JP Sears: [00:00:00] What I would say to someone who's the black sheep in their family, their friend group, in the parlance of our times, which you become a black sheep pretty quick if you don't go along with the herd, my advice would be tolerate the discomfort. 

If you're willing to tolerate the sweat lodge of your own feelings, what it means to you to not be accepted, ridiculed, people trying to change you, sometimes people getting angry at you, if you can stay in the fucking sweat lodge, hold the line of your own feelings, tolerate your own feelings, you're going to emerge from that sweat lodge a new person. My name is JP Sears and you're listening to the Life Stylist Podcast.

Luke Storey: [00:00:50] Second-time guest JP Sears is a YouTuber, comedian, author, speaker, and a curious student of life. His work takes an unapologetic stand for freedom, free speech and encouraging people to live free from fear. And his content has served over 4 million followers and acquired 600 million views. So I must not be the only one who gets a kick out of his content. 

I'm Luke Storey, and this is Episode 463. And by the way, you'll find show notes for this one at lukestorey.com/jp. But if you're a listener who likes to take notes or investigate links mentioned during these episodes, listen up. Every Tuesday morning I send out an email for each new episode and it includes the audio and video versions of the show, as well as links to complete written transcripts and everything discussed during each interview.

To get the jump on new episodes the moment they're published, simply add your name and email to the list at luketorey.com/newsletter. And when you do so, you can rest assured that I will never share your email with anyone, and I won't spam you with irrelevant messages. I'm just going to send you every new podcast and everything in it every Tuesday. Again, to get that done, go to lukestorey.com/newsletter. 

I try to give you a brief boil down here, but some of these topics were just so fun I had to include most of the stuff that we talked about, which is why poking fun at ourselves is important; what mark JP shift toward political satire; how he summoned the courage to speak out against convid when so many influencers remained silent; and his message for people who are still afraid to speak their truth; why well-meaning people virtue signal; why so many people are still so easily manipulated by the legacy media; feeling vindicated after masks, social distancing, lockdowns, and the mRNA gene therapy all failed, womp womp; the dangers of voices like his being censored by big tech; his thoughts on people creating brands as online trolls, and how he remains immune to online trolls and haters.

And something I was really curious about in JP's work is how he manages to stay abreast of current events without getting depressed, and he explains exactly how he does so as well as the one conspiracy theory that leaves JP undecided and conspiracies as PSYOPs and distractions from real issues; and how to avoid letting the media further divide us; why psychopaths are drawn to political positions; and lastly, how to have compassion for those with whom we disagree. 

And I'll also add that like last week's show with Dave Asprey, this one touches on some topics that could be upsetting to certain listeners. If you only know JP from his satirical political and social commentary and happen to hold a contrary perspective, I encourage you to listen all the way through. Because I think we did a pretty good job of looking under the hood of the human condition to gain an understanding of what makes us all tick.

And in the end, really, JP's message is one of freedom. And no matter where you stand on the issues discussed, I think we can all agree that freedom is our birthright and a value worth defending at all costs. So let's all come together, my friends, hold hands, and welcome JP Sears back to the Life Stylist Podcast.

JP Sears: [00:04:02] I think I'm ready. All right, bro. Let's not screw this up, Luke.

Luke Storey: [00:04:05] The first time you were on the podcast, this is going back, I think, pretty early on, maybe in my first year, 2016, '17. We did it on Zoom and I was in my little spare bedroom in Miracle Mile in LA. And I think you were in Bali. Do I have that right?

JP Sears: [00:04:23] Probably Thailand.

Luke Storey: [00:04:24] Thailand. Okay. I remember jungle sounds in the background.

JP Sears: [00:04:28] Oh, it was probably Costa Rica. Back in 2017. Probably Costa Rica.

Luke Storey: [00:04:33] Yeah. I just remember half of me was going like, oh man, the audio is a little rough. But then I was going, well, if you're going to have ambient background noise like hearing Kaka-- what are those birds? Kakas?

JP Sears: [00:04:44] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:04:46] Macaws.

JP Sears: [00:04:46] Macaws. And then sometimes you'd get monkey noises, which are fun noises.

Luke Storey: [00:04:52] So I'm like, who can be mad at macaws and monkeys? But we had a great time. And at that time I knew you as the guy who was doing great parody content, making fun of people like myself, spiritual folk and the new agey people and biohackers and all this stuff. And I just loved your content, but I knew from your content and it was proven to be so, that you had a lot of depth as a person, and that you had a really great fundamental understanding of the human psyche and what makes us tick. 

And that's what we ended up talking about. And I had you on the show thinking like, this guy's really funny. We're just going to be telling jokes the whole time, and perform JP. And then we ended up having a really deep and meaningful conversation that I really enjoyed.
So thank you for doing that when I was a total nobody in the podcast space, and it's really been great to see your brand grow and evolve. And your visibility in the world now is just huge. We both live in Austin. We run into each other here and there and it's been really great to get to know you again.

