TFS#260 - Sebastian Siegel: The Truth About AI, Exosomes & Human Consciousness

Speaker A: When you've been endorsed by so many intellectual people like James Hollis and Deepak, uh, like, I definitely want to get your thoughts on this human versus AI era.

Speaker B: I don't use any of those things. I don't use auto text reply. I'd rather write my own text. Because who we are, right? On the most fundamental level, language is an evolving dynamic. It's an evolving function that we forge our consciousness through language actively. That on one level it seems like no big deal, but eventually you're automating every response. You're becoming just like everyone else. You are homogenizing your own consciousness. Right. If we forge our consciousness and of its shape, our mind and the individuality of our own mind, you're depleting your own capacity and function to think and articulate.

Speaker A: Sebastian, how have you went ahead and successfully solved the puzzle of making money doing what you love in a highly successful way?

Speaker B: I'm fortunate in the way that I think as a kid, both Alan Watts and Joseph Campbell influenced me a lot in this way, and so did Ken Wilber. To mean that they both became hugely successful, but didn't come from money or wealth. But they all love what they did and they just gave themselves to it. What's the common factor between all these individuals that I've looked into that I've tried to emulate? They just did what they love and cut out everything else that it's about immersion, surrender and focus. Being devoted, in other words, cutting out and being focused, really, really being diligent. That's something that everybody understands intellectually. But when you wake up every day, what are you doing? Hey, I'm going to focus. What are you doing tonight? Uh, let's go do this, that. No, really, what you want to do tonight, or what is it what you must do tonight? I think that's what it requires to succeed at the highest level in anything.

Speaker A: Tell me about the movie that you're currently doing about chess.

Speaker B: There's this boy, Abhimanyu Mishra, who is the youngest chess grandmaster in history, and he's about 16 now. His namesake is Abhimanyu and the Mahabharata. It just lit me up. I thought, what are all the things that Abhimanyu and the Mahabharata didn't learn, that Abhimanyu Mishra had to learn through life in chess in order to become the youngest chess grandmaster in history? That's the movie. This Indian family living the American dream, based in New Jersey. Against all odds, impossible, impossible feat, they devote and surrender and give up so much. Their Life. And it's impossibility after impossibility. They just stay in it and they win it. They do it right. And at 12 and a half, he becomes youngest grandmaster in history and no one's close to him.

Speaker A: Sebastian, it's great to have you on the show once again. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this, Sebastian.

Speaker B: It's a pleasure to be here.

Speaker A: It's always so amazing connecting with you because of your just vast wisdom. You've sort of attacked so many different industries. Um, you sort of am deeply in the movie industry where you've worked on many biopics. I know you're sort of working on a chess related film right now. You're also really deeply into psychology, Ken Wilbur, uh, the TEDx talk. And every time I connect with you, I really, really, um, learn about me, the universe where I sit in it, um, my dreams. I love talking to you about those things. And thirdly, you're like immensely in the health world. You've been on like hundreds of men's health magazines. You're somehow still ripped at your age, um, and you're not on any steroids, uh, no, nothing. And you just naturally just ripped. So you just have such a vast knowledge. So that's why I'm so grateful to have you on once again.

Speaker B: It's a pleasure to be here.

Speaker A: Sebastian. Something that we talked about on our last podcast was exosomes. Could you tell me about it? Because I still don't know what it is.

