208: The Worst Commencement Speech Ever? Behind the scenes of Chris Pan's Viral Graduation Address at Ohio State

In this week’s episode of The Light Watkins Show, Light reconnects with Chris Pan, the founder of MyIntent and VOMO, for his third appearance on the show. Known for his mission-driven initiatives that spread the power of intention and promote emotional wellness through music and movement, Chris recently delivered a commencement speech at Ohio State University that garnered intense public scrutiny.

Chris Pan's speech at Ohio State was anything but ordinary. Intended to offer unconventional wisdom and personal truths, the speech included topics like Bitcoin and the importance of emotional health. Despite his good intentions, the reaction was polarized, with some labeling it the "worst commencement speech ever." Chris faced boos from the audience and harsh criticism in the media, but he remained steadfast in his message.

In this episode, Chris shares with Light the intricate process of crafting his speech. He talks about using psychedelics for creative inspiration and his commitment to discussing what he believes are crucial considerations for graduates. Chris also opens up about the real-time feedback he received, including both negative and positive reactions, and how he managed to navigate the aftermath of such a high-profile event.

The conversation delves into the broader implications of nontraditional approaches in public speaking and the courage required to break from the norm. Chris's story is a powerful reminder of the importance of authenticity and the impact of following one's heart, even in the face of adversity. Listeners will gain insight into Chris's dedication to helping others achieve financial, emotional, and spiritual freedom through his innovative projects.

Whether you agree or disagree with Chris's methods, this episode offers a thought-provoking look at the challenges and rewards of taking bold, unconventional steps. 

Transcript

CP: “To me, it was about getting curiosity even if it necessarily wasn't fully understood. My main goal was to leave enough impact or plant enough seeds so that people may come back and refer to the speech down the road because you know, it takes people multiple exposures to understand a concept. So I just assume I'm one of the touch points. I talk about singing and then somebody else talks about singing and then somebody else talks about it and then they're like, oh, I should sing or intention setting, right? I talk about it. Maybe they hear it in yoga class. Maybe they hear it on the news and then they start practicing it. I just thought of this as just another touch point for these three concepts. I was trying to get everybody to do. And that was also really important to me, which is I think the world has too much lectures and not enough laughs. We hear all this stuff, but if we don't put it into action, we don't get any of the benefits. So to me, it was really important that we did the activities together. We set the intention, we sang, we moved. And that's why I put in the magic trick because I wanted something that could engage people at it. It's memorable. There's too much information coming at people where if you're not a little bit unique, you'll just be forgotten. What's the saying again? Tell me, show me, tell me, I forget… Show me, I remember and involve me and I understand. ”

Hey friend, welcome back to The Light Watkins Show. I'm Light Watkins and I have conversations with ordinary folks just like you and me who've taken extraordinary leaps of faith in the direction of their path, their purpose, or what they've identified as their mission in life. And in doing so, they've been able to positively impact and inspire the lives of many other people who've either heard about their story or who witnessed them in action. Or people who've directly benefited from their work. The goal is to expose you to as many people as possible who found their path and to humanize them.

And after hearing story after story, hopefully eventually you give yourself permission to move further in the direction of whatever feels like your path and your purpose. Because what you'll see is that anyone who does that has to overcome many of the same obstacles that you might be dealing with right now.

And this week on the podcast, I'm bringing back a former guest, Chris Pan, who is the founder of my intent and Vomo. Chris has been on twice before to talk about the Genesis of each of those movements. Episode 13, we talked about my intent and how it's about spreading the power of intention through wearing a bracelet with your custom word stamped onto the bracelet.

And on episode 105, we go into the. Backstory of how he came up with VOMO, which stands for voice and movement, where people participate in group singing and movement practices intended to uplift their spirits. And the reason why I invited Chris back on. This third time is because recently Chris was tapped to deliver the commencement speech at Ohio State University, which means their end of the year graduation.

He was going to deliver the speech to the graduates. And he had a very interesting writing process. Chris went through multiple drafts of his speech, which he published On his social media page in the form of a Google doc, and he solicited feedback from his followers. And when I looked at the early drafts of his speech, I have to admit, I was concerned I didn't see a clear through line and Chris was mentioning the conflict in the Middle East, which I didn't think was appropriate for a graduation speech.

He also brought up the subject of Bitcoin as a misunderstood asset class. And my feedback to him was nobody wants to be lectured on finances at a commencement speech. And I just didn't see a lot of strong storytelling in those earlier drafts. So, yeah, I was concerned. 

But Chris seemed committed to talking about the things that he personally felt were the most important considerations for graduates who were moving into adulthood. And those topics included investing in the positive effects of singing to help you cope with the stress and the anxiety and the potential mental health challenges that many adults experience. And thirdly, being intentional with how you live your life.

And so Chris ended up giving the commencement speech. And the real time feedback from the people who were in attendance was hostile. He got booed during the speech and it went on to make international news with some outlets referring to it as the worst commencement speech ever delivered. Others called it a Bitcoin pitch.

And Chris's social media feeds were littered with negative and hostile comments from both Ohio State University graduates, as well as their parents, as well as people who were in attendance saying that he was a clown, that he was a grifter, that he was just using the speech to boost his bracelets and to advertise Bitcoin.

But then after a few days of the original speech, it was posted on YouTube and other people viewed the speech and they started to weigh in with more positive feedback, saying that this was everything I wish I knew when I graduated college. And of course, a lot of the Bitcoin community were celebrating the fact that Chris Pan basically orange pilled 70,000 people, which is Bitcoin speech for he enlightened them about the benefits of cryptocurrency. 

And Chris was followed by former president Barack Obama on X. And other influential figures from the world of tech and politics. His follower count shot up, and he also had a chance to go on a lot of interviews and bigger platforms and discuss why he chose to talk about the things that he talked about.

And many other commenters began to say that they now understand where he was coming from and that his speech was just non traditional. And so it set off this debate between people who prefer the more traditional approach to commencement speeches versus the people who celebrate a more nontraditional approach. And the fact that if it was traditional, nobody will be talking about this speech and everyone would have likely forgotten at the moment it was over. 

And so one of the things that I talk about in my work and on this podcast is when you follow your heart and you take a leap of faith, and you go off the beaten path. It's going to be scary and you're going to have to tap into a lot of inner courage in order to stay the path. And I noticed that even with myself and my partner, we were debating about which approach was the correct approach to Chris's commencement speech. And I found myself initially defending the traditional path, which is very interesting to me in reflection because I also admit that if he gave a traditional speech, we wouldn't be talking about it. We wouldn't be debating about it. 

And so I wanted to bring Chris onto the podcast and to just have a longer form conversation about the process of creating the speech, giving the speech, and also dealing with negativity because to Chris's credit. He allowed the negative comments to stay up there. He would oftentimes post the negative comments on his stories and on Instagram.

So he would give a more balanced viewpoint of what everybody was saying. And I want to hear what his intentions were by doing that. And just how he decided on his approach to navigating the feedback and how it really affected him offline. Because at one point, as I said, he got booed and nobody imagines giving a commencement speech, which is a huge honor and getting booed by 70,000 people. I mean, can you imagine that happening to you? 

So yeah, I wanted to bring them on and talk about what it was like to go through all of that. And I'm still not suggesting that it was a good speech or a perfect speech. I think there's definitely room for improvement in Chris's storytelling. And I mentioned that to him in one of his earlier drafts, but apparently it had to go the way that it went. And I'm fascinated by someone's mindset and heartset when they do things that are against tradition and how they deal with the fallout. Because anyone who's following their heart is going to, at some point, experience some degree of fallout, and it's important to understand what truly matters when you get the naysayers and the haters and the people who are pushing back against you for, for breaking from tradition.

So yeah, I just thought it'd be interesting to have him on here and talk through that process. And here's a brief clip from the speech of what it sounded like when Chris brought up the whole Bitcoin thing and got the reaction that he got, check it out…

So I know this might feel polarizing, but I encourage you to keep an open mind right now. I see Bitcoin as a very misunderstood asset class. 

Ouch. So yeah, I asked him about that moment, how it felt to be booed and his response was surprising.

All in all, this is going to be a fascinating conversation. We don't get too deep into Chris's backstory because I've done two episodes with him prior to this conversation. So if you want to hear more about his backstory, feel free to check out episodes 13 and episode 105. They'll give you a lot of context to how he approaches life in general and why he's obsessed with music and singing and other elements from his commencement speech. 

And I also want to hear your thoughts. So if you get a chance to listen to the full commencement speech, which is on YouTube, I want to know what you think about his approach to that speech. And you can feel free to chime in on my Instagram post about this episode, which is already up. So yeah, let me know your thoughts and otherwise enjoy this conversation about the so called worst commencement speech ever delivered with none other than Chris Pan.

[00:10:09] LW: Chris pan. Welcome back to the podcast. You've been on twice before, I believe this is your third appearance. 

[00:10:16] CP: Honored to be back.

[00:10:18] LW: Alright. So in the intro to my podcast and I read I say this every time I'm introducing a new guest. I say that I have conversations with ordinary people, just like you and me, who've taken extraordinary leaps of faith in the direction of their path, their purpose, or what they've identified as their mission in life. And in doing so, they've been able to impact and inspire the lives of many other people who've either heard their story or who witnessed them in action, or who've benefited from their work. So first question for you is what do you identify as your mission in life? 

[00:10:57] CP: To connect people to their own spirit, to help people have an emotional release to feel good about their emotions and to help people find freedom mostly financially, I feel like those are the three things that have been given to me as a mission for this half of my life.

[00:11:15] LW: Alright. So in our first interview, we went into the backstory of your it's not really a nonprofit, but it's more like a B Corp, the MyIntent. 

[00:11:23] CP: It's a service project and we're actually about to turn it into a nonprofit. So it's in transition. 

