Zach and Jeff talk about the pitfalls of perfectionism and how the youthful DIY punk spirit can help you overcome it. Then Zach gets curious about Jeff's epic road trip in 2015 after his spiritual awakening. They discuss synchronicity, lucid dreaming and astral projection, relationship dynamics, and the law of attraction and repulsion.
Zach and Jeff talk about the pitfalls of perfectionism and how the youthful DIY punk spirit can help you overcome it. Then Zach gets curious about Jeff's epic road trip in 2015 after his spiritual awakening. They discuss synchronicity, lucid dreaming and astral projection, relationship dynamics, and the law of attraction and repulsion.
Episode Link: https://we-should-be-working.simplecast.com/episodes/08
00:00 Intro and the Frustrations of Perfectionism
14:30 Embracing the Punk Rock Spirit: Creating Without Perfectionism
40:22 Jeff's Road Trip: Embarking on a Journey of Self-Discovery
57:55 The Dynamics of Seeking Relationships
01:05:51 The Importance of Being Open to Experiences
Zach Hendrix (00:40.273)
Welcome back to We Should Be Working. I'm Zach Hendricks and with me is Jeff Finley. Jeff, how are you doing this week?
Jeff Finley (00:47.134)
Oh, I'm doing great. How are you, Zach?
Zach Hendrix (00:49.769)
I'm doing good. Still grinding on the old job search. Taking a look at all of that still. Somehow I'm still making different resumes every single week. And finding all of my day gone after just searching. Trying to find somebody that works here. Trying to get an in. Did I get enough keywords in here that the AI is gonna recognize my resume over other people's?
Jeff Finley (01:01.428)
Oh yeah.
Zach Hendrix (01:18.933)
Oh, why didn't I get one here and messaging this recruiter back? And it really is in some ways, just it's so frustrating to be like, I don't have a job and I'm wasting all of my time trying to get a job and I still don't have any money for any of this. Like it's, and it feels embarrassing sometimes I have to say that, um, I don't know if it's again, how I'm raised, uh, if it's something inside of men or just human beings in general.
Jeff Finley (01:37.655)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (01:46.717)
But I go upstairs and I feel bad when, you know, the house is not then cleaned up. Where I'm like, oh, my wife is, you know, working all day long and I'm technically not and then, you know, something's messy. Or I'm like, oh, I didn't get this ready or, oh, I need to go do this for my kids. Like I should be the one doing all of this because I'm not the one working, but I'm like, yeah, I am working all day and I am doing this stuff all day, but it's not helping anything. So.
Jeff Finley (02:13.265)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (02:15.109)
Now you have that new level of stress as well where maybe I'm not being a good husband now, maybe I'm not being a good dad or something like that because I'm just sitting in my office all day trying to get a job but you know now the house is messed up and all that so trying to wrestle with that where I'm like no you did work, you did that it's okay, don't be so hard on yourself and you know a little bit of the perfectionism which I really appreciated your email.
Jeff Finley (02:39.651)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (02:43.525)
Last week that was like, almost every single one is that I'm like, it's really easy for me to tell that to other people, but I have a hard time taking that advice for myself.
Jeff Finley (02:55.68)
Yeah.
Zach Hendrix (02:57.333)
And so I wanted to ask you on that note, for the people that subscribe to Jeff's stuff, I recommend that you do. And get his weekly emails and all of that. I think that they're really good and insightful. He was talking about perfectionism. Was there something that came up with you specifically that inspired that? Were you feeling that yourself of being your own worst critic, or where did that come from?
Jeff Finley (03:23.966)
Yeah, you know, I deal with perfectionism a lot and you know, my mom used to say, oh, that's cause you're a perfectionist, you know, whenever I'd be struggling with something and, and I'm like, yeah, I know. And it's like, it's gotta, it's gotta be good. It's gotta be right. It's gotta be awesome. Everything that I do has to be a home run or something like that. Um, so this kicks in every single time. I'm sitting down to write my newsletter on Fridays. You know, I, this, this writing this newsletter is something I started back in November.
And I'm like, I want to start putting myself out there, getting my thoughts out there again, stop being such a recluse. I want to confront the fear of what people think of me, what people think of my ideas. You know, so I have all of these beliefs about myself and all that are holding me back. And I'm like, you know what, I just want to just put myself back out there again, put my foot in the water and see what it feels like and then continue to go. So anyway.
this is what sucks. I sit down to write and I'm like, I've got all these things I'd love to say, but when I start to write, I just, I'd start typing and delete, start typing, delete, delete. Nothing sounds good. It's like I'm overanalyzing every word I'm saying. My mind is working a lot faster than my typing is. And so it's like, it's getting ahead of me and I have to slow down. And writing is something that I've been doing for years, like for 20 years now. So why is it so hard?
This is like one of the hardest things to do. All I'm doing is writing an email newsletter. But, but like this part of my brain just grabs a hold of it. And it's like, it's gotta be good. It's gotta be relevant. Got to answer. It's gotta be helpful to people. It can't just be all about you, Jeff. Like I've got all of these thoughts that are like racing through. So I started writing down the thoughts and I was going to put that in the newsletter. And I was like, Oh God, this is like so self-indulgent to delete that shit. You know, so, you know, and I ended up writing this post. I wanted to write something about perfectionism because.
There was, I think, Ali Abdaal, a YouTuber, productivity guy, he wrote the book Feel Good Productivity. He speaks on this kind of stuff and he just had a video come out called Why Perfectionism Is Ruining Your Life. And that was something I was thinking about. I started watching it but I'm like, I don't even want to watch this. This guy's videos are way too produced now. It's like clickbait content. He's just like churning out content. Does he even want to be writing this or making this video? It's just another one of these things. Of course, it's just...
Jeff Finley (05:38.69)
clickbait content for me so I didn't even really watch it but the thought of perfection was on my mind and that's why I wanted to write that newsletter.
Zach Hendrix (05:45.073)
Well, and that and that was the thing is that really came at a time. Well, I guess probably any time for me is a good time for that, because I feel the exact same way you and I have talked about this just a little bit and maybe I think I've mentioned this on a, on episode before, but I'm trying to, I'm working on an idea to make an intro video for this podcast and I've got an idea in my head and already I'm like shutting myself off of like
That's not good enough. You don't need, I'm like, I haven't even gotten to that part yet. I'm, I'm a million miles ahead. I haven't even started that. And I'm already second guessing why that's going to be bad. Like, Oh, that's not going to work. You can't do it this way or, Oh, you need this. And I was like, I think in my head, a lot of times, especially if I'm doing a project for myself, I think maybe at times I worried that I'm going to get so harshly judged by that, that people was like, Oh, this guy has no clue what he's doing.
This guy's terrible. That's the stuff that he puts out where if I'm doing it for another brand or for some advertising thing, it doesn't stress me out as much, but I'm like, if it's mine, I feel like it needs, if it's not award winning, why am I putting this out? Like people are going to think I suck because when I go and make something for myself, it's not very good. And they're going to make this guy's terrible. He can't do anything. And, you know, if, if it's not going to be the greatest video in the world, then I shouldn't be making it. And it's like, that's.
Jeff Finley (07:09.442)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (07:10.785)
not the way to go and it's okay. And so I really already psych myself out on things that even though I like my idea, before I've even started that piece, I've over analyzed it and broken it apart to not do it now. And I just need to get in there. And almost all the time, I think a lot of times for me, my biggest problem is almost, what most people say about the gym. It's getting there and doing it that.
When I go in and do it, I have fun, I enjoy it, and I leave and I feel better about myself that I went to the gym, that I did all of this. Same with all of these projects. I just need to get in, get started, get going on it, but it's, I love the idea phase, but the starting phase, I hate, and it drives me nuts. And I can get caught up in the tinkering a lot, where I'm like, oh, that part sucks, and then I need to start all over. But yeah, it's definitely a struggle of mine, but it's funny.
Jeff Finley (07:45.079)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Finley (08:06.004)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (08:08.769)
I could be just like you if there's somebody else out there. I'll be like, you need to do this and here's how you get started. But I can't do it myself.
Jeff Finley (08:16.39)
Yeah, and I've noticed that this is happening with me on our podcast with like last week and the week before I think we were really going over the audio levels and the loudness levels are they the right luffs? Are they the right decibels? Like are they normalized properly? The music's too loud. Oh, the audio, the voices are a little bit off. You know, oh, there's background noise that we need to get rid of. It's like
And the trouble thing is, it's like, I'm not in the software to actually do it. I'm telling you. So then I'm feeling like I'm being like anal retentive or, or controlling hyper controlling where I'm like, I got to tell Zach about this problem that I'm having with the audio that he produced. And I'm like, and it really feels like I'm kind of being a perfectionist here. And now it's going on to Zach in his work. Like, and, and also the fundamental belief that I have is that I'm forgetting about is my DIY.
DIY punk spirit, okay? So listening to all of my old box of milk music as I'm releasing them for the current age, you know? Like all of my stuff from 2000 to 2007, all of my music that I produced then, I did so much and a lot of it was shitty. A lot of it was, I didn't understand music theory or songwriting or what was good. My taste was like a lot worse back then. I think I was into like, you know, I don't want to criticize my taste back then. I appreciate it, but.