Speaker B: You know, it's a great question because I think in this sort of age and time where people are doing a lot of biohacking and wanting to be at their best and having all these sort of shortcuts, and I think the fundamental underlying thing there is that there are no shortcuts, right? That even if you look at an Olympic athlete who's, let's say, a sprinter, and you think, well, you know, people always ask this question with working out or the gym and things like this, saying, do you just maintain or are you working towards something? There is no such thing as maintain, right? Uh, we are going towards death and we are coming apart, right? Inevitably. So the question becomes for an Olympic athlete, let's say, who runs the fastest marathon? As this guy Sebastian saw, I just recently ran the marathon in under two hours. He can't just maintain that. He can't go out now every week and run that. He's got to go for the death. He's got to go beyond the limit to even come close to what he did already. And maybe beat that one day. So there is no such thing as maintain. So what I'm alluding to and what I'm pointing at, right, is that we've got to get lost in the process. We've got to love eating healthy, we've got to love being happy, we've got to love making other people happy or supporting other people to feel joyous. And we've got to love exercise and rigorous work. Then when we look at the sort of these people who are sort of interested in biohacking, I tend to be the sort of anti biohacker in the way that I say, well, let's have an ability to objective, but let's get process oriented. Um, but when it comes down to, you know, there are things that I eat, there are things that I do, there are things that I like to take, and I think that exosomes is interesting. I tend to be very conservative on all these kinds of things. I don't take any trt, no hormones, no drugs, I've never done any kind of steroid, um, I've never taken any, um, peptides. Is becoming a very popular thing. And not that I'm necessarily against any of these things, but if you think about the term even performance enhancing drugs that an athlete, let's say who's in the NFL, right, they want to, they want to enhance their performance, right? Because they have a job, they have a thing they want to achieve, right? Whereas if you're trying to be healthy, you don't want anything that's going to enhance your performance because it's not the performance you're after, it's the living of life that we're after. So if you want to really live life well and feel rigorous and athletic and built and you want the byproduct of that to be leanness and muscularity and healthy, you don't want to take anything that's going to enhance that. You want to just live like that. Because if you take any hands that then ultimately going to become addicted to that thing, to that drug. So I think that, you know, first of all, stem cells is very popular. Stem cells is a living cell, right? And just to truncate it, not to get too lost in it. Stem cells are often taken from animals, from pigs or horses or cows, and sometimes from humans. And we don't know really. It can become from amniotic fluid. It can come from, uh, you know, it can come from the placenta, come from a lot of different places. First, just in terms of efficacy. By the time it leaves the Being that it's extracted from, and then it's, and then it sits around and then it's shipped, and then maybe it's delivered to you and then you put it in your body. The odds that that's still alive are very slim. Right, first of all. So that's one thing to consider. The moral factor there, though, is a bigger factor for me that if anybody's considering taking a stem cell, the first question would be, who did this come from? Like, I want the name of the person. Uh, was it a person or was it a pig or was it an animal? What is this? When did it, you know, was it taken? And what's really going in my system? And I think that this thing is sort of ironic because you will see people say, well, I only eat, I only eat organic spinach. I want non GMO corn. But yet they're still willing to inject another human's living cells into their body, but they want organic and non GMO corn. Which seems to me insanity, right? Or even people have strong opinions about, uh, drugs and vaccines and say, well, I'm not going to take this, but they're still willing to inject like all this radical stuff in their body. There's no rush, you know, be conservative on all this stuff is my sensibility. People have been climbing Mount Everest for a long time. People have been running hundreds of miles for a long time. People have been swimming far distances, rowing far distances for a long time. People have been excelling at the highest level for a long time. So there are fundamental things to do there that we don't need all these other things. Now, obviously, contemporary modern technology and science offer a lot of incredible things. If you break a bone, you go to the doctor, you get it healed. That's really, really, really helpful. I'm all for it. Okay, so when it comes to stem cells for me, no, when it comes to h. Drugs for me, no, when it comes to, uh, when people are talking about all these different stacks of, of things that they're taking new drugs. No, you know, I'm not, I'm not into, uh, any of it. The Exosome thing is interesting. There's only one Exosome that was brought to market, uh, in the U.S. um, which is by Exobio A E XO, um, bio. And I'm involved with that company because I believe in it. Uh, essentially they sourced from 16 women. Consciously they're all aware, they're all super health. And they chose one. And it was an ectopic pregnancy, which means that the eggs the sperm fertilizes the egg, it drops down through the fallopian tube and it gets stuck there. And so they have to remove it, right, before it ever becomes a fetus. Right? So the embryo never goes into the womb, it's removed there, Right. So there's no, uh, conflict there. This is something that could never sustain or procure life. So I like that. For a moral, on moral level, for a lot of issues, for a lot of reasons, right? It's been divided, right? Unlimited, um, amounts of times, like, you know, hundreds and hundreds of millions of times. So it's from one person sustainable. We know who this individual is. You can track it all the way back. It's also the only exosome by Exubio that's been studied by the nih, the National Institute of Health, that is ethically sourced. All right, so what's the point of anything, taking anything like this, all right? It's not voodoo, it's not magic. You don't take it and it makes you younger. Um, none of that, right? However, if you are undergoing, let's say, a knee challenge or a shoulder challenge, when your white and red blood cells are going to that area after the stressor or after a surgery, let's say, and I'm working with a neuroscientist right now, I'm working with a gum surgeon right now. Um, we're working potentially with an eye surgeon as well to explore how can the exosome being injected into the space where the surgery is occurring to increase the efficacy of recovery. All right, so the point that I'm making here with this is about timing, that I don't believe if you inject an exos stem cells, something like this, they're going to know what to do. That there's got to be, in other words, some hormetic effect, right? In other words, some sort of stressor where the red and the white blood cells are already going to the area and it knows then, ah, go there, right? Your body works like that, right? In other words, if you get a cut and you put, uh, you know, something healing aloe vera, let's say, or something right on the cut, immediately afterwards, that's the moment if you work out, obviously, as this was studied in the 70s and 80s with burn victims, taking certain kinds of proteins right after burning is very, very powerful for the skin to rejuvenate. So I've always felt the same way about exercise, which is one of the reasons that I'm still about 5% body fat. I'm 6:1. I'm um, 200 pounds. I've been about the same thing for my whole life. But I really believe in nutrient timing, that it's taking amino acids that are from plants. Mostly for myself, right after working out, that's an important time for the body to heal. So when it comes to the exosome, I believe that, let's say in the knee, let's say if somebody is squatting or leg pressing, or in the shoulder, if somebody's having a challenge, that immediately after, when all the cells are going there, when the body is pumped and the blood is going there, to put it in the muscle, in the area to let it know, okay, go to that healing, uh, space. So what does it really do? Right? So in a vial, let's say, of the exosome, uh, from Exobio, the company I'm talking about, Aexo B I O, there's maybe 750 proteins, okay, maybe 400 mic RNA. And what's the question? What does it do? So the idea is that it's signaling your body to communicate in a certain way, in the way that young and healthy cells do. So all the DNA in your body are the same, but they look different.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And that, uh, over time, when we age, DNA programming changes rapidly. It changes based on where we live, based on what we eat, based on who we're around, based on oftentimes people notice that, that they're aged when they're in a bad relationship, right? That the DNA starts to reprogram itself. So the idea, right, sort of epigenetically, is that you take an exosome, um, that is very, very healthy. In other words, this particular exome that was sourced, as I was describing, from this particular person and is healthy, and it's been tested again and again and again, and it's the same exosome M, right. So it's very specific. You know exactly what it does, that you're putting it into your body and that the idea is that it's triggering the body in that area to instigate a type of communication with the cells for rejuvenation. All right? So if you think about that, sort of, to draw an analogy, that if you get a group of runners together and they're really, really slow, right, you're going to run more slowly, where if you get a group of runners or climbers and they're really athletic, you're going to push a little harder. So the cells operate the same way. There's a contagion, in other words, that happens among cells. So to describe that specifically with the exosome, to put a button on this, the NIH study, there were two dishes, right? One dish was irradiated, uh, irradiated the cells, and the other dish irradiated the cells. They're identical, except for one dish had the exosomes in it. So the dish that had the exosomes in it tended to be more resilient, and it let the older dysfunctional cells that were affected by the radiation die off, whereas the dish that did not have the exosomes, they started to. The contagion of dysfunctional cells started to increase. Right. In other words, you get these, um, cells that are senescence. Right. That the cells in your body that age and they don't die off. That's where the real problems happen. Right. And the idea with rejuvenation, with exercise and sauning and healing and detoxing is we're trying to get rid of these cells that are dying and not to let those stick around. Because that contagion, that messaging happens, and the cells get, other cells start to get older. We want to keep the more youthful, uh, aspects of ourself, uh, going. So when it comes to the exosome, the thing that I find valuable is some people are doing it in their face as well. I have not done that yet, but they'll do, like, a micro needling and then add the exosome. It makes sense to me. I do want to try that because I'm in the sun a lot and I care about my skin. I want to be as vibrant and youthful as possible. Um, but I do believe that it's effective, uh, in terms of musculature rejuvenation, potentially nerve rejuvenation. We're exploring that, as I said, with the neuroscientist and potentially also with, like, the labrum and the shoulder. Right. Or the knee. Uh, so it's the. One of the very few things, uh, that I. I dig it, and it feels conservative to me. The last thing I'll say on the exosome, in terms of my vocal, you know, being vocal in support of it, is that it's also a lot smaller than a stem cell. Right. And it's a lot less expensive, about a tenth the cost. Um, but because it's so small, a stem cell will probably be shredded or not effective by the time it's put in a needle and put in the body and delivered and all these things, whereas an exome is so tiny that it can go like an insulin needle. So it's very easy for a Patient particularly, who doesn't like needles or is concerned about the, you know, um, is this thing actually effective? You know, by the time it's reached, I hear people going like to Mexico and wanting to get the most cost effective thing, which to me seems insane. It's like when I was a kid, I remember going to this bar and there had like the $2 pizza and the $1 pizza was the pizza from like two days ago, right? And thinking like, okay, you get the $1 pizza. It's like, well, just treat yourself, you know, just get the $2 pizza. You know, so it feels like I just think that the irony of, you know, not sort of trusting our intuition to say, okay, yeah, I want non GMO corn, I want organic vegetables. I want all these healthy things. I want clean water. If you're going to put something in your body, that's a big deal. If you're going in your body, don't risk it. Don't screw around. You know, we're talking about something that you have to be doing all the other things anyways. But if you're going to try something, be conservative and do something, you know, go slowly into it. So this, to me, uh, is something that makes sense. It's also something that's highly tested again on their, on their site, uh, exobio. There are all the studies. The NIH study is there and if anyone's interested in it, you know, they can, um, comment or, you know, send any questions. I'd be happy to direct that in terms of, you know, my belief in it and in a way, awareness of it and studies and exploration with it.

