Life of Love with Julie Hilsen
Join Julie Hilsen as she inspires you to see the magic around you. Julie creates a joyful canvas for all things inspirational and often gets direct messages from her guides and angels to help you find answers on your quest for living a life of love. Join us and get inspired as each moment is a chance to live the life of your dreams. You are a vibrant being of light and you are here to love. Tune in for a weekly burst of enchantment and spiritual pep talk. From my heart to yours!
Life of Love with Julie Hilsen
Conscience Finance and Digital Wealth with Eric McHugh
Curious about how a dynamic professional from LA transforms his career and finds deeper meaning? Join us as we chat with Eric McHugh, whose fascinating journey spans from working at Snap Inc. to his Bitcoin revelation as a bankruptcy consultant. Eric’s passion for cryptocurrency led to the creation of Dataing, an AI-powered matchmaking site with an audacious goal of creating one billion happy couples. This episode offers an awe-inspiring look at aligning your career with your personal values and the profound impact it can have on your life.
Venture into the vibrant world of startup incubators with us, where we discuss essential resources like workspace, community support, and networking opportunities. Learn how balancing entrepreneurial pursuits with mindful practices such as meditation and breath work can enhance decision-making and overall well-being. Eric shares personal stories about how taking breaks and engaging in physical activities, like hitting the beach, can recharge your creativity and productivity, offering invaluable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.
As we explore the evolution of Bitcoin and Web3, we critically analyze the role of the F@deral Re$erve and how cryptocurrency offers a path to financial liberation. Discover the potential of Web3 to offer true ownership of digital content through cryptocurrency and NFTs. Tune in to understand the power of choosing love, abundance, and happiness over fear-based narratives. Embrace the importance of living authentically, serving others, and connecting with your inner truth to lead a life filled with love, connection, and self-awareness. This episode is packed with insights and inspiration to help you create a fulfilling life aligned with your deepest values.
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Life of Love. Life of Love with Julie Hilsoen
Julie Hilsen:Hello, dear friends, and welcome to another episode of Life of Love. I'm so grateful to have your ears and your hearts to share these messages and bring you a message to help uplift your life or give you inspiration or, you know, maybe lift your head up if you're having one of those days where it's hard to hold it up. So I'm here for you, the community's here for you, and today is a really special day.
Julie Hilsen:We have this gentleman. His name is Eric McHugh and he's coming to us from LA, which is very exciting. And just he, I want to say he's a timeline shifter. He is sharing information about how to show up in your purpose and he's dedicated to enhancing his life and everyone else's life around him. And his bio is quite extensive. I'm going to share a little bit. Currently, he's the president of ShopX. It's a Web3 e-commerce company and he's the co-founder and chief chief growth officer of dataing, an ai powered matchmaking site with a goal to match did you say, one million couples uh, one one billion, but a million comes first with the b because we're putting the, we're putting the intention out there, because once you put that intention out there, it's the reality we're paying attention to and hopefully that's what we quantum collapse into.
Eric McHugh:And then the more happy couples we match, the more love spreads, I think, and then that has a generational effect.
Julie Hilsen:So perfect for life of love. You can tell I'm so excited about this. He's also worked at Snap. Is that the Snapchat?
Eric McHugh:So Snap is a pairing company of snapchat. It was their headquarters in venice, which was honestly a super cool experience, yeah so I'm just so delighted.
Julie Hilsen:It's not. It's not often we get such depth of of experience in in just attracting situations and people and experiences to my show and then bringing forth from the life of love aspect. So I'm honored to have you here today. Thanks for being here.
Eric McHugh:I'm grateful to be here. Thank you, julie. So much I can tell from our previous conversation. This will be a fun time for both of us and I want to thank every one of your listeners for tuning in, so hopefully you get some value out of this show. I'm looking forward to this.
Julie Hilsen:Yeah, everyone, stick around to the end, because we have some great things to offer and you know just, it's going to be a great conversation, my gosh. So I don't even really know where to start, but when I was doing my research on you, I was really lit up by the idea that that you had this introspection, that you had looked deep and you realized that you needed to be centered on your purpose, and I was wondering if you'd share how you came to that realization. You know, you, you have a lot of experience, was it? Was it before you got this experience during, or you know? Can you shed a little light on on how you decided that it was important to be a person who understands we're, we're in a place of unity and that that purpose matters, and and to have like a North Pole of purpose, because I think so many people are just lost in just responding to the next shiny object that it's really cool to get a perspective on somebody who's gone through something like you. Your experience.