The stuff that I made wasn't like radio quality or nothing that you would hear at a club, you know, nobody would, but it was good for me and my friends. We really liked it. And another thing that I did back then was I was going to these DIY punk shows and you would see like amateur musicians get on stage and just, they just know like one or two or four chords and they're just singing their heart out. And like the crowd is in it because what they're saying is meaningful to them. It's emotional. It was more about the heart and it was more about the common man, the.
the, an average human experience and their emotions and what it's like to be them. And that's what everyone was there for. This everybody there had like a disdain for overly commercialized pop music, or maybe some people liked it, but as soon as you start making your sound, start a little big cookie cutter and too professional, you kind of have this, like, you kind of grow out of the scene and then you become, you lose that DIY spirit. People think you sold out, whatever. But watching those bands was the thing that inspired me to, to play drums and pick up a drum kit and finally start to play in a band because
Jeff Finley (10:31.454)
My taste was no longer focused on like the hyper-produced chart toppers, even in like the punk and metal scene. You know, I wasn't trying to make my music appeal to tastemakers. I was like trying to just say, here's what I can do, you know, and you're playing with a bunch of other amateurs. So it's like, you're just excited to be able to hit the drums and make a beat and like, oh my gosh, we strung it together for three minutes. You know, it's like, this is so fun. And you don't have any of that pressure.
You know, because you suck, you're allowed to suck, you're a beginner, so you can just get it out there. So why does that go out the window when I'm thinking about our podcast and I'm all trying to make it, make it really good, make it professional? I start to think about these things, which were not the things I thought about when we were starting this podcast. You know, Zach, I'm sitting here telling you, who cares, let's just record it and post it. We don't even have to do any editing, you know? Like, it doesn't matter. We don't need to create a cool intro video unless we want to, because it's a fun project for us.
Zach Hendrix (11:17.619)
Yeah.
Zach Hendrix (11:23.421)
Yeah. What? Yeah.
Jeff Finley (11:24.93)
We don't need to do half this shit because some of the podcasts I listen to don't do hardly any production. I mean, maybe they do, you just don't see it. But it sounds like just a DIY recording or a Zoom call recording that they just posted online. I've watched plenty of content from amateurs that I really, really appreciate. It's when they get really too polished, I just start to feel like I'm not connecting with them anymore. Now they're like a television show. It's like they're corporate. They don't feel relatable. So what are we doing, you know?
Zach Hendrix (11:50.157)
It's such a weird thing that you've made me think about with the creative arts then as well specifically of the more knowledge that you get, it's almost like for some people going to film school is more detrimental. Like you look at somebody like Spike Jonze or something that's just like, I wanna get my camera, I'm gonna go film these skateboarding videos and all that. And then somebody's like, oh my God, this is amazing. Do you wanna come and do this? And he's like, cool.
going to film school might have ruined him, where he's not worried about like, oh, is this lighting so great over here? And, oh, let me set up this soft box so I can make this good. It's like the more knowledge that you gain throughout the arts of even audio engineering or video or probably even illustration, probably almost all of the creative endeavors. Now you're thinking about, oh, I need to make it look this way or I'm not professional. It's almost something built into artists or the creative arts that we're like,
Jeff Finley (12:36.96)
everything.
Zach Hendrix (12:47.141)
We feel like we're always striving to get better and better and be like the top artists out there. But then in a lot of ways, that's the detrimental thing. And it makes me wonder then in a lot of ways with bands of why you're like, hey, your sophomore flop album or something like that. You were nitty gritty. You were just worrying about lyrics before you weren't worrying about production. Now you come out and you're like, oh my God, we're good. Now we've got to compete with what these good bands are. And I don't sound like nine inch snails, like Trent Reznor is.
putting so much work into all of this. I've got to do that now or else people will think I'm not professional or, you know, it's so embarrassing that I sound so bad and now you're ruining what was good about it in the first place. And yeah, like you said, even right off the bat when we were talking about this podcast, I was so worried about video quality where I'm like, oh, I don't know if I need to set up lights. I still have two lights set up, but I think it's good just so you guys can see my face. But
I was like, oh, what camera am I going to do? And I'm thinking about focal lengths and what lenses I'm going to put on there. And I'm like, I'm a video guy. People are going to judge me if my video isn't great. And I'm like, this podcast isn't about filmmaking. It's not about video. None of that matters. Nobody's sitting here caring like, well, I've never hired that Zach guy for a job again, you see his podcast is lighting sucks. It's just not happening and need to accept that and just, you know, put something out because, you know, to your point, I've looked back on a lot of old projects.
And in a lot of ways, I'm really jealous of that time. The work is terrible. It's not that good. But I'm really jealous for how much work I was putting out, where I feel like now I'm putting out less work because I'm so worried about how is it going to be perceived and how is it going to look that I'm not putting out as much. But I'm like, back then, I was putting out more because I'm like, I've just got to get it out. I've got to get it out. I have nothing. I need to get this out. I need to build my portfolio. This is good enough.
Jeff Finley (14:21.23)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (14:38.501)
And that's how I got to where I was. And now I'm like, I need to get some of that punk rock spirit back and just not care, just go get something to work on. Um, that it's the plague of perfectionism. Oh, that'd be a great album name plague of perfectionism. There you go. Yeah.
Jeff Finley (14:45.166)
All right.
Jeff Finley (14:50.178)
Yeah.
Jeff Finley (14:58.374)
Yeah, that sounds good. You know, and it made me go back and look at some of these folk punk tracks and shows that I used to go to. There was a fest called Berea Fest up near Cleveland, and it was at this church. They it wasn't a church organization or event, but it was held in like the gym at the church. So you had these like basketball hoops up there and stuff like that. And it was just old like 1970s, 60s gym. And the artists are playing on the same level as the musicians or I mean, as the crowd.
Zach Hendrix (15:19.748)
8.
Jeff Finley (15:28.326)
And they're just like playing their damn hearts out. Now these guys are talented musicians. I mean, a lot of them are talented, but then you've got a couple that are rough around the edges. They're just getting started. Or you've got artists like Paul Barabou or Kimya Dawson, or like, what's another one that people might know? Like Chris Claven of the band Ghost Mice. These guys, it's like they just had their guitar, like Woody Guthrie, right? You're familiar with Woody Guthrie's music? You know, so he's like the prototypical kind of folk Americana artist. Now, if you...
Zach Hendrix (15:50.761)
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Finley (15:56.446)
Add a little bit of punk to it more a little bit more punk a little bit more edge a little screamier Now, can you imagine that if he was screaming out his heart his political songs, you know That don't mind that that's the dryer Okay, so he's screaming his heart out so it's like you see that and that something speaks to you on an emotional level And you're like he doesn't need any bells and whistles. He doesn't even have a microphone. He just stands there and he just yells loud like People sing along. I mean paul baraboo would stand on this table
Zach Hendrix (16:08.489)
I'm drinking dude.
Jeff Finley (16:25.554)
and he'd be playing his song and the crowd is singing it louder than he can. You can barely hear his voice. I mean, and it was like this, you can call it like a religious experience that people like to say, where like, you just get this vibe at a show like that, or a house show where it's like they're playing in someone's living room and it's like, nobody can fit the band is all crammed together. The audience is like inside the drum kit. It's like they're, they're just all over and they're still playing their hearts out. I mean, it's incredible. And that was what it really inspired me to get into music to begin with. And you're right.
The more you know, the harder it is. And the more I know about like audio engineering and mixing and mastering, it's like all this stuff just clouds the whole thing. I didn't know a damn thing about mixing or mastering. I didn't even know what the word was before I started producing songs. It's like, oh, I don't know how to make this sound good. Just throw this Maximus preset on the thing. Boom, call it done. Just makes everything sound louder. Throw the Soundgoodizer plugin on it. Throw the SausageFatner plugin on it. It's like all these things are just like brain dead, newbie audio plugins to make your stuff sound loud and big.
Audio engineers hate it because you're not getting into the nitty-gritty and isolating that frequency that you need to make the snare sound less chunky or something like that. All that stuff, I spend time doing it and it just makes it sound worse, I feel like. The more editing and the more tweaking, it just sounds worse and I'm getting so deep into the weeds. It's like, what am I doing? Do I even enjoy this? I mean, some I do enjoy. A little bit of nerding out about the details of sound frequencies and stuff.
Zach Hendrix (17:45.756)
Yeah.
Jeff Finley (17:53.758)
It's so far removed from the actual content, the message, the heart behind your music. What are you doing? No one even, no one's going to hear that except for other audio engineers. So it's just probably who you're worried about displeasing. Like people that know sound, film critics, music taste makers, you're worried about what they think.
Zach Hendrix (18:10.321)
Exactly. And I think that that's one of the funny things. Like I'm hard pressed to think of other industries or jobs or professions where having more knowledge is detrimental. Like there's no doctors like I wish I could go back to my punk rock days when I wasn't in surgery is good. Like like that doesn't there like they're like, oh, this made my life easier. This is good. I went in and they're like, oh, man, I've only gotten, you know, this and this are like a mechanic.
It's like, oh, you know, having knowing how to do this right has made me a worse mechanic. Like, no, it's only made you better. And so it's weird that in the creative industry, the more knowledge that you get, it can be detrimental and you can start second guessing things so much more. And I don't know if it's just, um, and maybe this is going to start changing here a little bit. I don't know if it has anything to do with back in the day. Um, it seemed if you're getting into this industry.