JP Sears: [00:06:01] Yeah, same. And I would dare say we deserve to get to know each other again because I don't think we're the same people we were back in 2017. And I remember our conversation very enjoyable and I think we've both lived many decades in the five or so years since then.

Luke Storey: [00:06:20] Oh, man. And how the world has changed. And we're going to talk about that. But going back to the earlier content, I don't know if I asked you this in our first interview, and we'll link to that in the show notes, you guys, at lukestorey.com/jp. What was the impetus for you to start, essentially, making fun of people in our social circle? 

I guess that because your content then was so on point at making fun of that world that you must have been in it also because you wouldn't know just from the outside of how to nail the inside jokes and just pointing out the irony in the new agey spiritual movement. What first led you into that?

JP Sears: [00:07:04] Yeah, well, what led me into it initially, in the initial content, was ultra spiritual videos, making fun of the new age stuff, and health movements. It was self therapy for me. I lived in Southern California for 10 years. And even before I lived there, I was very immersed in the world of spirituality, the teachings of different authors, doing different practices. My lifestyle and my mindset was incredibly, positively influenced by the world of spirituality. 

But I have an ego and I don't know about other people, but my ego loves to operate in stealth mode. So I was finding for myself, I was blind to how my ego was operating when I was playing the role of the spiritual character. Because the egotistical nature of me would hide behind noble-looking hiding spots in its need for significance, control, certainty, power. It would be camouflaged. 

I meditate for an hour every day. How long do you meditate? Only half hour. We both know our places now. So those sorts of things. And Ram Dass once said, "You can't get out of a jail you don't know you're in." I didn't know I was in the jail of my own ego because I had convinced myself I was largely beyond my ego, which is so egotistical of me to do.

So I started making the ultra spiritual videos when I started to have these self awarenesses of my own egotistical nature and how it would be expressed within the context of spirituality. And for me it was fun to make because it was a way I'm not taking myself too seriously anymore, and it was a way for me to recognize my ego nature, hopefully, so I can go beyond it, but also recognize it in a playful way, not a shaming way. 

Rather than saying, JP, you egotistical idiot, you're actually competitive with other spiritual people, and you worry about things, and you try to position yourself to be more spiritual than more in-tune, more intuitive. Instead of shaming myself, it's like I'm going to use the language of playfulness. Let it be okay that I'm doing it. But for it to be okay that I'm doing it, I have to recognize and accept that I'm doing it. 

So I would just portray that through videos and turns out I'm apparently not the only one in the spiritual world that does that, that does the egotistical nature. So yeah, the world of spirituality being very near and dear to me, but also recognizing my ego is pretty much going unchecked while I was playing the role of a spiritual dude.

Luke Storey: [00:10:00] Maybe that's why I related so much to those videos because I've been through a few iterations of that. I remember one time I took about a month-long trip to India on a spiritual pilgrimage to go to these different ashrams and did a 21-day. It was 21-day silent retreat. Not this 11-day stuff, by the way.

JP Sears: [00:10:20] Yeah, just the rookies do it. Yes.

Luke Storey: [00:10:22] This was an advanced-level thing. But anyway, I went over there and I had some really profound experiences and insights and it was just a really enlightening experience as a whole. Unbeknownst to me though, and this took me years to unpack, but part of my motivation, well, not my motivation, but part of the ego's unseen motivation to go to India was to become initiated and to come back and be like, I've been to India.
I have the beads. And I do namaste at every given opportunity. And now I'm special. 

And I came back and I had a mentor of sorts at the time and he basically just banished me. He's like, "Dude, whatever you're doing here is so phony and gross. I can't even be around you."

JP Sears: [00:11:08] How was that for you to hear?

Luke Storey: [00:11:09] Well, the way that he did it, I mean, to be fair in hindsight, lacked compassion and I think some temperance. It was a bit harsh, but that's a whole other issue with that particular teacher. He had a lot of his own pathology going on. But his point was real. And what the big lesson in it for me was that the ego is a shapeshifter, man. 

And it will attach to any identity that you allow it to attach to in order for it to gain its sense of significance, the word that you used. So it was a really powerful experience, but also super embarrassing. When I came out of the fog and realized how phony I was being, and have been through in my life so many chameleon experiences where I'm like the rock n roll guy. I'm the fashion guy. I'm the wellness guy. I'm the biohacking guy. I'm the spiritual guy. 

And it feels good to, hopefully, have arrived at a place now where I think I've just my own unique weirdo, and I just do my best to just be authentically me. And I think that gives the ego a little less teeth. I mean, obviously, still I have ego and I care what people think. 

And I'm the normal human I always was, but through videos like yours, realizations like the one I just described, I think I have a little more of a loose relationship with it, and hopefully don't take myself as seriously. Or try to take on an identity that's not really representative of the comprehensive version of myself.

