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"The Game of Life" (with Justin Gary) #88
49 Plays2 months ago
In this episode, We sit down with our dear friend Justin Gary — game designer, author, speaker, world traveler, longtime Burner, and all-around inspiring human. Together, we dive into a playful and profound conversation about how the principles of game design can help us create more joyful, intentional lives.
We explore:
✨How healthy habits and powerful questions can guide us toward living our best lives
✨Using the metaphor of games to set goals and see challenges differently
✨Why “failure” can actually be one of our greatest teachers and growth opportunities
✨Laughter, friendship, and the playful spirit that makes life more meaningful
Justin also shares insights from his journey as a creator and traveler, weaving together wisdom from his adventures and projects.
Mentioned in this episode:
Tune in for an inspiring and joy-filled conversation that will leave you thinking differently about your habits, your goals, and the “game” of life itself.
This episode is sponsored by Lucid — a delicious mushroom nootropic drink designed to boost focus, creativity, and calm energy without the crash. It’s our go-to for staying clear, inspired, and present.
Learn more: BecomeLucid.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Backgrounds
00:00:00
Speaker
On today's episode, we had a conversation with Justin Gary, a super inspiring game designer, liver of life, and so many tips on how to be the best version of yourself.
00:00:10
Speaker
We love sparking up a conversation with our friend Justin because we just got to hear so many things from his own personal life journey as a gamer and as a world traveler.
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Speaker
We talked about Burning Man, of course.
00:00:24
Speaker
We talked about the magical formula for living your best life.
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Speaker
So enjoy the episode.
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Stay Sparked.
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Speaker
I'm Betsy Finkelhoo, the creator of the Power Affirmation Journal and Somatic Bodyworker.
00:00:39
Speaker
I am John Halcyon Stinn, host of the Hug Nation YouTube channel and Heart Centered Men's Groups.
00:00:46
Speaker
Today we are joined by a good friend, Justin Gary, who we will introduce in a moment.
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Speaker
But first of all, we're just going to start with gratitude.
Expressions of Gratitude
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Speaker
So grateful you're here, Justin.
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I'm grateful to be here too.
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Speaker
You're actually my gratitude.
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Speaker
So I'll start with that.
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Justin is my gratitude to get to be with you today.
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Speaker
And Halcyon, what are you grateful for?
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Speaker
I'm grateful for my mom.
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Speaker
I had a beach walk with my mom this week that was so delightful and just such a, I'm so grateful for where we have ended up in our relationship as treasuring and respecting one another and just so grateful for her.
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Speaker
Oh, I love your mom.
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Speaker
Sweet.
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Speaker
How about you, Justin?
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Speaker
What are you grateful for today?
00:01:34
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You know, I'm going to piggyback off of that one from Halcyon.
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Speaker
I'm grateful for my mom, too.
00:01:39
Speaker
And there's a very specific thing that comes to mind for me because it was a very challenging start to the year.
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My mom had a pretty serious heart condition that kind of came out of nowhere.
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Speaker
She had to go in for open heart surgery and, you know, had to go back to take care of her.
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Speaker
And
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you know, while we were trying to help her get back to health, I told her, listen, you know, if you get better, we're going to, I'm going to take you on a cruise to Greece and, uh, you know, gave her a little bit of spark herself to get excited.
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And, uh, we just got back from that trip, um, uh, towards the end of July.
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And it was really, you know, I've always cherished her and our time together, but it was something that was, you know, extra special when you, you know, realize that, you know, listen, impermanence is here and that it's a precious every moment we get to spend and,
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So I really got to cherish that time with her.
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And yeah, very grateful for that.
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Oh, I love that.
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So sweet.
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Well, I got to give a shout out to my mama too.
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A round of gratitudes for the moms.
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My mom is such a special little lady.
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She's a tiny and mighty woman who lives on an acre of land about an hour and a half away from where I am in Asheville.
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And I'm just so grateful to get to live in the same time zone as her.
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because for the last 20 years I've been living in California and now she's just a hop, skip and a jump away and I can go over there for, you know, a day trip and I just love getting to have that quality time with her.
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I love my mama.
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Cheers to our mamas.
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To moms.
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To moms.
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Speaker
Yes.
Sponsorship and Guest Introduction
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Speaker
And before we get too deep as well in the cheersing, we have our special Lucid mug.
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Speaker
So we're giving a shout out to our amazing sponsors at Lucid, a mushroom nootropics drink that we just love.
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Speaker
They have so many different varieties of
00:03:23
Speaker
coffee and mushroom drink with nootropics or matcha.
00:03:27
Speaker
I personally love the dream version, which is like a nighttime, delicious, warming drink for your brain health.
00:03:35
Speaker
And it's just amazing.
00:03:36
Speaker
So check out becomelucid.com where you can try some of your very own lucid.
00:03:44
Speaker
Yum, yum, yum.
00:03:46
Speaker
All right.
00:03:47
Speaker
So let's see what inspiration is going to come from this conversation with you, Justin.
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So I'd love to start us off just on a personal note.
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We all have known each other from the San Diego network and community.
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Um,
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Yeah.
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And every time I've had conversations with you, there's so much sparks.
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And Halcyon recently was having a conversation with you.
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And that's why we are here today, because it was one of those conversations that just, gosh, we should record this.
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And that is the premise of this podcast is really about inspiration, because we feel so inspired by the conversations that we get to have when we see you.
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let's just see what comes through this conversation that might serve others inspiration as well.
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So I'm honored to introduce you as a friend first and foremost, and also somebody who has been really living an inspired life.
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I'm getting to travel the world.
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You're in a beautiful relationship with Cece.
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You have been
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spreading your magic in the world for quite some time as a game designer, which hopefully we'll get a chance to hear more about.
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You put a book out, you're just doing so much good stuff in the world.
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So I'd love to just invite you to maybe share just what your life is like on a day to day level or any, anything that kind of is sparked to say hello to the audience and see what wants to come through.
00:05:31
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Yeah, thank you for that wonderful, warm introduction.
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And, you know, I'm going to start just by reflecting back that, you know, the two of you as friends, the conversations that we've had, the inspiration from the, you know, kind of Burning Man ethos and that creativity and community has helped to inspire me along the way and is a big part of who I am.
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And so I'm grateful for
00:05:55
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All those conversations, which is part of why I was excited to come and join this podcast and have a conversation like that, again, that will light each other up and also hopefully light up the people that are listening.
00:06:07
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And so, you know, to give kind of a little bit of, you know, my sort of journey, I...
Journey from Law to Game Design
00:06:15
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I do.
00:06:16
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I'm very grateful for the life that I get to live right now.
00:06:18
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As you mentioned, I've been a digital nomad traveling around the world for the last four years with my partner, Cece.
00:06:23
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We get to have adventures and see friends everywhere that we go.
00:06:27
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I run two companies.
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One's a design consulting company.
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We will work with other partners, including toy companies and big brands, as well as places like the Wharton School of Business and teaching Fortune 500 companies how to do better brainstorming and ideation and
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community that way.
00:06:44
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And then my publishing company where I get to, you know, have my dream factory and create games and new worlds and be able to put things out there.
00:06:50
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But I want to also share, you know, that the kind of dreams don't come without struggles.
00:06:58
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And it's a, the path that got me here was a kind of dark and winding one at various points.
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And so one of the things I like to share, and I, you know, I talk about this some in my book, but I also, is that, you know, everybody has their
00:07:12
Speaker
private struggle and sometimes more public than others where there's a path that the world wants to push you down.
00:07:18
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Right.
00:07:18
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And for me, it was this path.
00:07:20
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My parents were both lawyers.
00:07:22
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I was always kind of destined to go to law school, to go be a lawyer, to go do a certain path.
00:07:26
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And
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And my identity got wrapped around this idea of kind of winning the next rung in the ladder, right?
00:07:33
Speaker
Whether that's doing well in school and getting into the good college and getting into the good law school and getting the thing, right?
00:07:38
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It's like chasing these little cookies along this path that led me down what ended up being kind of a prison, right?