Eric McHugh:I don't know how to elaborate on that. And that was a great question and, to answer it, it didn't happen all at once, it was like a process given thing. So I went to college, I went to University of California, irvine Did. The whole normal career path Was interning in Barcelona and Washington DC, which was also funny. But just have all opposite, those work cultures were just like Barcelona.
Eric McHugh:Barcelona, you show up at 10 am and flip-flops and you're cool. Dc, it's like nine. It's like you know the swamp, humidity, full suit and tie, packed in a sardine. You show up at eight. So my first job out of college is at this point. I'm just like, okay, well, I need a job, need a job that makes sense. I chose Snap Inc and the two main reasons I chose Snap were, first off, the location. So the location was in Venice Beach, which was cool in itself, but they also bought a bunch of different houses and warehouses, so they didn't have one singular building. You just walked around on the beach to different locations, which was cool, and that was right before their IPO. So I wanted to be around that type of energy, see what it was like going through that.
Eric McHugh:After that I'm like, okay, I need a full-time job um out of college like because I think this is one of those things like that's programmed into you as like a young kid, whether by your parents, let me school. It's like well, you need a job, I'm lawyer, consultant, doctor all those sounds somewhat fancy. I ended up as a bankruptcy consultant just because it kind of paid well and like, honestly, it was a good position. And during that time is when I I would say I started the awakening process and the thing that woke me up first, or at least like opened my eyes so that something could be off different, was bitcoin. So I was getting really deep into bitcoin that I was taking up all my mind space, all my mind space, was occupied by Bitcoin. The ethos of Bitcoin didn't really align well with the ethos of the bankruptcy consulting firm. So I waited Well, I waited for my bonus and then I quit that job without a plan. And then I knew the path I wanted to take wasn't cryptocurrency. So I started going to cryptocurrency meetups in my local area. I met the original ShopX team at a crypto meetup in LA at just some food place, which is chill. We started working on ShopX and while ideating upon the problem for ShopX usually in the startup world you just write a bunch of stuff on the whiteboard and solve problems that way. So we had a problem with affiliate code so that spun off into a different company called carpe river, calling different names. That ended up getting vc funded and work and we worked out one of the top incubators in the world at the time. So as a young person I was around. So an incubator is essentially startup school. So it's like a bunch of different startups in the different desk clumps like two to three, two to four people usually just working on a project. Startup nexus was literally that mountain water. They're a pretty big brand now.
Eric McHugh:It's like at that time I networked my way, I got. I was blessed to be in front of a bunch of people in a bunch of different positions at a bunch of different scales of companies. I got lunch with them, ate lunch with them, picked their brain, told me what worked, what didn't work. And that was actually the first spiritual, the first contact I had with spirituality, because some of the most successful startups well, everyone's equally successful, but in terms of like what most people consider a successful startup, it's like, hey, do you want to grab lunch? I like too. It's like I can't, I'm meditating what. So I started going down that path, started researching all that. The content started flowing, I started interacting more and more spiritual people and then that opened up a can of worms and I think we culminated in.
Eric McHugh:I think my peak, or something that really impacted me positively, was of impulsive meditation retreat, which, again, one of my mentors suggested to me a while back. I ignored it because I'm like I can't take 10 full days off. That doesn't make any sense. And then two other people I trusted just happened to bring it up. And on the third person bringing up like okay, that's someone's telling me something. I went on the website, I signed up and then I was like I don't know what, this is no idea. Signed up, went and then that created a spiritual base which is the base of both companies, which I think is part of the reason that they're doing so well, because I think a company with good intention will do well. A company with bad intention will do poorly.
Julie Hilsen:Yeah, there's so much to unpack there and it's so beautiful. And I want to highlight these incubator sessions or places because I don't think a lot of people know about them and having a situation where you're around someone else creating or coming up with ideas, and I want to make sure I have this right, because sometimes I create things in my head and it's not really what it is.
Eric McHugh:Yeah.
Julie Hilsen:But are there incubator places all over the country? How do you find one is what I want to know, because I want people to know that these types of things exist.
Eric McHugh:I know, and so an incubator too. And again, looking back on it, I think what makes them really successful is the type of energy that's around that. What makes them really successful is the type of energy that's around that. So for the Vipassana meditation retreat, the reason why that's so powerful because for 10 full days not only are you meditating by yourself, but you're in a room, same spot, same people, same next to you, everyone else is doing the same thing, so you're around a really positive energy. So with these incubators, you're around a bunch of people trying to co-create or add value to the world. So that really just helps you out.