Um, you almost need a mentor. It seems like some magic wand that people are waving. Like nobody knows how it works. Nobody knows how to do it. And it, there's not clear, um, direction out there versus like going to a film school or going to, you know, Berkeley for music or all of this, that to the outside world, it seems like alchemy almost, and you need a mentor to get you up there to do all of that. And, um,
Jeff Finley (19:31.342)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (19:37.009)
And now that myth is kind of dispelling that, you know, so that's, that's how you get in here is that you have to be hired. You have to be professional. I don't know how to do it. This DIY learn how to be a creative wasn't there. So for bands and all of that, they're like, well, I don't know how to sound, you know, like the Rolling Stones. I don't know how to sound, you know, like that. I guess I just go figure it out on my own. And then when you realize, Oh, they had so much more equipment than me. You almost feel.
bad about it and you're like, well, now I've got to do it that way. And it's like, no, that's why people liked you. Um, for me, I think one of the best examples was there was a film director named Robert Rodriguez who got famous for, um, making a movie off of like $3,500. He did a, a medical study, like a two month long medical study made three, made like five grand off of it or something, cause he had to live there and you know, like probably very stressed, you know,
Jeff Finley (20:11.246)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (20:33.633)
Kind of risky like they're putting on some risky stuff and pay you that much money But um, he came out of that and made a movie off of that and everybody was like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah I mean, this is a pretty good movie, but you know How much do you want for it? I'm guessing this cost you like 80 grand or a hundred grand? He's like no cost me five grand and they go wait what and that was his big claim out There's that everybody wanted a piece of him because he can make a good movie for so cheap
And they're like, Oh, we can give this guy a little bit of moot, little bit of money and he's going to make it look like a million dollars. And you know, as he gets more and more and more, it's, it's kind of, did he lose a little bit of that punk rock spirit or, you know, almost the opposite in some ways where it's like studios don't want to give him money because they go, no, you're that guy that we give no money to and it looks good. So now he's fighting with studios to be like, can you please give me some money?
so I could get some good effects in here so I could do that. That was that day, but he didn't know how to do it any differently. And that's just how it was. And do you lose that kind of a vibe out there? But I want to ask you about one thing, because I think it's a good transition as well for what we were talking about last week is that in the creative arts, you talked about having a religious experience. And I do think.
that music is one of those. Movies maybe get a little bit closer to that, maybe a play. I think paintings, unfortunately, this is probably my personal opinion. I'm sure a painter is horribly offended by me saying this. It's a little bit harder to have that where I look at a painting and I feel like I'm having a religious experience. But I think music is the most immersive in that. Like that's...
And maybe that's what it is, is that as a creator, you're constantly chasing that high or that vibe and you forget that path. And, um, have you seen that net? Like, do you find yourself trying to chase that with your own music in any way, or with your own art where you're like, I want to recreate that amazing experience that I have that you find yourself trying to create an experience versus creating the art itself and just getting it out there.
Jeff Finley (22:52.578)
Yeah, that's a good question because I don't when I listen to my own music, especially from my past, like before I was in bands, you know, the box of milk stuff, it's electronic. It's got, I've got a mix between hip hop, funk, breakdance with like pop punk and chip tune video game eighties nostalgia. But none of that was like conscious when I was creating it. I was just used, those were the tools that I had and the music I was into. So I was like, how do I make a beat that sounds funky that I want to dance to? Cause I was into breakdancing at the time. And so.
I was trying to make something that sounded like that. Now, whether somebody can have a spiritual or religious experience to that, I don't know. I don't think so. But there is music out there that people do definitely have religious experiences. That's why worship music sounds the way it does. It doesn't sound like a James Brown Breaks record where someone's going to get down, you know? Totally different vibe. So it's like the music that they're producing, the chord progressions, the elevated lift
It's like this joyful, optimistic, you know, there's a, you can break it down. There's a science why that sound will generate that feeling in the audience. And especially they're already speaking or singing about a subject matter that people already associate with that, which is like Jesus and God and love. So they're going to elevate that and sing. I mean, think about in like churches in the South, you know, like everyone's singing is singing and in the music and the gospel songs were so much a part of. You know, the
the doctrine. It wasn't just reading the Bible in a study group. It was community and singing along with everyone. And if there's also some like with the Americana or even Irish folk music and stuff that I've listened to, like I went to a pub in Ireland and this, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You gotta, you kind of got have a guy up there with like a beard and a guitar and some mandolins, you know, and they're singing this like hook and everybody in the crowd is like holding up their glass and they're just like cheering for it. It's almost like
It reminds me of like soccer matches or something like that, where you have the crowd and they're like, oh, lay, oh, lay, oh, lay, oh, lay, you know, and they're singing that and everyone's on the same frequency and it feels like this religious experience because they're all like in harmony with this vibe. There's like the sense of togetherness, camaraderie. So they're getting like a oneness experience, like a unification with something outside of themselves. And it feels really good to do that. And so when you, you take that into like pop, pop punk music and punk rock.
Jeff Finley (25:13.654)
You kind of have artists like the Dropkick Murphys or any of these artists that have like gang vocal shouting and chants and stuff like that, because they get people to sing along at that chorus and stuff, they call it an anthem, right? So they're taking things from, from that realm and doing it. And I think people really appreciate, especially when the, the heart that the voice is behind it is authentic and it's not just performative or something. So that's a particular vibe, but like box of milk music, when I'm making it.
Zach Hendrix (25:23.709)
Yeah.
Jeff Finley (25:41.002)
I'm like so far removed over there because I'm trying to figure out how to use this techno software. Like, Kara says she used to listen to my music and I don't think it really appealed to her because to her it's like this jolty, high energy, too much going on vibe. And the stuff that she listened to is like dark, gothic, moody, brooding, emotional, sexy. And that's not at all the stuff that I was making. I would never call my music sexy. Like no. So it's like what vibe am I putting into my music? I don't know. I think it's because I think more with my brain.
Zach Hendrix (26:04.066)
Sure. Yeah.
Jeff Finley (26:10.938)
and less with my balls when I'm making music. But that's not the same thing with other artists, you know?
Zach Hendrix (26:16.617)
Sure. Yeah, well, and it's funny when you, for religious experiences, I guess it's not necessarily funny, but for me, it's interesting where you can kind of get that from. Like for me, it's always been at a concert or a show. And if I feel it there, then I can get close to that feeling again, if I play it back. But really it's because I'm playing back that memory that I have of like, man, this whole crowd.
Jeff Finley (26:32.694)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (26:45.537)
It does. It almost feels like this trance. It feels like we're all in the same wavelength. And, you know, I don't need to go into the description of what it's like going to a live concert for people. People have gone to live concerts before. But you get that feeling. But, you know, for some artists like I had a friend that was in a band for just like a minute. He's he's a really good musician. He's toured before been in and out of bands and all this does a lot of the audio engineering for the band. And I remember him and I were.
Jeff Finley (26:57.802)
Hehehe
Zach Hendrix (27:14.301)
were pretty close at the time and he put this new band together and I went and listened to them just at some crappy bar or club or something like that. And, uh, and I was like, holy crap, this is really good. Um, and don't get me wrong. I, there's a lot of indie music out there and there's a lot of unprofessional music and I'll go out and go, Hey man, your music was really good. And I mean it, it is good. This one was.
Really spoke to me good. I'm like no I would go buy this Um, I would see this in a record store. This would blow up. This is really like dude What are you doing out there? Like you just pulled this out of nowhere And he sent me the whole cd and all that and I would listen to it all the time I'm like, I think this might be one of my favorite albums. This is really good And then I was so disappointed. I so i'd go see him perform like whenever I could i'm like hey When are you guys performing next? I'll go again. I'll go again. I'll go again. I was like dude. These guys are great
And then before I knew it, the band was over. He goes, as you know, didn't really get along with some of those guys. And I'm onto the next project. I don't know if that's what I want. I'm like, are you kidding me? That was some of the best stuff I've ever heard. And that was so jealous that he could just pull that out of nowhere. But it all, all that relic, that kind of religious experience kind of came at the shows where I was like, they just, there, there's some of those bands that you see where, you know, you're like, look, you're going to love these guys. You're going to love the album.
Jeff Finley (28:17.804)
Yeah.
Zach Hendrix (28:38.333)
but they're totally different live. It's the same music, they're playing the same thing, but they're a live band. You've gotta go see these guys live. You don't realize what their vibe is actually like until you see them live and you kind of feel that crowd pushing you around or something like that. You go, oh, this is kind of a heavy band. Like I remember the first time I noticed that was with the band Garbage, is that I went and I listened to their music and I liked it, but I went to a show and I was like, oh, these guys are way heavier.
than they sound in the studio albums or that you would guess. And unfortunately now their shows, you know, they're all in like their 50s and 60s and all of that. And so are their fans. Like you're not gonna go to the show and have a mosh pit anymore, unfortunately. But it's like, they're a much heavier band than you would guess. And they're much more of a live band as well. And so on that note, not to talk about music so much, the reason I brought up religious experiences
Jeff Finley (29:22.951)
Yeah, right.
Zach Hendrix (29:37.125)
is because last week we were chatting about your leave of when you had left Go Media and your spiritual awakening. We just started talking about spiritual awakening. And so in the heart of religious experiences, I am kind of curious, did you have a moment like that? Did you have a religious experience that you can pinpoint it back down to?
Jeff Finley (29:46.072)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (30:06.109)
that set you down on this path of spiritual awakening, where there's all this stuff colliding in your life, relationship-wise, professional-wise, and I imagine that was a really weird, odd, confusing time, and I don't wanna speak for you, but it seems like something, some light went off that it almost does seem like there was some religious experience that happened, and then a whole new world opened up for you. Is that kind of how that came down? Was there kind of one moment, or was it much slower than that?
Jeff Finley (30:36.318)
Yeah, there wasn't really one moment. It was a series of moments, but mostly I had this sense, this inner sense of truth or something of authenticity of truth that was within me, that was always there in the background, that was guiding me on like the material that I was attracted to and that I would read and it would often feel like, well I'll go back to that example that you had when you watched that artist and you felt like you had this like impressive religious
that can be different for it, depending on anybody in the crowd. Like one person could have this like feeling that nobody else gets, you know. It's not like you can engineer that. I mean, people are trying to, but like it was meaningful for you in that moment because I think where you were at and your place in time and place in life, as artists that you experienced the music, it was like hitting you in this right spot. And I think that there's something to that. It's like synchronicity, if you're familiar with that, which is kind of like.