00:07:45
Speaker
A little rat trap moving me along.
00:07:46
Speaker
And, you know, it took me being very, you know, one, Burning Man was a big part of it.
00:07:52
Speaker
I went to the burn and I kind of saw a different way of being.
00:07:55
Speaker
Right.
00:07:55
Speaker
I saw that there was a you could just like live a life that's creative and about giving and not one where it's sort of trained about more what I can get out of the world, which is kind of the life that I was I was on the path on.
00:08:06
Speaker
And I came back from that, like actually inspired, but then really depressed.
00:08:10
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Right.
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Because I the gap between my life and what I saw was possible was so big.
00:08:15
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And then, you know, going to law school, kind of living the dream, being in one of the top law schools in the country and quote unquote living the dream and being completely miserable.
00:08:23
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So much so that I even threw my back out from reading.
00:08:26
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I was so like, you know, about 40 pounds heavier than I am now.
00:08:29
Speaker
Just like very like my body was like screaming at me that I was on the wrong path, but I couldn't hear it.
00:08:36
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And then finally, you know, taking the leap and, you know, quitting law school and moving across the country to become a game designer and a period that was a very difficult at the time, the most difficult decision I had ever made.
00:08:48
Speaker
And my mom cried when it happened, speaking to our moms and this, you know, that they want the best for us, but that a real break.
00:08:57
Speaker
And the fear that I felt doing that.
00:08:59
Speaker
And then there's a few other moments that we could talk about if we want to that, you know, where there was this sort of fear that blocked me or that I had to overcome in order to get to this.
00:09:09
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What I, you know, for me is a dream life now and to help continue to fulfill, you know, the highest calling that I that I have coming to me.
00:09:15
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And so I like to tell parts of that story to people because.
00:09:19
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It's whatever that is, right?
00:09:20
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It may not be, you know, go be a lawyer, but there's something in your life, whether it be society and your parents or your own sense of self-worth that tends to hinge on something that blocks you from the path that you're really called to and finding that thing that's going to light that spark for you.
00:09:37
Speaker
I am hurting my neck, nodding so aggressively agreeing with you.
00:09:41
Speaker
Oh, my gosh.
00:09:42
Speaker
I didn't know that part of your story.
00:09:44
Speaker
And it's so there's I was going to be a psychologist or psychiatrist was I had pre-grad school was was working at a group home.
00:09:57
Speaker
And was crying every day before work.
00:09:59
Speaker
And I was saying the same thing.
00:10:01
Speaker
Ladder rung, ladder rung, ladder rung.
00:10:02
Speaker
I was at the group home so I could get experience.
00:10:05
Speaker
I could get in the best grad school so I could best, best, best, you know.
00:10:09
Speaker
And I had to make that choice of like, okay...
00:10:14
Speaker
And this formula I've been given my whole life, which is always go for the highest rung you can, always do the best.
00:10:21
Speaker
And I quit my job.
00:10:23
Speaker
The only thing that I enjoyed doing was I had a paper zine that I was making.
00:10:27
Speaker
So I went to junior college to learn basic desktop publishing to make my zine better.
00:10:34
Speaker
And through that, discovered the Internet early on and totally changed my life.
00:10:37
Speaker
But I mean, it took I had to to get off that ladder.
00:10:41
Speaker
And so cool to hear like that's one of the things like when I talk to kids who are like in college age now who are like plotting their career, I'm like.
00:10:48
Speaker
For you and I, we both had to let go of the standard path for people today.
00:10:55
Speaker
Dude, there is no standard path.
00:10:58
Speaker
You better be looking for and listening to your heart really intently if you're going to figure
Embracing Life's Cycles and Learning
00:11:03
Speaker
out where you need to go.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:11:06
Speaker
The thing that really stood out to me that you shared too is that your body told you.
00:11:11
Speaker
You know, it's powerful to be able to really listen, you know, and sometimes it takes like a baseball bat to like knock you down from not doing anything, right?
00:11:21
Speaker
Reading is what you said made you like put your back out.
00:11:25
Speaker
It wasn't from lifting weights or something, but it sounds like it was a somatic message that you were able to really listen to.
00:11:33
Speaker
So powerful.
00:11:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:11:35
Speaker
There's this process of discovering what it is that you're called to do is a cyclical one, and it's one that requires all the tools that you have available, right?
00:11:45
Speaker
There's listening to your body.
00:11:46
Speaker
There's trying things, right?
00:11:49
Speaker
There's building comfort with failure.
00:11:52
Speaker
There's building comfort with uncertainty because you're going to, you can't figure out, you're not coming pre-baked with like this, or at least very few people I know come pre-baked with like, yep, this is my vision.
00:12:02
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This is what I want.
00:12:03
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It's going to be 100%.
00:12:03
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That's going to carry me through until the day I die.
00:12:05
Speaker
It just, life doesn't work that way, right?
00:12:06
Speaker
And so you're going to have to try things that aren't going to work and then be able to learn and say, okay, cool.
00:12:13
Speaker
Now I've got something and I feel called and this is pushing me in one direction.
00:12:16
Speaker
And then that direction,
00:12:17
Speaker
may play itself out over the course of three, five, seven, 10 years.
00:12:21
Speaker
And then suddenly it doesn't spark you in the same way.
00:12:23
Speaker
And you've got to kind of say, okay, now we're back into that period of uncertainty again.
00:12:27
Speaker
And you've got to be able to be comfortable with that and then move that forward.
00:12:29
Speaker
And just knowing and being sensitive enough to when that shift is happening and being skillful enough to be able to sort of unwind whatever obligations you feel you have and
00:12:39
Speaker
do that exploration process and be able to kind of find the support you need to, you know, with the inevitable discomfort that comes from that.
00:12:46
Speaker
It's something that I feel like is a key part of that maturation that we go through.
00:12:52
Speaker
And there's some interesting things about the work that I do specifically that I think applies here, right?
00:12:56
Speaker
Because
00:12:57
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Let's talk about games for a second, right?
00:12:59
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I make games for a living and I studied games for quite a while now, 25 years or so.
00:13:04
Speaker
Why do we play games?
00:13:05
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Like, why?
00:13:06
Speaker
It's a bizarre waste of energy that we're using constantly.
00:13:10
Speaker
And every culture across the world plays games.
00:13:12
Speaker
Even animals will play and they'll do play fighting and things, right?
00:13:16
Speaker
And at a deep level, games are a structured way for us to learn.
00:13:21
Speaker
And they're a way for us to be able to practice and create a safe environment for us to be able to grow and experience things.
00:13:26
Speaker
Right.
00:13:27
Speaker
If you think about the process of basic things like, you know, trying to hit a bat with a ball, you know, hit a hit a ball with a bat, you're learning, you know, coordination skills or we see kids that will be play acting as, you know, playing doctor or playing different roles.
00:13:40
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They're they're trying on different personalities and trying on different roles.
00:13:43
Speaker
And that that play process is how we develop our own sense of identity.
00:13:48
Speaker
And there's a really fascinating process that I've used in my own life to try to take that and think about what it's like in a game, right?
00:13:56
Speaker
In a game, you have very clear rules.
00:13:59
Speaker
Typically, you have very clear objectives.
00:14:01
Speaker
I know what I'm supposed to go, you know, go capture the opponent's king or get the most points.
00:14:05
Speaker
And I know the boundaries that I'm supposed to play in.
00:14:07
Speaker
And I've got, you know, a clear focus on the next thing I'm supposed to do.
00:14:11
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And then I have a process built in where when I lose, unless you're a particularly sore loser, typically you're okay with that.
00:14:17
Speaker
You learn and then you get better and you play again, right?
00:14:20
Speaker
We've all played video games or games on our phone where we're constantly losing and then getting back into it.
00:14:26
Speaker
And if you look at life by default, it doesn't have any of those things.
00:14:30
Speaker
If I want to get fit, first of all, that's like super fuzzy.
00:14:34
Speaker
Don't know what that means exactly.
00:14:36
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When I start working out, the feedback is actually negative.