Eric McHugh:So how you find the incubators? It's a variety of ways. A lot of them go through schools. So, like, different schools have different incubators, there's alumni ones. A lot of these incubators are linked to different funds or VC firms. So like, if you work for the VC, they fund your company, you become a portfolio company for that venture capital firm and they, they fund your company, you become a portfolio company for that venture capital firm and they supply a whole workspace. So like it's, it's a pretty cool workspace. It's like a warehouse type thing, different desks, like a barista, the whole shebang, and then you're just like yeah, so it's like an open floor plan so you can see other people working on the problems. You can see you working on your problems. You can always. It's encouraged that you talk with other startups, with other people who were in your previous position, because they can offer valuable insights.
Julie Hilsen:Yeah and OK. So yeah, my son had. He went to it's essentially an incubator thing through his school and it was sponsored by alumni. So I was just like, well, that's cool. And then you mentioned it. So I just want you know, people to know that these things exist and that also I want to highlight that you know you're meditating, but there's other people, you have a community. Even though you're not interacting, like talking to them, they're doing the same thing at the same time. So it's like this, this energy matrix, where everyone you have a common goal but you feel included in a group, which is beautiful.
Eric McHugh:That's pretty funny. My first week there I showed up early one day and there's a bunch of people doing Wim Hof breathing. Before I've never done any breath work. It's just a bunch of people just excessively be like what is this? And then we started breathing. People do morning like everyone has their morning rituals. People meditate there's like a meditation room where it's just pitch black but some people do the breathing. And what's nice too is our specific incubators.
Eric McHugh:Like it was right next to the beach in santa monica, so like if you've been to california by the santa monica pier. But like you get stressed out, work, um, you're always encouraged like, um, go kicking on the sand for a bit, have like a milkshake or do what you need to do, and then come back ready to ready to go again. Because that's something I think that's pushed in corporate culture. I think people I think it's pushed saying go, go, go, go go. But I've learned a lot of the times the best thing you can possibly do in a situation is stop, take a step back, analyze and then you can make the best decision that way, and you have to be calm to do it. I wouldn't say you have to be calm, but it helps to be calm, to make the best decision, and that's where the meditation, spiritual practice as a base is invaluable.
Julie Hilsen:Yeah, and, like you said, that breath work, coming back to your breath, coming back to your body, and we've had so many episodes where I've had guests who are, like you know, feel it, feel in your body so you can flow with it, you can dance through it, you can walk through it, you can breathe through it. You can whatever you'd like to do. You know, maybe it's, maybe it's playing chess, maybe it's your. You mentioned that you did a fight chess, maybe it's your. Um. You mentioned that you did a fight you. Is it like um, martial arts, fighting or back boxing? I thought it was interesting. In your bio you said you play chess and you fight. It's a hobby and I was like I wonder if a chess match ever breaks out into a I wouldn't say no, but chess and wood are two of my hobbies and to be honest, the same thing and it really teaches you that.
Eric McHugh:Because in chess, um, you could have made the best move or the worst move. Your last move could have been the best, so you could have possibly made or the worst move, but the reality is you have the best thing you can do for this present move is to make the best present best move you have available and if you can continuously do that, odds are you'll win. So the reason I started chess was it was just replaced. I was replacing a bad hobby with a good hobby. So I'm 30, so I'm pretty much addicted to social media, or I was trained to be addicted to social media. I'm trying for those dopamine hits and running two companies that I need to be on social media. So I put chesscom right next. It's an iphone app, so it's right next to my instagram or right next to my twitter. So whenever I have the urge to go on instagram or go on twitter, I break out a couple games of chess and muay thai. So that's not kicking and elbows, so it's like kickboxing, but you can knee and you can elbow too. So that's my, that's my nighttime anchor, so it keeps me on point during the day.
Eric McHugh:So the way I do my weekdays is I wake up at 4 20. I find that funny. I start off the day with a meditation. I set my intention for the day, visualize how the day is going to go. I'm like, okay, we're going to help some people, all the calls are going to go well, whatever projects we need to do, they're going to get done. Everything's going to work. And that's funny. Things usually work out that way.
Eric McHugh:And then during the of adhd which I like, but it's like two different companies, two different like like I could be like doing an engineering call for one call, the next call podcast, like spirituality podcast, the next 30 minutes and after that a sales call for a different company.
