting in U.S. dollars for certain purchases they always did up until now. So there is a shift from what was once a unipolar U.S. dominated world to other countries now saying, hey no we want more say in world events and um that has slowly been happening over a long time but now it's coming to like more of a flashpoint and it's very dangerous because i don't think i don't think the u.s is just going to be like all right yeah you guys can take the reins now we're

we're done doing that like they're going to they're going to try to hold on to what they have and then the other side is going to try to fight what they think is theirs um and it's all kind of becoming a flashpoint under the Ukraine conflict. And they're not doing anything to diffuse that situation. There has been no serious attempts at peace talks. And the few times that that has happened, the U.S. is basically told Ukraine not to do it, like not to talk with Russia. So they're trying to make it make it worse for whatever reason.

That's what it seems like. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, they say that the best predictor of future behavior is past relevant behavior. And if I was a strategist and a neocon in the U.S., I would say, you know what, here's what we do. We get Europe to go to war like they always do. Those guys are always fighting each other. So we just, we get this, you know, we get the ruling families to fight each other. We put them in debt. We crash the euro. We raise rates. We crash the euro. Those guys all go to war. They kill themselves. And then we have a reinvent the United States by supplying them because

their industrial base is gone. That's what happened. That's kind of why we built the middle class in the U.S. is we just destroyed everyone's industrial base and everyone had to buy from us. And if you look at the way in which the United States is beginning to resure things, and you factor on top the propaganda against Russia,

it's similar. You know, we say history doesn't repeat, but it kind of rhymes. And if you look at what's happening, you can kind of see that ionic potameter coming around the poetic nature of the war. Yeah. And there's already been a couple close calls. I mean, there was already, I think, Ukraine launched rockets into Poland by accident, right?

Yeah, accident. I mean, by accident, whatever happened. I mean, and the more that these borders encroach, I mean, okay, Finland now, NATO makes a huge border between NATO and Russia. And I can't believe they're saying Ukraine into NATO because that was like the one thing that Putin said. don't do. Right. That's like this is his red line and they're going to go ahead with it anyway. So they're doing everything in their power to just antagonize them even more and push them into that corner. You don't know what Russia's going to do when they're in a corner. They're already talking about sending tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. Right. I don't know. It's just crazy,

man. They want this war for some reason. And so we just got to take care of ourselves. I think so. I think that the, you know, I heard a great quote too that said when all else fails, they take you to war. What better way to have a scapegoat for the financial collapse? What better way to have a scapegoat for everything? It's like, well, we're at war. You know, it's, and they've already been laying the seeds for the hatred. Like they tried to blame the Nord Stream thing on Russia.

Right. And then increasing gas prices and how everyone is now worse off because of Ukraine. and that's Russia's fault. Like that seeds are already been planted and it just all it takes is people to be like gradually more soft and poorer. Right. And in the meantime they can keep blaming the other.

I mean, now it's Russia. It could be anybody. They keep blaming the other for this problem and then they get more support for people willing to die for them, I guess. Or maybe AI is going to be what wins things. Maybe it's the first country to develop a robot army. Maybe people don't have to fight it. anymore. Maybe it's the AI's fighting. I don't know. Yeah, I think you can make a case that we're at war.

Like in the United States, there's been something crazy like 400 train derailments. And every time, you know, there's a warehouse fire that's, and it's always at a chemical building. And there's all like the Ohio River where the East Palestine crash, that's probably the worst ecological disaster has ever happened in the United States. And you don't even hear hardly anything on the news. You only get information from, you know, you know, you know, smaller sources or independent journalists and, you know, people are really sick. They got rashes. And, you know, the chemicals that were on that train, you know, those same chemicals were used in World War II as chemical warfare. So, you know, you can make the argument that what you're seeing in America right now is a sort of soft terrorism. And it doesn't take too much imagination to, if you're the United States when we went into these other countries, the first thing we do is we destabilize them. We try to jack their currentry.

We fan the flames of division between the groups in there. And that's the exact same thing that's happening in the United States right now. Like our currency is being devalued. There's all this rhetoric about gay versus straight and tranny libraries and, you know, men and women and like this, all this division. And all of these people, regardless of their sexual orientation or their pro. That's all just a distraction. All those people kind of want the same. thing, but they're being divided so that they don't look up and go, hey, it's not us, it's

them. And I know us versus them is probably not a very good strategy, but you know, you could make the argument that we're at war, that we're being divided. Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. Information war for sure happening. Yes.

