Life of Love with Eric McHugh

Julie Hilsen (00:11.022)
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. We have this gentleman, his name’s Eric McHugh, and he’s coming to us from LA, which is very exciting.

Eric McHugh (00:13.696)
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 and maybe lift your head up.

Eric McHugh (00:36.432)
He’s coming to us from LA, which is very exciting. And he, I want to say he’s a timeline shifter. He is sharing information about how to show up on purpose, and he’s dedicated to enhancing his life and everyone else’s.

Julie Hilsen (00:40.526)
And just he, I’m gonna 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 gonna 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? One with a B.

Eric McHugh (01:16.4)
to match, can you say one million couples? One billion, but a million comes first. Yeah, because 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. And then the more happy couples we match, the more love spreads, I think, and then that has generational effects.

Julie Hilsen (01:38.99)
Yay, so Perfect for Life of Love. You can tell I’m so excited about this. Yeah, so and then in the past, he’s worked as a consultant for Fortune 500 companies, going through the bankruptcy process. And he’s also worked in DC and Barcelona at Snap. Is that the Snapchat?

Eric McHugh (01:59.251)
Yeah, so Snap is a parent company of Snapchat. So it was their headquarters in Venice, which was honestly a super cool experience. Yeah.

Julie Hilsen (02:08.398)
I bet. So I’m just so delighted. It’s not often we get such depth of experience 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 (02:31.184)
Well, 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 everyone of your listeners for tuning in. So hopefully, you get some value out of this show. I’m looking forward to this.

Julie Hilsen (02:44.526)
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 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 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 how you decided that it was important to be a person who understands we’re in a place of unity and that purpose matters and to have like a North Pole above 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 (03:52.496)
Yeah, no, I’m happy to elaborate 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 because of how opposite those work cultures were. Just like Barcelona, you show up at 10 AM and flip -offs and you’re cool. DC, it’s like 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 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 it was right before their IPO. So I wanted to be around that type of energy, see what it was like going through that.

After that, I’m like, okay, I need a full -time job out of college. Like, cause I think this is one of those things like that’s programmed into you as like a young kid, whether by your parents or by your school. And it’s like, well, you need a job. I’m lawyer, consultant, doctor, all of those sounds somewhat fancy. I ended up as a bankruptcy consultant just cause it kind of paid well. And like, honestly, it was a good position. And during that time is when I would say I started the awakening process. And the thing that awoke me up

or at least like open 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 is 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 was in 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 some, at just some like food place, which is chill. We started working on ShopX and while ideating upon the problem for ShopX, like, so we usually in startup world, like 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’s spun off into a different company called Cartrev or Paul and Lee, different names that ended up getting VC funded and

Eric McHugh (06:14.448)
and we worked at one of the top incubators in the world at the time. So as a young person, I was surrounded. So an incubator is essentially a startup school. So it’s like a bunch of different startups, different desk clumps, like two to three, two to four people, usually just working on a project. The startup Nexus was with Liquid Death Mountain Water. So they’re a pretty big brand now. So like at that time, I never worked my way. I got, I was blessed to be in front of a bunch of people.

in a bunch of different positions, I had a bunch of different scales of companies. I got lunch with them, ate lunch with them, picked their rain, told me what worked, what didn’t work. And that was actually the first spiritual, the first contact I have 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 to, it’s like, I can’t, I’m meditating.

What do you mean you’re meditating at 2 p on a Tuesday? That doesn’t make any sense. Don’t you have stuff to do? Because at that point in time, it was work, work

So I started going down that path, started researching all that, the content started flowing, I started interacting with more and more spiritual people, and then that opened up a can of worms, and then I think it culminated in, I think my peak, or something that really impacted me positively, was of ImpossiMeditation Archery, 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 to bring it up, I’m like, okay, someone’s selling me something, I went on the website.

Startup Incubators and Mindful Practices

Julie Hilsen (08:03.502)
Ha ha!

Eric McHugh (08:04.688)
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. Cause I think a company with good intention will do well. Company with bad intention will do poorly.

Julie Hilsen (08:21.262)
Hmm. Yeah, I, there’s so much to unpack there and it’s so beautiful. And I want to, I want to highlight these incubator sessions or places because I don’t think a lot of people know about them. And, 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. 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 (08:51.536)
Yeah.