Eric McHugh:So I pretty much live by the calendar and muay thai is my way to close the day, so that's part of my ritual. The reason it's such a good way to close the day is it keeps me on point, like if I eat poorly during the day, I make poor decisions, cause and effect. I usually get hit in the face, which is really, which is pretty annoying, but the more the important thing is it forces you to be present. So in muay thai, if I take my problem or my work opportunities into muay thai a you'll get hit, or b you lose focus and you can't properly hold the mitts for the person you're training with, which I find is rude. So it forces you to be present and it's also really it's a fantastic physical workout too, probably the best thing you could do yeah, well, it sounds.
Julie Hilsen:It sounds invigorating. I don't know if I'd be really good at it, but it sounds invigorating. I I release mine um in tennis, like if you're not paying attention if you don't move your feet, you're gonna miss your shot. You're not paying attention. If you don't move your feet, you're going to miss your shot.
Eric McHugh:You're not going to hit your best ball and it makes you humble.
Julie Hilsen:Yeah, I love that. That's such a great routine and, like you said, it keeps you honest, it keeps you your self-care. And I love the dichotomy of your two businesses, that you're really involved with the dating, the dating app, and then also the store with the, the, the Web3 ShopX, that's. It's a balance and to me that's sort of like a balance of masculine and feminine. You know, like the, you can receive a great relationship and use our technology, use AI for enhancing of life, instead of manipulating that independence of making an autonomous choice to purchase or sell things online that doesn't have the interference of the highest bidder or the latest ad campaign that's been paid for. So I want to get into that a little bit.
Julie Hilsen:The whole arena of okay, we're online, we know we're being manipulated. You know you talk about going out for dinner and then all of a sudden your feed comes in a bunch of restaurant stuff. Or you know, I was talking to my hairdresser. She just had a baby and we were talking about, you know, babies crying and all of a sudden my Instagram is has this guru who can stop any baby from crying? It's like they're totally listening to us all the time.
Julie Hilsen:But how can we flip it and, like we said before changing timelines, how can we take that the idea that our information is being spread around and sold, bought and sold and use it as a people, as a democracy, to enhance our lives and not feel controlled by it? Because I think that's what makes people scared that they're being manipulated mindlessly. So I would love to get your insight as to how someone can interact online, being more autonomous, and what your insight is with your experience about how we can stand up and keep our values with all this noise coming at us, and maybe that goes to meditating and just getting off of it. I'm really excited to hear what you're going to say.
Eric McHugh:Meditation honestly really does help. So I wouldn't think of it as like ads or marketing. I think it is more of just straight programming. So whenever you go online, everyone's just getting instantly programmed by a bunch of different things. So if you can meditate, it helps you realize what you actually want versus what you, what you program to want. So, in terms of and that's why I think the most important thing you can do to remain autonomous is to be consciously aware that people are trying to program you. So your diet it doesn't just consist of your food Like, if you eat food A, you feel bad. You eat food B, you feel good. You'll probably hopefully, you should eat more food B but your diet also consists of the people you're around and the content you consume. So the biggest thing you can do to remain autonomous on the internet is be conscious of the content you consume. So when I was talking about that chess example, I was on Instagram Reels and like, let's see how much of this adds value. Turns out it was none. So I'm just like, well, this doesn't serve me, so I let it go and I played chess.
Eric McHugh:In terms of a more tangible answer, I think Web3 presents a solution. So Web3 is just a name. It's an antsy name for the next version of the web. So, in terms of web 1 versus web 2 versus web 3, the easiest way you can think of web 1 is you can go online and you can read stuff, which is really cool because that helps spread information and we wouldn't have the spiritual awakening as a collective if we couldn't read. So it's really speeding stuff up, which is which is good. That's the positive side. Of course, there's negative sides too. So we're presently in web 2 and web 2 you can read and you can write, but you can't own.
Eric McHugh:So, for example, um, the easiest way to frame this is like through social media or using instagram or facebook or amazon as an example. So I can write a piece of content on instagram, you can own that piece, or I can write that content. You can read my content on instagram, you can like it, you can do what you will, but the issue is instagram owns that piece of content, so they could sell your data, they can cancel us for whatever reason they choose. Instagram's in the power position with that. So, whether it be instagram, facebook, any government, there's centralized powers that own the internet, and this applies to money too. So, for example, if, like, money is a form of content because I think money is just energy people spend their energy to create money, but if you say something wrong, they could just cancel your money. I think that's going to be. I think that's going to be an issue in the future, and web 3 solves that. So web 3, it's a read, write and own. So not only can you read the content, you can write the content, but you can also own the content. So my area of expertise is e-commerce. So someone, an e-commerce brand, we're able to launch a web3 based product or services. Let's say I'm the brand. I launched that.