[00:11:30] LW: And that's a fascinating story. You and I have known each other for a long time. I think since 2014. We met in 2014. And the first time we met, you gifted me with a bracelet with a word on it. I don't remember the word right now, but that led to a collaboration later on because I had just released my first book, The Inner Gym. And then we did a MyIntent version of that book where we talked about the importance of intention.

And so that's something the thing with knowing you all these years is you're one of those people, you know how they say Steve Jobs has a reality distortion field. If you're in his event horizon, then he makes you believe that certain things are possible that may other people may think are impossible and he's singularly focused on that thing.

And that's how I've experienced you over the years is you're someone who, once you lock in on an idea or project, that's all you really talk about. For the most part, every conversation with you goes back to that thing that you're super excited about. And so for the longest time, it's been the MyIntent, project intention, what's your word. That's nothing new. You've been on that for forever and everybody, I think, especially in the Los Angeles wellness scene or spiritual scene associates you as the intention. 

And prior to that, you were throwing these events called Spirit Lab. So we have a whole episode about this, but just give us a little montage on how you got into the Spirit Lab stuff and how that kind of dovetailed over into the MyIntent stuff.

[00:13:16] CP: So 2013, after I had gained my financial independence, I went through a bad breakup, ended up the Hoffman, where I realized that there's four aspects to ourselves, physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual. I had neglected my emotional and spiritual, and I had recognized that a lot of other people had neglected their own emotional and spiritual, right? Church, temple, synagogue participation is at an all time low. And you look at what that experience is. It's singing together, it's having a positive message and some prayer meditation. When we don't do this on a weekly basis, we have nowhere to release our stuck emotions. We have nowhere to really allow us to connect to ourselves, right? Prayer meditation. It's to connect to our own truth. And we're stuck on our phones all time highs, depression, anxiety loneliness divisiveness. Is there a correlation? I think there's a causation, actually. Right? So 10 years ago, I asked myself, what does the world need more of? And what am I passionate about?

Well, in high school, I was super involved with my church, and I wanted to be a youth pastor. So this is me reconnecting to that childhood dream of helping a lot of people. But also, there were things about the church that I didn't necessarily resonate with. So I wanted to reimagine what it could be for the 21st century. And so that's what Spirit Lab is. 

And to me, the Spirit Lab is all about the creative process, creating a poem, creating a piece of art, creating a bracelet, creating a conversation, creating music the human spirit has to create to come alive. And most of us live as a consumer, we're treated as a consumer and I need to wake people up out of that stupor. 

And in 2013, when I moved to LA, I was told by a guy named Jason. I was about to buy a house in San Francisco and he said no you need to move to LA, just focus on helping people. Don't worry about making money. So I showed up in LA with that house in West Hollywood Hills and just landed in my lap because a friend called me and said, Hey, I'm moving to New York. You want this house? And I said, oh my gosh, absolutely. That'd be perfect. Every Sunday we were having these Spirit Sunday events where we would do yoga. We would meditate, we would sing, we would do the bracelets, right? And out of those gatherings, people really love the bracelets because of the conversations that were happening.

And nowhere else are people having these kinds of conversations on a You know, regular basis. So that became the mind tent project since 2013, 14. You know, that, that was the first product that we put out essentially to serve the world. And then three years ago we did Vomo. 

[00:15:44] LW: Okay. Real quick question cause this is really interesting. The house you got in the Hollywood Hills, It wasn't just a house. It was like a mansion that overlooked all of Los Angeles. There was a pool, there was a hot tub. And so I think normally when people think about those kinds of places, they think, how many parties they can have in there.

I mean, you're a single guy and you're getting this much bigger house than you need. What was the vision? When you got that, were you thinking of how you could use this for your mission?

[00:16:20] CP: A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, for me, these are parties, right? We had parties, they just were, you know, not much alcohol. I think sometimes there'll be a little bit, I'm not against alcohol, but I just think we could have a lot of conscious conversations without it. 

[00:16:33] LW: And you don't really drink yourself, right? 

[00:16:35] CP: A little tiny bit. I do some mushrooms obviously now that everybody knows. But yeah, I don't drink much.

To me, that is partying, right? Partying is just a celebration. Partying is connection. It's to feel good. So my way of partying is just different than maybe other people's definition of party because people had a great time at my place, right? You were there like people left feeling uplifted and people left not having a hangover the next morning. So I actually think it's better personally, 

[00:17:02] LW: Did you think that getting that place would help you achieve your mission more so than getting like a two bedroom apartment somewhere? And being modest and all of that. 

[00:17:12] CP: Yeah, that was the perfect testing ground. That was like V1, right? So I had it for 1 year. And I've met a ton of people, the bracelets started taking the life of its own. And then I realized, okay, I don't necessarily need to have a house. I actually wanted to travel. And so I could take the bracelets to other people's events. I didn't need to have my own. And that helped me actually spread it even more, which actually, it's about to happen again.

I'm about to sell my house now and I'm about to go on the road so I can spread my message to all corners of the earth. 

[00:17:41] LW: I guess what I mean is, do you think people took you more seriously in your mission more seriously because you had that house? 

[00:17:47] CP: I don't know if people took me more seriously, but I just think the house is conducive to having people experience what I envision as the ultimate secular Sunday spiritual uplifting experience, right?

I needed a physical space to do that without that space. I would have had to go rent a space every Sunday. It just would have been a little bit more difficult. It made it easier by having the house for sure. 

[00:18:09] LW: So then you start going to other people's places.

[00:18:14] CP: I was making bracelets at everyone's parties, basically like dinner parties, your events at The Shine, like everywhere there. If there was an event, I brought my tools and we were making bracelets.

[00:18:24] LW: You weren't really making a lot of money at that point with the bracelet. 

[00:18:29] CP: No, we were just giving it away. I was just giving it away just because I enjoyed it. I really liked the conversations. I liked how I felt when people had that, like, oh my gosh moment, you know, when they connected with their word and then they get their bracelet, I would get a big hug and a big smile. It just felt good. And luckily at that point I didn't really need money. I had made money from my days at Facebook, so I was able to be fully in service. 

[00:18:51] LW: And like I said, you're the type of person who you'll sometimes do things that are very unconventional against the rules. And so I want you to share the story of being in the Soho house and looking over in the corner and seeing the celebrity… The rule of the Soho house is you're not supposed to go up to people you don't know.

[00:19:08] CP: Oh, yeah, that rule again. Dear Lord. I saw Jay Z in the corner of this particular private members only club. And yes, you're not supposed to go up to random people, especially a celebrity like Jay Z. And I wasn't even a member. So definitely wasn't supposed to go up to him, but I did it anyway.

I just said, you know what? What's the worst thing that can happen, right? I get kicked out. I don't know. But what's the best thing that can happen is we make a genuine connection. And I wanted to acknowledge him for what he does for the, through the Sean Carter foundation. I thought it'd be a nice thing to get acknowledged. I just, I don't know. I followed my intuition. There's a little nudge that said, go do it. And so I did. And I've done it other times and not had anywhere near the same result too.

I've done it where I got kind of a negative result, but it just depends. But let's like Michael Jordan. He says he doesn't make every shot, but there's some famous Michael Jordan quote related to this. 

[00:20:02] LW: Yeah. I took 9,000 shots, but you know I missed however many.

[00:20:07] CP: Yeah. So like I have misses too, but if you do it with the right intention, like more often than not, then they end up landing and it's a beautiful thing when it lands. 

[00:20:16] LW: So talk about that. What happened? How did it land? What was the outcome to going up to Jay Z? 

[00:20:21] CP: You know, I think people sense energy and I went up with a genuine energy to just acknowledge him for what he did.

I made him a little bracelet that said, had the word educate on it because the Sean Conner foundation provides education for the underprivileged. And it was on two pieces of hemp rope. I mean, it was a joke. It was in terms of the whole material, the cost of that thing was like a dollar probably. It was like a washer and two pieces of string, but I think it really touched him and I just said, hey, I have a gift for you. It's this thing that I do. And then he was curious and we started talking about why I'm doing it. His friend Jay Brown, who is the president of Rock Nation, wanted one as well.

So I'm sitting there banging a bracelet out for him and his friend. And we got to know each other a bit more. And then he said, Hey, this is really great. I have a party this coming weekend for the Grammys, the Saturday. Do you want to come and make it? So, the rest is history. 

[00:21:12] LW: So you got invited to Jay Z's famous Grammy brunch and then everybody was there. Rihanna was there, Kanye was there, blah, blah, blah. Now, again, we detail all of this in the first episode. Yeah, this is 

[00:21:24] CP: Like OG story. Yeah. 

[00:21:27] LW: What this is illustrating for me is. When you take a chance, when you take a leap of faith, when you go against what's normally expected of you, that certain time, things that you don't even imagine happening in the happening. And so just give us a little montage of everything that transpired up until.

[00:21:47] CP: So then, two months later I thought about shutting down the project because you know, holiday season was over, orders were slow and I'm in Bali meditating. And then all of a sudden I see Kanye on the cover of the Time 100. That was a big deal. 

And then that summer I go to a conference in New York. I meet the producer and the reporter from the today show and anchor. And that story ends up airing in December. We went from 2,000 December to over a quarter of a million dollars the next day. It just put us on a whole nother trajectory.

Yeah, so my philosophy is always do the right thing. Always be planting seeds and you just never know what seed is going to turn into the oak tree, but just keep planting seeds 

[00:22:23] LW: And Kanye was wearing your bracelet on the cover of Time. 

[00:22:26] CP: Yeah. 