Eric McHugh (09:07.696)
I know and so an incubator too and again, I’m looking back on I think what makes them really successful is a type of energy that’s around that so for the Vimpausa meditation retreat the reason why that’s so powerful is because for ten full days not only are you meditating by yourself but you’re in a room same spot same people same next to everyone else is doing the same 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. So how you find the incubators, it’s a variety of ways. So 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 with a VC, they fund your company. You become a portfolio company for that venture capital firm and they supply a co -workspace. So like it’s a pretty cool workspace. It’s like a warehouse type thing, different desk, like a…

Julie Hilsen (09:47.182)
Mm -hmm.

Eric McHugh (10:04.432)
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 problem as you can see you working on your problems, you can always, it’s encouraged that you talk with other startups or with other people who were in your previous position because they can offer valuable insights.

Julie Hilsen (10:06.702)
Julie Hilsen (10:20.782)
Yeah. And, okay, 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, Whoa, 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.

Autonomy Online

Eric McHugh (11:02.103)
And it’s pretty funny like my first week there I showed up early one day and then there’s a bunch of people doing Wim Hof breathing so before I’ve never done any breath work and there’s just a bunch of just like excessively be like what is this so that we started breathing like we did people do morning like everyone has their morning rituals some 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 incubator is like it was right next to the beach in Santa Monica so like

energy matrix.

Eric McHugh (11:29.584)
If you’ve been to California, despite the Santa Monica Pier, but like if it gets stressed out work, you’re always encouraged to, hey, 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 go again. Cause that’s something I think that’s pushed in corporate culture. I think people, I think it’s pushing 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 being, and you have to be calm to do.

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 (12:04.014)
Absolutely.

Julie Hilsen (12:09.326)
Yeah, and like you said, that breath work coming back to your breath, bringing 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, you

Is it like martial arts fighting or boxing? I thought it was interesting in your bio. You said you play chess and you fight as a hobby. And I was like, I wonder if a chess match ever breaks out into a…

Eric McHugh (12:46.896)
Yeah.

Eric McHugh (12:51.376)
I wouldn’t say no, but chess and Muay Thai are two of my hobbies. So and to be honest with the same thing, and it really teaches you that because in chess, you could have made the best move or the worst move. Your last move could have been the best move 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 continuously do that, odds are you’ll win. So the reason I started chess was

Julie Hilsen (12:57.966)
Mm -hmm.

Eric McHugh (13:20.016)
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. I was trained to be addicted to social media. I’m trained for those dopamine hits and running two companies that I need to be on social media. So I put chess .com right next. It’s a 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 of games of chess and Muay Thai. So that’s the one with kicking and elbows. So it’s like kickboxing, but you can knee and you can elbow too.

Julie Hilsen (13:31.022)
Yeah.

Eric McHugh (13:50.064)
So that’s my nighttime anchor. So it keeps me on point during the day. So the way I do my weekdays is I wake up at 420, I find that funny. I start off the day with a meditation. I set my intention for the day, visualize how the day is gonna go. I’m like, okay, we’re gonna help some people. All the calls are gonna go well. Whatever projects we need to do, they’re gonna get done. Everything’s gonna work. And that’s funny. Things usually work out that way. And then during the day, I think I may have somewhat 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 podcasts, like spirituality podcast the next 30 minutes. And after that, a sales call for a different company. 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

Julie Hilsen (14:43.182)
You

Eric McHugh (14:48.976)
take my work opportunities into Muay Thai, A, you’ll get hit, or B, you’ll lose focus and you can’t properly hold the mitts for the person you’re training with, which I find is rude. So if it forces you to be present, then it’s also really, it’s a fantastic physical workout too, probably the best thing you could do.

Julie Hilsen (15:06.478)
Yeah, it sounds sounds invigorating. I don’t know if I’d be really good at it. But it sounds invigorating. I release mine in tennis, like if I, if you’re not paying attention, if you don’t move your feet, you’re gonna miss your shot, you’re not gonna hit your best ball. And it is makes you humble. But yeah, I love that. That’s such a great, you know, routine. And like you said, it keeps you honest, it keeps you yourself care. And

Eric McHugh (15:15.824)
That’s about it.

Eric McHugh (15:24.24)
Yeah, yeah.

Julie Hilsen (15:36.494)
And I love the dichotomy of your two businesses that you’re really involved with, the data -ing, the dating app, and then also the store with the Web3 ShopX. So it’s a balance. And to me, it’s sort of like a balance of masculine and feminine, you know, like the you can receive a great relationship.