00:14:38
Speaker
It kind of hurts.
00:14:39
Speaker
It's unpleasant.
00:14:40
Speaker
I don't really know what I'm doing.
00:14:41
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I don't have clear focus.
00:14:43
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I'm trying to diet and exercise and take supplements and meditate and stretch and do everything all at once.
00:14:48
Speaker
And that's super overwhelming.
00:14:50
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And so you don't have those same things built in.
00:14:52
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And so I've tried to like take that world of gaming and why it works for us and then apply that to things like business and fitness and life.
00:14:59
Speaker
And I found it to be creating that structure I found to be a really helpful tool.
00:15:04
Speaker
Okay, I have a question.
00:15:06
Speaker
Is Burning Man a game as a practice area with set rules?
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah, kind of.
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's great.
00:15:17
Speaker
So there's, as we, you know, the definition of games, like broadly, is actually classically kind of fuzzy.
00:15:23
Speaker
There's boundaries to it, right?
00:15:24
Speaker
Whether I'm doing a role-playing game where we're just, or play acting.
00:15:29
Speaker
And I think the things where Burning Man is powerful is it does exactly the things that a game does best, which is it creates a safe space within which you can explore, express yourself, and find how your different strategies and interactions with the world work.
00:15:44
Speaker
And so Burning Man in particular, when we talk about, you know, the having to break out of the narrow path and the ladder, Burning Man scatters that all over the place.
00:15:54
Speaker
There's a mill, you walk anywhere, you could be anybody and try anything and do anything.
00:15:57
Speaker
And so that creates a very powerful framework for you to be able to kind of discover the things that are going to call to you.
00:16:04
Speaker
And so I do think Burning Man is a really powerful tool for that.
00:16:08
Speaker
I love that.
00:16:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:10
Speaker
Well, and life.
00:16:11
Speaker
Life is a game.
00:16:13
Speaker
Money is a game.
00:16:14
Speaker
It's like we learn how to play this game.
00:16:16
Speaker
And I think that what you just shared around having the certain parameters and the objective and getting clear about what I'm actually here to do.
00:16:25
Speaker
Am I trying to get a lot of money or am I here to actually, you know, evolve?
00:16:31
Speaker
What am I here for?
00:16:32
Speaker
It kind of feels like a real discovery around purpose.
00:16:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:36
Speaker
And I think what you spoke to so beautifully is around the purpose is always evolving.
00:16:41
Speaker
And there's these different phases of our journey of how we're getting to express ourselves, how we're getting to serve, how we're getting to create products or services or whatever it might be.
00:16:52
Speaker
And then also listening when it's time to kind of put parts of those expressions to rest, certain identities.
00:17:00
Speaker
And it sounds like you've had a variety of identities throughout your journey.
00:17:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's
The Key Questions Pyramid
00:17:07
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right.
00:17:07
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And so there's a tool I like to use that maybe will be helpful to people, which is like I call it the key questions pyramid, right?
00:17:13
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We start with this idea.
00:17:15
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Most people start with the question of how.
00:17:18
Speaker
How do I get fit?
00:17:19
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How do I get a great partner?
00:17:20
Speaker
How do I get, you know, how can I be happy?
00:17:22
Speaker
Right.
00:17:22
Speaker
It's kind of a default thing that we think about.
00:17:24
Speaker
And how is it's a nice question to get you started.
00:17:27
Speaker
But really, there's deeper levels to that.
00:17:29
Speaker
And the deeper level from how is is what?
00:17:31
Speaker
Like, what do you mean?
00:17:33
Speaker
Really, when you say, I want to get rich.
00:17:34
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:17:35
Speaker
What does rich mean?
00:17:36
Speaker
Right?
00:17:36
Speaker
Is it a million dollars?
00:17:38
Speaker
Is it $10 million?
00:17:38
Speaker
And like, why is that number?
00:17:40
Speaker
Right?
00:17:41
Speaker
So like something specific so you know when your goal is there.
00:17:44
Speaker
When I talked earlier about this, I want to get fit.
00:17:46
Speaker
How do I get fit?
00:17:47
Speaker
That could mean a lot of things.
00:17:48
Speaker
Do you want to have like a long health span?
00:17:50
Speaker
Do you want to look good in a bathing suit?
00:17:51
Speaker
Do you want like, what does actually fit mean to you?
00:17:54
Speaker
Right?
00:17:55
Speaker
And so that immediately that clarity will make it so much easier to achieve your goals.
00:18:00
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Right?
00:18:00
Speaker
And then the level below and more powerful than what is why, right?
00:18:04
Speaker
Why does this actually matter to me?
00:18:05
Speaker
Because, you know, if you, again, just to stick with the fitness example, right?
00:18:08
Speaker
If you want to get fit and you want to look good in a bathing suit, but in fact, you wake up and you want to sleep in and don't want to go to the gym.
00:18:16
Speaker
And then there's a cheeseburger there that you might want to have a tasty bite of.
00:18:19
Speaker
if you don't have a powerful why you're going to sleep in, you're going to eat the cheeseburger or the cheesecake or whatever your particular poison is.
00:18:25
Speaker
And so having a why that you're like, Hey, actually, you know what?
00:18:28
Speaker
Like I want to be able to like play with my grandkid and run around with my grandkid and not be winded all the time.
00:18:33
Speaker
Or I really want to be able to find a partner who's going to, you know, really, you know, be someone who lights me up and I want to be the kind of person that lights them up and I want to be attracted for them or,
00:18:41
Speaker
Whatever your why is, it's going to be personal to you.
00:18:43
Speaker
You get down, maybe, you know, and it could be a couple of whys that are really motivating to you and you have those in front of you.
00:18:48
Speaker
All of a sudden, now you've got a fire.
00:18:49
Speaker
Now you've got a spark.
00:18:51
Speaker
And when I first made this kind of key questions pyramid thing, that's where it stopped.
00:18:55
Speaker
But then I realized there's one deeper question that's even more important than why, which is who.
00:18:59
Speaker
who actually do you want to be because in reality every single one of those how questions everything in one of those things that you're trying to do at some point you're trying to be the kind of person that exhibits that you're trying to have a certain state you might want to be someone who is like you know grateful and attractive and you know magnetic towards others and inspiring to others right like there's some trait and aspect of your life that you're trying to embody
00:19:23
Speaker
And figuring out what that is and that level of your identity at that point in your life.
00:19:27
Speaker
And again, it can change over time what's going to be inspiring to you and who you want to be.
00:19:31
Speaker
From that core, all the how questions are so easy to answer.
00:19:34
Speaker
And everything is super simple.
00:19:36
Speaker
So it becomes this period of really clarifying what's important to you to figure out what's going to drive you at that point in your life.
00:19:43
Speaker
I love that.
00:19:44
Speaker
And I love the who question because it allows you to be content without attachment to outcome.
00:19:54
Speaker
You know, like I can end my day feeling good and purposeful regardless of what happens if I know that I'm being the man that I want to be.
00:20:03
Speaker
It always reminds me, too, of the identity-based goals concept from Atomic Habits.
00:20:10
Speaker
You know, to be able to get to that place of recognizing that my goal is not to get the thing.
00:20:15
Speaker
It's not to get the car or the money or whatever it is, but it's really having a goal to become the next version of ourselves.
00:20:22
Speaker
And I always love that so much because it can just really help to inform the vision and then get to the why.
00:20:31
Speaker
Right.
00:20:31
Speaker
Because, of course, yes, I want to see myself as a powerful, healthy, vibrant elder, for example.
00:20:40
Speaker
You know, I've seen a lot of people out there that I role model towards.
00:20:44
Speaker
And it's like, OK, that's how that's who I want to be.
00:20:47
Speaker
So how am I going to get there?
00:20:48
Speaker
That's great questions.
00:20:52
Speaker
I got a question.
00:20:55
Speaker
If you... You mentioned in the game, I mean, a safe container, how losing is not painful, that we're okay with it.
00:21:06
Speaker
Is...
00:21:08
Speaker
How do we get better at losing in life?