Yeah. Definitely stuff going on behind the scenes in terms of like maybe cyber attacks or cyber influence. Absolutely. Do you think these, these, uh, calls? Miami's in the U.S. were done by state actors, or what do you think is the background? Yeah, I, I'm just a guy with a mic. So people listen to this, you know, I talk to a lot of people. I do. I don't see how it can't be on some level done. And I did a

podcast a while back where I was talking to a guy. I think that what we're seeing in this war is a fight for supply chains. I think that supply chains and resources are more valuable than any currency. And when you look where Ukraine is, you see a lot of pipelines over there. You see a lot of area for high speed rail. That's kind of the breadbasket of the one world island. For those aren't familiar with the one world island, there was a really intelligent military strategist named Carl von Klauschwitz. And if you can see the map behind me, you can see North America kind of looks like a big island. It's protected on all sides by water except that small peninsula. And the only landmass that's bigger than that is the world's

island. And that's Europe, China, and Russia. So if you can connect the world's island, which the Belt and Road Initiative does, then you're going to have an economy that would dwarf the United States. So some people say the United States is desperately trying to keep the world's island from being connected. And so that factors into the idea of terrorism in the U.S. And, you know, the merger of corporate and state is something that has been growing at a level that is like cancer, no matter what country you're in. And so I could see that in the United States, the railroads could be working with a Chinese company. Or, you know what? The railroad is not protected.

If I was a terrorist and I wanted to take out infrastructure in a country that was threatening my country, you send over a team of sleepers. They can hit railroads all day long and not be noticed. I mean, why wouldn't you attack the United States in that way? You don't attack the big dog face to face. I'm a small guy. I'm not going to fight fair. I'll get smacked around if I fight fair. I'm going to sneak around them and kick them in the balls.

And that's exactly kind of what's happening in the United States. So in my opinion, there's no doubt to me that it's terrorism. Who it is? I don't know if it's a state-based, if it's a insurgents, but it seems to me like there's no way it can't be. Yeah, what I think is suspicious is that if it was a foreign actor, why wouldn't they be reporting the shit out of it? Because they want any reason to point anything on Russia or China.

Right, right. So that's a little bit of a question. Are these false flags maybe? I don't know. Yeah, I mean, there's a whole other, there's a great, book by Paragana called Connectivity. And he speaks a lot. You know, he was, he has been with like the the W.EF and the trans, the Atlantic Council and all of these giant central planners for quite some time. And he's, I highly recommend everybody to read this book. It's a beautiful book. And he

put all these maps in there that show what the world could look like. And he talks a lot about supply chains. And he has a map. And it says the next. United States. And in that book, you see the United States broken up into territories, kind of like how Canada has, like the three territories, but the United States has like five different territories. And in the same map, he shows you these new infrastructure routes that could be built like high speed rail connecting New York to California, connecting Canada to Mexico. And it looks beautiful in a lot of ways. And in his description is you could never, ever do this with the United States the way it is.

There's too much politics involved. There's too much money involved. The United States is too big to grow at a level that is effective and efficient. But if you had something like a devolving of the U.S. into territories that maybe you could have public-private partnerships with the World Health Organization or companies from China could come in. If you could break up the United States, then you could break up the United States, then you could build a better version of a sort of a, you know,

Federated states, maybe not united, but like allied. Right, right. And you have different laws and you could have different monetary systems. And, you know, so when I put that together with the potential for state actors, breaking up, you know, causing problems, having real estate acquisition, buying it for pennies on the dollar, there was another interesting article where Biden came out. talked about, we are going to give like $450 million for grants. We're going to give you free money if you put solar on top of old coal abandoned coal mines.