Speaker A: Interesting. Sebastian, I guess what's been your personal experience with exosomes and what's the difference between exosomes and stem cells they both come from has to do something with like baby making sort of stuff. Um, what's the difference?

Speaker B: Yeah, I don't want to go, I don't want to go too, you know, too far down it, but, you know, the stem cells is living, right? And so then the idea is, you know, people are taking stem cells. The idea is that this is a very young cell, like let's say in the, you know, in the amniotic fluid or in the placenta. And if they're taking this young cell, it's gonna, it's gonna, they're putting in their body. People are using it in IVs and uh, saying, okay, it's going to cause the rest of my body to get younger. And I just don't, I don't, I don't buy it. You know, I don't. It just. Just doesn't make sense to me at all in any way whatsoever. The exosome is much smaller, right? But it's also a messenger. And the idea is that, you know, let's say in this case, uh, you know, this exosome, 750 different proteins in there, that it's helping your system message in a way that is versatile, right? The exosome also at this stage, right, It's. It's pre fetal, right? It's coming from, you know, it's inside the fallopian tube, so it's pre fetal. So this is the most explosive moment, right? Whereas something coming from, you know, the amniotic fluid or, or coming from placental, it's after pregnancy, right? Which is scary morally on a lot of levels. So this is really explosive. In other words, that it's more diverse, that. That it has more diverse, which is why, um, we're working with a gum surgeon, why we're working with a neuroscientist, why we're working with an eye doctor. Because potentially, because it's so much, uh, it starts at an earlier stage of development. It could become a brain cell, it could become a nerve cell, become an eye cell, can become a cell in your muscle, in your leg, in your knee, um, you know, in your central. In your spinal cord, you know. So that's what. What we're going with, what we're testing right now, uh, to find the efficacy and the adaptability of the exosome, um, to be able to procure those results. And right now it looks really promising. Ultimately, though, anybody who says they know 100%. No, we don't know. You know, we're exploring it, but this is the most studied thing, which is why I. Which is why I like it and why, you know, the first thing is you want to mitigate risk, right? You know, and then you want to do the thing that's most studied, and then you also want to trust, you know, your intuition as well.

Speaker A: You mentioned earlier that within the health space, you've sort of invested in many different businesses and ideas, and I guess this is sort of one of those examples. I know we've talked about this in the past, but I guess, Sebastian, how have you went ahead and successfully solved the puzzle of making money doing what you love, doing things you're passionate about in a highly successful way?

Speaker B: Wow, what a beautiful question. You know, you're really great at asking that question. You know, I. I'm fortunate in the way that I think As a kid, um, both Alan Watts and Joseph Campbell influenced me a lot in this way, and so did Ken Wilber. To mean that they both became hugely. They all three of them, let's say in this case, became hugely successful, but didn't come from money or wealth. But they all love what they did and they just gave themselves to it, right? And. And we can look at rock bands, too, for example, like Bon Jokes, right? I remember reading the story about Bon Jovi, that they were like, they had this huge album and it was exploding, you know, and they were, like, number one in the charts. They were still, like, living at home, you know, they were like, living in, you know, like a dormitory, basically. You know, that it wasn't until their second album where they started to make money. But what's the. What's the common factor between all these individuals that I've looked into, that I've tried to emulate? They just did what they love and cut out everything else that. It's about immersion, surrender and focus. And I'm going to come back to those three things. Immersion, surrender and focus. And how I've applied those things to movies, psychology and health. You know, Bon Jovi just like, look, if it's about music, we're there. I'd rather waste the night playing music than go to some wedding or funeral or watch some sports game or do this or that. The other, if you're an athlete, I'd rather waste the day throwing the football or golfing or doing what, you know, running, than going to the bar, listening to music or doing all these other things. If I'm a movie maker, cut out all the other things. Just movies, whether it's talking about it, writing them, exploring them, making them, watching them, um, it's immersion, right? Surrender, you know, devotion and focus. So I think, like Joseph Campbell, who I met when I was a boy at a moonrise in Hawaii in Waimanalo. I didn't know who he was then, but years later befriended his late wife, Jean Erdman, and then read all his work and became hugely influenced by him. You know, he writes a lot about that, that. Look, as a young man, particularly in the world, you don't need much until you have a family, so just be sure what you're doing. Like, waste the day reading a book, write notes on the book, write your own notes about what's important to you, about what you see when you look in the eyes of another being, when you look at the moon, when you look out at the stars. Waste your day doing that and get involved with Other people who are willing to waste the day reading and writing books with you, right? And I thought, wow, that's pretty powerful. And then, look, you know, wow, you know, Joseph Campbell just exploded. You know, all of a sudden, everybody's reading him. And then, you know, obviously, you know, he's the known influence for Star wars and. And all these other. All these other stories about the hero, which you and I have talked about, which I've talked an enormous amount about on my Instagram page, some on LinkedIn, uh, and in a lot of keynote talks. And Ken Wilber, too. You know, Ken Wilber is most. One of the most widely read and translated scholarly offers in the history of America. America, right. And he's writes his first book at 23, nobody accepts it, finally gets published, and he becomes a rock star in the world of philosophy and spirituality and psychology. And then he writes a book a year for five years, right? Until he's like 28, 29, 30 years old, and still he's, like, washing dishes. He's washing dishes and writing books. Like, amazing. Why? He probably doesn't need to do that, but he's just. He's in a zone where he's just washing dishes to make money. Even have to think about it. It. And it's a Zen process. And he's writing books. He's just writing, and he's not doing anything else. And as I depict in the movie Grace and Grit, and for anyone who wants to see that, it's a brilliant book. Amazing. And it rocked me. And so I articulated that, you know, I adapted that to the screen. And it's on Amazon and Apple right now and Netflix internationally. In that movie, Treya Wilbur, his wife, whose journals that movie chronicles, says, when I met Ken Wilbur, he had 4,000 books, a desk chair and a typewriter and nothing else. Like, he slept on a mattress on the floor. And there are pictures of that, that he had 4,000 books, right? This guy's reading three, four books a day, you know, at least. And he's writing, you know, a book every few months. It's insane. And so there was a lot to be said there for me to answer. The question is, you know, how have I been able to achieve, um, at some level, vocationally, with some sort of success enough to procure financial independence in movie psychology and health. The Curve was like this, where I saw people doing all these other things that they were making a lot of money. When I was in my early 20s, and then, you know, in my 30s, I said, you know what, man? I don't care how hard it is. I love movies and I love exercise and I love health and I love psychology. And that's my lane. Those are the things I love. I'm giving myself to those things. And it was a lot. You know, I give a lot of money to making movies. You know, my first jobs, uh, I produced my way into the director's chair. I put on my credit card the first short film that I made, which, uh, is a great movie. It's out there. It's called Just Be Yourself. I made it with my partner at the time, Stuart Davis, and he produced, uh, he directed it and wrote it. And it's an ensemble cast. Me, him, Candace McClure, other great actors. And I just paid for it, you know. And I learned, though, in, you know, two months, basically I had an education that would have been graduating from USC or ucla, you know. And then I did the same thing with my first commercials that I said, look, all cover. If Your budget is x 10 grand or whatever, I'll cover the difference. But I want to make a commercial that looks like 100 grand. And I did it and I directed it, right? And then I got another commercial and another and another. I was willing to lose in the short term to win in the long. Now I get paid a lot of money as a director or as a producer. Um, but I'm still super selective. I'm still immersive. I still am, you know, have the same sort of surrender and devotion. And so it's the same thing with health companies. I don't endorse stuff online. I don't do like, you know, I don't give out these codes where I say I'm into this. You know, there's a lot of people out there who, their name is on 100 million things. You know, they're like, use the scope on for 10 off. I don't do that, you know, because I don't do one offs. I go in, like, with Exobio. I believe in that company. I want to take it all the way. Um, there's another company I believe in. It's a blood testing company called Superpower. I'm on their board. Um, there are other companies that I've had endorsement deals or sit on the board with because I believe they're going to go all the way. And if I don't, then I don't get involved. And if I don't really believe in it. Um, and so it's the same thing with psychology. So, long story short, to truncate all that, which is Experiential, which is important. Being devoted. In other words, cutting out and being focused. Cutting out. All echo only, signal only focus. Really, really being diligent. That's something that everybody understands intellectually. But when you wake up every day, what are you doing? Hey, I'm going to focus. What are you doing tonight? Uh, let's go do this.