00:21:13
Speaker
Great question.
00:21:15
Speaker
Great question.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:16
Speaker
My goal as a game designer is to make winning easy and to make losing fun.
00:21:22
Speaker
Right.
00:21:22
Speaker
Like I'm trying to give you lots of different.
00:21:25
Speaker
And when I say make winning easy, not necessarily like that you get to the ultimate condition, but give you lots of small wins and small victories along the way.
00:21:31
Speaker
And so there's kind of a two part answer to your question, right?
00:21:34
Speaker
And the one is like, you really do want to find ways to make winning inevitable and make it entirely within your control.
00:21:41
Speaker
And so some of that is this identity based goals where it's like, hey, listen, if I show up the way I want to show up, that's a success and that's a win for me.
00:21:49
Speaker
And also the ability to give yourself lots of small little practical wins, right?
00:21:54
Speaker
Like I have my, I have, I have my little level up journal here, which is something I made for myself, but now I have a productized version of, I think I've given you guys both copies of this, but it has just three daily goals that are your core goals, three habits that are your habits for the day and one gratitude practice.
00:22:09
Speaker
And they're very easy, and it's only three things for each because it's very easy to win.
00:22:12
Speaker
My daily goal, if I just meditate for five minutes, I've accomplished a goal, I get myself a little win.
00:22:16
Speaker
If I just do 10 push-ups, I get myself a little win.
00:22:19
Speaker
So you have these little wins that help build up a sense of victories, a sense of, okay, I can do this.
00:22:24
Speaker
I can get these things.
00:22:25
Speaker
And so having that positive reinforcement for yourself can...
00:22:31
Speaker
and help when you're facing the failures and the setbacks.
00:22:36
Speaker
Now, when it comes to how do you get better at setbacks, how do you get better at iteration, which is really a word I really like because it's not that any given loss that you have is a lesson that you are now able to apply to a future thing.
00:22:49
Speaker
And I'll tell you, there's nothing I'm going to say here that's going to make this easy.
00:22:54
Speaker
we all feel the pain of loss.
00:22:55
Speaker
We all try things that don't work and either because it's public we feel like a failure or because we beat ourselves up over it.
00:23:02
Speaker
We all have these demons and these forces within ourselves.
00:23:05
Speaker
But to help to shrink those demons and help to face them, one thing that really helps me is to...
00:23:11
Speaker
Pay attention to the things that are actually the worst things that have happened to you.
00:23:15
Speaker
So let's go back in time to the stuff that was the most painful for you.
00:23:19
Speaker
Right.
00:23:19
Speaker
I went through a divorce.
00:23:20
Speaker
My company almost went bankrupt.
00:23:22
Speaker
I've lost people that I loved.
00:23:23
Speaker
I think about those those really tough things and everybody will have their own version of this.
00:23:27
Speaker
And if it's you got enough time after it, typically speaking, there's something in your life now that is incredible that you're so grateful for.
00:23:35
Speaker
They would not be here but for that loss, that internal strength that you gained, that different perspective, that new relationship, whatever that is.
00:23:43
Speaker
And so when you realize that, and in fact, I wouldn't wish some of those pains on my worst enemy, but I also wouldn't wish to lose them here.
00:23:50
Speaker
I actually am very grateful for them now.
00:23:52
Speaker
And if that's true for you, and for most people it is, then you can learn to be grateful whenever you try something and push something out there.
00:23:59
Speaker
Either it's going to work and you can be happy about it, or it's not going to work and you can be happy about it.
00:24:05
Speaker
This may take some time, some integration.
00:24:07
Speaker
Nobody's expecting you to bounce back.
00:24:09
Speaker
It's okay to feel sad and hurt.
00:24:11
Speaker
But when you realize that perspective, for me, that's what abundance is.
00:24:15
Speaker
It's not that everything's always going to work out for me and everything's always going to be great.
00:24:18
Speaker
It's that no matter what happens...
00:24:21
Speaker
I'm going to have the strength to face it.
00:24:22
Speaker
And if it's not working out the way I want, then it just means that that's a lesson that I get to learn, right?
00:24:27
Speaker
Everything in life is either a test or a celebration.
00:24:30
Speaker
You get to either be able to celebrate where your wins are, or you realize, hey, I didn't measure up to the standard, or this thing didn't quite work out the way I wanted, and now I can grow and learn from that.
00:24:39
Speaker
And when I play games, that's the way I interact with it.
00:24:41
Speaker
Hey, oh, I lost, okay.
00:24:43
Speaker
Now I'm going to try this different attack against the boss monster.
00:24:45
Speaker
I'm going to try a different strategy in the next game of chess or whatever, right?
00:24:48
Speaker
That we adopt that almost effortlessly in games we play, but for some reason we don't adopt that in life.
00:24:54
Speaker
So just sort of bringing that back that each loss is an opportunity to learn and grow.
00:24:59
Speaker
And that because of these identity-based goals, my identity, my self-worth is not dependent upon any external thing that happens.
00:25:08
Speaker
Right.
00:25:09
Speaker
That's the hard part.
00:25:10
Speaker
That was the hard shift for me.
00:25:11
Speaker
Right.
00:25:11
Speaker
I was my identity and self-worth was always like, oh, I'm successful.
00:25:15
Speaker
I do this thing.
00:25:16
Speaker
I've got this amount of money or I've got these grades or whatever.
00:25:18
Speaker
And when those things happened, everything was fine with the world.
00:25:21
Speaker
And when they didn't, I collapsed it on myself.
00:25:23
Speaker
And it took me a while to sort of disentangle those things where it's like, yeah, of course I do.
00:25:27
Speaker
I care about the results.
00:25:28
Speaker
I care about my company.
00:25:29
Speaker
I want to make money.
00:25:30
Speaker
I want to have things in my life.
00:25:32
Speaker
But those things are no longer like intrinsic to my identity and who I am.
00:25:36
Speaker
And so I can take them, take the loss, feel my feelings, do what I have to do to recover and get through that and then use that as fuel for the next phase.
00:25:45
Speaker
Wow.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:47
Speaker
To all of that.
00:25:48
Speaker
That is like such a beautiful mindset to live this world because, you know, it's eradicating the victim.
00:25:56
Speaker
You know, that's what I'm really hearing is like, you know, I'm not a victim to the circumstances.
00:26:00
Speaker
I can actually look at all of life's challenges and failures from a place of growth mindset.
00:26:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:06
Speaker
And it's not always easy to do when you're like faces in the mud.
00:26:09
Speaker
And, you know, it's nice to be able to have people in our lives that can just be there with us and say, okay, you know what, you're going to get through this.
00:26:17
Speaker
And actually, that mud is probably going to be the thing that you're going to actually alchemize.
00:26:23
Speaker
And that's, you know, I keep seeing that in my own life, my own, my friend's lives and other people's stories.
00:26:29
Speaker
It's like the hero's journey.
00:26:30
Speaker
You know, when we go into those deep, dark places and have those incredible challenges and failures, there's always something to learn.
00:26:39
Speaker
And with the mindset of knowing that there's something to learn, it helps us to get through with more grace.
00:26:45
Speaker
Because without that, knowing like, okay, I'm in this situation.
00:26:48
Speaker
really hard place right now, but I know that I'm going to get through this.
00:26:51
Speaker
There is something here for me.
00:26:53
Speaker
I can't quite see what it is.
00:26:54
Speaker
I know there's a transformation at hand here.
00:26:57
Speaker
I can trust this process.
00:26:59
Speaker
Then there can be a much more settled process.
00:27:03
Speaker
And I know personally, my nervous system is able to navigate from a much more integrated place rather than just getting crushed and
00:27:13
Speaker
And having getting sick or hurting or going through something that can actually make it much more difficult to get through.
00:27:21
Speaker
I think that's part of what wisdom is, is the accumulation of evidence that things that feel terrible can actually be gifts.
00:27:34
Speaker
The more that you build up the evidence in your life and build a gratitude practice around it so that you can have an association with challenge as being beneficial, then when you're in the crap experience,
00:27:49
Speaker
you can have a little bitty reminder of like, okay, this too, I can't trust my thoughts about how terrible this is right now because I don't yet have the vantage point.