And what's happening in East Palestine, that has like the biggest area of abandoned coal mines. And isn't it weird that now there's this law for $450 million of free money if you just put some solar panels on there? Like it's real estate acquisition at the highest level. It's industrial espionage. And it's it's all being done in front of you while we're distracting you over here with these other things. So I think, yeah, why wouldn't it be state actors? Yeah, you just touched on something interesting too is like that that, that ebb and flow of consolidation of power into state and then the disintegration over time where that just keeps seeming to happen. And that's like one of the key forces I see is there's definitely groups of people that want even more consolidation of power.

they want a global currency, they want a global government, they want to control everything. And then there's that counterforce that's also splitting things up at the same time. There was a, I forget his name, but there was a Russian guy that I saw on some alternative news, like, it must be like 20 years ago now, who predicted the breakup of the United States. Was it Uri Besman? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe. That sounds familiar. I remember I thought it sounded completely crazy at the time where he was just like, Talking out of his ass, but now it's like you kind of see it happening a little bit. I think there's a breakaway portion of Washington or Oregon that wants to join Idaho.

And I think there's a resolution in the house in Texas putting forward to secede. So there's whispers of that happening. Curious to see how that develops. Yeah. I think that there's not only sparks of it happening. happening, but there's people blowing on those sparks. You know, I mean, the same way we're talking about incredible opportunity, imagine, you know, breaking up the world's largest country and then selling off the parts

for cheap to people. You know what I mean? Like, if you could, if you could be the person that starts the new currency in Texas, or, you know, it's, it's sometimes you break things up in order to rebuild. I remember having Legos and you build something and you're like, oh, this thing sucks. I'm bringing it apart and build something new, you know? And maybe that's the cycles of life.

You know, if you look at all empires, they've all collapsed from inside. Maybe that's where we're at. Yeah, I was just thinking of the example of Yugoslavia, right? Yugoslavia broke up into those seven nations, but now they're kind of reunited under the Eurozone. So maybe that's one thing. Are you saying they're fanning these sparks?

maybe there is going to be some kind of a breakup in the U.S., but then they're going to come in and maybe create an even bigger union of it, maybe all of North America in one rule or something like that. Who knows? Just speculating here. No, it's, and it's, I think it's a, it's probable. You know, in that same book, he's got a map that says, consolidation through secession movements.

you're like, what are you talking about? And he has this map of Europe, and it shows Europe fractured into all these little countries. You know, like in Italy, they have these different secession movements, the same in the United States. And what better way to gain control over the power that is nationalism? You know, if you have, yeah, let's give these guys their little piece. Let's give them their little piece. And then you go from being a country to a series of tribes. And it's much easier to control a small tribe.

than it is a big country. You know, and when you, that's one way of breaking down nationalism, which seems to be the very thing that is keeping, you know, the world government from really sinking in their teeth and centralizing power. So you can, you can consolidate by breaking them up into bite-sized chunks. Yeah. This is a theme I think that we've talked about before is the idea of how do we, How do we have more unity without the conflict?

Because, sorry, how do we have more to freedom without conflict? Because what happens is like, let's say Yugoslavia, right? They break up. And then it's not what happened, but imagine these little tribes, you know, they're fighting with each other again. They're going to war over resources. So there obviously is an advantage to having a unification in that there's perhaps less interstate or interstate conflict,

but then that has a price tag, right? Because the more, the bigger the control mechanism is in the government is, the less freedom you have because you can't, like the bigger the territory is the less chance you have to leave it. And the only way population can really vote against the government is by leaving it, right? Voting with your feet. So, yeah, I don't know. how we're going to strike that balance.

Because obviously, I don't want an oppressive world government. I want the ability to say if the laws are too burdensome or the taxes are too high, that I'm going to go to someplace where I'm treated better. But if you have a huge jurisdiction,

there's nowhere to go. However, you have maybe more peace. I don't know. Yeah, I think you've explained exactly where we are. Like, how do you leave a 15-minute city when you need to get a permit? to leave there, you know, or, you know, you have these cameras on every angle and it's, you know,

you're being told like, oh, no, this is a, this is a great way to be effective and efficient, you know, and you can walk to the store or you can walk to the bus. You know, you can have anything you want for dinner. Do you want orange carrots or purple ones? You just can't go anywhere. Yeah, exactly. You can't go anywhere. So it's, it's a prison, really.

I mean, it's probably in the middle. nicest prison, the nicest prison you could think of, but it's still a prison. Yeah. And depending where you are in the world, I mean, it, it may be an actual wall around your, you know, why not work it, you know, is Fox kind of prison? Because that seems to be kind of a model that people are looking towards. Like, hey, let's just have the people live here. Why not? Yeah, they won't even let him kill themselves. Yeah. That's like a basic fundamental right, I think, is to be able to end your own life. I need you can't do that there.