[00:22:27] LW: Which is crazy. so then that becomes a thing again, you're known as the MyIntent guy. And then a few years ago. It evolved into something else. So just a quick little backstory again, you and I are friends. So I've been nomadic since 2018. We had no idea that a pandemic was about to occur in 2020. So everyone, it seems like when the pandemic happened, it was like musical chairs. Everyone went back to their seat.

I didn't have a seat to go back to. So you were kind enough to house me and we actually spent the whole world shut down, I was staying at your place. And so I ended up spending a few months at your place. And it was during this time that you began hosting these events on Zoom. So talk about those events.

[00:23:19] CP: For me the bracelets, it's just the physical reminder. We put in our mission statement. This is not a jewelry company, we're a service project. And so I wanted to really help people deepen their relationship with their word, with their own voice, with their intuition.

So we launched a whole series of classes, virtual classes, all free. Initially it was just on the weekends and then it turned into twice a day and then it turned to eight hours a day. I mean, it was so much programming. I was overwhelmed. And then I eventually zoomed out and I think we all did, right.

We were burned out of Zoom and we eventually shut it down, but it was my vision of really helping people connect with their intention and to live more intentionally. We offered breath work, we offered singing, we offered dancing, we offered like a group therapy classes. I mean, it was a full virtual school around emotional and spiritual wellness.

[00:24:11] LW: And you've always been, even at Facebook, you were part of a band. You said it when you were growing up in church, you were in the choir. 

[00:24:18] CP: I was in the worship team. I was leading worship. Yeah. I've loved music. 

[00:24:21] LW: You've always been very musical. And even if you go into your place. Your whole living room, there's guitars everywhere. There's drums. You have all these events. So people come to one of your events usually there's going to be a musical component where you're going to be singing. And I remember staying with you, man. And there were like two or three songs that you would just play on repeat. But the songs were so uplifting that you can't be mad about it. You play, we are the world. You play that Zimmer song. You played the one instrumental song that I heard you play. It's like that inspiration 

[00:24:55] CP: Arise. It's like that cinematic. It's called Arise. 

[00:25:00] LW: So again, you know, you've been on this for years. You've been consumed by this and all the while it's been sort of incubating into this vision of VOMO and in even the early VOMO days, we would be in your living room, me and 12 or 13 other people would come by on a Tuesday afternoon and just sing for like an hour. And then you would talk to me privately when everybody would leave about your bigger vision, which was what? 

[00:25:29] CP: To get the world to sing together.

[00:25:31] LW: Yeah. But in stadiums. Tens of thousands of people.

[00:25:34] CP: Singing is so healing. Yeah. That was absolutely the dream. 

[00:25:38] LW: So you've been on this for years. 

[00:25:40] CP: Oh yeah. I've had this dream since I was a kid. I wanted to be Jon Bon Jovi when I was in ninth grade. 

[00:25:45] LW: And you're not the best singer, but you're so enthusiastic and passionate about singing. You would have the lyrics up during the VOMO. So we would all see this and sing it. And then you had to kind of workshop this to get more basic songs so that people could follow along. 

[00:26:00] CP: I think the fact that I'm not a professional singer is part of my message is that anybody can sing, right? Because I think we're conditioned that only the people that are professionals can sing.

It'd be like saying, oh, only professionals can run, right? We don't aspire to that are only professional people could do yoga. If you're not a professional yogi, don't do yoga, right? That's weird. And so I think we've just applied the wrong mindset to singing. And I'm trying to change that with my own voice.

[00:26:26] LW: And so talk about the quality or the dynamic of these events you've been doing, you've done hundreds of these VOMO type style events. What are they like? 

[00:26:33] CP: It depends on the audience, but typically, I try to set the mindset and sometimes I explain it. And sometimes it just depends on my audience where we just get into singing.

The most recent one I did was for the Stanford mental healthcare innovation summit. And there were 150 doctors, hospital administrations investors. And that one, I did probably a 10 minute talk about the the Science behind singing, and then we sang for 10 minutes, so that one was more of a traditional. I had to explain it, and then we did it. 

And by the way, the doctors were having so much fun. I had them flapping their arms like butterfly wings, flying around the room. I have the videos. It's so fun. Some of the ones that I do with my usual crew, we just get right into it. They know the drill.

We just jump right in and no one's trying to when America's Got Talent or American Idol, we're just having fun. And the key is to just have a release, just to let go of some energy that we don't need anymore. It's like, we go to the bathroom to release physical waste, right? Singing is a way we can release some emotional waste. And I think it's just it's just the most beautiful thing to do it together. 

I was at Mindvalley at a conference with several hundred people and I did a 15 minute session. It was right after lunch. It was mostly just to get people back into the room. And somebody messaged me afterwards and said, Chris, in the 15 minute session you did, I had a massive breakthrough. Like, thank you for that. And in 15 minutes I can change someone's life. I forget the details, I have to find the message but she had some big emotional breakthrough about like her voice and she just fell in love with her voice again and all that.

And I have testimonials like that all the time where people spend an hour with me and they'll have a major block that they've been working through for years. All of a sudden, like they have a breakthrough and I pride myself on being able to deliver maximum impact in a short amount of time. 

[00:28:21] LW: And you've also done some stuff with Ohio State over the last few years.

[00:28:26] CP: Yeah. I did a small workshop with him in 2013, I think, and then I did a big one in 2018. And so I've been on campus few a few times and in all in the past. The students have all loved it. It's all been wonderful. 

[00:28:36] LW: Okay. So you get this email from, is it from the president's office or? 

[00:28:43] CP: Yeah. From the office of the president.

[00:28:45] LW: The media is saying that you got the email. You thought it was a joke. Tell us the real story. What actually happened? 

[00:28:51] CP: So the email came in. It wasn't so much a joke. I just couldn't believe it. Like, I got the email and I got it. Apparently, I got it on a Friday morning at nine, but, I'm busy. So I didn't really read it till Friday night. And I was also just in the middle of some stuff. It just said, hey, a special invitation for you. The first line that says, hey, we want you to be a special invitation to come join commencement. And it's been 25 years since I graduated. I just thought they were inviting some alums back to maybe have a little reunion. Because I have my Harvard Business School, 20 year-reunion coming up in June. So I just thought it was a reunion. I didn't think I was like the subject didn't say we want you to be the speaker. 

Now, if that was what the subject said, then of course, like I would be different. So then it wasn't until the next morning that my dad was asking me when I'd be back in Ohio.

Then I remember the email and I'm glad he did because I may have not even maybe gone back to the email to be frank. I reread the email and the second sentence said, and we want you to be the featured guest speaker for commencement. And I kept, I was like, what does this mean? Like, is it speakers? Like I was confused.

And then I texted a couple of the people at the university that I knew. And I was like, is this what I think it is? Because I just couldn't believe it. You know? So it wasn't like I thought it was a joke. I just, I don't know. How would you describe it? I just couldn't believe what I was receiving because it's such an incredible honor.

[00:30:08] LW: And do you have any idea of the backstory? Why they chose you? How did your name come up? 

[00:30:13] CP: Finally the night before the commencement, there was a dinner with the president and I just asked him, I said, how did it come up? And he said that this year they wanted to have a student, so a former alum.

So I guess every year they have a different theme. Maybe one year they want a president, maybe one there, they want a big celebrity, whatever this year they wanted to feature an alumni. And they said that my name had been at the top of their list for a while. Like, I was definitely their top choice for, I guess, multiple years.

So this was the year. I mean, the university has done a full profile on me in their magazine with many pages. I've made bracelets for so many people. So I'm not a stranger to the university by any means. So, on that level, that made sense to me. 

[00:30:57] LW: Ohio State's a massive school. There've been tons and tons of people, former athletes, like, why do you suppose they chose, why were you at the top of the list, what were the attributes of your body of work? 

[00:31:08] CP: I think I think because of the message I've been trying to put into the world, especially in a year like this I've been doing a lot of work with the Israeli and Palestinian communities. The message of forgiveness, of empathy, of compassion as you see, ever since October 7th, it's been turmoil on most campuses. So I think the message that I bring is very relevant for what's happening across the country. I also think I am a little different, you know, maybe I was a little too different for the average person initially.

But I do bring a fresh perspective and it's something totally novel and a bit innovative to the commencement speech. So you and I also talked after you got that email, you were really excited about this opportunity. And. What it means for the work that you've been doing, I think, you know, a lot of times when you have a politician who does things a little differently, who gets elected, they sort of see that as a stamp of approval on the things that they've been talking about and the things that they have stood for, that this is what the populace now wants.

[00:32:12] LW: And so is that kind of how you felt is this is what I want to bring. 

[00:32:17] CP: Yeah I felt so deeply grateful because it's an incredible honor and incredible exposure to take my work to the next level. And 10 years ago, I think I mentioned that Jason guy told me to move to LA. And then a year ago, I bumped into him again and he said, you know, the last 10 years was all about intention. The next 10 years is about action. And you're about to take this music and everything you're doing to the rest of the world to help bring food and aid to places that don't have it, right. And you're about to rock stadiums. 

And when he said that a year ago, I was like, sounds great, but I have no idea how I'm going to get into a stadium. And of course, a year later, I'm literally there in front of 70,000 people. So the universe has a very interesting way to make things happen.

[00:33:01] LW: Alright. So let's talk about your process. How many weeks did you have to prepare for this speech? 

[00:33:06] CP: March 8th. Right? So under two months, two months. Seven weeks which is not a lot of time, right. As you know, the speaker community, oftentimes, you get four to six months to prepare for something.

[00:33:16] LW: Yeah. 

[00:33:16] CP: So I'm on a two month deadline. 

[00:33:19] LW: So talk about your process. How did you craft this. 

[00:33:21] CP: I just initially started taking notes in my Apple. I have an iPhone in my notes app. I just took a ton of notes. As soon as that idea, I put it in the note. I did a smaller psilocybin journey mushrooms on my own, I was actually with a friend, but it was, you know, I just did it. There was no shaman. 