Eric McHugh:It's in the form of an nft or a tokenized real world asset. You have the NFT that's linking to that product. You now own that. I can't take it away from you. Instagram can't take it away from you, amazon can't take it away from you. The government can't take it away from you, so it's yours to own.
Eric McHugh:And how this helps long term is what ShopX is doing is we're tokenizing the world's products. We're attaching a physical to digital link. Is we're tokenizing the world's products? We're attaching a physical to digital link. We're attaching a digital version of a physical product and this has plenty of benefits. For example, if Nike were to do that, they attach each individual product. They have a million product SKUs. Each product SKU gets an individual RWA or NFT. Nike can now perfectly track all the sales that happen. So Nike can be like this product sold once, twice, three times, four times. Great, they can get, they can take royalties if they want, but on the consumer side they can. You can be like okay, this came from nike. Or, let's say, hypothetically, you purchase a nike product, you have a metaverse, you have an ar avatar. You get your avatar, can clip that nike product you purchase in the form of nft and you can have that and vice versa. So you can also purchase something in like an augmented reality or in a video game, your n, your avatar owns that rwa and then you can claim that product in real life.
Eric McHugh:Long term, what eventually is going to happen is right now, products are really illiquid. So if you have products online, it's like how do I sell those? I have to go through the major powers, I have to go to amazon, I have to go to google, I have to go to facebook, I have to pay all the fees, I have to pay for ads and then all the money's ending back in their products. But if all the products are tokenized, everyone can sell anyone's product, create a much more liquid marketplace. So, for example, on your podcast website or whatever the case may be, you may like nike, you may like adidas, you may like whatever brand. You could sell those products that you personally like on your website. So any traffic that you get like okay, these are cool products, let me buy it from nike, let me buy these shoes. Then you get a commission, the customer gets the product and the brand gets a sale. So everyone's happy. So, like nike could be selling adidas products, reebok could be selling nike products, lululemon could be selling starbucks products. So everyone. It creates a much more liquid marketplace for e-commerce products.
Eric McHugh:And with a much more liquid e-commerce products, a big tech doesn't get all the control that they have. They can't charge a certain amount of fees, but then, if, then if everything's liquid, it reaches a much more fair price. That was meant to reach fairly. So it's like water everything just settles where it's supposed to be, whereas if, if you think of e-commerce products, like water, they're all flowing, they're getting forced to flow through certain channels and at those specific channels like amazon or facebook, people are extracting as much value as they can and who suffers? The consumer ends up paying more for the product. Yeah, that's just all. Yeah, that's going to be a cool thing, wow.
Eric McHugh:And then I would say the more important thing about this is, yes, the e-commerce aspect is great, but I think the why behind cryptocurrency is why I got into it. So, overall, I wanted to live a nice, peaceful life. I found that to be more difficult to do if the money system was corrupt and AKA stealing money from me every second of every day, funding God knows what whether it be some war, just enriching someone who doesn't deserve to be rich and then physical silver and physical gold were the solution for me for that, and then Bitcoin. That's then I found Bitcoin, found me. And then ShopX is a way for me to onboard people into that ecosystem at scale.
Eric McHugh:So if you enter Nike, does that example? A million products go to RWA. That's a million people into the ecosystem, so they have some skin in the game. It's a zero to one moment. If they want to learn more, they totally can, because cryptocurrency sorry, this got a long-winded answer but cryptocurrency it creates a system of value. It incentivizes because you can't force anyone to do anything. I think it incentivizes value creation versus value extraction.
Eric McHugh:So if I wanted to get rich right now without producing any value, I'd place myself right next to the money printer, extract as much value as I can and give it to my friends.
Eric McHugh:And let's say I give it to my friends. Now I'm in power. Now I give it to my friends. And let's say I give it to my friends now I'm in power. Now I give my friends those three corrupt people in power. Those three corrupt people in power will beat the non-corrupt people because they have access to unlimited money. So this creates corruption from the top down, whereas in cryptocurrency let's say, I want your bitcoin I'm like okay, julie, I want your bitcoin. How do get your Bitcoin? The only way for me to get your Bitcoin is for me to create something of value for you, and then you voluntarily give me your Bitcoin. So imagine not just me, but like four generations down the line the only way for people to get rich is create value for others. I think that, paired with AI, paired with a consciousness slowly elevating, I think it makes for a perfect storm of just overall, a better world for everyone.