Speaker A: That.

Speaker B: No. Is that really what you want to do tonight, or what is it? What you must do tonight.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And so I'm very diligent around that. And if it's about movie psychology and health, I'm in. And if it's not, it's off my page. Not to say that I don't wish I could, but, uh, you know, I, I, I think, I think that's what it requires to succeed at the highest level in anything. And for me, that's. For me, that's important.

Speaker A: I love that. Sebastian, I was watching your story maybe a few weeks ago, and you had this beautiful quote about how it's important for you to say no so that when you do say yes and go out to that thing you were invited to, you would blossom. And I deeply resonated with that. I was like, wow, that, that is crazy, because. Yeah, just saying no to things, saving up your energy, your life force. So that when you do choose to go out, because, you know, maybe your schedule is just, you have an hour free that day that you shop, like, glowing, and everyone can just feel it. Um, yeah, tell me about that quote that really impacted me that you had.

Speaker B: Thanks. The sensor, right. About success is that it strikes, right? It strikes us, in other words, what we want to do. It strikes us. We watch a movie or we read a book or we have a conversation or we experience something, we say, I got to do that. I got to do that. That's the moment must take action. At that moment, we don't take action. It becomes a dream. It becomes ethereal. We forget why we're even interested in it. I got to do that. You know, like, for me, when I was a boy, I saw jfk, the movie, um, with Kevin Costner, and it just blew me away. I thought, wow, like, everything I learned in school was not accurate. You know, like, in two and a half hours, you can learn something that can change your whole paradigm about something is profound. Later I met Oliver Stone, you know, and I told him that, like, that movie when I was a little boy made me want to be, uh, a filmmaker. So to the point when the inspiration strikes, we go in, right? And if you go in and you Give yourself to something that is, that you must do, not that you want to, that you must do, right? No to the birthday party, no to the sports game, no to the funeral, no to the wedding note. But just that thing when you do that, that's how we build genuine self esteem. Then we feel like ah, uh, what is that? That's the most fundamental way a religious, spiritual experience. I'm giving myself to something that is coming through me and I'm surrendering to that. In other words, I'm having faith in the cosmos, right in the universe and God if you will. And I'm devoting the little me to this bigger thing by doing this thing. Whether it's movies or psychology or health or whatever the thing is. And if I do that, all of a sudden that's where real self esteem is on based built man. I'm worth my weight, I'm worth my salt on this planet. I feel good. Now go to the party. All right. What uh, are you doing? Oh man, I worked on this thing and it was so exciting and it was so challenging and it's just coming, it's natural. Whereas if you don't do that thing and you go to the party, what are you doing? I was thinking about doing this. I really want to do this. There's no, there's not a deeper rooted grounded self esteem. So that's for me, not advice or prescriptive. It's just I'm not comfortable going to the party if I'm not excited about what I'm working on. If I don't feel like I can participate in a way to offer up something. In other words, if I get in a conversation, I want depth connection and in that depth connection I want to be able to say, yeah, I'm walking the talk. I'm doing this and I'm devoting myself to this. You know, what are you, what are you devoted to? How can I learn from you? Do right. And I feel like I, I need to show up to be able to offer, offer that. And um, and I, and I think that that ah, indicates um, brings about and procures sort of a, a great sense of joy, uh, and wanting to live another day.

Speaker A: This is sort of the fourth time you've come on the show over the last two years. And the landscape of the world has changed so much in the last two years. Like AI wasn't AI wasn't a thing that we talked about two years ago. And even the last time we chat we briefly talked about AI, but it's already evolved and Changed so much. Um, especially with, like, Claude code and all these agents. Like, it's so crazy. So I definitely want to get your thoughts on it, Sebastian, especially when you've been endorsed by so many intellectual people like, like James Hollis and Deepak. Like, I definitely want to get your thoughts on this human versus AI era.

Speaker B: You know, the, um. It's very interesting, right, because you think about, you know, AI just, just today. I mean, forget like all the. The future for a second. How much did you really use it? Like, anybody out there, right? He's listening. Think about, like, okay, are you using Chat, GPT or Grok or Claude, right? And how much are you getting done? Like, is it doing all your bills and making all your calls for you? Okay, that might be effective. Are you using it to autorespond on text or to write things?