Zach Hendrix (31:16.201)
sure.
Jeff Finley (31:31.47)
coincidences that happen that aren't really coincidences anymore. You're like something is going on that feels supernatural. So when you have some of those and you feel like you're being guided by some sort of force that's bigger than you, that's like helping you in a way. And especially if you hit rock bottom and go through like a depression, you know, I there's a lot of talk about how people need to take medication, which I support.
doing that, getting through depression and stuff. But for me personally, this is what one of the things I discovered was like depression was like a portal or a gateway to the other side, so to speak, because it was a disillusionment with the material world. So like, I felt like my path personally was about falling out of love and out of attachment and a derealization with what the material world is offering, because nothing seemed to satisfy, you know, it was like, it was all meaningless, all started to be hollow. So what was it that actually did satisfy?
Well, there was a small little ember of flame within my heart that was like there that I felt like this is what I want to go to. So in moments of quiet contemplation, that's why I was attracted to meditation or concepts like the power of now, the present moment. And further along the lines, concepts such as shamanism and soul retrieval and these esoteric mystery schools and mysticism, they all talked about this. That the only that the path directly to God or toward spiritual existence is in like.
your quiet contemplation without any distractions in the material world, you can surrender in. And it's like a letting go of all that is, all the, all the, all that's here. And what's left behind all of that is still like this presence. And so because I was drawn to this material, I kept pursuing it and it was like this, it was giving me this lift as, as it would, as I can describe it. Then I would, I would eventually have out of body experiences, astral projection, which you can say that would be an experience that people would remember.
Zach Hendrix (33:25.203)
Yeah.
Jeff Finley (33:26.934)
You know, and I think the meditation and that guiding light towards truth is what attracted me to this. And I also, when I started listening to paranormal podcasts and people talking about alien experiences, this stuff all felt really taboo to me. Like my mind was like, I'm not allowed to go here because this is woo woo. This is too wacky. If anybody caught me listening to this, they would think I'm a psycho or wacko. Am I going too far down the rabbit hole? Like
But something was really appealing to me. I loved hearing people tell their stories. It's almost like, it may not be true for me, but this person experienced something that I was like, what is it that they're really experiencing? So I didn't have like a near-death experience that like I met God and he showed me the way or anything, nothing like that. And it wasn't from the book or the Bible. It was the quiet contemplation going through my depression, feeling the feelings. And I think that is more or less the shamanistic path. So I sent that email a couple of weeks ago about the shamanic initiation.
Zach Hendrix (34:06.426)
Yeah.
Jeff Finley (34:24.894)
And that is about embracing the dark night of the soul, which is basically when you hit rock bottom, there's nowhere else to go. So it's like you get on your knees and you're just like, I'm ready to die. You know, what else is there?
Zach Hendrix (34:37.545)
That's really fascinating because you kind of just explained that experience to me that I never really thought about it this way. I mean, it makes some sense in retrospect, I guess, if you're going to analyze it, but I never equated those two. So that's kind of fun is that when I was listening to this artist as well, and if I, if I'm calling this a religious experience for people, I'm probably overselling it a little bit. It's kind of like a big vibe where you're sitting at a concert.
And it just feels like one of those shows where you're in sync with the world and everything around. I would not call this like it did not alter my future. Right. I'm like, I constantly go back to this. So I might be overstating it a little bit to people, but that experience, uh, what you just said makes a lot more sense is that at that time, um, I had just met my now wife was dating her. Um, life's on the up and up as I was also going through a divorce at the time.
Jeff Finley (35:16.684)
Right.
Zach Hendrix (35:35.857)
And go ending that and coming out of this, you know, I guess you could argue depression of what's going on. This is right. My life's out of sync. And then things started to click a little bit more and, you know, met my wife. Things are going well, going to these shows, all of this. Like I was like, something feels like it's going right now. Like all of this stuff, like you said, it kind of felt like it was connected as well. Like it was these seemingly unrelated things like.
How is this going so good? And this is going good. And that's over there. Everything felt like it was all looking up, these seemingly unrelated things. Probably were very much related, that I just felt the pull to go that way. And then for whatever reasons, you have these things that you seem like they're unrelated steps. You go, oh, well, then this makes sense. And the universe is telling me something. OK, she is the one for me. And all of this. And I was like, this is awesome. This is great. And she and I were obviously in a.
Jeff Finley (36:28.448)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (36:33.393)
very synced state and, you know, we're blissfully in our puppy love and all of that. And, uh, you know, now happily married as well. But, um, yeah. So, so when you said that you feel this pole, you were feeling this pole towards that, was there any like influence? Did, did somebody say, Hey, you should check out meditation or you should take a look at this book. Or do you remember what, what that pole was? Did you hear a show or a movie? Or do you remember what kind of got you in that direction at all?
Jeff Finley (36:41.826)
Mm-hmm. Wonderful.
Jeff Finley (37:03.734)
Okay, so I think I remember talking about this in the last episode with a guy named Sean Webb. Okay, he's got, he had this book called How Emotions Work with Humans and Computers. It wasn't until I heard that, without trying to think about meditation or spirituality or any of that, I was just fascinated about emotions and how they work. So he talked about the ego and all that, and he talked about in order to really feel this and understand it, you've got to quiet the mind. And in order to do that, you've got to meditate. And so he introduced me to...
Zach Hendrix (37:08.893)
Sure. Oh, yes, yes.
Yeah.
Jeff Finley (37:34.122)
Eastern cultures, philosophies behind Buddhism, you know, why they meditate, the whole concept of the ego and the concept of suffering. And so that's all about Eastern philosophy, like the Daode Ching following that path. But they have contemplation and meditation is like a big part of their practice. And the books that he would recommend as I was watching his YouTube videos and reading his material, it was like he was pointing me in the direction. He told me about audible. I never had an audiobook.
Account so I never listened to audiobooks really until I saw him so I'm like I used his like sign up code got a free month of audible and I downloaded a I think it was Richard Rohr's book called true self false self and this appealed to me because I felt like There's something true about that. I want to know what he has to say. What is it? I know that there's like something there's a true self and then something else that I would say is the false self What is that? I didn't quite know what it was
I wanted to hear what he had to say about it. And everything that he was speaking about in that lecture, it was a Richard Wars, like a recorded lecture, not really an audio book, but everything he was speaking about, I was like right on the money. Something about it, my heart was singing, with what he was saying. I'm like, this is true. There's some truth about it. I don't know what it is. I can't prove it, but there's something true about it. I'm gonna keep following this direction. And so I would start meditating and to try to be like, Sean Webb, I'm gonna access the state of enlightenment. I never heard about enlightenment until I started listening to Sean, listening to...
Eastern philosophies and Buddhism, obtaining enlightenment, obtaining nirvana. So this, that was kind of like a carrot at the end of the stick that got me to sit down every single day and make a habit out of meditating. And I tried to meditate for 10 minutes, 15, 20, try to maintain complete perfect stillness. Oh my gosh. Can I quiet the mind? What happens if I can get it all the way quiet? Am I going to have an enlightenment experience? Because Sean, the way he described it, uh, he had an experience where he went out of body and he
Zach Hendrix (39:23.665)
Yeah.
Jeff Finley (39:30.646)
felt like he had all the answers to life's biggest questions instantaneously. As soon as he thought them, he had the answers. Everything made perfect sense from this perspective. He was filled with this profound sense of unconditional love for, for himself and for all beings, for everything. And that he was the creator of all of it or, or something like that. It was like this profound experience. And then he came back into his body and then, uh, like, uh, was like crying, you know, crying these tears of joy, you know, this tears of love, which is like weeping.
And it was like a complete ego annihilation of like, everything I thought was real is not real. Like, this is what's real. I touched it. And how do I get access to that? So hearing his story, which, um, gosh, if we can link to it in the show notes somehow, that would be cool to kind of give people a reference to what I'm talking about. But, um, hearing that was like, okay, I want that. I want that experience. So that's what put my butt in the seat to try to meditate every day. And I never got that experience particularly, but you know.
Zach Hendrix (40:15.533)
Okay. Yeah, let's try to do that.
Jeff Finley (40:29.482)
I had my own path, my own way, so...
Zach Hendrix (40:32.022)
Sure. So, when you decide to leave Go Media and all of that, did you leave the state and go to Austin pretty much right away? And maybe what was the impetus to get up and leave and how did you end up there of all places?
Jeff Finley (40:50.142)
Yeah, so what actually happened was my last day at Go Media was in the December of 2014. And then I was still married but working my way out with a divorce with the lawyers and all that stuff. So there's from 2015 to January 2016 is when I moved to Austin. But that year 2015, I was still living in Cleveland, Ohio. I wasn't working for Go Media then. I was.
Jeff Finley (41:14.986)
I think I worked for myself a little bit up until July or August and then I went on a road trip. I got in my car and I said, see you guys later. I'm going on a cross country road trip. So I had planned it out. I was going to drive all the way to the West Coast and then back. And so I was going to be gone for, I don't know, three months or so. I wasn't really planning on it. It was kind of like wherever the universe is going to take me. I called the Starzude tour.
Zach Hendrix (41:40.973)
Was that kind of, was that kind of some of the reason where you were like, I need to rediscover myself. Was that some of the impetus? Like, I don't know what the answer is, but I just feel like I need to get out and find something. Gotcha.