00:28:00
Speaker
Yeah.
Gaming's Impact on Youth
00:28:02
Speaker
I have a question, something that's sparking just around this concept of gaming.
00:28:06
Speaker
And I just love this so much, how you're giving us insight around how valuable gaming can really help us look at our own lives.
00:28:15
Speaker
Something I'm really curious about is your perspective around how video games and gaming for the younger generations and how it feels like there's so much more of it than when we were younger.
00:28:28
Speaker
I know so many kids that are just...
00:28:30
Speaker
so integrated into the gaming world and they're networking across the globe and they're actually building these communities it's so much more than just you know getting to the next level but it's actually working with other people and um you know there's it feels like there's a light and shadow to everything you know there's something really great about it but there's also something really scary about it too because so many kids are just staying inside now and
00:28:57
Speaker
And so I'd love to hear any perspectives you have on just how the gaming world impacts the younger generations these days.
00:29:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:06
Speaker
It's a great question.
00:29:07
Speaker
There's a lot of layers to it.
00:29:08
Speaker
So I'll speak first to my own experience, right?
00:29:10
Speaker
So what first got me into gaming, right?
00:29:13
Speaker
I mean, other than playing games with my family around the kitchen table and Monopoly and all that, I discovered a game called Magic the Gathering.
00:29:21
Speaker
When I was 17 years old, I became the U.S. national champion, which kind of put me onto the world stage.
00:29:26
Speaker
And then I started traveling around the world and playing this game.
00:29:29
Speaker
And that's how I paid my way through college.
00:29:30
Speaker
And it was this really crazy experience because playing Magic, not only it forced me to learn strategy and to be creative because it's a collectible card game.
00:29:41
Speaker
So you actually build your own deck of cards to play.
00:29:43
Speaker
So kind of for those that aren't familiar, I kind of liken it to like a cross between poker and chess where you get to build your own deck of cards before you come to the game.
00:29:52
Speaker
Right.
00:29:52
Speaker
So there's some hidden information.
00:29:54
Speaker
There's some tactical strategy.
00:29:55
Speaker
And so that helped me.
00:29:57
Speaker
And then playing in tournaments with lots, you know, $30,000 on the line for a prize when I'm a kid, right?
00:30:04
Speaker
Oh man, did I have to learn lessons about loss and how to deal with it and how to deal with pressure.
00:30:09
Speaker
And, you know, I got to build relationships with people all over the world.
00:30:12
Speaker
And now actually, when I go travel around the world in my current life, a lot of times I'm going to visit those same friends 25 years later.
00:30:19
Speaker
And so that ability to build relationships, that ability to kind of have competition and learn again in that safer sort of environment, that was invaluable to me.
00:30:28
Speaker
And a lot of the strategy and the skills I developed apply to my business and life.
00:30:33
Speaker
When you move to the sort of modern era of games where it's a lot of this stuff is all online, some of these are, I think, just incredible.
00:30:41
Speaker
I mean, the kids that are playing things like Minecraft and Roblox, where you're able to build your own worlds and Roblox, you can actually make a good amount of money.
00:30:49
Speaker
Actually, if you build games within a light programming system they have and then other people play them, you can actually, you know, kids are actually making money through the system.
00:30:56
Speaker
even games like fortnite which is a little bit more of an aggressive shooter game you can build your own mods and sub sub games for that that can actually make make money as well and so i encourage games that give you community game that give you some freedom to build and construct and be creative i think those can provide incredible value to kids and give them an opportunity to sort of again learn those skills in a safer environment and i think that
00:31:22
Speaker
is is is pure upside socialization that can come from that being able to fortunate build guilds and communities um but to the dark side uh yes absolutely there's there's challenges right the socialization that you get from a purely online world you know until we've got matrix like plugins where it's you know fully like the real world right it's not the same
00:31:41
Speaker
And so I think you need to find a balance with that.
00:31:42
Speaker
Right.
00:31:42
Speaker
And that's part of why most of my business, I do make some video games, but most of my business is actually tabletop games, card games, board games, toy based games, because I believe that there's no substitute for us being in the same space and sitting around the kitchen table and laughing and playing games.
00:31:56
Speaker
And I think.
00:31:56
Speaker
you want to encourage that.
00:31:57
Speaker
And of course, physical movement and seeing the sun every now and then, all super valuable.
00:32:01
Speaker
So you want to balance like everything else, right?
00:32:03
Speaker
Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.
00:32:05
Speaker
But I think, you know, for most parents that are afraid of their kids, you know, playing games like this, I don't think it's something to be afraid of.
00:32:12
Speaker
I do think it's something, you know, get curious, right?
00:32:14
Speaker
Get engaged, see what they're doing, see how they're spending that time.
00:32:17
Speaker
Because a lot of that is just so powerful.
00:32:20
Speaker
And to make a final point on this, you know, when we talk about you can't have a clear path
00:32:25
Speaker
Now, right, the world with how fast technology is evolving and AI and everything else, these kinds of worlds and these kinds of systems where you can, again, build community, learn how to create, learn what it's like to put something that you've made into a little marketplace and have other people interact with it, like those are pretty universal skills.
00:32:43
Speaker
Whatever's going to happen, your ability to figure out how to build things, how to interact with other people, and how when you build something, how the world reacts to that and like that connections,
00:32:52
Speaker
those, you get those skills down, you're probably pretty good no matter where the world takes itself.
00:32:56
Speaker
So I think that's a really great opportunity and frankly, in many ways, a lot more valuable than the kind of standard school curriculum these days.
00:33:03
Speaker
Awesome.
00:33:05
Speaker
As I look at your life and your projects, companies, podcasts, book, as well as healthy relationship and travel.
00:33:18
Speaker
And I'm curious if you'd share some of your questions of your your whys and and whos that that drive you to to live the life you live.
00:33:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:32
Speaker
So, you know, for me, when I dug deep right into what it is that like drives me, right?
00:33:38
Speaker
Like I, you know, I am a powerful, loving, passionate, visionary leader is one of my mantras, right?
00:33:45
Speaker
I cultivate comfort with uncertainty and impermanence.
00:33:49
Speaker
I create and contribute for the joy of it not to prove my sense of self-worth.
00:33:54
Speaker
Right.
00:33:54
Speaker
And these are mantras I've developed over time in part to embody who I want to be, in part to guard against the dark side of things that were pulling me in another direction.
00:34:04
Speaker
And I kind of got down to the core of it.
00:34:06
Speaker
And I'll say I've got a funny way of putting this, which doesn't always resonate with people, but I believe that you can get the meaning of life with just the letter C. Right.
00:34:16
Speaker
And I'm going to go for it.
00:34:17
Speaker
So there are different people have different balances, but basically the things that you want in your life is, right, you want to connect with others.
00:34:25
Speaker
All right.
00:34:25
Speaker
That's the first C, right?
00:34:27
Speaker
Connection is at its core.
00:34:28
Speaker
And it's not just connecting with friends, connecting with family, connecting with nature and the universe, like feeling like you're a part of something bigger than yourself.
00:34:36
Speaker
You want to create.
00:34:40
Speaker
Through creation, we express who we are into the world.
00:34:44
Speaker
We get feedback from the world.
00:34:45
Speaker
We refine our own identity.
00:34:46
Speaker
Creation is a non-negotiable.
00:34:48
Speaker
Everybody is creative.
00:34:48
Speaker
That's actually a lot of what my first book is about.
00:34:51
Speaker
is just that everyone is creative.
00:34:52
Speaker
I did not think of myself as a creative person.
00:34:54
Speaker
I thought of myself as an analytical person and I had to teach myself creativity.
00:34:58
Speaker
And it's just a process everybody goes through.
00:34:59
Speaker
You're creative when you take a different route to work.
00:35:01
Speaker
You're creative when you try to figure out something to do with your family.
00:35:03
Speaker
So finding ways to be creative is a non-negotiable.