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: Like, is it really. Are you ahead of the curve, you know, for that, your spell check, right? Like, you know, your auto, you know, response. How effective is it? Is the. How good is the algorithm, right? Your Sonos or whatever you use in. Or the Alexa in your house, right? How often does it go off? Does it not get it right? You know, so it comes down to sort of like, there's a number of things that can be outsourced, you know, potentially coming that are very, very valuable. But I don't use, uh, any of those things, right? I don't. I don't use auto text reply. I'd rather write my own text. Because who we are, right? On the most fundamental level, language is an evolving dynamic, right? It's an evolving function that we forge our consciousness through language actively, right? So think about that. If we are outsourcing our own language so that we're automatic replying on text, like, somebody says, hey, can you make it later? And you hit boom. And it says, sounds good. If you say, sounds good, good for you, then use that. If you don't, then don't use that. Because you are now automating something and you're sounding like just like everyone else who's using that tool. In other words, you're becoming homogenized. That on one level, it seems like no big deal, but eventually you're automating every response. You're becoming just like everyone else. You are homogenizing your own consciousness, right? If we forge our consciousness in a shape, our mind and the individuality of our own mind, if we start outsourcing it on the most simple level, like in text responding or on sending an email, or you're homogenizing yourself in Other words, you're depleting your own capacity and function to think and articulate. And people are becoming less articulate, not more, because they are outsourcing. For me, I don't do it now. I'm much slower to respond on text. I write all my own emails. I spellcheck after sometimes. But I don't use the automated, any of the automated programs. I think it's very dangerous for me. And again, it's not. I'm not making a philosophical thing for the rest of the world. But yeah, I think it's totally foolish and moronic to outsource anything like that. That, um, especially when it's around articulation and consciousness. I got an email from a guy who gave me a big proposal, uh, for this collaboration with Ken Wilber. And it was all on chat GPT and it was just so long and exhausting. And I just was like, this guy's ridiculous. This was my thought. When people start using it like that and people start using an algorithm also you see it a lot on Instagram and LinkedIn where they're using the meta or the response to, okay, make this improve my text. And everybody's using the same spacing and all this. Fine, go for it. You know, do that. It makes it better, I guess, for most people. But if everybody's using it, at some point it just becomes a flat line, right? At some point it becomes ubiquitous. It's no longer special, it's no longer your own rhythm. A great public speaker has a particular vernacular, every great public speaker and a particular rhythm. And that rhythm is procured and evolves around what is most meaningful to that person. So if you're automatically doing what the machine says to do, it's what they think everyone else wants. Okay, Michael Jackson, Albert Einstein, Bocelli, whatever. They're not doing what everyone else thinks is good. They're doing what is coming through them. What's coming from God, what's coming from the cosmos. They're doing that. And it's ahead of the curve. So for me, I want to do what's true and real people don't like it. Great. If it's ahead of the curve, fantastic. But to homogenize, in other words, means to replace effectiveness with expedience. And that's the most dangerous thing that we can do as humans. Replacing, um, effectiveness with efficiency. And expedience is how we got to torturing and farming animals in this way. Like, it's the commoditization of sentience. And I think that on some level, outsourcing the way we reply and articulate and use language is homogenizing our own minds, right? That is I think like the beginning. It's the gateway dependence drug to the matrix. So if you're doing that, great, good for you. You know, get all the likes and all that stuff. But you're screwed in like 36 months from now, 48 months from now, okay? That's the point to jump off from that. For example, like all the people who are on OnlyFans, let's say, is a great one, a great example, you know, or the influencers, right, like on social media, they're going to be up to something real dangerous in 36 months, right? Or in four years. Because let's say there's 8 billion people in the world and there's X number of people on OnlyFans or you know, short form content, in other words, not long form. And I say that because short form content is just immediate bites, whereas long form content, you get to know the person, you get to feel something, right? That's unique. And I consume long form content and that's why I like your show, right, Why I respect it's long form content. I read entire books, right? My whole house is full of books. The short form content people are in trouble because if there's X number of influencers in the world and X number of people, you know, men and women using only fans and selling, you know, making money on OnlyFans, in a few years from now, companies are going to be spitting out these profiles. So there will be more profiles than there are people on the planet there might be in four or five years from now. If you have a company that can automatically, you know, through AI, um, you know, this dovetails and you know, this is derivative of the stream of thought about the dangers, right, for people around AI and not having your own voice. If AI, ah, can spit out, you know, a thousand of these profiles, 100,000 of these profiles a day and there's a bunch of companies doing that, let's say in five years from now there's 20 billion profiles on uh, OnlyFans and influencers. The people who are 17 today, you know, who are going to be 23 then, now they're not going to be know who's real and what's not. In other words. So what's the takeaway? Start doing something you believe in and make it long form content. Are people interested in it today? No, they're interested in 60 second, 90 second reels, we got that. But they're not learning anything. If you watch 2060 second reels. How much do you take away and learn in the moment? You think you're learning something, but if you're not writing notes and talking about it, you're not learning anything. How many reels, whoever's watching this did you watch yesterday, today that you remember? None.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Maybe one thing. Look at the sun or whatever, wake up early or whatever. Drink pure water, reduce plastic, use. Great. But beyond that, like, it's very limited.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker B: And it's tough, it's, you know, it's addictive, that short form stuff. But I think it requires, um, an extra form of discipline to say, all right, I want to remain human, I want to remain sentient. Meaning I want to. This is a process that is experiential, right? Not about end result. Right. The end result is you're dead. So, okay, like, you know, in other words, enough with the, the biohacking, enough with the uh, all the effectiveness, like get lost in the kiss, get lost in the dance, get lost in what you love. And that will lead to, in the most Joseph Campbell esque way that will lead to the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful life and abundance.

Speaker A: What a beautiful answer. Sebastian, tell me about the movie that you're currently doing with the. About chess. How's that coming about? Like filming, directing, producing movie. It's like there's so many different things, it's such a whirlwind, but just from your energy, it feels like you're in total control of the film and its progress. Like, do you have a plan that you follow? Do you just wake up and just do what needs to be done? Do you wait till lightning strikes and act on that? How do you have this control over this crazy project that is a multi year long project? And you just, you're so calm.

Speaker B: What a great question. Um, because I've been in it for a long time. In other words, making movies, whether it's two minutes or two hours, whether it's documentary or theatrical, whether it's commercials or trailers, there's a period of, you know, and I write, produce and direct. I do true stories, right? So in this particular case and with my last movie, you know, in Grace and Grit, first is what, what strikes, what hits you, right? And so the last movie I read the book, it blew me away. I love the author. Something grabbed me and I said, I gotta do this, all right? But you know, particular to this, this script, I wanted to do a chess movie, right? And I, and I was thinking about it and you know, I didn't like the Bobby Fisher film Searching For Bobby's great film, Queen of Katya, you know, very good film. Queen's, uh, Gambit.

Speaker A: Amazing.