Jeff Finley (41:53.246)
Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. And I was, I just felt this pull. Like I needed to leave, I needed to get out. I'm going to go in my car and just drive and see where I end up. And, you know, stay at Airbnb's, stay at, at that time Airbnb was very cheap. It was like $50 a night, you know? Now it's like $500 a night. I mean, ridiculous, but.
Zach Hendrix (42:13.501)
People are paying their mortgage with Airbnb now. Yeah, exactly.
Jeff Finley (42:16.946)
Yeah, so that's what I did. And I made stops in all the major cities leading up, and I wanted to go to national parks and do some hiking. But also, I was motivated by dating. I wanted to go out there and meet some girls, because we were separating from, my wife and I were separating. And she had already been with other guys. So I'm like, I want to experience what else is out there. I don't know what to do. I've never dated before. I downloaded the Tinder app for the first time. And I had some friends that were like,
All right, Jeff, you're gonna get back on the market. What are you gonna do? Start swiping. Let me help you fill out your profile. You know, so they're all like supporting me and stuff.
Zach Hendrix (42:49.014)
Yeah.
Zach Hendrix (42:54.461)
So some of it was maybe then validation as well, that it's like, I'd like to get some validation of impetus to meet more girls if you were going to analyze it in retrospect, maybe as well.
Jeff Finley (43:06.014)
Yeah. I mean, I'd want to, I'm going to oversell it. If I say this whole thing was like a spiritual, uh, eat, pray, love type thing. It wasn't that it was, it was motivated by joy, fun and, uh, girls. I mean, I wanted to go out there and, oh, and also there were some people that I had been inspired by spiritually and podcasty, you know, that I wanted to meet in person and like have a coffee with. So I'm like, where do they live? And I, you know, we were in contact, like, let's meet up. So I met, I met tons of people all across the country.
Zach Hendrix (43:32.226)
Oh, geez, awesome.
Jeff Finley (43:35.574)
And with Airbnb, I got to stay with people. And I just met so many great people that were like right there on the path. Speaking of synchronicity, it's like, when I'm following this thread, it's like the universe is like lining up to support me and show me all this like great people and inspiration along the way. It's like my tribe would just greet me everywhere I would go. And it just felt wonderful. And I was podcasting at the time. So I was releasing episodes of the Make A Mistaker podcast from my car. I would just like record an episode.
I'd write about a thing on my blog, Make a Mistake blog at the time. So making my way around, you know, having my first experiences with other women, that was fun. But eventually it culminated in, well, I did stop in Austin, Texas. Okay, so you brought up Austin. Like, why did I move to Austin? Well, Austin was one of my pit stops, you know, because there was a girl there that I was attracted to and I was gonna go see her and hang out. And I had been in Austin at South by Southwest and I loved it and I wanted to come back. So.
Zach Hendrix (44:24.951)
Perfect. Great.
Jeff Finley (44:30.942)
Anyway, I stayed with someone there. I didn't know her. She was my Airbnb host. She and I became great friends. She was like this kind of spiritual hippie girl. And a big reason why I moved to Austin, because she's like, come to Austin, we're waiting for you, Jeff. So I just felt invited to move to Austin. But before I actually moved to Austin, let me just finish this road trip story, which I went to the Monroe Institute. So the Monroe Institute is the, Robert Monroe, he was like a consciousness explorer.
Zach Hendrix (44:45.481)
Cool.
Zach Hendrix (44:52.963)
Yeah.
Jeff Finley (44:59.87)
He wrote a bunch of books called Journeys Out of the Body, Far Journeys. 1970s, like pioneer of consciousness, research and out of body exploration. I really recommend his books, which by the way, those books were given to me by somebody at Go Media who happened to hear that I was into lucid dreaming and then like gave it to her. He gave it to his wife who worked at Go Media and she gave it to me. So it's like, I got these books just like handed to me because it's like, I hear you're into this stuff. Check out this book. And I'm like, Oh my God, I love it. And that guy gave me so many.
recommendations that became like really pivotal milestones in my spiritual life. So I thank him. But anyway, I'm kind of rambling off here. So...
Zach Hendrix (45:40.617)
No, no, you're, you're perfect. And not to make, I want to, I want to hear the finish of this road trip. Cause actually I have a lot of questions on this road trip. Um, but real quick for everybody, including myself, I mean, I know what you mean, but at the, I know, uh, I don't a hundred percent know what you mean. What do you mean by lucid dreaming?
Jeff Finley (45:59.966)
Okay, so lucid dreaming is when you realize you're dreaming within a dream and you don't wake up. So that awareness allows you to interact with your dream with the full awareness that you're dreaming. So you know it's not real and you're like, wow, what can I do? I haven't woken up yet, but I know this is a dream. So you interact with it differently. And because of that, there's lots of different things that you know that you can change the dream. You know, you can fly, you know that you can interact with people differently knowing that it is a dream. It's like an awakening within the dream.
Zach Hendrix (46:19.193)
You know that you can change it.
Jeff Finley (46:29.867)
So, yeah.
Zach Hendrix (46:32.321)
So then would you consider that? I've had one or two experiences in my life. There's one that stands out for me where I was having this dream. It was a very, very vivid dream. So it was one of those where it felt very, very real and very intense. And I woke up and I was so mad that I woke up and so disappointed.
that I had woken up that I wanted it to keep going and all of this. I was able to get back to sleep and actually get back into the dream. Don't know how, but then I realized that and I was like, Oh, I'm back in this now. And would you consider that something like lucid dreaming? Cause now I was like, I'm in it. I know that. And you know, some things that felt like a control, but other things, not like environments were still popping up to me. And I was not aware of that per se where I'm like, Oh, this environment's popping up because.
I know it's a dream. I'm like, I'm in a tattoo shop now. Okay. But I know I can talk to this person and I've got to go find them. I've got to get back to where I was of, okay, hey, where are they at? They're over here. Okay. Yeah. Oh, here you are. And so it's like some parts I could control and some parts I wasn't aware that I could control. Is that somewhat what that is?
Jeff Finley (47:50.15)
Oh, totally. I mean, right on the money. It's absolutely on the spectrum of lucid dreaming because dreaming and lucid dreaming is like an astral projection and out of body experiences are all kind of on the spectrum of sleeping and waking. And what happens in our awareness, how much awareness we actually have in that scenario, it sounded like you had some awareness at various levels. And the fact that you're able to wake up and then come back into that dream and maintain it. That's what a lot of lucid dreamers do that. It's like conscious practice. You know?
Zach Hendrix (48:19.319)
So interesting.
Jeff Finley (48:20.406)
because it's like they'll wake up and they'll kind of like their consciousness starts to reform back here in the physical world. But it's still kind of hovering on the edge so that they're if they don't move or if they relax a bit more and have that intention to go into that dream again, they can do it with practice, they can go back into it. So the fact that you did that, you know, is this is the type of skill that lucid dreamers like use.
Zach Hendrix (48:45.789)
So that is something that is taught that can be like practiced and get better at as, Oh man, I got to start getting into, uh, I got to start getting into that. Cause I think, uh, I was disappointed today. I was having, I was having one of those dreams where, and again, maybe you can tell me that with practice or with technique and all of that, where I can usually my really intense dreams. I still remember vividly today. Like I can still, it feels like a real memory inside of my head. Like it, it was.
happening and I can get, I can get into that state of mind and picture it very, very clearly still today. But I was having one of, I was having a very vivid dream this morning, but it was one of those, as soon as I woke up, it was gone. I was like, well, what was that about? What was happening? I just knew I wanted to get back into it. So it wasn't even like one of those where, you know, I hear people say all the time, grab your journal as quick as you can. So you can document it down before you forget. This one was gone. Like,
Jeff Finley (49:32.351)
Oh yeah.
Zach Hendrix (49:44.393)
parts of it, main parts of it were gone as soon as I woke up. Where it was like within two seconds it was gone. I was like, no, I already forgot what that was. And now that it's even been a few hours, I can't remember what the other parts were as well. Is that, is that something then as well where people find that they can hold onto their dreams more, um, more easily, um, versus like it's gone as soon as you wake up or is that still a struggle? Or have you looked into that at all?
Jeff Finley (50:09.966)
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely from my experience the more you are the more you're writing down your dreams and trying and Kind of respecting the dream space the more you will start to experience in the dream space that you remember and it's more impactful and meaningful so it's kind of like If you're if you don't care about your dreams very much and don't think about them They kind of become part of the background noise and they're not a big part of your life But as soon as you start making the intention to have more dreams get more involved understand them
lucid dreaming practices, your memory of that will definitely increase and the things that you'll take away from it is a lot more than if you just kind of like go on with your day.
Zach Hendrix (50:53.329)
Gotcha. So, so getting back to your road trip, then you said one thing that I found kind of fascinating and I wonder, um, uh, if this was actually a part of the road trip or not, or maybe just a part of the longer journey that was starting is that if I remember somewhat correctly from your blog back then is you talked about, uh, meeting a tribe or something like that is that it did seem to me.
Like during that phase, there was a lot of different groups or different exposure that you were going where it seemed like you were going up and like, I met these people for a weekend and it was almost like a camp or something. Um, and we kind of had this practice. Were, were there a lot of, and cause you mentioned that you're like, I've met some of these spiritual people or they had stuff that I was in contact with. So I was like, I'll drive down there and meet with them and I'll drive down there. And over there, did it kind of feel like that? Like you were meeting these kinds of different tribes with different thought processes.
And was that it or am I misremembering that? Where you're like, no, that was kind of more over a few years. Or did you kind of have these separate experiences along this road trip as you went?