JP Sears: [00:12:38] Yeah. And I think that's where the teeth of the ego really come out. When we take on an identity that isn't us, it's we take on the identity of a role. So you become this fashion guy, you become the spiritual guy, as we both have. And I think your mentor's words, I mean, someone could have told me those same words and they would have been absolutely true. 

Doesn't mean I would have heard them or be undefended, but they would have been very true for me as well. The phoniness of like, oh, you're wearing those clothes and those beads, not for everybody, but at least for me, my version of that. Yeah, phony and authentic. But then there's something beautiful about letting the real surface area of the mystery of who you are out.

And then whatever garments are attached to that or practices that are naturally attached to it, and they withstand the test of time, that's a beautiful way of amplifying the expression of yourself rather than playing the role, doing the things, wearing the beads be at the expense of not letting your actual self out.

Luke Storey: [00:13:50] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think the takeaway lesson there for me was be mindful of the spiritual ego. And this is the downfall we see. I mean, one of the strangest phenomenon to me is the fallen guru syndrome, where you have a Sathya Sai Baba or Osho or any number of them. And I don't know what allegations are true about each of them, but there certainly have been people that have true spiritual gifts that are valid. Have insights, can perform miracles or cities, and they're doing the thing. 

But through lack of awareness of how the, I don't know, almost Luciferic energies can infiltrate your being, they end up exploiting people and abusing people. And then you think, but does that mean all of their teachings are negated or that they were fake or phony? Didn't have these powers or abilities? No, It just means that any of us are susceptible to being overtaken through our blindness to that. 

And that's, I think, one of the greatest gifts that guy in particular gave me, is like, never think that you're completely impenetrable by bullshit. It's like to be mindful of the pitfalls along the spiritual path. And one of the pitfalls is letting power or insight go to your head or to be used to manipulate or use other people.

JP Sears: [00:15:22] Yeah. And I'd imagine for some of the fallen gurus, they were a frog sitting in a pot of corrupt boiling water, some of them expressing great gifts and teachings and miraculous abilities as that happens. But I can only imagine the slow creep of admiration, people giving you so much power after months and years and years of that. 

I'd imagine so many of them become blind to how their ego is actually running rampant where maybe they actually have a nasty case of believing everything they think. Maybe they also believe they are who other people think they are without remembering the, I think timeless teaching, must have been the Buddha who reminds us we all shit out of our asshole. We're all full of shit. I think that's why God gave us an asshole to remind us we're full of shit. 

But if they don't remember, they too shit out of their asshole, then they can start to believe, oh, I am who other people think I am. And then, man, nasty stuff can happen. There was one dude in my early 20s, I'll leave him nameless, but he was a guru from Sri Lanka and he'd come over to the States and do lectures and I had a private session with him and he would do this thing, lay on a table. He would just blow on your forehead. And it's like a DMT trip. 

And unless he was pulling some trickery with a substance, it's just his breath. Whatever it is about how he would channel energy blows on your forehead and you feel it in your body, you see. I mean, it's just like I'm on DMT, except he just breathed on me. And then a couple of years later, find out he's doing the fallen guru thing of being terribly inappropriate with women. And it's like, well, he objectively has a great gift, and he objectively has ego, corruption working simultaneously, which is a pretty dangerous combo.

Luke Storey: [00:17:37] I wonder if there's something to the idea that as you reach higher states of consciousness, that you become targeted by the lower forces. It's like as your light shines brightly, the temptations that you meet further up the hill become perhaps more cunning and more powerful. 

Because the fallen guru thing to me is just an endlessly fascinating phenomenon because it's so paradoxical. And if someone, like you described, has those abilities, then obviously they're tapped into God and they're living in some angelic, rarefied field. How could they ever do anything that was abusive to someone? There's a cognitive dissonance in there.

JP Sears: [00:18:23] Yeah. it's apparently not mutually exclusive. Both can be happening. And I think the danger of that is people can make assumptions like, oh, their insights are amazing, or they have this great ability, or they've helped tens of thousands or millions of people therefore we pretend that they're not capable of corruption when in fact, no, that's not mutually exclusive. The guy's a human being. So welcome to humanity. We all shit out of our asshole.

Luke Storey: [00:18:55] Yes. If there's one takeaway or tweetable it's we all shit out of our asshole, lest we forget that to our own folly. All right, let's see. So we talked a little bit about this before we recorded, but just so the audience knows, what's life like for you here in Texas? You've got some decent acreage over here, West of where I'm located and you've got some animals. What's it been like going from living in first Ohio, then Southern California to coming out here and being closer to living off the land?

JP Sears: [00:19:27] Yeah, it's been a little bit of a micro cycle of the hero's journey and returning home. So I grew up in Ohio on acreage, out in farm country and didn't really know how beautiful that was because it's all I had really known. And then I left home in my early 20s, did the crowded Southern California living, and lived in cities, and it was great. 