Eric McHugh (15:57.392)
balance into need.

Julie Hilsen (16:05.198)
and use our technology, use AI for enhancing of life instead of manipulating. And then also 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.

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 I was talking to my hairdresser, she just had a baby and we were talking about babies crying and all of a sudden my Instagram has this guru who can stop any baby from crying. It’s like, they’re totally listening to us all the time, 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. But yeah, let me let you.

Eric McHugh (17:52.368)
Yeah No 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 gonna 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

Julie Hilsen (17:54.894)
I’m really excited to hear what you’re going to say.

Eric McHugh (18:19.824)
Remain autonomous is this 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 food be you feel good You’ll probably hopefully you should eat more food be 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. I’m 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. In terms of a more tangible answer, I think web three presents a solution. So web three is just a name. It’s a fancy name for the next version of the web. So in terms of web one versus web two versus web three, the easiest way you can think of web one is you can go online and you can read stuff, which is really cool. Cause that helps spread information and we wouldn’t have a spiritual awakening as collective if we couldn’t.

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 in presently in web 2 and web 2 you can read and you can write but you can’t own so for example The easiest way to frame this is like through social media or using Instagram or Facebook or Amazon example So I can write a piece of content on Instagram. You can own that piece of error

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 gonna be an issue in the future. And Web3 solves that. So on Web3, it’s 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 if someone, an e -commerce brand, were able to launch a Web3 -based product or services,

Eric McHugh (20:36.912)
Let’s say I’m the brand I launched that it’s in the form of an NFT or a tokenized real world asset. You have the NFT that’s linked 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 take it away from you. The government can’t take it away from you. So it’s yours to own. And how this helps long -term is what ShopX is doing is we’re tokenizing the world’s products. So we’re attaching a physical to digital link in like if we’re attaching a

we’re attaching a digital version of a physical product and this has plenty of benefits. Like for example, Nike were to do that, they attach each individual products, like 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 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, your avatar can get that Nike product you purchased in the form of NFT and you can have that and vice versa. So you can also purchase something like an augmented reality or in a video game, your avatar owns that RWA and then you can claim that product in real life.

Longterm 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 ad spend and all the money’s ending back in their products. But if all of the products are tokenized, everyone can sell anyone’s product, creating a much more liquid marketplace. So for example, on your podcast website or whatever the case may be,

Julie Hilsen (22:09.038)
Mm -hmm.

Eric McHugh (22:24.464)
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.

and with a much more liquid e -commerce products, A, the big tech doesn’t get all the control that they have. They can’t charge us all around fees. But 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 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 a little, yeah, that’s gonna be a cool thing. 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 want to live a nice, peaceful life. I found that to be more difficult to do if the money system was corrupt.

Julie Hilsen (23:28.846)
Wow.

Eric McHugh (23:48.144)
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 So if you enter if Nike does that example a million products get RWA That’s a million people into the ecosystem. So they have some skin in the game. It’s a zero to one moment

Julie Hilsen (23:55.342)
Mm -hmm.

Exploring Bitcoin and Web3 Evolution

Eric McHugh (24:18.064)
If they want to learn more they totally can because cryptocurrency Sorry, that’s kind of 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. So if I wanted to get rich right now without producing any value I place myself right next to the money printer Extract as much value as I can and give it to my friends and let’s say give it to my friends now. I’m in power

Julie Hilsen (24:24.654)
Yeah.

Eric McHugh (24:48.112)
Now I give to my friends is 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, julia. I want your bitcoin How do I 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 the consciousness slowly elevating, I think it makes for a perfect storm of just overall a better world for everyone.

Julie Hilsen (25:31.598)
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, it’s.

Eric McHugh (25:33.712)
Yeah, sorry about that.

Eric McHugh (25:45.538)
it’s a, I think they’re probably one of the worst things in 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. 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 than, yeah, the Fed is a whole route. The Fed needs to go away. Cause it’s effect.

Julie Hilsen (25:59.566)
Mm -hmm.

Eric McHugh (26:13.136)
It’s it’s it’s the Fed is responsible for all the endless war we have I think it’s responsible for people in keeping people in a state of scarcity versus abundance because like you can abundantly create and I get this you can’t like abundantly create If you can’t pay rent or grow 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 holding all the money

And on top of that, they’re using that to fund all the wars. So like if the Fed is funding both sides of the war, like 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. But like people can’t have war without money. So like if they’re getting unlimited money or it’s like there’s not a like gold relation or Bitcoin relation.