So backtrack, I've been working with psychedelics in a very intentional way for both healing and more recently for creativity for five years. It's just part of my process. It's part of my spiritual practice in the same way I also meditate. That's part of my spiritual practice. So working with psychedelics is very, like, it'd be weird if I didn't do it, put it that way because it's such a big deal, right? Because it's just how I prepare for something.

Three weeks ago I had a very profound ayahuasca journey. My shaman that I've been working with, who does ayahuasca happen to be available for me to do a journey. And so we, it was so powerful and intense. And in the journey, I was, you know, hanging out with John Lennon and Michael Jackson. And I was just hearing these divine messages of love. It's just, it's all about love. It's all about freedom, being yourself, being, you know, living your truth and being free.

And after I landed from the journey, it was probably a 12 hour journey. The next day, the following days, I then started taking it and started working it into multiple drafts. So I had draft one, two, three, all the way to draft eight. And that was the one that. Ended up getting submitted and loaded into the system for the world to see.

[00:34:47] LW: And I think it's important to make the distinction between it's, when you're on like recreational drugs, like cocaine or marijuana, you take the stuff and then you're like going out and being, doing whatever you're doing, whether you're clubbing, dancing, whatever. But when you're talking about ayahuasca, you're lying down. Usually their eyes are closed. You're having this experience where you're getting maybe some messages and stuff, but then once the journey is over, you go back to your regular life. It's not like you're high once the journey's over. It's just that you may recall some of the messages, some of the clarity that you had while you were in that journey.

But for the most part, you're just in your normal life. 

[00:35:29] CP: Oh yeah. It's totally back to normal. I mean, I think of it as going to the mountaintop. You go to the top of the mountain to receive some divine messages and then you bring it back down to the earth. And it's no different than if you meditate all the time.

I think my friend told me, or he was on stage once and he said, you can walk up the mountain, which is like you meditate every day or you journal every day, or you can take a ski lift. And so I took the ski lift and I also, I do have a meditation practice as well. So I do both. I use every tool available that I can find.

[00:35:56] LW: But some people say, Oh, he was high when he wrote it. You can't be high. That's like oxymoron. You're not high. 

[00:36:02] CP: Well, I was high though. I mean, I was high in terms of, I mean, define high, right? There's recreational high versus more of like an intentional high. 

[00:36:10] LW: Yeah. Like high, natural high on life. You're not depressed or anything like that. 

[00:36:15] CP: But wouldn't you want to be high? Like my question back to people would be like, think about if you write a song, right? If you're trying to uplift people, or if you're trying to write a message that uplifts people, like you have to be, I have to be in a higher state to be able to then pull people up.

So I think it's actually bery normal to be high when you're crafting certain things that are intended to help bring up the vibration of the planet. 

[00:36:39] LW: Yeah. But I get it. I get what you're saying, but for the listener who has never done this before, I want to make sure that we're making a distinction.

[00:36:46] CP: Of course, it's a foreign concept. You can still drive. You're not like, you know, You're not able, to live your normal life. And oh yeah, well, during the ceremony, you're definitely not driving, but once you come off the ceremony, of course it's like, you know, some people call it spiritual surgery, right?

So if you're at a hospital, if you're in surgery, of course, you're not going to like walk around when you're wide open, right? You're protected under a doctor's care, but once you're out of the surgery, then you're back to normal. You know, you have a very quick recovery and then you're just back to everyday life.

[00:37:15] LW: And if you were a surgeon, you could do ayahuasca and then come out and perform surgery. No problem. There's nothing that's impairing you from being able to do your job. 

[00:37:24] CP: Well, that's what you're saying is, yeah, the shaman can handle it. Yeah. The shaman's undergone tremendous training. You know, I'm not a shaman, but I'm a, you know, part partaker of this practice. It's part of my spiritual practice. 

[00:37:35] LW: Okay. So I've been a part of the speaking community. I've done some keynotes, my own. So you sent me a draft of your early drafts of the talk. I gave you some feedback and said, Hey, Chris, you know, I don't know if it's a good idea to talk about Bitcoin and your key in your commencement speech.

I want you to think about this like a wedding speech and. People don't want to be lectured on finances during wedding speech. So, you ended up posting your early drafts on your social media to solicit feedback, public feedback. So, you had mentioned Palestine Israel. I also said, that's not a great idea to talk about that.

I was thinking of it for more of a traditional sense. I'm sure you got other feedback. So talk a little bit about that. What was the early feedback you were getting from people? And how are you sort of. Thinking about it as you were continuing to rewrite your speech.

[00:38:25] CP: My guiding principle was if my brother was graduating, what would I want to tell him? What are the most important things I've learned? What are the secrets? What are the top tips that I've learne that I want him to know, someone I care deeply about. And so that's how I decided, right?

Yes. Maybe Bitcoin was a bit controversial. Maybe you wouldn't talk about Bitcoin at a wedding, but to me, a commencement is preparing this group of students for their future, and I don't want to withhold my best material just because it might be controversial. Like that, to me, would be a disservice to them, right? Which is a different framework, right? Because to me, I couldn't live with myself if I didn't tell them my best. Or almost if I was a graduate, right, I wish I bought Bitcoin in 2012, right? Right. Don't you wish somebody told you somebody nudged you a little bit in 2012 and you bought it at 10 dollars? That would have been… 

[00:39:20] LW: What's interesting is somebody did tell me, but I ignored them. I didn't listen. 

[00:39:23] CP: Well, you know, so I nudged them now where we're at a million dollars. We're going to look back and be like, Hey, somebody nudged you at 60,000. You could have bought it, but you didn't, you know, or you did, maybe you did.

[00:39:33] LW: What was the instruction from the university? Were they looking at your early drafts as well? And were they giving you feedback? 

[00:39:39] CP: Yeah, they mostly just said, so, they said keep it uplifting, right? It is a commencement, it is celebratory. And as I was processing it, I was like, okay, well, I have the music because the music is very uplifting.

So, that was my goal with having some music in there. They wanted it to be original, they said, During the rehearsal, you can have some fun with the kids, but keep it traditional for the commencement. And I kept begging them and saying, Hey, you know what? That's just not me. I don't know how to do traditional. I've never done a traditional speech. I was on your stage at The Shine. There was nothing traditional about that, right? We had people moving. We had people meditating. That's just not who I am. You got the wrong guy if you want traditional. And finally I got the okay to do it my way.

It took a bit of back and forth to get that result. I got a lot of pushback from mostly parents actually to leave out the Israel Palestine. They were concerned it would be divisive and disruptive and I listened. The reason I put all my drafts out into the public was to actually listen and to get feedback.

And so I ended up changing because I had a line in there that said originally it was going to say, anti Semitism is not okay. And what's happening in Gaza is not okay. I changed it to racism is not okay. And human collateral damage is not okay. So I just made it broader.

It was the same message, but I just made it more applicable to other situations. I got a little bit of feedback that maybe the Bitcoin wouldn't be so great. But it wasn't as loud as the Israel Palestine. And I didn't think I would get such a strong reaction out of the Bitcoin, to be honest.

[00:41:15] LW: Or I guess you were thinking that, and I guess you were thinking that even if there is a negative reaction, it's still worth talking about it because it's something that you truly believe in. And it wasn't about just the Bitcoin from my interpretation. It was really about being open minded as an investor. You need to be an investor and need to be open minded. 

[00:41:35] CP: Exactly. Exactly. Bitcoin was just the example I used, but the whole message was you can't not invest, investing hyperinflation market. And I said… 

[00:41:47] LW: And Warren Buffett says this too. 

[00:41:49] CP: Yeah. Everybody says it, it's not disputable, right?

That to be a great investor, you gotta be open minded. You have to understand things before other people. And I literally even said, I know this may be polarizing, but I encourage you to keep an open mind. I thought they would take my instructions. They didn't. And by the way, everybody, a lot of people on Twitter and elsewhere is like, Oh, Chris told everyone to buy Bitcoin.

For the record, I did not say that. And I think that's also indicative of, as a culture, we have a problem of listening. We hear what we want to hear, but we don't really hear what other people are saying. All I said was, I believe Bitcoin is the most misunderstood asset class. Now, that's my belief, right? You may believe it's not a misunderstood. You may believe it's one of them. You know, we can have different belief systems. I wasn't telling everyone to do any protection. I just said, Hey, I think there's some there's some truth here. If you want to go take a look. 

[00:42:41] LW: And you just got into Bitcoin pretty heavily, relatively recently. 

[00:42:46] CP: Three months ago I got in, I started really digging in, admitted February. Yeah. So it's not like I'm some hardcore Bitcoin. 

[00:42:53] LW: Yeah. So would you say that you weren't open minded to it until recently, or how did it talk about that.

[00:43:00] CP: I didn't put two and two together. I had started dabbling in Bitcoin in late 2020 but I didn't fully understand it and. I just bought a little bit. 

[00:43:09] LW: And late 2020 was the worst time to get into. 

[00:43:12] CP: Yeah, I mean, I bought in around like mid 35, like around 35K I think Went up to like 60 and then it dropped down to 20. And then when it dropped down to 20, I needed a tax write off cause I had some other gains from other stocks that I had sold that year. So I just sold it at 20K just to have a tax loss. And then I thought I was going to buy back in, but then I got lazy. So I didn't buy back in. And I wish I did obviously. But it wasn't until I saw the ETFs come out in February. That was a huge game changer for me because that told me that the asset class had matured to a point where... 

[00:43:45] LW: Explain what that means in ETF. What does that mean? 