00:35:07
Speaker
um cultivation uh which is the you're constantly trying to cultivate and grow yourself and grow into something new and the best version of you that you can be right we all want a sense of progress in the sense that we're growing and becoming better um we have the uh contribution right we want this is just again one of the things the best way if you are in a dark place in your life right now
00:35:30
Speaker
If you are feeling down, if you are feeling the best thing you could possibly do is go help somebody else.
00:35:35
Speaker
Go find someone that needs something and go help them.
00:35:38
Speaker
You will be amazed at how much that can turn around your world.
00:35:41
Speaker
And look, we all just want to feel like the world's a better place for us having been here, right?
00:35:45
Speaker
And then the last one is celebration.
00:35:47
Speaker
Some just that gratitude and being present and having that just joy, some some vibrancy and joy to life.
00:35:54
Speaker
And and different people have a different balance of those things and where they want in life.
00:35:58
Speaker
But, you know, and so for me, I'm very much driven by that, like creativity and and love as and I want to be I want to contribute to the world.
00:36:07
Speaker
I want to be connected to other people and I want to just like create and continue to push that so that.
00:36:11
Speaker
Those are kind of the values that, you know, took some time to dig into, but I feel like are what kind of lights me up and gets me up in the morning.
00:36:19
Speaker
And, you know, I spend, I do travel and I do have a lot of fun, but I work a lot, right?
00:36:23
Speaker
Anybody that knows me and sees my things, like I spend a lot of my time working, but I think that my superpower advantage when it comes to that is like, I am fired up while I'm working.
00:36:34
Speaker
Like, I love what I'm doing.
00:36:35
Speaker
I love the people I'm working with.
00:36:36
Speaker
Our company motto is work with awesome people, make awesome things, help each other grow.
00:36:41
Speaker
Right.
00:36:41
Speaker
And it's just like that, even though we could be working super late hours and have a big project deadline and have stuff that's not right, we enjoy that process.
00:36:48
Speaker
I enjoy that process.
00:36:49
Speaker
And so, you know, most people, when they try to work hard, if they don't enjoy the thing they're doing, if they don't have a spark to drive them, then you're going to quit.
00:36:58
Speaker
Right.
00:36:58
Speaker
And so that's where I kind of make sure that my many projects that I have are all sort of built around those pillars that light me up.
00:37:07
Speaker
Amazing.
00:37:08
Speaker
I'm like scribbling down all these jokes.
00:37:11
Speaker
I'm like, wow.
00:37:12
Speaker
Just for our listeners out there, you might have to like put it in slow mode to catch all of these sparks, powerful nuggets of inspiration and wisdom coming through.
00:37:21
Speaker
I love that.
00:37:22
Speaker
connect, create, cultivate, contribute, celebrate that in itself.
00:37:27
Speaker
Like I just imagine starting your day every day.
00:37:30
Speaker
Like, why am I here?
00:37:31
Speaker
Who am I here to be?
00:37:32
Speaker
I'm here to connect.
00:37:33
Speaker
I'm here to create.
00:37:34
Speaker
I'm here to cultivate.
00:37:36
Speaker
I'm here to contribute.
00:37:37
Speaker
I'm here to celebrate.
00:37:39
Speaker
Even just that is just such a powerful way to just be reminded around why we're here.
00:37:46
Speaker
That is such a beautiful definition of the meaning of life.
00:37:50
Speaker
Thank you for that.
00:37:51
Speaker
If people wanted to dig deeper into that, is that in one of your books or a place like that?
00:37:58
Speaker
That one I posted.
00:37:59
Speaker
I posted an article about it on my sub stack.
00:38:01
Speaker
You can find everything from me at justingarry.com.
00:38:05
Speaker
There's a link to the sub stack.
00:38:06
Speaker
I post articles every other week and a podcast.
00:38:09
Speaker
And, you know, so I post something every week.
00:38:11
Speaker
And I did an article all on the meaning of life brought to you by the letter C that you could find on there.
00:38:17
Speaker
I love it.
00:38:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's a funny because it's a polarizing one because I had a cookie monster image there.
00:38:24
Speaker
It's still perfect.
00:38:27
Speaker
Well, it's still a bubble because I was about to tattoo all those words or similar words, and now I can just tattoo a C.
00:38:34
Speaker
And yeah, I'm a cookie.
00:38:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:37
Speaker
You can add another seed, put cookie in there too.
00:38:40
Speaker
You know, it's, if you're feeling down a cookie is another good strategy to feel better.
00:38:44
Speaker
It does work.
00:38:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:46
Speaker
For a temporary really.
00:38:49
Speaker
When you get a little inflammation and you got to deal with that, but yeah, there are, there are drawbacks to that strategy.
00:38:53
Speaker
I'll give you that.
00:38:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:55
Speaker
Wow.
00:38:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:56
Speaker
I have another inquiry for you because the one thing I also know about you is that you are a world traveler.
Living as a Digital Nomad
00:39:03
Speaker
So can you impart some inspiration around how do you stay inspired when you're traveling so much?
00:39:09
Speaker
Because I mean, even before we got on the call, we were talking about just how much you've been traveling and continuing to get to live your life as a digital nomad, having the rituals, having the routines, staying grounded, staying connected.
00:39:24
Speaker
Any sparks for us around being a world traveler?
00:39:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:39:28
Speaker
So a lot of pieces to that.
00:39:29
Speaker
So I was very lucky, as I mentioned, due to my success with magic from early on, I got to travel around the world from a very young age.
00:39:38
Speaker
So we'd do a tournament in Paris, and the next one would be in Tokyo, and the next one would be in Sydney.
00:39:42
Speaker
And so I got to experience the world.
00:39:44
Speaker
But most of the time, I was experiencing the world from a convention center where we were playing magic.
00:39:48
Speaker
I got to do a little bit of travel, but most of it was around the event itself.
00:39:52
Speaker
Uh, and I, you know, I love travel.
00:39:54
Speaker
It's a great way to be, you know, inspired, see different cultures.
00:39:56
Speaker
But since I, uh, this was COVID kind of, I had to make my company a hundred percent remote, which I didn't even think was possible, but you know, it forced me to do that.
00:40:05
Speaker
And then, uh, I was like, oh, actually now I don't even need to be here.
00:40:08
Speaker
Even though I love San Diego, I could be anywhere.
00:40:10
Speaker
And so sold everything, put a couple of my, mostly my Burning Man stuff and a few, uh, you know, uh, paintings and things in storage.
00:40:18
Speaker
uh and then uh and then hit the road uh with with cc and um the big shifts there and now we've done that for over four years now and uh the big shifts there when i first started traveling it was uh very much like felt like being on vacation i want to eat all the food and go out and do the things and and after like two months of that like i'd put on 15 pounds i wasn't feeling great it wasn't like this is not sustainable anymore
00:40:43
Speaker
And so I realized that like when you're going to if you want to do something like what I'm doing, where you're sort of being a digital nomad, you need to be able to find ways to build in the habits and the rituals that support you in regular life wherever you're traveling.
00:40:56
Speaker
And so a couple of things that work with that.
00:40:58
Speaker
One, typically when I'm traveling, we'll stay in a place for a month or two at a time.
00:41:02
Speaker
We're not going somewhere every week or two because anytime you move to a new location, especially a new time zone, there's some period of adjustment that's required.
00:41:09
Speaker
Whether it be time zone or figuring out where do you go get groceries and how do you set up your workstation, all that stuff.
00:41:15
Speaker
So try not to shift as often as you would on a typical vacation.
00:41:19
Speaker
That also has a lot of benefits because it really lets you feel like a local in the place you are.
00:41:23
Speaker
You get to make friends.
00:41:24
Speaker
You get to see people more.
00:41:25
Speaker
You get to really kind of feel the energy and vibe in a place that's not the same as where you come from.
00:41:32
Speaker
So using different tools to that can trigger your habits is really powerful.
00:41:38
Speaker
So typically when you're at your home, right, you've got maybe you've got a yoga mat laid out.