Julie Hilsen (26:43.278)
Right.

Eric McHugh (27:03.664)
they’re just gonna continue to have war because they’re gonna make more money but if there’s like a if they don’t have access to money weapons are expensive the wars will eventually end not like anyone wants to be in war it’s just unpleasant for everyone

Julie Hilsen (27:12.654)
No, that’s what occurred to me. It’s like if we stop funding the wars, they won’t be fought. And if there’s no money to buy it, you know, it’s these wars, everyone’s tired of it. Nobody wants to watch anybody be held hostage, no matter who you identify. And there’s nothing to identify with on either side, right? Like there’s no reason to pick a side. It’s just all wrong.

Eric McHugh (27:27.568)
Well, not a…

Julie Hilsen (27:42.383)
are just horrible. And when you do, even our Revolutionary War was funded by… We’re still paying debt on the Revolutionary War. So there’s a whole ramble to go down. But it is. 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…

Eric McHugh (27:51.536)
Thank you.

Eric McHugh (27:55.408)
we have a roll to go down.

Julie Hilsen (28:10.99)
middle class neighborhood in South Georgia or North Georgia knows about this and I’m not the only one.

Eric McHugh (28:16.007)
Yeah, and more and more people are learning about that. So 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 Bitcoin’s reached the point of no return in the sense that enough energy, enough people know about it, that it’ll survive regardless of whatever the Fed wants to do. Like 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 none. I would say the feds time is running out, which would be good for literally everyone.

Julie Hilsen (28:58.542)
Everybody. Yeah. And so I did have a question about Web3. Is it like 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 (29:13.52)
So long term for Web3 to be successful, like you have to take out my phone, you have to take out your phone, you have to do a tap, tap, tap, tap stuff. 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 you produce, if you produce a piece of content, you own a piece of money.

Julie Hilsen (29:39.662)
Okay.

Eric McHugh (29:43.376)
It’s your money, it’s like either like a cryptocurrency or NFT, but you’ll 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, the listeners own 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 (29:57.07)
Mm -hmm.

Julie Hilsen (30:09.966)
Gotcha. Okay, so I guess you can just keep us posted on how this goes. Yeah, I think it’s a sensible thing and that as people realize that their creations are valuable, that we’re currently, I think everyone’s just feeding in and exploring and it’s like we’re kids in a kiddie pool.

Eric McHugh (30:15.216)
Eric McHugh (30:37.872)
Yeah.

Julie Hilsen (30:39.502)
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 skim the surface on it.

Choosing Love, Abundance, and Happiness

Eric McHugh (31:02.224)
Yeah, that it’s a whole it’s a whole rabbit hole So that’s one of those things like the only thing you can do is bring people attention to that someone’s interested about this They want to research more they can do the research themselves and the cool thing about cryptocurrency on web3 is is 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 what three is like freeing in the money. I can see the Bitcoin gains grades, but when you buy

your first Bitcoin, you buy that first cryptocurrency, you have skin in the game, and then you start to research some more, you research some more, you know, then because Bitcoin is an opener to a lot of people about the Fed, for example, it’s like, what was Bitcoin important? Well, it helps destroy the Fed. And I was like, well, what’s the Fed? Why do I care? It’s just some government, they go to the government, and they’re like, and then they look into that, and it’s like, it’s not some discoverability. 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 in 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, 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 it’s an anti -fragile technology. So whatever it does in guilt makes it stronger. So it’s just like, it’s like a Frankenstein of just like, yeah, it’s gonna eat a bunch of the world’s value.

Julie Hilsen (32:26.126)
And so we’re just for someone who’s just dipping their toes in. What’s the best way to buy Bitcoin?

Eric McHugh (32:33.776)
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 Coinbase .com, create an account, buy five bucks worth of Bitcoin and see how it feels.

Julie Hilsen (32:43.982)
Mm -hmm. I did it on my Venmo. I had extra money on my Venmo and I, there were like three different options and I picked, I picked one of them and I just go in there once in a while and I look, I think it’s increased 700%. You know, I just, I just had an extra like 15 bucks that I was like, I’m not gonna deposit this in my bank account. I’m just gonna pop it in Bitcoin. But yeah, so I’m gonna explore that too. Yeah, and I have bought physical silver and.