Julie Hilsen:It's a lot to wrap your head around, because we've been like you said, we've been programmed and we've had the Fed, which, if you do a deep dive on the history of the Fed, the Federal Reserve, you know.
Eric McHugh:Oh, so I think they're probably one of the worst things to send into existence right now. I think they're a criminal organization. It's A, it's not federal or B, it's not a reserve, it's just owned by private people. And if you look into the actual creation of the Federal Reserve, it was formed in a very suspect way.
Eric McHugh:And keep in mind, that's the information we're being allowed to see, so I'm sure there's much more skeletons in that closet. The Fed is a whole wrap. The Fed needs to go away. The Fed is responsible for all the endless war we have.
Eric McHugh:I think it's responsible for people keeping people in a state of scarcity versus abundance, because you can't abundantly create and I get this you can't abundantly create if you can't pay rent or if you can't even afford groceries. And what's the main cause of that? It's the Federal Reserve and they're taking money from all of us in the form of inflation. And what are they doing that? They're hoarding that money and some certain powerful families are hoarding all the money and on top of that, they're using that to fund all the wars. So, if the Fed is funding both sides of the war, if there's a war being funded by the fed and they both have unlimited money, a, they're just piling money and they're selling those weapons contracts and making money that way.
Eric McHugh:But like, people can't have war without money. So, like, if they're getting unlimited money or it's like a there's not a like gold relation or bitcoin relation, they're just going to continue to have war because they're going to make more money. But if there's like a, if they don't have access to money, weapons are extensive. The wars will eventually end. I don't think anyone wants to be in war, it's just a pleasant present.
Julie Hilsen:No, that's what occurred to me. It's like if we stop funding the wars, they won't be fought, and everyone's tired of it. Nobody wants to watch anybody be held hostage, no matter who you identify, and wars are just horrible. The wars are built into the economy and our financial system and there is a wind of change and more awareness. If me and my middle class neighborhood in north georgia knows about this, I'm not the only one.
Eric McHugh:Yeah yeah, and more and more people, more and more people are learning about that bitcoin is the exit from that system. So it's a life road and the cool thing is I think we both agree that where attention goes, energy flows. I think bitcoins be reached the point of no return, in the sense that enough energy, enough people, people know about it that it'll survive, regardless of whatever the Fed wants to do. They'll try their thing and they'll fail, just because, honestly, most of them are probably at least the people at the top are probably evil, and I would say the people working at the low levels, they're just mindless or don't care or something. But then I would say the feds, time is running out which would be good for literally everyone everybody, yeah, and so I did have a question about web3.
Julie Hilsen:Um, is it like a, a separate access portal? How do you know it's an evolution of the of the internet, or how do you know if you're on web3?
Eric McHugh:so long term for web3 to be successful. You got I have to take out my phone. You have to take out your phone. You have to do tapty, tap, tap stuff. You know, no one knows what's going on, but everything cryptocurrency related or nft related is being done in the background. So I would describe web3 as an internet baked into with cryptocurrency or nft or that technology baked into its core. So that's where the ownership aspect comes in. So like if you produce a piece of content, you own a piece of money, it's your money. It's like either like a cryptocurrency or nft, but you don't need to know it's nft. Like this podcast could be a nft and people just listening to it wouldn't know that it's nft, but it is. So you own that, listeners that and people can't just take it away from you. Right now for people to use Web3, there are points like you have to. There are extensions, you can download it to interact with Web3. So that's where we're at now, but long term that's not sustainable.
Julie Hilsen:Gotcha Okay, so I guess you can just keep us posted on how this goes. Yeah, I think it's. I think it's a sensible thing and that, as people realize that, that their creations are valuable, that you know we're currently, I think everyone's just feeding in and exploring, and I think everyone's just feeding in and exploring and it's like we're kids in a kiddie pool, and as we get more autonomy and more awareness about how things are really being manipulated, then we'll look for more answers and opportunities, right, Because you have to illuminate what's going on before you look for an alternative. So I'm excited to bring this forward and I feel like we just skimmed the surface on it.
Eric McHugh:It's a whole rabbit hole. So that's one of those things. The only thing you can do is bring people's attention to it. If someone's interested about this, they want to research more. They can do the research themselves. And the cool thing about cryptocurrency and Web3 is it's a financial aspect to it too. So, like myself, a lot of people included. It's like most of us. The reason a lot of people get into Web3 is like free and in the money I can see the Bitcoin gains great.