Speaker B: Um, there are some new documentaries out that are great. Queen of Chess. It's great. Um, but I wanted to do a story. And I grew up with my father being a specialist in Indian religions and always in India. And the story of the Mahabharata was very close to me as a boy. And one of the heroes of the Mahabharata, Arjuna, his son Abhimanyu is the youngest boy to die on the battlefield at 16. And he dies a hero on the battlefield. He enters the labyrinth, uh, what's called the Chakra of Yuha, this maze. And he knows how to get in and he can't get out and he dies. And it's in the Kurashetra war. It's beautiful story. And I grew up with that story. So then I find there's this boy, Abhimanyu Mishra, who is the youngest chess grandmaster in history, right? And he's about 16 now. He's amazing. And, um, he's named after. His namesake is Abhimanyu and the Mahabharata. So that for me was like, it just lit me up. I thought, what are all the things that Abhimanyu and the Mahabharata didn't learn that Abhimanyu Mishra had to learn through life in chess in order to become the youngest chess grandmaster in history? That's the movie, right? It's a, it's a biopic. Um, but it's also plays like a, ah, sports film about this Indian family living the American dream, based in New Jersey, you know, and against all odds, impossible, impossible feat, right? Uh, his father, Hemant, and him and his mother and his younger sister, they devote and surrender and give up so much of their life. And it's impossibility after impossibility. They risk losing their house, they risk tearing their family apart. And they give it, they just stay in it and they win it. They do it, right? And at 12 and a half, he becomes youngest grandmaster in history. And no one's close to him, you know, and it's a brilliant story. And, and you know, at the end, I want people to cry and I want people to feel up, cry because they're uplifted, because they say, well, he did it. I can do it. So when I look at the story, you know, at the end, the boy in the Mahabharata, uh, is a hero. But there's things that, that if he would have done them differently, he could have rewritten the myth But Abhimanyu Mishra, through the guidance of, uh, his mentors, one of the mentors being Chinese, and his father, right, and his professors, and the support from his mother and from his younger sister, becomes the hero. He rewrites the myth. And so in the most Joseph Campbell esque way, kind of like Star wars, uh, this story was just epic for me. And then I look at it, right? So that's as a writer and a director. So I option the story, I do six months of research. What does the story look like for me, and I do six months of writing. And so now I'm back on the producing part where it's marrying it to the right outlet. So there's a big film. It's a big, big, big movie. You know, there's 1.4 billion people in India and most people are chess literate and most people know the story of the Mahabharata. And a lot of the people, uh, you know, who are chess literate, know who. Avi Manyamishra, he's a hero on some, in some regard. You know, he's the, he's an Indian boy living in New Jersey, the youngest chess grandmaster in history. He's Indian, right? So that's a great metric. And there's 1.4 billion people in China, most of whom are chess literate. The sort of, um, Obi Wan Kenobi character in Star wars to Luke Skywalker is like the Chinese mentor. And so it plays for India and then for China. So that's 3 billion people I got there. And then in America, Queen's Gambit has indicated already that chess is popular whether people know it or not. I've got the metrics on that. You know, Chess.com streams a billion games a month almost, right? Give or take, just on chess.com alone, right? Not to mention all the over the board games that are played every day and all the other websites. So now I say, okay, look, I love this story. This is a beautiful story and clearly there's an audience for it. So then I go all in and I say, all right, I'm game on. And you know, and so I think, you know, we'll shoot soon and then probably we'll release. I would assume at the end of next year would be the ideal. But again, I'm just lost in it. You know, it's easy to make a movie if you're willing to do, you know, make it in any way. But I'm not willing to make it in any way. I want to make it correctly. And so it's about having. Having the right partnerships on every level. You know, directing a movie and producing a movie is about collaboration. You want other people who love it, you know, with grace and grit, you know, which people can see on Amazon and Apple. You know, I. Boy, uh, there were so many actors who submitted on that film. And it was just when I met Minu Suvari, she was just the girl. Like, she was the one. You know, we met at the Peninsula Hotel for tea. We had done another movie together. And it was during that movie together that I was like, wow, this girl's so much like Treya Wilbur. And then I asked the producer on that movie, he was like, yeah, she's great to work with. And then we met and then she cried like three times in a meeting, you know, and she was like, look, I have to play this role. Like, it's not about anything else. I have to do this. In other words, she was saying. Mina was saying to me, something is coming through me. When I read this script, I was so affected. Sebastian, I have to do this. You know, And I was like, you're the one. You are the one. You know? And then Ken Wilber, when he saw it, he was like, she's the one. I can't believe it. And same thing with Stuart Townsend. Like, it was so late in the day, you know, we couldn't find the guy who's going to play Ken Wilbur. And I was like, God, I'm writing, producing, directing. I. I was going to do it if I had to, where I got a green light, you know, but I didn't want to because it's just going to take me so much more time. We're on a constrained budget and schedule. And then I found Stuart and I was like, I wasn't sure. And then we met and I was like, like. And then, man, he's the guy who can play Ken Wilbur. That's hard to do. And he just. Not only did he end up looking almost identical to him, he was coming from that same place. You know, he was a long time meditator. He was a soulful guy. He was sort of, you know, Stuart has this sort of transcendent quality about life. You know, he moved to Costa Rica with his kids because he wanted to, you know, he's very free, you know, to the world. And, um, and. And then he ends up looking identical to Ken Wilbur when he shaved his head, which was, which was brilliant. So all those things point at. I surrendered, Mina surrendered, Stuart surrendered, Ken surrendered, Trusted me fully with the process. All these people give themselves and then magic, magic strikes, right? Lightning strikes. So with Abhimanyu, it feels like that. Ah, you know, it feels like that, you know, um, and so I'm humbled when things move forward. Um, I'm humbled, genuinely. I feel grateful to be alive and in service to something that's much bigger than me and it makes me excited. And otherwise I'm not. Otherwise I'm not excited.

Speaker A: Sebastian, when you're sort of surrendering to the universe, are you still having to pitch, send out emails, try to raise funds, sell your movie? Yeah, because I remember I was sort of of doing this hierarchy competition and I wanted to sort of make a small social media short film around it. And I was just emailing sponsors and you know, when you're just emailing a ton of brands and getting rejections or things fall through at the very last moment, it's just so soul crushing. It felt like it was just not good for my energy to just be constantly chasing. Um, and eventually I just was like, hey, I'm just going to focus on creating the content and not go searching for money, because that wasn't good for my soul. What's your thoughts, Sebastian?

Speaker B: That's a great question. And I think that relates probably to a lot of people watching. And yeah, it's relentless. It requires unbelievable resilience and, um, unbelievable depth of character to follow through on anything. And it's like that for everybody. Even at the highest level, right? You look at like, you know, Francis Coppola, you know, his last movie lost like $50 million or whatever. He had to sell a lot of his personal assets and his island and home m and watch, etc. In other words, we don't know, you know, and, and so I'm relentless. Calls, emails, meetings. Again, again, again. The difference is, is that I don't, I don't chase, right? I, I genuinely feel when I'm showing up, uh, that I have something to give. So I'm not asking for anyone to invest with me. When I make something, I'm saying, look, I'm doing something's cool, cool, it's gonna go rockets. You wanna do this with me? And if they dig it, they're in, and if not, that's okay. But I never ask, you know, And I, and I think I've been able to collaborate at the highest levels because of that, right? Where it was like with Ken Wilber, I was like, look, I'm gonna make this thing. And I believe in this. And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Something tells me you're the guy, you know, and it's the same thing, I think, with the best collaborations, right? Like, you know, you, you say, look, uh, you know, I think we're on the same page and. But, you know, so let's do this thing. And if people like, no, no, no, no, then it's not right. Not right for them, or you let it go, right? It's like, same thing with a love relationship. If you're trying to talk someone into being in love with you, it's not going to work. You have to kind of be like, look, I believe I can make your life better, and I believe you can make mine. You want to hang out, you want a dinner, you want to go for a walk, it's cool. But if they're like this and that, you're like, no, no. Okay, forget it. You know what I mean? I wish I would have had that sensibility at 20. It was intuitive for me then, but it wasn't as real. Now I can assess it more quickly. Um, but it does require relentless follow through. And I think relentless follow through day after day after day is predicated on, again, belief and surrender. I believe in this story. I'm surrendering to it, not the other way around. I'm not the orchestrator, I'm not the controller, I'm the catalyst. And I'm going to do that or die to go one step further. I like that statement, do that or die, because it makes it for me, less pressure, not more pressure. And what I mean by that is it's like if you're swimming or something and you got to get, you know, to the island in the distance, and you're like, okay, am I going to make it? I'm scared. I'm going to jump off the boat. And if the boat's done and I got to go there, you know, all these other things. But if you just say, you know what? I'm gonna die, but if I make it to that, I might live. All of a sudden it's like, so what? I'm probably gonna die, so just jump in and go, you know, Then you're just swimming and the next thing you know, you get there, you know? So I feel like if I just. If death is the option or this, and it's not success, it's just death or doing, then it just takes all the pressure off me. It's like, I wake up in the morning and it's like, well, there's all this stuff I want to do, but, uh, I skip it all. Just do the thing, you know, that's the highest call. You know, a lot of stuff gets confusing and gets on, doesn't get done. But the, uh, most important thing does. It's like if you watch Braveheart, right? Like, he just wants to live with his wife, a simple life. And then all of a sudden, like, everybody's coming around and like, you know, they're making the world horrible. And he's like, okay, look, I'm just gonna die. And then he just goes. And then it's just like all these impossible things. The wind pulls it, you know, below you, it swells up beneath us. You know, it's the same thing with sailing, sailing across oceans. You know, it's the same thing with raising money for something. You know, you sits at her death, you know, because then if you're like, if it's out of death and if I get there and I have nothing, I'm just going to show up barefoot with nothing. I'm just going to do it, you know, And I. I like that. I like that. I. That resonates for me, you know, something