Eric McHugh (32:47.024)
How you doing?

Eric McHugh (32:57.232)
Yeah, nice.

Julie Hilsen (33:13.678)
things like that, but just to have a diverse diversity is what I want to say. But I don’t have, I’m not an expert in it at all. So 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 tutorial. So I’m really excited. And then I just learned how you do data mining from a guest. And I was like,

Eric McHugh (33:30.928)
And I’m sure I’m not.

Julie Hilsen (33:42.062)
That’s pretty cool. You know, 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 (33:42.64)
Yeah

Eric McHugh (33:57.107)
It’s different access points to different parts of the air and not many people are aware of, but the more you know, the better it is. So like whatever works for each individual, I think is what works for each individual and whatever degree they want to get involved in. Again, it can’t force anyone to get involved in, but if they want to get involved, they can. Cause the whole point is creating an open internet with equal opportunities. 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 get it end up. But with AI and cryptocurrency, let’s say you’re born in the slums now, his purpose 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, he can leverage AI as a tool for him to build that website, start selling products online that hopefully help people, and then he can use cryptocurrency to connect to a global marketplace. And so he can add value.

in his own way. So that’s 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 incentivized to AI is just a tool and cryptocurrency is a tool that helps people manifest their ideas 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 is so important. Cause if your base incentive is to

I think a lot of people, I view money as neutral. Like you can make money 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 came to the Philippines. If the incentive now is cryptocurrency based, meaning the incentive now is value creation, he can create value at scale. And when you create business, a lot of them fail, a lot of them succeed. It is what it is. But like now he can, he can try creation. Hopefully you can lift, 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, people are much more likely to be in abundance, much more likely to purchase product. A lot of things get better too. Cause 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, we would probably like a 15 hour work week. And then you’d have like a house and everything, which is the issue with the federal reserve printing their money is it makes a lot of things unlivable.

Eric McHugh (36:22.0)
Cause 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. Cause it’s 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 play in the stock market. Like I don’t even want to play in 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. And then if you go into the whole black rock rabbit hole, everyone, so you’re being forced to like roll in the stock market, like through your just 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. So 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 another, Blackrock’s another rabbit hole. They’re all related.

Julie Hilsen (37:17.354)
I’m sorry.

Julie Hilsen (37:39.758)
you

Julie Hilsen (37:45.806)
Yeah, so and you know, back, it was at four years ago and the whole the whole game stop, you know, and that happened. I was just like, yay, you know, people are becoming aware and it’s like, I, I’m really excited to be alive at this time. And, and these things are here for us to take advantage of and, and you don’t have to feed into a system that’s broken anymore. So if any of this

Eric McHugh (37:53.328)
yeah.

Yeah.

Julie Hilsen (38:14.222)
spurred any kind of interest, that’s your cue. 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, there’s things in your community that you can look into. And I love to just talk about, grow your own food, be involved with the land around you because…

you know, the value of your life in 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 not humane. Like things are happening that are not humane. So.

It’s a sign that we can adapt and choose better and not to be in fear. So when you get on the internet and you’re being pushed a fear program, realize you can turn it off and that’s your choice. 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.

Eric McHugh (39:22.896)
and like you said, you’re free.

Julie Hilsen (39:32.782)
So yeah, thank you so much for all these pearls of wisdom. I’m really excited to get this presented.

Eric McHugh (39:39.984)
No, thank you so much for having me. I think you’re a wonderful podcast host. 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 AI, that’s fine too. But I think spirituality, I think is probably the most important thing right now. So yeah.

Julie Hilsen (39:47.566)
Yeah.

Julie Hilsen (39:55.214)
Right, 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 way and things are gonna take care of themselves. And like you said, the karma thing, if you’re doing things that are only self -serving, it’s not for your highest good because your highest good is to

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 take care of yourself as a 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.

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 for. Thank you.

Eric McHugh (40:58.48)
bit of

Eric McHugh (41:01.84)
Hey, no, you’re the one crafting on reality. I do want to touch on serving other people. Hey, 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. Cause if you’re giving away money that puts in the vibration of abundance, the universe sees your abundant 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 serving around you. So why would you not do that?

Julie Hilsen (41:27.694)
Yeah, it’s 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.

Eric McHugh (41:38.48)
That was a blast, thank you so much.