Eric McHugh:But when you buy your first Bitcoin, you buy that first cryptocurrency. You have skin in the game and then you start to research. The more you research, the more you know. Then, because bitcoin is an opener to a lot of people. About the fed, for example, it's like, oh well, why is bitcoin important? Well, it helps destroy the fed. And everyone's like well, what's the fed? Why do I care? It's just some government going like. And then I look into that. It's like it's not some, just government ability.
Eric McHugh:But yeah, so bitcoin opens attention to a lot of things and it encourages people to do their own research. The cool thing is the more research you do the often thing, more often than not, the more bitcoin you buy. The more bitcoin you buy, the more skin you have the game. The more research you do. The more research you do, the more bitcoin you have. Then you have a bunch of bitcoin and then you tell your friends, like that, you guys have to get into this. And then it's self-propagating, so it's just like it's unstoppable and the cool thing about Bitcoin is an anti-fragile technology. So whatever doesn't kill it makes it stronger. So it's just like. It's like a Frankenstein of just like yeah, it's going to eat a bunch of the world's value and so where, just for someone who's just dipping their toes in what's the best way to buy Bitcoin?
Eric McHugh:Yeah, so the best way to buy Bitcoin is I would recommend. I'm not affiliated with them at all, but I would recommend Coinbase. Just go to Coinbasecom, create an account and buy five bucks with Bitcoin and see how it feels.
Julie Hilsen:I did it on my Venmo. I had extra money on my Venmo and there were like three different options and I picked one of them. And I just go in there once in a while and I look, I think it's increased 700 percent yeah, that's you know I just, I just had an extra like 15 bucks that I was like I'm not going to deposit this in my bank account I'm just going to pop it in bitcoin, but um, yeah, so I'm going to explore that too.
Julie Hilsen:Um, yeah, and I have bought physical silver and things like that. But just, you know, just to be have a, you know, diverse diversity is what I want to say, but I, you know, I don't have, I'm not an expert in it at all. So I love, I love the idea that you let me pick your brain at this basic level, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who needs this, this tutorial. So I'm really excited. And then I just learned how you do data mining from a guest and I was like that's pretty cool.
Julie Hilsen:So I'm like, maybe I'll buy a raspberry and just let that run off my internet. I'll just hook it into my wifi, I mean my modem and let that, you know, do its thing over there while I do my thing over here. It's exciting, you know.
Eric McHugh:It's different access points in different parts of the internet. Not many people are aware of it, but the more you know, the better it is. So whatever works for each individual, I think, is what works for each individual and whatever degree they want to get involved in. Again, they can't force anyone to get involved in, but if they want to get involved they can, because the whole point is creating an open internet with equal opportunity. So I think the powerful thing about bitcoin I think ai helps with this too is like, let's say, some kid in I'm filipino, so I use the philippines as an example. Let's say, some kid in the philippines 50 years ago was born in the slums of the philippines. Unfortunately, that's just where he's likely to end up. But with ai and cryptocurrency let's say, you're born with slums. Now he has his is whatever e-commerce, it's clothing. Now, with AI, before you'd have to hire a designer, hire a coder, have to hire a bunch of people to create his website you can leverage AI as a tool for him to build that website, start selling products online that hopefully help people, and then they can use cryptocurrency to connect to a global marketplace and so he can add value in his own way. So it empowers a lot of people to follow their purpose. So like, hey, let's say that business failed, which is unfortunate. He learned a lot. At least he tried. He can try again, but this time better. So it's an incentivized to.
Eric McHugh:Ai is just a tool and cryptocurrency's tool is a tool that helps people manifest their ideas at a much quicker, at a much quicker pace for much cheaper. So again goes back to the, and this goes back to why it's cryptocurrency at its core. So it's so important because if your base incentive is to I think a lot of I think I view money as neutral like you can make money is in bad ways. Don't do that, because karma is real and it always comes back to bite you. It's never worth it, but you can make money in good ways. So if you make money in good ways, that's good for you. So that kid of the philippines if the incentive now is cryptocurrency based, meaning the incentive now is value creation, you can create value at scale and when you create business, a lot of fail, a lot of succeed. It is what it is, but like, now he can, he can try creation. Hopefully he can live, and not just him, but like kids everywhere are going to do that, they can follow their purpose, their passion. Hopefully it sticks and if people aren't getting blindly robbed by the fed and people are much more likely to be in abundance, so much like the purchased product.