00:41:42
Speaker
So it's obvious that you go do yoga here or maybe you've got your coffee set up or you've got whatever it is.
00:41:47
Speaker
There are cues that trigger the habits in your life, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
00:41:51
Speaker
and you need to set up some of those cues for yourself so i've got like a little uh you know some little workout bands and um you know that i keep take with me that aren't too too bulky but i can take those and i'll have those out with me i bring lucid with me as a you know my little morning uh you know free free bonus plug there
00:42:08
Speaker
I find the lucid team, but I bring lucid with me as a way to kind of get my, my kind of coffee ritual going.
00:42:13
Speaker
And I have my, you know, my little, my book and I have my, the things that I work on that are now portable triggers that get those habits moving.
00:42:21
Speaker
And again, I use my, my level up journal, super portable.
00:42:23
Speaker
I always have my, my key goals and things.
00:42:25
Speaker
And so using common and portable triggers and hooks to get yourself back into those normal routines is super valuable.
00:42:35
Speaker
I think from there, there's a, you know, there's, I mean, I could talk about other little tricks.
00:42:40
Speaker
I'll pause there, see if there's other things that you guys are interested in.
00:42:42
Speaker
But those are kind of like some key, key aspects that help help empower a life like I live.
00:42:49
Speaker
Love it.
00:42:49
Speaker
I feel like I just like to have this Zoom window open like all day.
00:42:55
Speaker
So we go, oh, Justin, I have another question for you.
00:42:56
Speaker
I have another question for you.
00:42:58
Speaker
But one thing that was curious, you went to the burn this year, correct?
00:43:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:43:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:02
Speaker
And so this is the first year that I didn't go after in 26 years.
00:43:07
Speaker
But while I was home, I did spend quite a bit of energy defending Burning Man to the online hater trolls.
Resilience and Community at Burning Man
00:43:14
Speaker
And I was just curious if you would share if you think Burning Man still has magic and value and what that is.
00:43:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:43:24
Speaker
So, you know, we have a kind of parallel stories.
00:43:26
Speaker
I've, you know, I skipped the burn for the first time last year in over a decade.
00:43:32
Speaker
This is my 15th burn.
00:43:34
Speaker
So not quite as deep down the rabbit hole as you are, but still, you know, it's been a big part of my identity.
00:43:39
Speaker
And absolutely, like, look, there's...
00:43:43
Speaker
There is no place on earth like Burning Man when it comes to seeing the powerful creativity, resilience and the community that comes together.
00:43:53
Speaker
There was a period where I couldn't even imagine ever skipping a bird like that would just like that would be insane.
00:43:58
Speaker
It's such a part of my identity that there's no way that I would ever do that.
00:44:01
Speaker
And and whatever now is three years ago, you know, when I finished the burn that year, I felt like, you know what?
00:44:07
Speaker
I'm not.
00:44:07
Speaker
called to go back.
00:44:08
Speaker
I don't feel, you know, again, this comes back to our start questions around checking in and where does, was your body telling you what's, what's happening.
00:44:15
Speaker
Right.
00:44:15
Speaker
And so I took a different adventure and spent a, you know, spent that time down in Columbia and worked on different things and grew in different ways.
00:44:22
Speaker
Um, but then I was called to come back and, you know, and by the way, there were some real challenges this year.
00:44:26
Speaker
I was probably the hardest, uh,
00:44:28
Speaker
burn entry that i've had uh in in at least the last 10 years right there was that crazy wind storm which is the worst i've seen in 15 years with 50 mile per hour gusts there was rain for three days and all the things that come with that you know i was uh and a lot of people you know the even you know camp structures and art got completely dismantled and destroyed uh and it was tough and it was a period where i was like questioning like what
00:44:53
Speaker
why do I do this again?
00:44:54
Speaker
Like, what am I doing out here?
00:44:55
Speaker
This is, I could be anywhere in the world.
00:44:57
Speaker
I've, I've showed that I just got off a cruise from Greece.
00:45:00
Speaker
What am I doing?
00:45:01
Speaker
Uh, and then right after that, I got to see exactly why I do it.
00:45:06
Speaker
Right.
00:45:06
Speaker
Because the resilience of the community there, how everybody rebuilt, how everybody came together, how we were able to celebrate and find that joy in life and that spark in the midst of the least hospitable environment in the country.
00:45:18
Speaker
Right.
00:45:19
Speaker
And that really stuck with me.
00:45:21
Speaker
And in fact, even, uh,
00:45:22
Speaker
coming out of the burn, it was actually the weeks that followed that where I actually probably had the most positive impact on me.
00:45:30
Speaker
Because I literally, I dreamed about the burn for two weeks straight after I came back.
00:45:34
Speaker
And I could just, these experiences would just pop up for me.
00:45:37
Speaker
And it would just like, again, it would fire me up.
00:45:39
Speaker
These different experiences that people had created out there, the pure joy and the disconnection from all the other things that were going on in the world, right?
00:45:47
Speaker
It's very hard for us, you know, to disconnect out.
00:45:49
Speaker
We did a great little
00:45:50
Speaker
meditation and at the beginning of this call to get us centered and take away the distractions at burning man there is no better way to force immediacy uh and that ability to disconnect for you know i was out there for 10 days and be not worrying about my company challenges or the projects i'm working on or the book or anything
00:46:09
Speaker
When I came back and just could like be fired up and enlightened and excited about all the experiences I just had, I could pour that energy into being creative.
00:46:18
Speaker
And I saw I spooled up some new projects and I moved things forward.
00:46:21
Speaker
And so I've had the most like energized kind of creative period over the last whatever it's now been three weeks or since I've been back that I've had in the last year.
00:46:32
Speaker
And so I do still feel like there's that there's that power there and magic that I can't fully explain, but hopefully gave a sense of.
00:46:39
Speaker
Love it.
00:46:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:43
Speaker
When I was watching people's updates during all the crazy storms, I, I, and I, the camp that I started was out there struggling and there's projects that I had, I felt like, like my kids had left the house and were out living on their own.
00:46:58
Speaker
And then they got beaten up by a bully.
00:46:59
Speaker
I'm like, Oh no.
00:47:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:01
Speaker
But it goes back to that earlier we were talking about kind of learning to see the gifts of struggle.
00:47:08
Speaker
You know, like if I look back, my most valuable burn was the year 2000 when my camp was destroyed by wind.
00:47:14
Speaker
And the process of finding the lessons in that was amazing.
00:47:20
Speaker
I would never have chosen that experience, but so I'm such a better person because of it.
00:47:25
Speaker
It's helped me so much since then.
00:47:27
Speaker
And I think Burning Man is one of those places where people go, oh, I wouldn't, I don't like getting dirty.
00:47:31
Speaker
I'm like, see, on the other side of that dust storm, you're going to like who you are better, but you, you, you gotta, gotta jump in.
00:47:42
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:47:43
Speaker
I think I want to offer a perspective to just how powerful this year was for a lot of people because, you know, the whole culture has changed.
00:47:51
Speaker
Obviously, there's a lot more plug and play.
00:47:53
Speaker
There's a lot of new people just trying to, you know, dive in and maybe kind of just...
00:47:59
Speaker
It's just changed, right?
00:48:00
Speaker
And it's almost like that storm really was an initiation for a lot of people.
00:48:05
Speaker
And what you're speaking to, it really does show the power of resiliency and resourcefulness and gives the opportunity for people to really see that this is so much more than a festival.
00:48:16
Speaker
It is not.
00:48:16
Speaker
It is a rite of passage.
00:48:18
Speaker
It is like, in my opinion, a modern day pilgrimage to the desert to experience a profound awakening most of the time.
00:48:27
Speaker
And a lot of times those awakenings come from challenges.
00:48:31
Speaker
And it's like, how are you going to face the challenges?
00:48:33
Speaker
And so I love hearing that you were able to really access that.
00:48:37
Speaker
And then also the integration coming home.
00:48:41
Speaker
Because that's where a lot of times the real magic is too.
00:48:44
Speaker
Because now you're sparked.