And then we've been in the Austin area for five years now, and I think there's been a few principle factors that have shifted us to what we're doing now, and I'll describe more of that. But one is having a family. We've got a beautiful two-year-old little boy now, and I view the world from a different lens now. It's a lens where there's a two-year-old little boy whose soul God has entrusted me with to steward. I want what's best for him. 

Now the joke is, usually what's best for him is a total upgrade for my wife and I. So we just love the idea of our little boy being able to essentially be a free-range child where in our old home where we lived up until middle of last year, it was a great house in the suburb of Austin and a decent-sized backyard, but suburban backyard, all fenced in. And we'd be watching him ping back and forth the backyard.

And it was just so obvious his natural instincts are to roam. And right now he's by no means factory feedlot living. We don't have him locked in a little cage, but it's like, well, I would love to see him just roam. I would love to see him exposed to more nature. And I think I want that too. And then combine that with the state of the world where you don't have to be too much of a tinfoil hat-wearing dude to realize we have energy grid issues. We see those already happening in the US. We see major issues in Europe. We have food supply challenges. 

So seeing the state of the world and realizing my life is well beyond just taking care of myself, now I've got a family and my wife's on the same page, we want it to become more decentralized. We wanted a situation where we could start to become more responsible for our own food protection, as well as just be close to nature, and have a great environment for our son. 

So that motivated us to move further outside of town onto some land and, like I said, it's a bit of a return home to where I came because I grew up in Ohio. This is Texas, but it's a similar bunch of land, not many neighbors. It's a little bit more roughing it and we're just loving it.

Luke Storey: [00:22:32] Can you shoot guns on your property?

JP Sears: [00:22:34] We can. Not really rifles, but handguns. Previous owner shot rifles. But my firearm safety is maybe a little bit more tight than theirs.

Luke Storey: [00:22:46] That's how I judge how cool a home is, is like, can you pee in any area of your property without offending anyone.

JP Sears: [00:22:55] That I can. So shooting that rifle, I can do.

Luke Storey: [00:22:58] And can you shoot guns without the police coming? Sometimes I go out to the parks way out here and just venture out as far as I can go. And you'll hear in the background, pow. And I'm like, yes. That person has the property. Not that shooting guns is everything, but I, like you--

JP Sears: [00:23:19] It's a symbol of freedom. Doing what you want.

Luke Storey: [00:23:21] How I grew up was largely like that, at least when I lived with my dad in Colorado. Went to visit him. I mean, it's just, talk about free range. I mean, God, I would wander off for the entire day or go ride my motorcycle or dirt bike, shooting BB guns. And I mean, thinking back, how lucky I was to have that opportunity to just explore largely unsupervised. I mean, sometimes probably to a deficit, could have used a little more supervision in some cases because I was such a wild kid. 

But yeah, it's really true when you have that experience. I can't imagine having a kid because we're hopefully right behind you on the kid train, working on it. I mean, I can't imagine just sticking them in a public school or throwing them out in the backyard, have fun. It's like, that's not what I wanted. I wanted to go ride my bike until after dark. And the sun is almost down, you got to get home, that kind of thing.

JP Sears: [00:24:23] Yeah. And I almost think, and I don't have scientific studies to back this up. By the way, nothing I've ever said has been scientifically validated, so I too am full of shit. Yet I sometimes speculate, we look at similarly how we were brought up, free-range kids, and I wonder how that influences our thinking because we all know to be successful, whatever that means, thinking outside of the box is typically what gets you there. 

Thinking inside of the box has its limitations, which are in fact the box. So I just wonder the physical reality of being able to move as a kid, and you're out until the sun's going down, and you're just roaming without the restrictions of a fence or the barriers of city blocks, I just wonder how that actually has positively shaped our thinking, if in any way it models what our physical reality was when we were kids, when we were just doing stuff.

Luke Storey: [00:25:28] Well, I mean, I think that because we're inherently hunter-gatherer people, that's just in our DNA. We're supposed to be like that. So I would think as a kid, if you're being able to express more of a natural human life and maybe you go home to your house, but during the day you're out there hunting, which for me is catching snakes and lizards and shooting birds with my BB gun or picking apples. It was in-- mine was a lot of it in Northern California. It was all these apple trees in Sonoma County. 

And so you didn't even have to bring food. We'd be out there just taking people's apples and picking blueberries and that was your food. And I think it's not a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the truest sense, but it definitely has elements of that. And it could have a lot to do with why I, as an adult, do anything I can to not be boxed in and be as free as possible, which is going to bring us to a lot of the stuff we're going to talk about today. Because you're such a committed advocate of human freedom.

JP Sears: [00:26:24] I do like freedom.

Luke Storey: [00:26:26] But I have a couple more questions that are just little things that I wonder about you as I get prepared to interview. What is your production schedule look like? The amount of content you produce, especially video content, which is much more involved than doing an audio podcast or something. How many days a week are you shooting to churn out these videos?