Speaker A: I message you about. I'll sort of. I had a mentor that needed help with a company video. He's, uh, someone that's, uh, some. That I've known for the last four or five years. Um, you know, I'm just grateful to have him as a friend and sort of spend time with him. And it was like, hey, Andy, um, could you help me create a corporate company video? I had no idea how to price it. Like, I didn't want to. You know, I knew he was successful and money wasn't issued to him. I didn't want to come off as greedy, but at the same time, I didn't want to undersell myself. But then I relate. I appreciated the relationship where I would have been happy to undersell myself. How do you go about pricing your services when a friend reaches out to you and is like, hey, Sebastian, I know we've been friends for a few years. Can you help me on this project? How do you quote them?

Speaker B: That's a great question. Um, a lot of people in the world of movies, it doesn't happen. Or in health, it doesn't happen. But in psychology it definitely does. People say, hey, I want to run something by you. I'm having this challenge with my wife or my husband, et cetera. And then I'll usually take a call. Um, you know, a face call like this, and I'll talk them through a little bit and I'll say, listen, ultimately it's experiential. You got to come into my office. I need to see you, I need to see your wife, I need to see, you know, you or you know, your wife, I need to see your husband, etc. And I want to work this through. But there's not a short answer for what you guys are going through. It's experiential, right? It's not like do 20 push ups, drink a cup of water and eye gaze in the morning for 10 minutes and life will be good. You know, it doesn't work like that, right? That's why so many people are committing suicide who are using chat GPT as therapists. So I flip it around and I say, look, this is, you know, what it costs in my office, you know, but I want to make it work. I believe in you guys and I, and I'd be honored to be supportive. Um, or another way I go about it is say, look, what's this worth to you? You know, what's your wife, what's your relationship with your wife or your daughter or your son, your husband worth to you? What's it worth to you? Million dollars? $100,000? $200? Was it worth to you? You know, because I'm going to give you my best, right? And uh, I think that that's a great question. Like if, you know, you know, particularly for you, if you're, you know, saying, hey, I'm going to create this deck or these things or this, this programming, you know, this support system for you, you tell me what's it worth for you and then let's figure it out, you know, and then, and then there's somewhere there's some way to meet in the middle. Because a lot of times too, right, first of all that makes sense, right? In other words, you ask them not what do you want to pay, but what's it worth to you? But a lot of times there are other values that can be more, right? So in other words, this kid was creating, uh, a startup and he hasn't finished college yet and he raised like quarter million dollars and he really wanted to meet me and talk with me as a health product, a health bar, real nice kid. And he was just like after me. And he was like, look, I raised quarter million dollars, I'm a sophomore in college. And I was like, well, you're not gonna finish college. He's like, your mom tells me that, I'm like, no, of course not. Like you're done, like go, go do your company. You know. And um, he was like, he came down, he met me and we, we talked for like 40 minutes. He met me in person when he was in la. And then at the end of the talk, he asked me for 100 grand, right? And I said like, you missed it. You know, you missed it. Like, the value for me is I'm not someone who gives out 100 grand or quarter million dollars, a million dollars, like, that's not the value with me. Like, in other words, you know, my, the resources of who I can introduce you to is much more valuable than a half million dollars. So you need to understand who you're talking to and what the greatest value is. Because sometimes the partnership is more valuable than the money. So in this case with the mentor, maybe it is. Uh, what's this worth to you? And you're not price sensitive. This is important to me. I want to, I can get even better at what I'm doing. And I'm going to offer you this service. What's it worth to you? You know, or depending, you know, maybe that person has a dynamic network. It's like, let me give a specific example. If you had a chance, if most people had a chance to have like an hour meeting with Elon Musk or half hour meeting if they're asking for money, like, that's the stupidest thing to do, right? Like his value, like, he's got unlimited money. So like, if he loves something, he's going to give it the resources it needs. So the better question in half hour with him is find out what he's excited about that you're doing and say, hey, man, I'm going to do this thing. Can I just check in with you once in a while? That's so much more valuable than asking for a million dollars, right? You know, like when he and I had dinner, uh, yeah. I mean, nobody knew who he was then. It was after PayPal, before SpaceX. And he was interested in my movie with Ken Wilber and I was interested. He was like, I'm going to put a rocket on Mars. And it was like, great. We hit it off, we were texting and it's casual relationship and all those types of things. I'm not in that world, you know, but huge respect and admiration. So it's like there's so many people, in other words, that I'm involved with at that level, right, that like even, you know, with, with James Hollis at the height of psychology, you know, or, or, or, uh, Ken Wilbore, you know, or Alex Gray or Deepak or, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Different business people, different, you know, company founders, that it's like the relationship is more valuable than the money, you know, oftentimes. So it's either ask, what's this worth to you? Right? Or B, is there a collaboration point between us that can yield something greater than a fee?

Speaker A: I used to have this Excel sheet with, like, all these different people that I've met throughout my life, all these successful people, and I'd routinely check in and send in messages, and it would sort of. There was a whole system to it. And, um, eventually I just sort of gave up on it. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to do my life. I'm not going to consistently just reach out to people. And if someone does pop into my mind as, oh, something made me think of Sebastian, let me send him a message, and I would organically do that. And, yes, I went from talking to, say, a hundred founders and entrepreneurs down to maybe a small group of 10, 5 to 10 that, uh, are deeply aligned with me. And it feels like these are people that I don't have to put in effort to have in my life. What's been your take, because you've met so many successful people over the last 20 years, are you keeping and building that relationship, or do some people you just never talk to ever again?