[00:43:48] CP: So an ETF means you know, historically. In the very early days to buy Bitcoin, most people had to have a hard wallet. So you had to go online and it was very complicated, right? It was difficult. And then you had to have these digital keys to your Bitcoin. If you lost the keys, then you lost it forever, which is a scary thing, right? There's a classic story of some guy who actually throughout his hard drive that has keys, it was worth like, I don't know many millions or hundreds of millions. He's literally begging the dumpster to go in and do it, but they won't let him. And it's just this tragic tale. Then the exchanges came, but the problem with the exchanges is sometimes they would blow up, they would get hacked. And so I was never comfortable putting in significant amounts of my net worth into either of those options. 

Now, the ETFs are something where you've got BlackRock, Fidelity, and other big names that are essentially your custody, and you can buy it in your existing Schwab and Fidelity accounts, just like you would buy the S&P 500, just like you would buy any individual stock. So it just made this whole process super easy not only for me, but as I thought about it, I was like, wow, now all of a sudden, every person who has a retirement account could actually start to own a bit of Bitcoin with very little friction. It literally takes one minute to sell some of whatever you want to sell and one minute to just buy the next thing. It literally will take you two minutes to get into the Bitcoin game. 

I was a Facebook growth guy. So I'm keenly aware that as you remove barriers to a particular behavior that you're desiring, more and more people will do it. So as you see, we've had a big run up, you know, since March because of the ETFs, because a lot more people are saying, Oh, this is really easy. And let me just get involved. 

[00:45:25] LW: Okay. So as you're preparing your speech, you are envisioning someone like your brother, or maybe your younger self in the audience and the things that they need to hear are to be open minded to investing and what else. 

[00:45:38] CP: And Bitcoin is the example, right? The second one was take care of your emotional health. And then singing was my example, and I always try to pick something that's not widely understood because what's the point of talking about something that's already widely accepted, right? You've learned that nothing new. 

[00:45:51] LW: And this ended up being controversial as well because that people heard that and thought you were anti anti depressant medication and you should just sing your way.

[00:46:01] CP: Yeah. So I'm not anti… Well, I'm a little bit anti antidepressants and here's what I mean by that. When I was at Harvard Business School in the marketing class my favorite course, cause I was focused on marketing. I was the co-president of the Harvard business school marketing club.

There was a second year course called consumer marketing where we learned about Prozac. The company created a survey on their website where if you just basically had a bad day or a bad week. They would diagnose you as needing Prozac when in reality, maybe you just need to go for a walk. Maybe you just need to go for a run. Maybe you just need to go talk to a friend, right? The survey was so aggressively written that it just wanted to diagnose everybody as needing the thing, which is brilliant capitalism, but it's not. But terrible for society. And so I do believe that some people really do need medication. That's totally fair.

But having had close loved ones who were on medication that honestly, if they had tools like meditation, journaling, movement, singing, they may not have needed it, out of a hundred people who take medication, I think a big chunk of them could be helped by natural free activities. 

[00:47:12] LW: Alright, so we have investing. We have natural ways of uplifting your emotional health. And then what was the other one? 

[00:47:19] CP: And then spiritual wellness, right? We talked about setting intentions, the power of intentions. And then I took people through actually two minutes of finding their word which is probably a world record, right?

It's probably one of the largest group meditations or group intention settings in history. I mean, how often do we see 70,000 people finding their word at the same time? Has that ever happened? You know, finding, setting an intention. So that actually wasn't very controversial. I haven't heard anyone really complain about that. 

[00:47:49] LW: The controversy is they say you were trying to sell your bracelets. That was the big takeaway. 

[00:47:55] CP: Yes that, Oh my God. There's controversy everywhere. I totally forgot about it. 

[00:47:58] LW: You were telling them not to use antidepressants. You were trying to pitch your bracelets and you were telling them to buy Bitcoin. That's the takeaway.

[00:48:06] CP: That's one lens, right? That's one lens of it. And I don't think people realize for the last 10 years, I've been giving away bracelets and I've been making these available to people as a tool. The university absolutely loves it and people absolutely love it.

And it's funny because we're still getting hit up by people saying, where's my bracelet? Because we sent over the codes on Thursday to the university or Wednesday or Thursday. I don't know if they sent it out yet because I think they need to then integrate it into their system. And so, I think a lot of students are eagerly awaiting, but sometimes I think the haters are just looking for a reason to hate. And so they're just looking. And also some people are opportunistic and trying to be self promotional. But for anybody that knows me, they know I have a 10 year track record of giving away bracelets. So this is no different than anything I've ever done before. I gave away 3,000 bracelets in 2018. I'm just now giving away 70, 000 bracelets in 2024. 

[00:48:55] LW: Okay. So then you continue publishing multiple versions of your speech. I think it got up to version number eight when it was all said and done. Well, how did the feedback change or was it, did you keep getting the same sort of feedback as you were going from version to version?

[00:49:09] CP: It like evolved and different people had different feedback and people were leaving comments in my actual draft. And then somebody had the word alpha male in there and somebody attributed it to me writing that. And I was like, I don't know, I put this out there, there were like hundreds or thousands of people like writing random comments in my thing. I don't know who wrote that but there's just a lot of mix up in the news about what was happening to my drafts. I had been getting feedback I think you had mentioned the story wasn't that cohesive yet. And it probably wasn't it definitely could have been better.

I did my best given what I, to me, it was about getting curiosity even if it necessarily wasn't fully understood. My main goal was to leave enough impact or plant enough seeds so that people may come back and refer to the speech down the road because it takes people multiple exposures to understand a concept. So I just assume I'm one of the touch points. I talk about singing and then somebody else talks about singing and then somebody else talks about it and then they're like, oh, I should sing or intention setting, right? I talk about it. Maybe they hear it in yoga class. Maybe they hear it on the news and then they start practicing it. I just thought of this as just another touch point for these three concepts. I was trying to get everybody to do. And that was also really important to me, which is I think the world has too much lectures and not enough laughs. We hear all this stuff, but if we don't put it into action, we don't get any of the benefits. So to me, it was really important that we did the activities together. We set the intention, we sang, we moved. And that's why I put in the magic trick because I wanted something that could engage people at it. It's memorable. There's too much information coming at people where if you're not a little bit unique, you'll just be forgotten.

[00:50:45] LW: What's the saying again? 

[00:50:50] CP: Tell me, I forget, show me, I remember and involve me and I understand. And that's something I've been living through as of ninth grade, I read the seven habits of highly effective people, and not only that, I think there was someone else asking me like, but you didn't tell us anything about chasing your dreams and how you overcame adversity and all that stuff.

And I'm like, yes, I didn't tell you. I showed you and I involved you, right? Look at how I approach the speech. I demonstrated courage. I demonstrated innovation. I demonstrated fearlessness. Do you know how scary it is to just even do a traditional speech? But not only that, I went up there and did a non traditional speech, which is like 10 times more scary than even just doing a traditional one.

So I think for people who are I know a lot of people are shocked. They're just not sure what to make of this. I would just say take a little time, reflect. And just think through, like, not only, you know, I don't want to tell you to be courageous. I want to show you I'm courageous and I want to inspire you to be courageous.

[00:51:52] LW: And in one of the earlier versions, you were going to take your shirt off. You were going to take the gown off. 

[00:51:58] CP: No, it was, that's another misperception. I was going to take the gown off, not the shirt, right? I wanted to do the magic trick and have my sleeves exposed. And I didn't want to make people think, Oh, he just dumped it out of his sleeve. And so some articles said I was going to take my shirt, but not my shirt. I was going to be my robe, my gown. So like, again, in my, the end of my speech. I said, don't believe everything you read in the media because they're just trying to get eyeballs. Like, it's so funny because everything, like, Everything that's happened to me, I literally almost like prophesied in my speech itself. It's just this like full meta moment. 

[00:52:32] LW: Yeah. And you only had 10 minutes as well. So there's a lot to fit in there.  You sent out this spreadsheet of commencement speeches that you had, I guess, collect there. Had you seen any other speeches that you thought that's exactly the kind of non traditional approach I want to take?

[00:52:50] CP: No. I mean, I watched dozens of speeches and honestly, I can't remember any of them. I barely, I mean, Steve Jobs is the one I actually remember, but the rest of them, I just can't, they all kind of start to blend in, right? I mean, think about it, like what speech do you remember other than Steve Jobs maybe? I mean, they all just kind of felt the same and I wanted to be remembered. I wanted to have impact. 

[00:53:10] LW: So in your mind, commencement speeches in general were missing the involve part. They have the tell me part down. Some of them have the show me part, but the involve part. 

[00:53:21] CP: Yeah. Most of them don't have the show me. I mean, who's ever had a PowerPoint like a presentation in a speech. Show me another person that had a PowerPoint, right? 

[00:53:32] LW: I've never seen that. So when you show me the PowerPoint, I was, I mean, I have to be honest with you, man. I didn't think it was going to go that well, just based on, the non traditional approach of the whole thing. Right. I was hoping for the best, but I wasn't confident.

[00:53:51] CP: But I'm also okay with being unpopular initially, especially because I worked at Facebook. Oftentimes when we launched a new product, the initial feedback would be backlash. And then two weeks later, everybody loved it. So I think that's just typical of innovation and I come from that. So I wasn't afraid of it. When I saw the headline, this is the worst commencement speech ever. I was like, okay, you just don't understand yet, but just give it time. It'll age well.

[00:54:17] LW: I'm going to get to that. I'm going to get to the reaction. But one more thing I want to talk about before we get to the actual speech, like the day of speech, you decided at the last minute, I'm going to leave the Bitcoin stuff out. I guess. I don't know if the feedback was pretty convincing to you at that point.