JP Sears: [00:26:46] Yeah. Typically shooting on four days a week. And if I'm traveling, if I have comedy shows on the weekend, typically I'm flying out Friday morning, so that'll condense the shooting schedule down to three days in the week. So it's, yeah, four day a week shooting schedule typically. 

And what that produces is a minimum of two comedy videos and three social commentary videos I've got on YouTube, two channels, the Awaken With JP, the Comedy Channel, and then the JP Reacts, which is more the commentary on current events, more of a talk to the camera, sincere perspective. And then stacking on top of that, the writing time for the comedy videos.

Luke Storey: [00:27:34] Right. Because it's not like you're just ad libbing this shit. I mean, there's a lot of preparation that goes into it. And also aside from the JP Reacts part, I mean, you can't really-- because even in your comedy videos, you're talking about very current events. I mean, I see them like, oh, shit, that thing just hit my feed yesterday and he already has a video about it. 

I mean, they seem to come out quickly, so it's not even like you could batch them out. Oh, I'm going to do a bunch of videos for a month and that'll last me the next three months, which is kind of what I do with this content. I'm like, you have to be on top of it, which is just a staggering amount of content.

JP Sears: [00:28:09] It is. And there are some videos where it'll be timeless, just as of this recording this past Saturday, released a comedy video called How to Work Out Like a Real Man. Now, that one we shot a little while ago because that was timeless. And so it was released a while later. But other videos, yeah, you're right. It's like, oh, something just happened. Cool. 

I have the creative inspiration to say something about that in a comedic way, and because it's topical, I just know that it'll be more relevant the faster it can get out. So luckily I've got a wonderful team around me, a couple of videographers and editors, so I'm able to keep my focus in the writing, and then being on camera. And then they take it and they're so fast, they're so good. But nonetheless, the team is what creates both the volume and the speed.

Luke Storey: [00:29:09] Yeah. I think my favorite recent video of yours that wasn't around politics was the one about ice baths. It's like kicking it old school, JP making fun of the biohackers, and I forget the every detail of it, but the part I really identified and I was like, oh my God, I've done that. It's like, yeah. And I can sit in here for two hours and show you how I can regulate my breathing. 

I was like, oh, my God, I've totally done that. I have homies over, and they're like, I'm scared of the ice bath. I'm like, it's no big deal. I get it. I'm totally relaxed, just slowly chatting. I'm even doing social media posts where I'm doing that. And just showing people how badass I am that I can get in the ice bath and have no problem with it. And I was like, "Fuck, he nailed it." So funny.

JP Sears: [00:29:54] But I'm the same, sorry, son of a bitch. I mean, that idea for that that within the ice bath video came because I would notice when people would come over to my house, buddies, and we're going to do an ice bath, I would always have them go first so that I could gauge their level of discomfort and they would just-- usually they're shrieking, screaming, hesitating so that I would know exactly how to one up them, get in calm, cool, and collected. 

I'm not even acknowledging this as cold. Regulating my breathing. I'm like, yo, I'm doing the same shit I was doing in the spiritual world but in this ice bath. Please forgive me. But anyway, that's so good because--

Luke Storey: [00:30:34] Again, going back to what we were first talking about, only by having that witness observer perspective of oneself do you become free. I mean, literally. And before I saw your video, I had already become hip to the fact that my ego was trying to flex by being Mr. Ice Bath resilience. And I was like, that's stupid. Stop doing that. So I'd already found that gross behavior within myself and hopefully knocked it off. 

But then you see it in video and it's really like, oh, my God, that's literally me. Now it's really gross to me, and I'm definitely not going to do that anymore. And to the ice bath, it's funny, even with the competitive nature with myself, I think I even used to have this attachment that I have to be in for 3 to 5 minutes. That's what the science says. Trust the science, blah, blah, blah. 

And even times where I went in 20 minutes and then got out and couldn't drive my car for two hours. And now I find just listening to my body sometimes, like today I jumped in the pool. It's 33 degrees here in Austin and I checked the pool. It's probably 35 degrees. It's basically an ice bath. 

And I went in and swam to one side, and swam to the other side, and got out and felt refreshed. But it was just-- because that's what I wanted to do and needed to do not so that I could go on Instagram and be like, so you guys, it's 33 degrees in Austin and I just went in the pool for about 20 minutes. No big deal. I'm totally calm.

JP Sears: [00:31:53] And did I mention it was 20 minutes? So let me just say that. Reiterate that a few more times.

Luke Storey: [00:31:57] Yeah. And as we start to make fun of ourselves and gain some levity, it's very freeing because then I think you become quicker at catching yourself when you're being wack.

JP Sears: [00:32:09] And you mentioned we're freeing ourselves. I realized during the pandemic, freedom is my number one value. And I recognized it because this beautiful setup that we're in, where we're in this incarnated gift of forgetfulness, where we forget everything that we're experiencing is a mirror reflecting us back to us. So I was noticing what I was looking at in the mirror is like, oh, Fauci, and tyrannical governments, and stay in your home, and mandates. I'm getting pissed off at this erosion of freedom. 