Speaker B: I'm super focused. The relationships that I feel I can learn from, I procure, without a doubt. And I found, you know, the most fundamental, simple things. Um, the people who I want to. Who I admire, who I want to learn from, I find a way to add value to their life. And I've done that with so many insanely prolific, successful people off the charts. You know, I find a way. I, I show up, I. I bring value. You know, I don't ever ask for anything. And then over time, we become close. And then maybe there's a collaboration point where I, I do want a collaborator. I do want, you know, some sort of support in some way. Um, but I, I just, I. It's never, it's always, how can I. How can I give? And, I mean, I always lead with contributions. Always, every single, no question, right to the end. And it's amazing because people are not used to that. You know, there are people who I collaborate with regularly, who I've got meetings with this week, who, man, nobody can get in touch with them. Like, you know, and I just, I lead with that. You know, two hours ago, I ran into Bobby Kennedy. He's, you know, in D.C. obviously, and. And, um, we disagree on a lot of things, but we're very good friends. And I disagree with a lot of extremely successful people on a lot of things. Things. And that's what friendship is about, you know, but we're close friends nevertheless. And, you know, he came out to me, gave me a big hug, and I was like, to see you, you know, all this kind of thing. And we text casually and whatnot. And, you know, the political arena is always close for me. It doesn't matter who's in the White House. And, um, I think, like, wow, that relationship is predicated on me contributing to his life. Like, we met when he was an attorney long before he ran for president. And I was like, you're amazing as an attorney. I want to get to know you. You know, And I just added value to his life. And then we became close friends. And it was the same thing, you know, with. With, um, all these. All these people, right? All these people lead with contribution, you know, and be specific on who you want to be around. Like, if someone's successful, that's not enough. Like, do you really love what they do? Right? Like, do you love what they do? Focus on those people, right? Like, who am I going to become more? Like, if I want to be William Wallace, get around all the William Wallace and make their life valuable, you know, like, if I see someone I'm curious about what they do, man, I just say, look, let me take you for dinner. Let me invite you to something. Let's do. I'm doing this cool thing. Come participate. You know, Like, I just jump in. And a lot of times people. It just doesn't go. But other times, people are like, yeah, I dig it. This guy's cool.

Speaker A: I love that. Sebastian, just sort of hearing your story, your journey, your arc. Ah, the movie that you're putting together with the chess grandmaster, the youngest grandmaster. I was watching a bunch of these Star wars clips and movies and just learning more about the story, and something clicked the other day. I was like, wow, this is basically a biblical movie. It's an adapt. Adaptation of the story of Jesus. Like, the whole Anakin being the chosen one, the whole. The Force, the energy around us, uh, sort of Anakin being born of a virgin mother. How, uh, people can sort of just surrender to the force and live as these sort of force holograms after life. I was like, wow. Like the whole. He just like, basically readapted this biblical story, and it seems like you're doing the same thing. So this hero's journey is something that people want to watch and follow, and it seems to be a through line throughout life and movies and stories.

Speaker B: Very much so. What's the question?

Speaker A: Yeah, I was. It made me think like, one. I was just surprised that, like, wow, this movie, Star wars, the whole series is so similar to the story of Jesus. And then hearing that you're doing the chess movie and. And how that's sort of. You're tying it into the Mara. Ha. I can't pronounce it, but that.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And I think that connection was interesting to me, and I just wanted to share my. My realization.

Speaker B: Copy, copy, copy. I see where you're going with that intuitively. Um, you. Thank you for that. You know, I appreciate so much what you're saying, because if we go to movies, right, and we. And we watch a story, like, you know, not just. It's not escapism, um, you know, movies, but like, where we really want to. What do we want? We want to feel like when you leave a movie, you want to feel like at least on some level, wow, man. Like there's something special inside of me that's godly, that if I. If I pay attention to that, I'll be better and the world will be better. That's my mission as a filmmaker, and that's my mission. That's my desire as an audience member. So if we see Star wars afterwards, we feel like that at least Star Wars 1, 2, and 3, right? I can't speak for the rest of them because I haven't seen them, but 1, 2, and 3, right? The originals, the George Lucas originals. And that is woven back into our original storytelling, which is biblical, right? And whether it's the Quran, you know, or the. The New Testament or the Old Testament, you know, it doesn't matter. Or the Mahabharata, right? There is that story that, wow, if I surrender to something, it doesn't matter if I'm a slave, you know, if I'm a prince, uh, if I'm born in a pigsty or in a castle, that if I surrender the exteriors of the world and I give myself to something that's invisible, I can become more and I can become better, and I can make the world better. And so. Very much so. The story that I'm telling, uh, it is the Mahabharata component is very important to me because it is a story of heroic surrender. And, um, this boy, you know, to sort of. And his father and his family to achieve the American dream and the impossible, it required something heroic on behalf of all of.

Speaker A: Of them.

Speaker B: And, uh, the story in the Mahabharata is the same thing. This boy, Abhimanyu he, he, he knowingly his life is not important to him. It's important to him, but it's not important in terms of his calling.

Speaker A: You know.

Speaker B: And so he goes forth with fearless, you know, with relentless, you know, courage, um, knowing like I go, you know, and this is the thing like the, the Braveheart speaks to as well. And I, that, that for me, that lives in me for sure. And so I love to tell that story. This story does have. The characters are very much in the movie that I'm making. Abhimanyu is Luke Skywalker and his mentor is Obi Wan Kenobi. And there is a Darth Vader very much. So, uh, thank you for that. On the Joseph Campbell foundation, they have a podcast and because I met Joseph Campbell when I was a boy, they've done, I don't know, dozen, up 20 episodes, something. But I think I'm the second or third one. They did George Lucas as well, and he's second or third and I'm like fourth or third or fourth or something like that. Um, and a lot of it is about that and it's a cool, it's a cool short. Listen, it's a linked on my website also.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for your time today, Sebastian. I've learned so much from you. I think one of the key things I've been practicing instead of just letting go and going with the flow of life and, and trusting that things work out for the better. Uh, like earlier we're talking about, hey, there might be a siren in the background. And that didn't happen. The whole episode went through with no issues and we didn't have to even worry about it. Things just sort of work out for the better. But that being said, you know, I love. You're always warm, kind, giving, and you sort of have so much wisdom where, you know, I learned so much in this relationship, so I'm so thankful for it. Yeah. That being said, I guess, Sebastian, where can people get more of you?

Speaker B: I'm super grateful. Thank you so much for that. It's an honor to be here with you. Uh, LinkedIn is not bad. I don't use it much, but I connect sort of periodically. Uh, Instagram for sure. Um, I don't use any AI or automation on there. I respond almost everything when I can. Um, and I put out pretty good regular content and references out there. And then on my website for uh, psychology Deeply Conscious. And then on my, on my, on my regular site as well.

Speaker A: I'll uh, link everything in the description below. Everyone sends Sebastian a message. He's he, he's personally replying to them

Speaker B: and on the YouTube, on the YouTube channel. The uh, uh, my TEDx talk is obviously on the TED platform. It's eight minutes um, but then on my uh, the eight questions. Eight spelled out the E I G H T questions. The eight question series. Um, I respond to that stuff on the YouTube channel as well. The eight question series on uh, with Sebastian Siegel.

Speaker A: And Sebastian has like interviewed so many amazing people and I think I really love how Sebastian has been uniquely doing social media in his own way. Like you go through his Instagram, there's definitely a Sebastian esque taste to it. He's not following what everyone else is doing on the algorithm. It's really, really unique stuff so I'd highly recommend everyone to check it out out guys, if you made it this far, thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate it. Please message me with any thoughts. I'll see you guys next week on another episode of the podcast Peace.