00:48:45
Speaker
Now there's this whole other level of like, wow, I did that.
00:48:49
Speaker
I got through that.
00:48:50
Speaker
There's a sense of empowerment when you get through something so challenging and then feel like, wow, okay, if I could get through something like that,
00:48:59
Speaker
I have so much strength and confidence within myself to face another challenge as it might come because they always do.
00:49:07
Speaker
And so it's so awesome.
00:49:08
Speaker
I love that.
00:49:09
Speaker
I love hearing your stories so much and just really celebrating this conversation so much.
00:49:14
Speaker
And I know that we probably could keep going, but I'd love to just start to bring us to some closing sparks, see if there's any last little sprinkles.
00:49:23
Speaker
Either one of you want to start us off to move towards completion on this conversation.
00:49:30
Speaker
I'll jump in.
00:49:31
Speaker
My closing sparks are just a reminder of seeing all three of us, I think, are examples of how experiencing Burning Man community and 10 principles has shaped us in ways that have made us
00:49:54
Speaker
more productive, positive influences in the default world.
00:49:59
Speaker
And there's a lot of people that feel like Burning Man is, you know, decadent and whatever.
00:50:05
Speaker
There's a lot of people that attack him for all different reasons.
00:50:09
Speaker
But I'm so inspired seeing you as someone who, you know,
00:50:17
Speaker
it's an investment in your character.
00:50:19
Speaker
It's an investment in your worldview.
00:50:22
Speaker
And I'm inspired to see it in you and feel it in us.
00:50:27
Speaker
So thank you.
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:31
Speaker
I appreciate that.
00:50:31
Speaker
And, you know, appreciate, obviously you've been something of an avatar for spreading this message for a long time.
00:50:36
Speaker
And it's been wonderful to see you in that role and then to grow as friends and see it embodied in who you are and
00:50:45
Speaker
to see it from both of you as part of this podcast and what's putting this message out there.
00:50:51
Speaker
I absolutely agree.
00:50:53
Speaker
I would not have even kind of had the awareness to see the path that I was able to take if not for Burning Man.
00:51:01
Speaker
And then the other thing that I'll actually key off both that and something that Betsy had said earlier, which Burning Man also provided for me, which is the importance of community.
00:51:11
Speaker
In fact, if I was going to give you one cheat code for life as a game designer, right, that cheat code is to surround yourself with people that lift you up.
00:51:21
Speaker
Because by default, and there's plenty of studies that support this, right, on every level, like the people who you are close to, the people who you surround yourself with, you will by default move towards their level.
00:51:32
Speaker
Right.
00:51:32
Speaker
And so it's if you want to be in life on easy mode, find people that inspire you, find people that lift you up and then go and be of service to them and go and find connections to them.
00:51:42
Speaker
And and the harder part of that is also look around you and see where there are people that are draining your energy or see where there are people that, you know, maybe you guys you were close for a while, but now you're growing in a direction there.
00:51:53
Speaker
Feeling that resistance and pulling you back because it takes a Herculean effort to grow when there are other people that are trying to hold you down.
00:52:01
Speaker
And it is by default when you're surrounding yourself with people that lift you up.
00:52:04
Speaker
And that could be the obviously, of course, hopefully close friends and people in your local community that can be through connecting to online communities like the Hug Nation and others that can give you support.
00:52:15
Speaker
friends and community and opportunity and listening to inspiring messages hopefully like you found here but but that shift if you're going to take one thing away from from this podcast this conversation just find a way to shift that environment and you'll be amazed at what happens and so the burning man is what got me connected first to denver and then to others and through this whole community that i'm now in and that has made
00:52:40
Speaker
all the struggles easier.
00:52:42
Speaker
In fact, even sometimes fun, like when you're a Burning Man, that shared suffering can be fun and made the joys and the successes better because we can celebrate together and be open and happy for each other.
00:52:53
Speaker
That's really the spark I'd love to close with.
00:52:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:59
Speaker
So good.
00:53:00
Speaker
I love it.
00:53:01
Speaker
I will just share my closing spark in relation to the yes to this conversation, you know, to listen to a spark of inspiration at a gathering and then to see what can come through and just really that we get to just be in the listening and
00:53:20
Speaker
So much has come through this conversation.
00:53:22
Speaker
So many good reminders.
00:53:24
Speaker
And I really hope and feel that for those of you that were listening out there are as inspired as I am.
00:53:30
Speaker
I'm just so excited to look at all my notes after this and just re like just read.
00:53:38
Speaker
reignite my own mantras, my own personal affirmation statements and reminders around failure and around challenges and around why I'm here and the questions that I'm asking.
00:53:48
Speaker
So thank you so much for being such a spark today, Justin.
00:53:52
Speaker
And Halcyon, too.
00:53:53
Speaker
Always so grateful to get to be here with you.
00:53:55
Speaker
What a treat.
00:53:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's such a treat.
00:53:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:00
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:54:01
Speaker
Justin, how can people find more of you in the world?
00:54:06
Speaker
Yeah, well, the easiest way is justingarry.com.
00:54:10
Speaker
It has links to all of my stuff.
00:54:11
Speaker
I have a sub stack, Justin Gary Design, which I'll link from there that I post every week.
00:54:16
Speaker
New stuff and new things.
00:54:18
Speaker
And if you want to play any of my games, there's a link there to stoneblade.com, which has a bunch of my games and cool things that I make.
00:54:26
Speaker
So those are probably the easiest ways.
00:54:27
Speaker
I'm on all the socials and the things.
00:54:29
Speaker
So wherever you want me to be, that's where I'll be.
00:54:32
Speaker
Awesome.
00:54:33
Speaker
Love it.
00:54:34
Speaker
You can find all my stuff at lifestudent.com.
00:54:38
Speaker
My sub stack is not updated as frequently, but I am inspired.
00:54:43
Speaker
I wrote down, do it weekly, John.
00:54:45
Speaker
So lifestudent.com is how you can find all my stuff, including the daily morning broadcasts and daily Zoom gratitude circles.
00:54:54
Speaker
Amazing.
00:54:55
Speaker
And you can find my work on my website, poweraffirmation.com, where you can find a journal to help you reprogram your mindset, as well as some inspiration cards and some other awesome products to really support your mind thinking in positive ways.
00:55:11
Speaker
And then I also love working with people individually.
00:55:13
Speaker
So if you are in either Asheville, North Carolina, or Encinitas, hit me up.
00:55:18
Speaker
I love creating healing and
00:55:20
Speaker
body work experiences.
00:55:22
Speaker
I use a silk hammock and put you in a cocoon and help you just transform through your fascial unwinding mindset.
00:55:30
Speaker
So check out my offerings on my website, as well as some audio affirmations on Insight Timer.
00:55:38
Speaker
But today you will get a live one.
00:55:42
Speaker
You guys want to close it out with an affirmation?
00:55:44
Speaker
Would you please?
00:55:45
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:47
Speaker
I have one actually that's been kind of sparking from this conversation.
00:55:50
Speaker
That's been one of my all-time favorites.
00:55:52
Speaker
And we're going to just use one affirmation on repeat because there's something powerful about repetition.
00:55:59
Speaker
And so you're welcome to close your eyes if you're comfortable with that or just repeat it quietly, which the affirmation is, I trust with quiet and calm confidence in the challenges I face in my life.
00:56:12
Speaker
I trust in the quiet and calm confidence in the challenges I face in my life.
00:56:18
Speaker
I trust with quiet and calm confidence in the challenges I face in my life.
00:56:25
Speaker
We are here to grow.
00:56:27
Speaker
We are here to evolve.
00:56:28
Speaker
We are here to create.
00:56:29
Speaker
We are here to connect and contribute and celebrate.
00:56:33
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:56:36
Speaker
I love you guys.
00:56:37
Speaker
Thank you, Justin.
00:56:38
Speaker
Love you guys.
00:56:43
Speaker
Find us on Instagram at staysparked and leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.
00:56:49
Speaker
Thanks so much for helping us spread these sparks.
00:56:52
Speaker
Stay sparked, friends.