Yeah, they're like, no, no, you can't do that. We need you to show up every day. Putting nets out the windows, no jumping. Yeah, it's interesting. And it, I don't know, it's so constricting when you constrict the human being to, I don't know, it just seems like they've taken, they're really trying to strip the humanity out of the human and make them a number. And we don't work like that.

You know, I think it's doomed on some level. Yeah. I was thinking about the other day, like, I think people are just tired, you know? I was a, because part of my job now is to, like, I work for a sales team, and they want to optimize their sales funnel. And the only way to do that is to just like squeeze every minute of potentially productive time. out of people. And I mean, I'm doing my job, but I'm thinking, man, can't we just leave them alone? You know?

Yeah. Can't we just give them a little bit of a break? So what if we don't make the budget? The budget's higher than last year anyway, right? They're still making money. They're still selling. I don't know. It's just, I think people are just tired of feeling like every ounce of them is squeezed out of

them for someone else's benefit. And, yeah. that's a sense I get from from like everybody right now there's a little bit of a feeling that tomorrow isn't going to be better than today and and that's like how a greater depression starts I think it starts with feelings and if you got a whole swap of people that don't think tomorrow is going to be better than they they don't have like really much to live for any purpose and then starts to slide down yeah I couldn't agree more I and you know I I don't know if it's just a something that's being done consciously or unconsciously, but, you know,

and I guess it doesn't matter if it's being done on purpose or not. It's happening. And, but there's, there is in my mind a spark of the divine nature that happens here. Like, I think there's a decision point for people. And let's just say that it's happening because humans, are greedy or something like that, but there's, there's, there's inflation. People are going to be squeezed for productivity. So if you're fine yourself in that position, whether you're the guy doing the squeezing or whether you're the guy getting squeezed, you guys both have the same

opportunity to leave what you're doing and try something else because you know what's going to happen if you stay there. You're really going to keep squeezing or are you going to keep getting squeezed? So, and they're essentially the same thing. You do have a choice. You know, Not making a choice is still making a decision. And it's hard, though. It's hard to walk away from something you've done for 20 years. It's hard to walk away when you have a family. It's hard to walk away when you have bills.

But at some point in time, you've got to ask yourself, can I keep doing this or am I going to bet on myself? Because other people aren't going to bet on you. The place where your work is not going to bet on you. You know, this large corporation does not have your best interest in mind. It doesn't care. It sees you as a number. And if you really love your family, then maybe the thing to do is to go out and put yourself out there and start creating value, creating, making everyone around you better will be like a boomerang.

And it will come back to you. I believe wholeheartedly in that. I mean, you're an example of that, man. I mean, you've been doing this for a couple years. You've built a little community around your podcast, which is full of interesting people and different minds. so you're creating your own culture in a sense. Thank you, man. I'm thankful to hear that.

And I want to share with everybody that it really comes from trying to understand the people around you, be a good communicator, and just ask this question, how can I help this person? And I know it sounds, it's a very difficult to question. It's a very difficult question to ask yourself, how can I help this other person? when you yourself are struggling. And I know that because I've been there. But in a weird way, when you start asking the question, how can I provide value for these other people? What are they talking about? How can I help them? Do I know someone? What really begins to happen is you see yourself and that other person while I'm thinking, how do I help Kevin? If I find a solution,

it's almost like I also found a solution for me, like, oh, maybe I can apply that to my life. And sometimes when you get into this thought pattern of how can I help me, how can I help me, you don't see the problem from another angle. So when you try to help someone else solve a problem, you're really looking at a similar problem that you have and seeing it from another angle. And now all of a sudden you've recruited someone to your side that's going to reciprocate.

Oh, you know what? Yeah. Actually, maybe that person's thinking, how can they help George? And you string a few of those together. And now, you know, you've got 10% of 100 people instead of 100% of one person. It starts to pay dividends.

And I really think everyone's capable of doing it. And maybe hopefully if you're not capable of doing it, you'll be forced to do it. You'll get fired. You'll get kicked out. It's a good thing. Yeah. Some people that have to be drag kicking and screaming into awakening.