Eric McHugh:A lot of things get better too because, like, imagine how much little, how much less people have to work. If the federal reserve didn't exist, you probably your 40-hour work would probably like a 15-hour work and then you'd have like a house and everything. Which is it? The issue with the final reserve? Printing their money is it makes a lot of things unlivable, because if they're printing money at scale, they're collecting the money. Where does this extra money go? It goes into stable assets like housing. So that's part of the reason why housing is so expensive.
Eric McHugh:Because, like people can't like I can't store my money in usd, even if I wanted to, because it's getting devalued on every second of every day. It's getting less and less valuable. So why would I store my, why would I store my energy in something losing value? Okay, well, now I need to find a house. Now I need to plan to start. Now I need to plan a stock market. Like, I don't even want to plan the stock market, but I have to do it because otherwise I lose my money. I don't want three houses, but I have to sort somewhere. Might as well have three houses, so just create some. It creates a really inefficient system. And on top of that, the people the stock market like. They're obviously extracting value too, even though you have to play the game.
Eric McHugh:And then if you go into the whole black rock rabbit hole everyone, so you're being forced to like we're all in the stock market, like through your just company plans. Who's managing your company plans? Black rock, fidelity all those giants are managing your company plans. Who's managing your company plans? Blackrock Fidelity all those giants are managing your company plans using your money. But since they own so much of the money of the company, they have a say in the way the company operates. Blackrock is using your money to push in a certain agenda because they're the ones controlling, so they have your voting power, so they're pushing the agenda that they want, which is good for them. So, again, not great for everyone, because that company's also not good. Yeah, that's also. I know that black frog's another rabbit hole.
Julie Hilsen:They're all related yeah, so, and you know, back it was four years ago when the whole, the whole game stopped you know, and that happened.
Julie Hilsen:I was just like you know, like people are becoming aware and it's like I'm really excited to be alive at this time and these things are here for us to take advantage of. And you don't have to feed. You know that's your cue. You know I'm talking to my audience. It's your cue to look deeper. Just start asking some questions. Like you went to the crypto meetup group, you know there's things in your community that you can look into and I love to just talk about.
Julie Hilsen:You know, grow your own food, be involved with the land around you, because you know the value of your life and eating nutritious foods is just so you can't put a price tag on that. It's your health. And so a lot of these centralized systems of mass production of food are showing signs of weakness. And you look at, like the bovine flu thing going around, it's because it's because it's not humane, like things are. Things are happening that are not humane. So it's a sign that we can.
Julie Hilsen:We can adapt and choose better and and not to be in fear. So when you, when you get on the internet and you you're being pushed a fear program, realize you can turn it off and that's your, that's your choice. And you're that pushed a fear program, realize you can turn it off, and that's your, that's your choice, and you're that and, like you said, you're creating your timeline by feeding into that or choosing to go into yourself and create the happiness, the life that you want. So yeah, thank you so much for all these pearls of wisdom. I'm really excited to get this presented.
Eric McHugh:No, thank you so much for having I think you're a wonderful podcast. I think I had a really fun conversation with you. It's always fun to talk spirituality with stuff, and if you can merge cryptocurrency, that's fine too. But I think I think, spirituality, I think, is probably the most important thing right now. So right.
Julie Hilsen:Right, because once you're connected to your inner truth and that God's in you, that creation is within you, you don't have to go looking out for something else. You come from yourself and then you show up in your best, your best way, and things are going to take care of themselves thing. And if you're doing things that are only self-serving, it's not for your highest good, because your highest good is to be a loving, connected person. So anything that you can do to keep in that loving, connected state, well, you know, taking care of yourself, of course you're taking care of yourself as the first and, like you're saying, your needs have to be met, the bills have to be paid, you have to have food in your stomach and shelter, but once you get beyond that, you know the sky's the limit as far as your happiness and your way to be present in a positive, fulfilling way. And don't let anyone tell you what your limits are, because it's your world, it's your dream and your reality. So I just love the message that was brought forward, thank you.
Eric McHugh:I do want to touch on serving other people. If you're only serving yourself, you're unlikely to be happy. You're happiest when you're serving other people. And if your goal is to get stuff like, let's say, your goal is to become rich the most logical thing you could do is give away money. Because if you're giving away money that puts you in the vibration of abundance, the universe sees your abundance in the state of money. It'll just reward you with more money. So being kind, being giving it, it works for you and it works for everyone around you, so why would you not do that?
Julie Hilsen:so cool. Well, I can't think of a better way to close that for our episode. So again, thank you so much for your time, and this has just been a delight always a blast.
Eric McHugh:Thank you so much.