Then I started remembering to look in the mirror and ask myself, what about me? Am I seeing in this mirror? I'm like, well, I'm not a tyrant. I'm not trying to mandate. Yeah, how do I treat myself like a tyrant? How do I censor myself? How do I try to deceive myself with my own propaganda? And I started realizing we're living through such a great gift where some would say it's a curse, hey, we're living in America. 

And some would agree freedoms are really being threatened. I would say it's a great gift because it's a beautiful time of potent self reflection. The mirror has never been a clearer surface of reflection. And I think a mistake for people who are freedom-oriented is to just fight the outer fight at the social level. My opinion is we need energy there. My opinion is only 20%. I think 80% is how we're either free or enslaved within ourselves. And either way, it's our fault. 

But I think life always reflects to us the exact vibrational match that we are so we can pretend it's an other problem. Oh, other people, governments, corruption, drug companies. But I think 80% of the solution is what we do inside of ourselves. And even that awareness around the ice baths, because I can relate to it as well, where I was very dogmatic in the ice baths.

Keep in mind we're talking about freedom. Sounds like we're talking about ice baths, but we're not. I have to do two minutes, no matter what. Two minutes, minimum. But then it's winter time in Austin. I started realizing two minutes doesn't serve me. It's going to take me two hours to get warm again. And that's actually not really an enhancement anymore. It's a detriment. 

So I freed it up. Sometimes I'll do 30 seconds, sometimes I do 60 seconds. Some mornings I don't do it at all. And guess what, that's newfound freedom. And I'm very grateful that the mirror of life is helping me find my own freedom. Because we can ask ourselves, where do we rob ourselves of our own freedom? It can be a little thing like, hey, this ice bath session. It can be the shoulds. It can be, well, I'm going to wear the beads because I'm spiritual. But guess what? If that's not who you are, you are not being free. 

You're shackling whoever you actually are in order to constrict yourself into this form with a white shirt and beads on. So nonetheless, yeah, really excited me because I think real freedom is one at the micro level where we notice the little nuances of where we have been robbing our own freedoms. I got to be in ice bath for 20 minutes. 

You're not free. You're a slave in an ice bath. You put yourself there, but you notice, oh, that's an opportunity where I can unlock a cage that I otherwise would have been in, and that's new freedom. So I think those micro nuances are so rich for discovery in all of our lives.

Luke Storey: [00:36:02] And you brought up a couple of good-- well, first, I want to acknowledge you for calling what has been happening, the plandemic. I always feel awkward when I'm sitting down with someone to interview them and they're like, well, you know, throughout the whole pandemic, and I'm just thinking like, it wasn't that, though. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't that because I didn't see bodies anywhere. And God bless anyone that has been ill or died for any reason throughout all history. 

But yeah, I appreciate we share the perspective on that. And the other one is, and I have so many notes here, but I don't know, sometimes talking to a person like you, the notes become meaningless because you're just having fun. But I think you point out something that's really prevalent, especially in the last few years in the realm of social justice, which I guess you and I are doing in our own ways. 

We have our own perspective of social justice, but the level of projection of people, I mean, I'm just picturing a clan of Antifa kids, jumping on cop cars and throwing hot glue in people's faces or whatever they do. And it's like I look at some of these people and I go, man. I see a traumatized person, and I have compassion for them, even really violent, gnarly people. But there's so much projection. 

It's like what many people, and I'm sure I've done this and you've done it, we've all done it. But it's like, it's so much easier to try to solve the problems that we find externally in the world. It goes back to like that George Carlin skit. He's like, "You're going to save the planet. Really?" It's like, the planet is fine. You fuckers, maybe not. I mean, I love that whole video is like, that's all I ever need to post, you know, if anyone wants my comment on things. 

But it's like, these are things I ask myself, but I look at it, someone like that who's just enraged about social issues and is out there punishing other people, essentially, I think, how is your relationship with your mom, with your dad? Who have you not forgiven? What trauma have you not processed? There's so much effort in changing out there when from, I don't know, what little metaphysical understanding I have, which is based on my own experience, that anything that I've wanted to change in the world is done by looking inward and working on myself.

And going through shadow after shadow after shadow and dark night of the soul after dark night of the soul, and just ferreting out any bullshit that is in my life experience that is not addressed, and healed, and faced. And then I find that even with the craziness in the world over the last few years, that I find less of a need to change the world out there because I'm actually just feeling better about who I am in my own life. So it's like, the projection thing is crazy and the fact that so many people seem to lack that awareness.

JP Sears: [00:39:03] Yeah. And I would dare say, when we can own like, oh, what's the world teaching about me and have that self reflection and make changes, we're then way more effective at creating change in the outer world. Even though our effort might actually be less, I think we're far more effective because we become the vibrational expression of the change we want. We're actually drinking in Gandhi's wisdom of being the change we wish to see in the world. But when you have the projection addict, the Antifa example being one of them, you mentioned--

Luke Storey: [00:39:42] Did they ever show up at your gigs or anything?