[00:54:34] CP: Yeah, well, what happened was I had to submit my speech on Monday. Because they needed to do closed captioning, get the slides loaded in, because they have a production company that handles all that. And then I get to campus Wednesday. The first meeting I had was with the meditation club. There's a small new meditation club on campus. There's actually four of them, I think, but one of them was around. I met with them. We meditated together. That was the first thing I did on campus. You'd be so proud. And then I met with some Jewish student leaders, then a Palestinian advisor or advisor of the Palestinian group and then some Palestinian students. I went to the protest just to listen. 

The next day I had meetings with faculty, staff, students, and then Friday we had more meetings and then the rehearsal Friday morning. I actually met with the head of the psychedelic center at Ohio State University. 

Ohio State University is one of five campuses or a handful of campuses that does clinical psychedelic research in the country. How cool is that? And actually one of the graduates in the stadium wrote her dissertation. She's a PhD. She's now a PhD on the healing on how ayahuasca builds resilience. 

So, Friday night I like absorbed all the feedback and I'm like, okay, I think probably I'm a little too non traditional. Let me go to my other formula, because I have two formulas. 

One is I do like a warmup talk, warm up meeting, get the energy flowing. That's very Tony Robbins, right? It's like you get the blood flowing and then you talk, do the meditation, talk, sing at the end. That's like a classic formula that I do. 

Another formula, like the one I did at Stanford is do a lecture for half of it and then do a little bit of an experience at the end. Right? So there's two ways to structure it. 

So then I thought let me restructure it. So I do seven minutes of talking, three minute experience. So then I'll do the warmup meditation song singing, and then I'll take out the financial part cause it just, it is too much information. And if you look at my Instagram feed, my bread and butter is all about spiritual and emotional, right? The financial thing is kind of a new thing. I was like, I'll just save it for the next one. But then I, so I emailed in Friday night and I get an email back Saturday saying, Hey, let it, let me check for you if we can still swap. And then they got back to me a couple hours later saying, Hey, unfortunately, it's too late because everything's loaded and our vendor can't like redo all this in time for tomorrow. I mean, it's a Saturday, right? And so, they said, you know what? Just you're locked and loaded. Just go up there and deliver. You'll be fine. So that's what happened. 

[00:56:54] LW: You did a rehearsal too, right? 

[00:56:56] CP: Yeah, I had a rehearsal on Friday, but the rehearsal was more of a sound check. It wasn't like I did the whole speech. I was more just trying to build a rapport with the students and just making sure that the music sounded good. You know, I taught them the songs.

[00:57:08] LW: How did you feel when you were trying to take it out, but then they said, no, you kind of have to go forward with it. 

[00:57:15] CP: I trusted the process. I was kind of glad actually that they said that..

[00:57:18] LW: Because now you're choiceless in it. Now it's like, it's not even an option anymore. You're locked in. 

[00:57:22] CP: Yeah. And honestly, like in my gut, I felt like I needed to talk about Bitcoin and I didn't really even understand it in that moment why. But now in hindsight, I fully understand why it's all happening the way it is. But yeah, sometimes things aren't revealed until after.

[00:57:38] LW: I do heard of the term orange pilling and all this kind of stuff before. 

[00:57:43] CP: Of course. I know what orange pill is a red pill. Orange pill is when you try to educate people about Bitcoin. Red pill is when you try to educate people about consciousness often done with psychedelics or other things.

[00:57:53] LW: So you have a couple of good friends of yours in the audience. Your parents are there and it's showtime. So what's cool is you sent me a video from the, what do you call those glasses? 

[00:58:07] CP: The meta smart glasses, the Ray Ban meta smart glasses. Yeah. 

[00:58:10] LW: So you actually videoed the beginning.

[00:58:13] CP: Yeah. The first part, the first three minutes of my speech. Yeah. 

[00:58:16] LW: And then you took them off, right? You took the glasses off. 

[00:58:18] CP: Yeah, because I wanted people to see my eyes and I think it's more interesting to have that first bit, but the rest of it, it literally would just be me looking at my speech, looking up and that it's not very interesting footage.

[00:58:29] LW: So how'd you feel? Were you nervous? 

[00:58:31] CP: I felt like I was going bungee jumping. 

[00:58:34] LW: That's very nerve wracking. 

[00:58:35] CP: You know that feeling like not necessarily nerve wracking, I know I was meant to do it, but it was this like, wow, like 70,000 people and I was doing something very non traditional. It'd be one thing to do 70,000 but a very traditional thing. 

But then like I was really going out on the ledge like this is like almost like I'm climbing up without a rope, I'm going free soloing here. But I had confidence. I had faith that I was doing what I was meant to do. And there was a very, there was a tragedy that happened moments before I went on that really also threw a curve ball into everything. I don't know. 

You have read there was a suicide that had happened 10 minutes before we were walking on stage. We got the news moments before walking on and I was instructed because there wasn't enough information about what had happened. And some students saw it, they were impacted, but a lot of other people didn't. They just said people are here to celebrate commencement. Let's just proceed as is. And if need be, you'll get tapped on the shoulder to move aside if they need to make an announcement, but otherwise you just do exactly what you were originally planning to do. But that definitely, I've been getting feedback that people are saying that also made everything a bit, even more challenging because people were in a different mood. There's a heaviness and then all of a sudden I'm trying to get people to sing. And then I talk about Bitcoin. It just, it's just stacked on stacked just challenges. It's like the perfect storm, right? 

[00:59:52] LW: From your POV, from what I saw through the glasses it looked like it was going well, the first few minutes, at least people were playing along. 

[01:00:01] CP: Yeah, it was fine. I think it would have gone even better. I had a feeling this speech would go viral, not for the Bitcoin part though. I thought it would go viral because of the singing. I thought people would love the singing and thought that was so cool. But I think some people probably didn't participate as much because I think they felt the energy, the heaviness of what had just happened. But yeah, the scene was generally good. I think, the moment I went, I mentioned Bitcoin was basically the boos and then I think I started losing people and it but I did get applause at the end. So I will say, I think there are definitely some people that didn't resonate with it and maybe have been triggered by it, but I did get applause at the end, right? The whole stadium was applauding. And so I do think the majority of people maybe they didn't love it or they didn't know what to do with it, but I did get an applause. I'll say that much. 

[01:00:46] LW: So take us inside though, when you heard the boos, right? You're again, I'm familiar with you, your work, your community. You're used to people appreciating, or at the very least being open minded to what you're doing. You're not the type of person who instigates hostility with other people. You're all about bringing people together. And now you've got tens of thousands of people booing you. How does that feel? How does that feel inside as it's happening? What was your internal dialogue? Were you like, Oh shit, I can't believe they're reacting. 

[01:01:18] CP: Well, you know, I think I have been bullied since I was a kid, since I was seven. So I think I've been able to handle criticism and bullying, you know, and I just rolled with it. And what was I going to do? Stop the speech and just cry like on the spot. So, I just had to keep going. And so I adjusted parts of the speech along the way cut some stuff out and I made a joke a little bit later about the bracelets. It was like, Oh, I try to smooth it out. Right? Because I said, Hey, as an apology for, you know, talking about Bitcoin, here's a free bracelet, I was going to do the free bracelet anyway. But I just wanted to try to smooth things out a little bit. 

[01:01:50] LW: Did you start like sweating and stuff like that? Like as the booing began?

[01:01:54] CP: No, I just kept going. It's fine. I just did my job. It's just another day at the office. One more thing I'll say is I'm not about being popular so to some extent, my goal there wasn't to become the most popular person in Ohio. My goal there was to help people. And so when you try to help people, if they boo you, that's okay. I did my best and I think I can live with myself because I believed in every word I was saying and. If I didn't tell him that I actually would be upset with myself. 

[01:02:23] LW: So immediately after you're done and you go back to take a seat, did you feel like I did what I'm, what I came to do? Or did you feel like I fumbled the ball? 

[01:02:33] CP: I was like, I thought I actually felt pretty good. I was like I got booed. It's fine. I thought it was fine. It was really, I guess the next day or the day after when some of the, there was one article that really started the negativity and then that Rooster article which I ended up talking to the guy that wrote it. We're actually friends now. 

And he said, yeah, I wrote an article that was a little bit negative, but the editor really like made up some stuff to be frank, and just really made it a tabloid. And I even talked about that in my speech about just don't read everything you say, because they need eyeballs. And that's what a good editor will do. We'll just turn it and throw in a bunch of stuff just to try to make it a big deal. 

[01:03:11] LW: So tell us what are some of the things that. We're set about you over those next several days that we're completely made up or just, what did we get wrong? 

[01:03:20] CP: I think every headline, right? Drugs and Bitcoin, Ayahuasca, right? And much of, maybe Ohio and much of the country when they hear Ayahuasca, they think heroin, they think meth, they think fentanyl, right? And it couldn't be further from the truth. 

Ayahuasca is not a party drug. You don't get high on ayahuasca to have an escape. It's not pleasurable per se, right? You do ayahuasca, it's purging, you're releasing negativity. It's spiritual surgery. You're building new neural connections. It's something that's been done by indigenous people for thousands of years as a way to heal and bring harmony into the world, right? That's so different than heroin and other things. And one of the opportunities with the speeches for me is to help bring consciousness into more dark places. And you think about at Ohio state University, the center for psychedelic research, their initial focus was on PTSD from veterans.

And then the second focus was around cancer patients. And the third is around it's like a social justice around minority populations, I believe. And so, psychedelics actually were pretty available up until the seventies when a particular president outlawed it. And that same president also took us off the gold standard, which I think are the two things that I'm really passionate about because look at inflation is because we don't have anything. Our currency is soft. It's not backed by anything. That's why I'm so interested in Bitcoin because it's finite. You can't just print more at will. 

And then with psychedelics, I think it's the best hope for humanity to heal and to live in harmony. And it's highly misunderstood. And as we peel back the layers, we're going to have an awakening that, wow, this is really beautiful.