Jeff Finley (51:59.538)
No, good question. I did have separate experiences that were very interesting. I think my first
Well, gosh, I mean, we can really, this stuff is like starting to come back into my memory. I'm starting to remember this stuff. My first stop was in Columbus, Ohio, which is like, you know, just a couple hours south of where I was living. And the people there were more like from the design industry and a guy that I knew, a filmmaker that I knew in Columbus was a good friend. They were like my first stop. They were like, put, send me on this way. But the thing that we did, we did this thing called a synchronicity walk, which is something I learned from Todd Akamesis. He's a...
somebody I interviewed on my podcast about synchronicity walks and he's an astral projection teacher. Basically you get it like a bag of dice and like randomizer things and uh, like spinning wheels, like with colors on it or whatever, and you kind of set the intention to go out onto the streets and you're like, all right, which directions should we go? You like spin the arrow, you know, and it's like going left. So then you go left and you like roll the dice and it's like, if it's a six or a two, we're going to do this. If it's like, you know, whatever, we're going to look for that number. And then if we see it, we're going to head that direction.
So you kind of follow this sort of randomized experience and then you just accept and go along with whatever's happening. And that in a way is like kind of a mystical experience. We ended up at this like dance school where I just like, all right, I just started busting out some dance moves at their dance school, you know? And I was like, everybody was like, what's going on? You know, it was pretty bizarre and fun. But then I go to Indianapolis and I'm walking around the city and...
I go to this monument in the center of the city and I see this girl reclining on the wall, this stone wall, and she's listening to her iPod, she's got her headphones in. iPod, I mean that's probably what it was back then. For some reason I felt like I want to go ask her where a coffee shop is. That's all I wanted to know. I didn't know where anything was, but I felt like asking somebody and I was like, I'm going to ask her. So, I go up there and she's got her headphones in, but I'm like, hey, excuse me, and she takes them.
Zach Hendrix (53:44.841)
Yeah, probably. Yeah.
Jeff Finley (54:00.442)
And I said, can you tell me where a cool coffee shop is? Like, you know, I'm new to this town. I'm just, I'm on a road trip. I'm passing through, you know? And she's like, she got excited to tell me. And she told me this like arts district is just down the street. And then I told her, she asked me a little bit about my trip real quick. And then I said, I'm on a star seat tour. You familiar with what a star seat is? And she's like, yeah. I'm like, what? And she's like, and she starts telling me all about like star seats and Pleiadians. And she's like, she starts telling me about numerology. She says,
What's your birthday? And I said, uh, June 6th, 1982. And she adds up those numbers and she's like, it adds up to number, adds up to 30, 32, and if you add three and two together, you get five. And so she's like, you're a 32 five. Your life path is five. That means freedom. This is exactly what you're meant to be doing right now in this life. You're just meant to be going on this road trip. It's all about your freedom and expression. Like keep doing it. And it looked for, looked for synchronicities, look for repeating number signs. I said, yeah, I see 11 all the time. And she's like, yes, that's because you're waking up.
you're waking up to the illusion. And I was all like, oh my God, how did I encounter this woman?
Zach Hendrix (55:01.271)
I've heard that here on the way back. That's so crazy. So crazy.
Jeff Finley (55:07.178)
Yeah, and she said, she gave me one more piece of advice. She's like, she's like, play with the universe. She said, say, I wonder what it would feel like to be, to do X or I wonder what it would feel like to be X and then watch your unit, watch the world and see if it responds to you. But she says, you have to maintain the sense of wonder, all joy and wonder and curiosity and play with the universe in that way. And it responds to you. And if you can trust it and play in that world.
Zach Hendrix (55:22.067)
Huh.
Jeff Finley (55:32.914)
Life becomes a lot more magical. So I was really inspired by that idea because Todd Akamesis had the same idea, living a magical life with synchronicity walks. So another synchronicity, you know, she comes into my life and she guides it to me. And this is funny. So I go down to the coffee shop, to the arts district, I'm walking around, there's all these like little boutiques and stuff. And I said, I was horny at the time, okay? So I said, I wonder what it would feel like to be sexually desired by a woman.
Zach Hendrix (55:57.401)
Yeah.
Jeff Finley (56:01.698)
because I hadn't felt that way in a long time. And so I'm like, what would that feel like? I'm like, okay, let's throw it up to the universe. I walk into this boutique and like, this like, large black woman, this heavyset personality, she was like, she walked in, she's like, she's like, oh, you should wear this hat, you should wear this hat. And she's like, that would look really good on you. And I was like, whoa, like it was just like, totally took me by surprise. She just like, steps right in my path and starts telling me what hat to wear.
Zach Hendrix (56:03.753)
Sure.
Jeff Finley (56:30.334)
and tells me that I would look good in this hat. And I was like, okay, and we were laughing, and I was putting the hat on and everything like that, and she's all like, tell me I look good in the hat and I take it off or whatever. And I was just like, that was really fucking funny. And then I go up to the cashier to buy some stuff, and she's like, I'm wearing this jacket full of patches, and this girl's like, I like your patches. And I was like, oh, thank you. Okay, that never happens. It's just.
Zach Hendrix (56:57.151)
out of nowhere.
Jeff Finley (56:58.662)
It happened so quickly though, so quickly. Like I have, that experience doesn't always happen to me, even if I say I wonder the X, Y, Z. But I think because I was in this elevated state where I was experiencing a lot of synchronicities, it was like they kept happening faster and faster.
Zach Hendrix (57:08.446)
Yes.
Zach Hendrix (57:12.461)
That's pretty fascinating. Cause yeah, what, I guess you kind of answered my question. I was going to say, what did you take that to mean from her as far as like, you need to wonder what like, hey, wonder what it would be like, wonder what it would be like, what you kind of took that to mean. So it was just putting yourself in a state of mind of, Hey, I wonder what it would feel like to be desired by another woman right now, or to have a woman think I'm sexy or something like that. That was kind of the, how you took that to mean was get in that head space of what if this was that thing.
Jeff Finley (57:41.398)
Yeah, what if and then let it go, like forget about it. Like don't even think about it anymore because when you start thinking about it, your mind takes over, which is not your spirit. And it starts to control the experience and starts to worry about it and wonder. And it will start to dictate what's happening. So as much as you can forget about it and then go about your day and then kind of be delighted when something like that happens, because it doesn't happen in the way that you expect. And so this is the, this gets into the whole topic of like law of attraction and manifesting, which people do and reality transferring, which people do.
Zach Hendrix (57:48.521)
Sure.
Zach Hendrix (58:09.949)
Sure.
Jeff Finley (58:10.807)
for another episode but yeah.
Zach Hendrix (58:14.777)
Yeah, well, because yeah, it kind of reminds me of what people will say all the time. If you're out there looking for love, you're never going to find it. Um, it's almost like people can, you know, and people will say that it's like, oh, they can feel the desperation on you and all of this, but when you're not looking for it, that's when it's going to come. And obviously that's about the most frustrating thing to hear in the world. When you want to find somebody that you're like, Hey, stop looking. And you're like, what do you, what do you mean? Stop looking. Uh, like.
What do you mean just stay in my basement and never come out and don't like, well, I mean, no, not like you kind of have to look a little bit. You have to give yourself opportunities, probably not locking yourself in the basement is the right idea. But yeah, exactly that when you're like, if I'm going up with the intentions of this, it usually tends to not work out that way. But you need to, you know, have it happen more organically. Like you said, the girl comes up to you, compliments your jacket. You're like,
Jeff Finley (58:58.53)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (59:13.049)
Okay, I think I'm having this experience and, uh, you know, there's people that I've heard out there and said, it's like, look, you don't need to go out there searching for it. And if you're searching and searching too hard, it's, it's probably not going to go, but you need to be open to the experiences when they come around and be willing to go forward with it. Like so when that opportunity presents itself, Hey, a door just opened. You need to go walk through that door, um, type of a thing. So it's like, you know, maybe.
Jeff Finley (59:17.166)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (59:41.733)
You know, somebody could argue that, Hey, the girl asked you about your jacket. Maybe see where this takes you or something like that for people listening. That it's like, Hey, don't you shut off and be like, well, why is this person bothering me or this or that and shutting it off as well? Like I remember when I was in high school, there was, I was always terrified to talk to girls. I was, I was very shy and afraid and all of that. So looking back, there was opportunities or
Jeff Finley (01:00:04.33)
Yeah.
Zach Hendrix (01:00:08.973)
circumstances put out there that I just was not open to. Like I remember one, me and my buddies used to go to Dave and Buster's all the time. And we always had, somehow we always had the same waitress. And then that would come up and they go, I don't know, Zach, I think that she likes you. I'm like, no, she doesn't. She doesn't like me. Doesn't do this. And then they're like, no, I think you should talk to her. I'm like, what am I going to say? I can't say anything and all that. And then you're just closing yourself off that it's like, hey, just be open to the opportunity. Yes, you might have to put your foot forward.
But, you know, this is not something you went out there. You've talked, you've done this, maybe, uh, you know, allowing yourself to be open to the possibility of it. So I think that that's actually kind of a really interesting way to look at it. Be like, what would that be like? Because I think a lot of stuff in life in general, whether professional, personal is that I've always thought about it this way, a friend and I kind of talked about this as it was like, if you're writing them. And so he kind of told it to me in this way, cause this is a way that makes sense to me. It's like,
Jeff Finley (01:00:40.258)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (01:01:08.429)
You get to be the author of your own movie. So if you're writing the script right now, how do you want that movie to go? What are you gonna write out for your character? And really what that did for me was it allows me to prepare to say, oh, it allowed me to think ahead, to almost like practice and be like, oh, so if I do get in this situation, how do I wanna react? As opposed to feeling so reactive where I'm like.