JP Sears: [00:39:44] The march against the Mandate rally in DC, last year-- 

Luke Storey: [00:39:47] I was looking at your touring schedule and I'm out of town on your next Austin in February. I reserved two tickets and I was like, "Alyson, can we go to this thing?" She's like, "Dude, we're in Florida." I'm like, thank God someone handles the calendar here because I would have wasted 60 bucks. But I was thinking about that when I was on your site. 

I'm like, he's so outspoken about things. And maybe because you do it with satire, you're less of a target. But you're essentially saying the same thing as many people that these Antifa Marxist radicals go after, the Jordan Peterson's or whoever. And I'm like, God, I hope he's not getting messed with it. Got to have security to get into a nightclub or something.

JP Sears: [00:40:26] Yeah. I mean, so far it's been 99% all good.

Luke Storey: [00:40:32] And I totally interrupted you. I'm sorry. Do you remember where you were?

JP Sears: [00:40:35] Yeah, I was just saying, I think the-- when someone's a projection addict, an Antifa example, they're crusading for others to be the change they wish to see in the world, which means they're a terrible vibrational match. They don't have the self-awareness to find like, what is it I want the world to be and how can I become that? Or what is it about myself that I despise that I'm projecting out onto the world? 

World might be pretty fucking good, but if I despise myself and I'm putting that outside of myself trying to escape it, the world's always going to look like a terrible place, and no matter how much it changes, they won't be satisfied because they're a perfect vibrational match for the dissatisfaction. So they lack the self-awareness. But nonetheless, even at that, without that self-awareness and pure projection, they are terrible facilitators for the change they wish to see. 

They lack the tack. The rage is not effective communication. Destruction is not effective communication. But it's an excellent and dare I would say, very accurate portrayal of probably what their inner reality is that they're constantly trying to escape. And by the way, I'm speaking in they statements, they do this, they do that. And it's like, yeah, I do that too, hopefully, less than I used to. Probably still too much, though.

Luke Storey: [00:42:05] It reminds me of that phenomena that we're exploring here became really clear to me when Donald Trump was elected.

JP Sears: [00:42:17] Donald Trump, never heard of him.

Luke Storey: [00:42:18] There was all of this outrage. And then he and his supporters were branded as hateful and xenophobic and all this stuff. Racist, etc. But what I noticed and I wasn't like Mr. pro-Trump Guy. I mean, I liked that he shook things up a lot because it was just entertaining and wild to see the president of the United States on the news going, you guys are fake news. I really love that. That was maybe my favorite thing he did. 

Some policies, I think were good. Ultimately, I don't want to get off on a Trump thing. But I mean, now he's basically a vaccine salesman. So I don't know what happened with his whole thing. But to my point is, okay, so you have this person that you see as hateful and you see that he's amassing millions of followers and fans and supporters that are also hateful. So the solution to that is we hate those people. I mean, how is the irony lost there? And also just the futility of meeting what you perceive to be wrong with the exact same thing.

JP Sears: [00:43:24] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:43:25] It is just bizarre.

JP Sears: [00:43:26] It's very bizarre. And that irony, it's not even hidden. It's not hard to see. It's very obvious. You're full of hate, so we're going to hate you. Or the woke anti-racist movement. Racism is bad, so we're going to use racism to cure racism. White people are born evil. Black people are, you're never going to amount to anything. We need to-- Dr. Martin Luther King, he said, judge a person based on their character, not the color of their skin. And they're like, well, why don't we judge people based on the color of their skin, not the content of their character? Are you saying Martin Luther King Jr was wrong? So it's just--

Luke Storey: [00:44:06] Well, then they found dirt on him. And so he was wrong, actually. I don't remember the dirt, but I just remember murmurs of, oh, he wasn't a good guy. Maybe he had fallen guru syndrome or something.

JP Sears: [00:44:18] Maybe. But nonetheless, that irony, the unseen irony of our times, is exquisitely entertaining.

Luke Storey: [00:44:26] It is. And terrifying. But then to your point, I mean, if we're going to be honest with ourselves, I find myself addictively refreshing my Twitter feed. And do you know John Durant?

JP Sears: [00:44:39] I don't.

Luke Storey: [00:44:39] He lives here now. He wrote the Paleo manifesto, a great guy. And we share, I would say, many, not identical, but many similar views politically and socially. And he taught me that you can make a list on Twitter to follow the people you want to follow without anyone knowing. Because I'm like, during the convid and the politics of the recent years, I'm interested in hearing from voices that I would like get in trouble for following. He's like, no, you just make a list.

But I'll addictively go on Twitter and I'll see the latest George Soros, Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci. Those are probably my top four people. And I find myself, and I believe that they're overtaken by evil and that they are harming vast numbers of people. And I truly believe that. And that their intention is to keep doing so. But what's interesting is I'll be looking at them and I'll be thinking really harmful thoughts about them. I'll be hating them. 