Back in the seventies, they were trying to fight a war. People who do psychedelics don't want to fight. Right? People who do psychedelics, they're healed. I said, hurt people, hurt people, healed people, heal people. And so as we heal, we don't want to go hurt people. And so that's the heart of my message. And to me, the ayahuasca and the Bitcoin, that's the fuel to get the message to mainstream America. It needs to be a little bit controversial for people to pay attention. So many people have gone to watch my speech because of the initial controversy, and then I get all these messages back and they're like, I don't know why it was so controversial. It was a beautiful speech and I learned a lot. Thank you.They were like, actually, this was brilliant. You really helped me understand stuff. 

[01:05:46] LW: From what I could see, you weren't trying to be controversial. You were just trying to speak my truth. Yeah, you were trying to offer some truths that were really, that were to you, that's how the world is.

[01:05:57] CP: Well, I'm a very authentic and transparent person, as you know, right? And so I just share my life as I go. And I just, I felt compelled to share that. I did ayahuasca as a preparation for this and I'm proud of that. And I want people to be proud of me for doing that because I took it that seriously, like how many people are willing to do that because it's a very tough process. It's like a one night bootcamp, right? For your soul. And so I went to the extreme. It was like Navy SEALs training. It's like, I prepared for this battle and I like did the hardest workout I could to make sure I was energetically ready to hold space for 70 000 people.

[01:06:32] LW: Well, also something that I was really impressed with and the way you handled it is you definitely presented some of the positive feedback you got, but you also posted a lot of the, you posted that rooster article, the worst commencement speech ever. And you posted probably as many of the negative reactions as you posted the positive reactions. Where did you get that idea from to post the negative stuff? So I thought that showed a lot of character. 

[01:06:59] CP: Well, my whole speech was about the elephant, right? And the multiple perspectives. So I wanted to share multiple perspectives and I want to encourage each person to watch the speech and make their own decision. Was it the worst ever, the best ever, or honestly, leave me alone, right? I want you to decide. So I want people to know that it's okay to have different opinions and also I stand by every word I say. So. I'm not ashamed of anything and if anything, by people saying it's the worst speech ever, it's actually helping the cause because it's now getting people to pay attention and it's getting people to actually go watch the speech. So I don't mind at all and I'm also honestly a little bit grateful that it's happening. Of course, nobody wants to be called that, but my goal wasn't to become Mr. Popular. My goal was to help people awaken to these tools that are available to help them have more freedom in their life.

[01:07:49] LW: Was anyone openly hostile towards you? Like, in person? 

[01:07:52] CP: Yeah, there were a couple. There were a couple that were, like, abusive slash bullying. I just see that as they must've learned that behavior from somewhere, right? Somebody must've bullied them really hard for them to bully me this hard. So I look at this as an opportunity to practice something called love thy enemy. 

[01:08:09] LW: If you could summarize the negative feedback into maybe one or two statements, what would you say the majority of it was about?

[01:08:14] CP: I think it would be like, hey, you embarrassed us. I think there's a lot of people who maybe feel like. You know, they went to how state and so they wanted, like, LeBron James, because it would make them look good. And so they honestly didn't maybe don't care who's there. It's an image conscious group, so I was an embarrassment to their degree, to their Alma mater. So I think that's one category of feedback. 

I think there was another category of feedback that calls me narcissistic and that I'm self promotional, I'm shilling Bitcoin. I'm shilling my bracelets. I don't know, I shouldn't be talking about antidepressants like that. So I think there's a whole category of feedback in that realm. And I would just say you don't really know who I am because I only got into Bitcoin recently. And I've been giving away these bracelets as tools for people for a long time. So those are the two main categories of feedback. And then I think there's a third category. That's just like, they think I didn't take it seriously. They think I just was high and was a druggy and I just winged it. And I'm just like a terrible person because I didn't take it seriously. So I think I would say those are the three categories of feedback. 

And I would just say, you know what, like, don't just read a headline, like get to know me and get to know my journey and my process. And I actually. I took a lot of courage. I took a huge amount of risk to try to have impact and really try to help the community. It's actually really evident to me how much pain and darkness and suffering there is in that community. Not all of it. Right. But there's pockets of it because it's the pockets of pain and suffering that's the most vocal that's judging me. The people that are more open minded they're further along on their healing path. And they're like, no, that was cool. That was fun. Like I had a good time, but the people that are very image conscious and are very angry, you know, I would just say, you know what, I think your anger is misplaced. It's misdirected. Like I just send you love. I send you healing. And if you're open to it, I'd love to help you heal. I'd love to help you work through some of that because what triggers us shows us where the healing needs to happen. And if I'm triggering you, it might be because there is a wound there. And I'd be delighted to help, to solve that. 

[01:10:15] LW: Right. But when you get booked for a talk again, in the keynote speaking community, bviously, you're not looking to do a therapy session with the people there to help them point out what's wrong with them. You're looking to do a great job that ideally brings people together, uplifts people, and fulfills the mission that you're on. And one of the questions that we ask ourselves as a keynote speakers after every talk, what's something I could have done better to achieve my mission. So I'm going to ask you that question. What's something you feel like you could have done better? 

[01:10:45] CP: Let me get to that question in a second, but I don't see myself as a keynote speaker. I see myself as a keynote facilitator. I see myself as a healer who will do non traditional things. And I welcome all these DMS, I have tons of DMS, emails, messages, and I love interacting with people one on one and oftentimes. The message comes in really strong, very aggressive, very hateful. And as soon as I start interacting and engaging and apologizing and saying, that, you know, I'm listening. Tell me more. My three favorite words is tell me more, because I'm listening. And when that happens, like. Most of the interactions actually turn very positive and they usually end with, Hey, I'm sorry, I haven't gotten sleep all week. I have been having a bad day. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate you taking the time and you know, like it ends up actually like we're friends. Not everyone, there's a few of them that are still, pretty angry, but most of them have actually turned. So I think, again, I'm not a traditional speaker. I never will be full stop. That's why I'm not part of the speaker community. I am on the, on whatever, but that's why I haven't enrolled in all that.

In terms of what I could do better, I think I could definitely be a better storyteller. I think I try to cram a lot. You know, I think I could definitely. Take like take people through more of a storyline because I think I am at my heart still at McKinsey consultant and a Harvard MBA. So I think I'm very like bullet pointed, you know, I tend to just deliver bullet points because I'm trying to pack so much. And so maybe in the future I need to just figure out how to not pack so much and not shock the system so much and maybe in the future I need to know that instead of me, like I have two formats, right? Remember I said, I have the warm up, speak, meditation, speak, you know, outro, right? Maybe I do that for more of a, like a crowd that's more open more of a Tony Robbins, like crowd, more of a crowd that's already into wellness. And then maybe I need to do more stuff where it's you know, more of a traditional lecture initially, and then more of an experience at the end.

So I need to adapt because obviously, This is not my typical crowd. My typical audience is maybe more of a wellness crowd, or it's a corporate crowd. Maybe it's more intimate and maybe there's not as much on the line. I mean, that day, you know, commencement, there was a death, right? Which got everybody on edge. There's already so much emotions. These are all kids who didn't get a high school graduation. So some of them I think are confusing what a high school graduation is, which is, Hey, it's a valedictorian talking about the class. Versus commencement at a university is all about looking forward, right? They were expecting to be acknowledged for all their achievements, which I did a little bit at the beginning, but I just think it was a lot of things and so, definitely becoming more of a storyteller for sure. I could do differently, do better. 

[01:13:27] LW: Yeah. It's funny because when I was reading some of the articles, almost everyone who wrote sincerely about this event talked about how they couldn't remember their commencement speaker in college. And I was like, I couldn't remember mine either. And I literally had to go on Google. I had to go to like a few sites finally found the person, right? I was like, Oh yeah, that's right. It was this guy. He was like some CEO of AT&T or something. If you put a gun in my head and say, give me one thing he talked about. I couldn't tell you. 

And so my girlfriend and I, we got into this kind of heated debate around traditional versus nontraditional and I think that doing what's not expected says more about us and how we react to it because when you peel the layers back, you ask yourself, well, why is it important to follow this tradition?

Somebody made this up one day and what's wrong with breaking the tradition? And it kind of reminds me of that story that's in the Inner Gym about Joshua Bell the violinist down in the subway in DC playing the violin and no one is expecting this world class musician to be down in the subway during, you know, rush hour playing on a 3 million violin and some of the most complicated pieces ever written. So he only raises 32 whereas two days before he's playing for a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars a minute and a sold out audience in the Boston symphony orchestra. And the whole point of that was to illustrate that when it's not expected to see beauty, most of us miss it. And this is kind of the opposite of that experiment where when it is expected to have tradition, most of us overreact to it when it's not there. And we kind of miss the overall points, right? We don't hear what's at the beauty that's being communicated. Because we're expecting to see something that we're not seeing. So it's like, we don't hear any of it. And we ended up coming away with a caricaturization of the experience, which maybe it's a disservice to us.

[01:15:31] CP: Well, I think there's a spectrum and I just got off the phone with a guy that he's graduating from Fisher college, which is the business school there and he's an MBA. He'll probably come work for me. He loved it. He thought it was brilliant. So there are out of 70,000 people, sure, there's a vocal group that really didn't like it and they're hating on it, but there are other people who came up to me afterwards and absolutely loved it, right?

The first guy that came up after said he had tears in his eyes. He's the father of a graduate said that he used to sing this little line of mine at church when he was growing up. And hearing that again just got them, you know, he really appreciated that. And so I have just as many negative things in my inbox.