Right. But I think to kind of, I mean, I totally wholeheartedly agree with what you just said. And I think one of the great crimes that has been purses, perpetrated amongst the peasant class, let's say, that we are in. Yep. Is that they've pretty much concealed our power from us through the use of fear. We all have the ability. Like, I believe that reality is malleable.

Like, the world will shape itself around you because you are the key actor here. And I believe you can change the world, maybe not immediately, but through your words and through your actions and through your thoughts. We all have that power. But the great crime is, like I said, they're deliberately trying to keep you afraid. And the more that they succeed in that, the less likely you are to understand that you have that power and exercise it. So that's where the flashpoint is now. It's because they're just, I mean, the fear is being ramped up to the highest level.

But I'm seeing a huge, huge counterswell of people. that are sharing what we're sharing and understand that we do have power and then it's it's almost biblical in the way it's it's happening when you look about the dark and versus light conflict that always resourges itself and it's endless so i think that everyone has to decide if they're going to fight or just you know give in yeah it's a great point in uh i love the way you explain the idea of having power through your words and your actions. You know, before the, when we were on the pre-show chat, I told you that quote that said, the things that you're interested in, those things are interested in you.

And one thing that I had found is that I felt myself, you know, a couple years ago, before I started the podcast, thinking to myself about fear and what I'm afraid of. And there was a flashpoint for me. Like I, there was a guy at my work that I didn't, I was really mean to him all the time. And I just say mean things to him or make fun of them or try to belittle them. And one time this guy pulled me aside. He's like, dude, George, why are you being such a, why he being such a dick to that guy? I'm like, what are you talking about, man?

I'm just playing. He's like, no, man, you ain't playing. You're being rude and mean. And like, I think it sucks, man. You should stop it. And so I, it was a friend of mine. And so I went home. I think I had taken some mushrooms that weekend.

I started thinking about like, why am I doing that? Yeah, that guy's kind of right. And I came to this conclusion that like I didn't like that guy because he was weak. And the more that I thought about it, I go, you know what? It's not that he's weak. It's that I'm weak. And that guy reminds me that I am weak. And I almost cried, you know, I was like, whoa, what a revelation, man.

I am so afraid of being weak that I'm picking on people smaller than me. That is a horrible thing, George. And at that point in time, I thought like, okay, if, if I'm weak, I need to get stronger. How do I do that? Well, I should start standing up for myself better and start of making fun of other people. And I did. I just baby steps, baby steps. And it got to this point where, you know, I, I thought, okay, now I've won some battles.

I've stood up for myself. Let me go into work and start standing up for some other people. And I did. I started becoming like the liaison for the shop steward. I started finding people that needed help and saying, hey, man, you know what, that doesn't have to happen. You know what? We could do these things and I'll help you do it. Pretty soon people started coming to me.

Hey, George, what do you think I should do? And it's this thing. It's back to that idea, the things that you're interested in or interested in you. And if you can find out what your weakness is, then you can begin to make that your biggest strength. And I would argue that this thing you think is your weakness is a superpower, but it's asking you to develop. it's like hey man you got to build this muscle in you and when you do the world starts moving around you things start happening and you start making the decisions that you need to make in order to make yourself the best version of you and i it's a superpower like you said everybody has it but it's just

a matter of becoming aware of it and that's the first step i think awareness is key yeah first first step is awareness and then i think second step is you got to do that work yeah because if i mean these fears are going to stop things from happening for you if you let them. And that's the hard part. I mean, that takes a long time, I think, to really work through a lot of them. And I don't think it ever really finishes all the way because I think there's some fear that we just can't really fully get rid of. We can just confront them, but they'll always be there. Well, you've been a coach for a while and you've helped out people, different countries and stuff like that.

Would you say that fear is an underlying pattern that paralyzes everyone? Yeah, I don't do so much coaching anymore. Mostly because I don't think people really want to change. And I think a lot of people just want confirmation that they're doing the right thing. And that gets a little bit uninteresting at times. Yeah. But I think, yeah, fear is behind everything. And we can discuss what kind of fear it is, but it's always something around dying or not existing or not being seen.

I think that's the main fear if you boil down all of the other fears to that. So, you know, and this is where if you're spiritual, that can be beneficial to you. If you've had a spiritual experience of transcendence, then fear of death becomes a little bit easier to work with. and trauma can help you if that trauma shows you your fears and allows you to work on them.