I don't know. It's hitting me all at once where I'm like, okay, this is going to happen. And then how do you think Zach would like to react? Zach would probably like to react this way. Oh, okay, great. So he's going to go and do that where I can almost like plan my future out ahead of time. So that's the way I kind of take that to me. And it's like, oh, if that was going to happen, how would I react? How would I do that? Oh, I'd probably do this. I'd probably do that. I'm like, oh, that would feel good as opposed to like, what's happening all around me. And then you shut off everything that's going.
Jeff Finley (01:01:58.258)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (01:02:05.022)
So I like that way of thinking about it of just the ability to wonder a little bit more is kind of a powerful.
Jeff Finley (01:02:10.442)
Yeah. Yeah, no, that's good. And what you brought up with, if you're searching for something too hard, it's harder to find it. And like, people can smell the desperation on you. And what I've learned is there's definitely some truth to that. And they call it the law of attraction and the law of repulsion.
Zach Hendrix (01:02:28.765)
Okay.
Jeff Finley (01:02:28.954)
And most people, when they think of a lot of attraction, they hear the phrase like attracts like. So you get what you put out there or like you have to be in the right vibration to experience the thing that you want. If you want to attract money, you have to be in this vibration that's accepting of money. Now, completely ignore that. There's a lot of. Flaws with that, with a lot of attraction that I think I see out there, but.
As far as like this law of repulsion, right? It's because you have this desperate seeking energy. You want it, you crave it so badly. So that craving is more like an addiction that you're trying to satisfy rather than a curious wonder without any attachment. You're like, I wonder what that berry tastes like over there, you know? You don't have any attachment or need to know. You don't have to, you don't need it so badly. So for someone who's really insecure and really wounded and has lack of self-confidence, they will feel like...
their pre-existing beliefs are that people don't like them, that they're not lovable enough. And so like if you were to say, or that waitress you experienced, when she's like hitting on you, I had the same experience. Women would hit on me, but I would not feel like they're hitting on me. I would feel like they're making fun of me. Like they're teasing me, they're making fun of me. They're not interested in me, why would they be? Like I'm not getting any genuine cues, because I didn't speak that language of flirtation, of sexual energy. Like that's not how I went about my life.
Zach Hendrix (01:03:33.857)
Exactly. I didn't feel like that at all. Yeah, exactly. I was like, not at all.
Jeff Finley (01:03:48.35)
So if they were really interested in me in a way that was receptive to me, it was be more like an intellectual or emotional connection that we would like sit down and talk about life's biggest questions together, then I would feel chemistry. But if a woman came up to me with like a sexual undertone right off the bat, I would like, would not even see it. I'd be like blocking it off right away because that's not my vibe. And so when these two women in this boutique were, if they were attracted to me or not, I'm just like evidence of the universe presenting something to me because I wasn't really attracted to them. So it's kind of like, Oh.
I guess being sexually desired by a woman doesn't feel like I expected it to feel because that can be desired by a woman that I don't even like and that desire is kind of unwelcome. It's a little bit too much and I understand, wow, women deal with this all the time, like being sexually desired by people that they don't want anything to do with. So it doesn't necessarily feel good to be sexually desired, you know, but it was kind of a fun experiment that I got to play with and, you know, my girlfriend tells me that I'm a handsome, attractive guy, you know, and I'm like, I just don't see it, you know, like...
Zach Hendrix (01:04:31.505)
Yeah, exactly.
Jeff Finley (01:04:47.21)
I don't think of myself like that. So when people are flirting with me and presenting that energy, I like just don't even get it. I had a really funny experience that I can get to in Austin at some point, completely oblivious to this, but that's for another story.
Zach Hendrix (01:05:00.517)
Sure. Yeah. No, I think that that's a, it's a good, interesting point to, uh, to end on as well where, yeah, I think it, it again circles back to the way that I like to interpret the, the saying of your focus determines reality where somebody would say I'm focused on finding on relationship. I'm focused on finding it and I'm not getting one. I'm like, no, what you're focusing on is kind of being a creep. You're going up. It's unwelcomed. It's not this. You're not putting out a good vibe. You're not.
Or you're not welcoming ones that maybe are there because you're focused too much over here. Like I'm trying to make her my girlfriend. Like, no, what you're focused on is not being open to other situations. You're focused on this one thing, but now you're ignoring everything else. So that is your reality. You haven't found anybody you haven't because your focus has, has been in the wrong spot and all that. Cause I think people take that to mean the opposite and it's like, what are you actually focused on? What are you actually doing as opposed to what you want?
What you want and what you're focused on are not the same thing a lot of the time. And people are like, oh, I want this. I'm like, that doesn't mean that that's what you're focused on. Or you're going about it the best way. So with, yeah, absolutely go.
Jeff Finley (01:06:13.918)
I'd like to add to that, Zach. So you said something about the person is seeking a relationship and they're really harping on it and they're not getting it. And it's like you said, they're more they're being more of a creep, you know. And.
Jeff Finley (01:06:31.646)
I would find myself this too. So I'm going on this road trip and I'm kind of chasing after girls for like a better word. I wouldn't put it so literal, but when I look back on it, a lot of that I can see that that's kind of what I was doing. It's like my heart was being called. I was like in love. I was attracted to this one. No, I'm attracted to that one. I was going through something and oftentimes it felt like the love that I seek is outside of myself and it belongs in that girl. If I can get her attention, if I can get her to look at me and pay attention to me and love me and treat me the way I want to be treated.
But like I'm missing out on all the all the women that are actually doing that. I'm just not attracted to them. So this is a common dynamic that we see with, um, with relationships where the person you're, your men or women are going after the unavailable partner. It's not there. They feel like the prize. You're trying to get them to pay attention to you. And you've got plenty of people that are giving you that attention, but you're just like not interested in them or, or maybe they, you are that object that they're chasing. And so when they're chasing you, you just feel a repulsion to them.
And so if you've been on the receiving end of the law of repulsion, you know what it feels like when someone is desperately craving something that they think you have and they're trying to get it from you. It literally feels like they're trying to extract something from you like a taking energy. And no wonder women say men are creeps because that is the energy that they're getting. They're trying to take something from the woman, an essence or love or a sexual attention or desire or gratitude, gratification.
Zach Hendrix (01:07:47.603)
Yeah.
Jeff Finley (01:07:52.758)
that's going to fill up this guy's cup because he's not filled up by himself. He's not satisfied or secure in himself. He's looking for that women to do that. So he's like literally a hungry ghost going out there, starving, looking for different people to eat that he can consume. He might not see it that way, but that's kind of the energetic dynamic that's happening and when he can heal that craving within him, uh, he will not have that need as much so he won't be out there seeking and hunting.
He will just be casual and being content within himself and enjoying the relationships that he does have. And then watch, he gets an abundance of people that want to be with him, but he doesn't need anything anymore. So that you can apply that principle to so many aspects of life.
Zach Hendrix (01:08:29.985)
Exactly.
Zach Hendrix (01:08:35.333)
Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting and fascinating how that works. And, you know, thinking back to small things and big things where it's weird. And yeah, and I do feel bad for people because I've been, you know, I think all of us have been in that situation before. I mean, even me right now, you could argue I'm in that situation right now with a job where I'm like, I'm hunting, I'm hunting, I'm hunting, I'm hunting, I'm trying to make this work and it's not working.
Jeff Finley (01:08:57.026)
totally.
Zach Hendrix (01:09:03.889)
And, you know, I know from, you know, the, um, the, I don't know what I'm trying to say, but retrospect grants me the enough vision to know that most of my career, a lot of the career choices that I made have come when I wasn't looking for it or when I was not expecting it. Um, and I was like, Oh, this came out of nowhere. And that was a really good thing for me. And so I'm like, I shouldn't say I know that it's going to work out. I don't know that.
Jeff Finley (01:09:23.682)
Yeah, totally.
Zach Hendrix (01:09:33.325)
I don't know that everything is just all going to work out, but it has in the past for me, where I was like, if I just kind of like trust the process, do all this, try not to panic as much, which is hard not to do, that it's worked out in my favor. I've been able to elevate my career and other times like this in the past as well. And you know, you and I were just talking today, like I found an opportunity over the weekend that I was like, oh, this is actually maybe the one that might be meant to be for me.
Now I don't want to put that vibe out there too much as well, but I'm willing to accept that. But I'm like, that was weird. All of a sudden I get a text message from a friend that I don't really talk to that much. The only thing that he knows is the last time that we talked is that I was looking for a job. I think we were talking about a piece of gear. We hadn't talked in probably over a year. And we're asking about a piece of camera gear and it came up that I'd lost my job. And so now like two months later,
He's like, hey, I found this random job for you. Thought it'd be good. And I'm like, where did you find this? I've been hunting. I've been searching. I've been going every single day. I know I should have found this and it never came up for you. He goes, I just popped up for me here. Thought it'd be good for you. And I was like, this is like. Perfect job. Just landed right in front of my face that I'm like more uniquely qualified than probably anybody else in the state. And I'm like, all right, perfect. Uh, can't wait to put in for that. So yeah, wasn't thinking about it. Wasn't going in for it.
Um, wasn't asking for it, never told him to go look or anything like that. And like I said, we don't talk that often. He's a good friend, but, um, we don't talk that often. And then all of a sudden just out of the blue pink, here it comes. Um, and I was like, all right, well, perfect. Thanks dude. And so yeah, how that, how that, and that's what's always weird and confusing for me with laws of attraction that I'm looking forward to us talking about more in the podcast. Um,
Jeff Finley (01:11:12.364)
Mm-hmm.