I have probably twice or three times as many positive ones. And I like really positive ones, like things, you know, people call them this, like the greatest speech ever, you know, like literally, like 

[01:16:22] LW: There's been a couple of waves. The first wave of reaction is this is the worst feature. And then the second wave, after you started doing some more long form media, Oh, this guy, he's so sincere, this is something he's been doing. He's just, this is a whole misunderstanding on our part. And then we noticed that Barack Obama's now following you on Twitter. 

[01:16:41] CP: Yeah. Thank you for telling me. Yeah. So he and I are homies now, you know, we both gave commencements. 

[01:16:46] LW: The New Yorker has written about this. I mean, this has been written about in so many different publications which you could argue none of this would have happened if you gave a traditional speech.

[01:16:55] CP: Exactly. Right. If I gave a traditional speech, I'm a, nobody, you know, nobody would know about the speech except for maybe like 10 of my friends. 

[01:17:02] LW: You've become an icon in the Bitcoin community now, they're going crazy over you. 

[01:17:08] CP: Yeah and I love the Bitcoin community. I think there's two Bitcoin communities.

One is kind of this more of a Ferrari driving broken culture, which is not really my thing. But there's actually a group of people like at the other side of the Bitcoin community, that's like very open minded, supportive, loving people who, you know, save money, they don't spend more than they need. They save so that they can buy Bitcoin so that they have a better future.

Like, like that community is a beautiful community. And I encourage people to get to know that community. They're lovely people and I'm proud to be one of them. 

[01:17:36] LW: My girlfriend and I have coined the phrase to Chris Pan it, which is to go the other way with it, to do what's not expected. 

[01:17:43] CP: No way. Are you kidding? Oh, thanks for that. To Chris Pan something. Wow. That's an honor. 

[01:17:48] LW: So we've used that a few times. Like why don't you Chris Pan it and just go do what's in your heart. 

[01:17:55] CP: Really? Wow. I've become a verb. 

[01:17:58] LW: Yeah. I mean, you never know, right? And that’s what is so great about this experience is that, and you said this in a couple of interviews, it's like, yeah, people say, would you do anything differently? Or do you think this was indeed the worst speech? Or, and you said, let's just give it some time and see how it evolves, see how it ages. 

[01:18:15] CP: Yeah, it's like a wine, right? You don't want to drink it right away. You got to let it age a little bit and just see. 

[01:18:19] LW: Yeah. Beautiful, man. 

[01:18:20] CP: In the meantime, Marriott wants me to go train all their general managers. You know, I'm getting invited to this other conference in Atlanta with all these like CEOs. They want me there now. Like, I mean, if that's an indication, I think lots of people see through the noise and they see the heart of the message, which is all around love. It's all around setting intentions, taking care of ourselves being open minded. So I think that message is resonating and will continue to resonate. 

[01:18:49] LW: Beautiful. Is there anything else you want to leave us with that we, maybe we don't know from that moment, that experience. 

[01:18:54] CP: I think we're just getting started. In my mind, I am on a mission to support a billion people over the next 10 years with financial, emotional, and spiritual freedom. And this speech is the launch pad for it. But the message will take a while for people to really internalize. So I'm honored to have this moment to have our conversation. Thank you. And hopefully, if you're listening at home find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, my official website, Chrispan.com has a ton of resources. Message me if you have a question on psychedelics, Bitcoin Singing setting intentions, let me know and I'll do my best to support you. I'm not a traditional guy by any means, if that hasn't come through already and I will do what I can to support every person that messages in.

[01:19:39] LW: Beautiful. So, all right, man, well, thank you for sharing the backstory and for uh, being so open and I'm, you know, you and I are, again, our friends. So we're going to still continue to be in touch and talk about these things as they unfold. But, you know, I think for me, you have been aneExample doing things in a non traditional way and it's left a positive impact on me and I'm sure a lot of other people who have seen this and you know, this is, it's like anything with Yelp or any of these review sites, people who have something negative to say are going to be way quicker to get on there and leave a review over the people who are positively impacted.

[01:20:17] CP: I I've run companies, I've dealt with customer service, fully understand. Yeah, you can't believe everything you read online, right? And I think media, just one last thing is the media only reports things where there's a villain or there's a hero. If you're in between, there's no article, right? So they have to demonize you or they have to celebrate you. And so with that, I just think in the end don't believe everything you read. Do your own research and see the best in people and be the voice of hope and love and change in this world. 

[01:20:44] LW: Yeah. And I would say it's pretty clear from just having this conversation and also just from knowing you that your heart was in the right place. And I think anytime, this is what I teach and write a lot about in my work is like, you have to follow your heart. And that's what I kind of felt with you, as we were going through these different iterations is that you felt almost choiceless, like this had to happen. This was your destiny. And you have to be a very strong person spiritually in order to subject yourself to something like what you're going through right now. 

[01:21:15] CP: It's a Phoenix rising as how it feels, you know, you burn to the ashes and then you come back stronger. 

[01:21:21] LW: Right. So we will be watching and I'm really curious to see how it all unfolds from here.

[01:21:27] CP: Thank you so much. I deeply appreciate our friendship. I appreciate all the work you put out there because it influences heavily into my everything. So 

[01:21:36] LW: Absolutely. I know you're a big fan of the podcast. You've listened to several episodes…

[01:21:41] CP: All of them, not just several. I it's like my favorite thing. It's like, basically when I'm feeling off, I'm like, I just need more Light in my head. So I just pop on a podcast. 

[01:21:48] LW: Well, thanks for contributing to this the body of work and hopefully people there's somebody out here listening to this right now who's at a crossroads and they could go the traditional way or they can go to the non-traditional way. And I think hearing your experience is going to maybe inspire them to take that leap of faith in the non-traditional way. 

[01:22:05] CP: You only live once, and you might as well make the most of it. 

[01:22:09] LW: But you're not doing it for you. That's the thing. You're doing it for that person who you may never know about, who may be thinking of doing something harmful to themselves or who's at that limit for them, the emotional limit for themselves. And if you can positively affect one person, even though you may piss off 10,000, it's still worth it. Right? 

[01:22:32] CP: Yeah. I mean, I just. I'm not really calculating that per se. I think there's two things happening. One is it's the practices, right? The practices are going to help people not want to harm themselves, right? If you meditate, if you know, seeing, if you set intentions like that should help the mental health side of things. And then on the other side, I think focus on the impact that you want to have. And if that means go the traditional route, then go the traditional route. But if it means doing the non traditional route, then, focus on the desired outcome. And don't be afraid. I think people live in fear and I think that's the biggest thing. I think in all my Ayahuasca and mushroom journeys, I think it's all about the removal of fear. And as you remove fear, love gets to emerge and you get the love on yourself more, you get the love on the world more. And that's what we need more of in the world is more love. 

[01:23:17] LW: What would you say to people who hear that and they go, well, Chris, you're independently wealthy. You're retired. Of course you say, don't be afraid. But for me, if I were to get up there and do something, and I'm trying to be a keynote speaker and I'll end up sabotaging my whole career and you know, blah, blah, blah. How would you respond to that? 

[01:23:33] CP: There are plenty of people that have way bigger bank accounts than me that live in fear. They're in anxiety. They have depression, right? It's not about the size of your bank account. My bank account is good, but it's not as good as some other people's. Right. I think the more you work on your fear, the less money you need to feel free.

[01:23:51] LW: Interesting. I love that. I love that. 

[01:23:52] CP: In my speech, I talked about Bhutan, right? There's a lot of people out there who don't have much, but they trust in the process. They trust in the universe It all works itself out. So I think we're conditioned a certain way, but as we unconditioned ourselves we'll find a lot more freedom.

[01:24:06] LW: Awesome. Great place to end it. Thank you again, man. Appreciate you.

[END]

Thank you for listening to my interview with Chris Pan. Again, you can watch the speech on YouTube and you can follow Chris on the socials @chrispan. And I'll put links to everything else that Chris and I discussed in the show notes, which you can always find at lightwatkins.com/podcast.

And if you enjoyed our conversation, you found it inspiring. And you're now thinking to yourself, wow, I'd love to hear Light interview someone like dot, dot, dot, shoot me an email with your guest suggestions. I'm at light@lightwatkins.com. 

And in addition to that, one very simple and easy way that you can directly help me get that guest onto my show is to leave me a rating or review. That's one of the reasons why you always hear podcast hosts like me asking their listeners to rate and review the show. It's because that's how a lot of bigger guests especially will gauge if a podcast will be worth their time. If they see a lot of ratings and reviews, then there'll be way more likely to come onto the podcast.

And the best part is it only takes 10 seconds to leave a rating. All you do is look at your screen. You click on the name of the show on the Apple podcast app. You scroll down past those first few episodes. You'll see a space with five blank stars. If you want to give us a five star rating, then go ahead and click the star all the way on the right.

And if you are inspired to go the extra mile and leave a review, that would be appreciated as well. Just write one line saying what you appreciate about this podcast, about what we're doing on this show. And that's it. You've left the rating. You left the review. You've helped to make it more appealing for bigger guests to come onto the show.

And if you ever want to see the interviews, you can always watch them on my YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube and search The Light Watkins Show and you'll see an entire playlist. 

If you ever want to hear the unedited version of the podcast where we keep in all the false starts and the chit chat and the mistakes, you can access that in my online community called thehappinessinsiders.com. You just join the community. You have access to dozens of masterclasses and challenges that are all intended to help you become a better version of yourself. And as a bonus, you get to listen to the unedited version of the podcast, which is always posted a day early. So a day before it gets posted widely through the Apples and the spotifies and things like that.

Alright, looking forward to hopefully seeing you back here next week with another story about someone just like me, just like you taking a leap of faith in the direction of what they consider to be their purpose. 

Until then, keep trusting your intuition. Keep following your heart, even if it gets you booed on occasionally and keep taking those leaps of faith. And if no one's told you recently that they believe in you, I believe in you. Thank you so much. Have a great day.