Zach Hendrix (01:11:26.061)
And I do want to get back to, uh, we'll finish up the road trip. Cause there's a lot of other things in there that, uh, I think we've got a lot of content coming up for a lot of, uh, extra episodes, cause I've got so many small little questions here, uh, to go, so I know exactly. Well, a lot of these, I was like, I've been wanting to ask for years and years. Um, so, um, uh, about some of your experiences that you went through. So, uh, I don't have to worry about that. It's it's been in my brain for a long time. Um,
Jeff Finley (01:11:38.265)
Write those down. Don't forget.
Jeff Finley (01:11:52.043)
Awesome.
Zach Hendrix (01:11:52.933)
But with that being said, as we wrap things up here, as we come up on time, uh, I do want to get back to some inspirations, um, for this week of what you've been into, what you've been going down, did you see anything, have any experiences that were inspirational or, uh, what's going on with you in that realm these days?
Jeff Finley (01:12:13.538)
Well, I wrote down a couple of things. So I've been watching March Madness basketball all week. So I mean, it's like I haven't really been following a lot of inspiration much elsewhere. You know, this is the final four or the sweet 16 and the Elite Eight. So that's exciting. But I also am reading Jonathan Haidt's book, The Anxious Generation. I pre-ordered it a month ago and it finally came out. And I had been...
pretty big fan of his work. He wrote a book called The Righteous Mind, like why conservatives and liberals believe what they believe and why they can't get along, you know? Because I have this fascination with why people believe and why people act the way they act. And you see the polarization, so I'm like, why is it that it's like this? Anyway, so he had been a good commentator on why the spike in anxiety occurred right around when smartphones became ubiquitous in our lives, and why...
We're all seeming to be suffering from mental health crisis is so much. You know, what's really changed. And he, he says it's because of the phone based generation, phone based childhood, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are being raised on iPads and this is what it's like. So I appreciate his perspective, although I don't really know if I agree with it as much, I have some criticisms that I would probably like to talk about, but. Um, Catherine D who goes by default friend, she's someone I'm talking to, maybe going to do a podcast with her, but.
really a great cultural critic, you know, one of the people that's really on the nose. She had a post on her blog about the anxious generation, not written from her, but written from somebody else, a big long philosophical treatise about their perspective of it, as far as like the medium is the message, Marshall McLuhan, okay, I'm getting lost in the weeds here. But okay, he had some criticism, but basically she said the same thing. I used to be in the same boat as Jonathan Haidt as this point of view, but now I'm kind of pushing back on it. So anyway, I'm kind of with her. I'm kind of like...
Zach Hendrix (01:13:53.55)
Ha ha ha!
Jeff Finley (01:14:07.318)
I don't know if I am into this stuff so much. And then one last thing. Pete Walker's book Complex PTSD, this one right here. I'm reading it again for like the third time. He is one of the best writers. I recommended this in my last newsletter. He talks about perfectionism and he talks about how to disarm the inner critic. In like one of the most human ways, he's because he's experienced it himself. So you get the wisdom from somebody who's gone through it themselves.
Zach Hendrix (01:14:19.226)
Interesting.
Jeff Finley (01:14:36.638)
and how like our childhoods, the way we were raised, turn us into perfectionists and turn us into having somebody with an extremely strong inner critic and how to fight back against that. So I love his writing. And so that's my final inspiration for the week.
Zach Hendrix (01:14:52.641)
Nice. I think for me this week, I've got a couple. I just finished another fun sci-fi book. It's, I haven't read, I don't read a lot of like comedy books. And when I say comedy, like novel comedies. And I don't think a lot exists. And I would imagine that it's kind of hard to pull off. But I read a kind of a sci-fi comedy book where...
It's very serious and would actually make a good show movie series or whatever. Um, but it is kind of like, it has a very funny sense of humor about it. It's, uh, it's this book called, uh, we are Legion, uh, parentheses. We are Bob and, uh, and it's about this guy in the future that finds himself. He used to be a human and now he wakes up a hundred years later and he's an AI. Basically. And he's just a computer program. Um,
And he's kind of being tasked with in some ways to repopulate the humans across the universe and all this. But then he finds ways that he's also built in a way that he can duplicate himself. And so he makes all these different copies of himself, hence the name We Are Legion, We Are Bob. There's all these copies of himself that are now in spaceships and probes and all this, and he can keep duplicating himself. But then he finds himself that.
each time he does, he's not exactly the same. Like they, he starts developing his own personality and each one of his copies are kind of their own independent person and all of this, but it's, and it's kind of a comedic look at, at all of this as well. And so when I say comedic, it almost makes it sound like it would be like a galaxy quest type of a thing. And it's not, it's still like, it's just the guy, the voice of it has a good sense of humor and there's just kind of weird situations that you're like,
Look, this would be ridiculous if this happened, if you could make copies of yourself and all this. But it's still kind of a very serious going forward. It's not like a drama or anything, but that was a fun one. And I was like, man, that was, I can't believe he pulled this off. Like it was such a fun story. It's just fun to read and there's five of them. So I was like, oh, I can't wait to get to the next one to see what happens with the rest of the Bobs. And all of that, how they go around and.
Jeff Finley (01:16:53.858)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Finley (01:17:09.643)
Nice.
Zach Hendrix (01:17:11.929)
Yeah, it's a, it's a pretty fun little journey. So that was, that was a fun little read. The other inspiration that I'll say was actually kind of, uh, it's a lesson to myself as well, but it was an inspiration from my, uh, my wife is that, um, she and I, um, over the years, one thing that I know that she likes and does, and that, uh, I'm not great at, but I try to do it because I know it means a lot to her is send a message, um, at night kind of.
saying something that you appreciate the about the other person. I love you. Love this, all that. That it's a nice way to wake up to be like, oh, that was so nice to read. And I used to do this all the time with her. Like, I would really try like almost every night to send her a message before I would sleep, because she always goes to sleep before me. Right. Send her a message or some thought or something and just let her know that I'm thinking about her. So whenever she would wake up, she always wakes up before me. She has a nice message for me. Well, it's been a long time since I've done that.
And then she sent me a message yesterday and said, Hey, I just wanted to tell you good morning. I'm happy to, you know, be spending another day with you, blah, blah. And I was like, that was so nice. It really did make my day, made me feel great. So then I was like, all right, tomorrow you've got to do that again. You've got to send something back to her and put a positive note back out. Cause that's a nice way to kind of like keep this thing going of
Hey, it only takes you a minute to send that little message out. And so that was kind of inspiring to me that it's like, take time, appreciate what you have, put it out there, let those people know about it. And, uh, I thought that was really nice. I'm trying to get my brain back on track of, and when I do that as well, I find myself being more positive also in general in life, as opposed to being less depressive and all of that and, uh, feel better about everything. Like you kind of like that, you give what you get. So it made me feel good. Also.
So it's not even self-serving just to make her feel good. It makes me feel good to be able to do that and maybe help somebody else's day. So that's my inspirations right now. So yeah, we'll see if we can keep that going. So that's all I got. Anything else you want to add for this week or are we ready to wrap it up?
Jeff Finley (01:19:09.793)
Mm-hmm.
Well, very cool. That's nice to hear. Well, yeah.
Jeff Finley (01:19:24.982)
Well, the only thing I think I would add is that sci-fi comedy book that you're talking about it sounds gosh I got this thought I'm like, oh my god What he's talking about a lot of people in like spiritual mysticism community say that's like the grand story of the universe We're like God had made copies of himself and ever and all the copies started developing their own personalities and forgetting that they were God So they just became what they thought they were and then they're making copies of themselves
and you know because everyone's kind of imprinted with the image of God so they're all like duplicating the process and it's like sprawling out into this infinite abundance of creation and all of it forgets that it was originally God in the first place so it's like if you could read it you could read it through that lens of uh of the fractal of the one consciousness of God fractaling itself out and then identifying too much with that individual element and the story that creates like yeah that's pretty fascinating
Zach Hendrix (01:20:02.221)
Oh really?
Zach Hendrix (01:20:17.517)
It really does make me wonder now if some of that is part of the exploration that the author is taking on because there's some other very much religious encounters that happened later on in his journey and one of the Bob's journey. Actually, I think it is the original Bob with some of the other Bob's that he brings along with him have these experiences where they're definitely addressing that head on as far as like, where does that come from type of a thing?
And, you know, religion in general, almost like the birth of religion type of a thing. And, and all of that. And yeah, so that's fat. I never thought about that. That's, that's really interesting. And obviously he talks about a lot of times, like, what is a soul? Do I still have a soul? Like, I don't even have a body anymore, but I am a consciousness, you know, and I can make other ones. And so they do kind of address those things in the book. It's kind of fascinating. It's fun.
Jeff Finley (01:21:08.539)
Oh yeah, totally.
Jeff Finley (01:21:13.91)
That's awesome.
Zach Hendrix (01:21:14.597)
and take a very like kind of layman's approach to all of it, which is cool. So, yeah. Yeah. Nice, easy read too. So, yeah, well, I guess with that being said, we'll wrap up and end it. And so, once again, just a unfortunate reminder for us. Don't always feel great about doing it. I feel weird sometimes, but please like subscribe. We'd love to hear your comments about this episode. If you all have had any religious experiences and where that came from.
Jeff Finley (01:21:20.481)
Very nice.
Zach Hendrix (01:21:42.957)
Um, or anything else, even what's inspiring you, uh, feel free to comment. We'll look forward to that and we'll see you all next week.