And on a good day, see myself and go, dude, you're being them to yourself, and to the world, and the way you think things ought to be. Klaus Schwab has his vision, however, warped it might seem to me, of what the world should look like. And here I am using that same energy of self-righteously claiming to my computer screen and Twitter that he should be different. And if they just did it the way that I think and we got rid of all these people, we'd live in Utopia.

JP Sears: [00:46:13] If they'd listen to the authoritarian of Luke, we'd all be good.

Luke Storey: [00:46:16] Yeah. So it's funny. And then so then I arrive at, well, what do I do? Just not do anything and not say anything and allow these ghouls to continue to harm so many people? And then the answer is, you do your own inner work, Luke. You look at where you're not truly being unconditionally loving, where you're not truly being compassionate. And even, I mean, this is a stretch, but can I even find some empathy and compassion for these people that I perceive to be evil? And I often can. But where does that compassion meet non-compliance? 

Can I compassionately zoom out into a non-dual perspective and just go, Okay, well, in the world of polarity, there's good, there's love. And so in order for that to be visible and experienceable, we have to have evil and there has to be a Fauci, and a cloud. They're playing their role so perfectly, so how do I stay on my side of the love and light spectrum, compassionate, but also stand up for what I believe to be right? It's not something I have an answer to. I don't know. Can you pull anything out of that?

JP Sears: [00:47:26] Well, I don't have answers either, but I have curiosities on Mount Evil Rushmore that you mentioned. I have a similar perspective.

Luke Storey: [00:47:36] Dude, you got to make a shirt of that.

JP Sears: [00:47:38] Mount Evil Rushmore. Maybe I will. And just so it doesn't sound abstract, my definition of evil is anyone who tries to control another person in a way that's not in their best interest. I look at those four guys, I do truly believe, based on my discernment, they're expressing evil. They're expressing control in a way that's not in people's best interest. They might be convinced it's in people's best interest. I'm open to that. But to me, it's expressing evil. 

And so what I think about is part of the-- speaks specifically about the man's psychology. A lot of people know about the four archetypes. There's a wonderful book called King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, amazing book. I highly recommend it. So I look at the lover in the warrior archetype. For me, the lover can look at George Soros with compassion and through compassionate eyes, I don't see the withered old man, but what his face tells you about his life story, that's interesting. 

But seeing beyond that to what's most likely a very hurt young child, baby, I'd imagine wasn't held enough. I imagine didn't feel loved. He's probably spending his life compensating for how unloved he felt. So my lover part with the compassion, I see that in George Soros. But then there's also the warrior who looks at the outer shell of him today. He says, do this, and my warrior says, "Fuck you." 

And the inner lover also looks at his inner child simultaneously and says, I can see you've been through so much pain, so much pain you can't comprehend it. You're probably numb. To me, those have to happen simultaneously. Otherwise, we spiritually bypass our own warrior energy, which is just as important in the name of always being compassionate. Being a doormat isn't compassion. So for me, having that warrior energy is very important with that compassionate lens.
And sometimes I'm out of balance, and sometimes it's like, hey, this situation calls for 90% warrior. Maybe this situation calls for 90% lover. But I like to look at it through the lens of those archetypes, king, warrior, magician, lover, and do my best to have all of those online. And sometimes one will need to be in the driver's seat, sometimes another one.

Luke Storey: [00:50:21] I like that. That's really good. Yeah. These are the things that keep me up at night. How to reconcile different ways that I see and hold my life experience. Because I do. I see the suffering in a Hillary Clinton. Yeah. And then there's another side of me that's like, fuck you. You're corrupt. It's not right. You're dishonest.

JP Sears: [00:50:49] This might be an oversimplification, but whether it's Hillary Clinton or whoever it is, all the corruption, I speculate that that's a compensation for undealt with pain. And to me, the fuck you is appropriately addressed to fuck the way you're compensating, but I honor you as the person.

Luke Storey: [00:51:11] There you go.

JP Sears: [00:51:11] Which, by the way, I've never seen you as the person on camera, Hillary. I don't know that you've ever seen the real you as a person, but we know she's in there and I honor her. I will not honor the way you compensate for your undealt with pain and your wounded heart.

Luke Storey: [00:51:28] Amen, brother. I have a secret fantasy wherein you know how we have this geoengineering spraying in the sky, which unbelievably people still think is a conspiracy theory. But you could literally just look up if you have two eyes in your head that are functional. But I have this fantasy where we take military helicopters and we just crop dust DC with DMT. And we just make them all face their shit. Make them all go through the shadow.

JP Sears: [00:52:00] Ayahuasca in the water supply in DC.

Luke Storey: [00:52:04] Something extreme.

JP Sears: [00:52:04] It's so good.

Luke Storey: [00:52:06] If the CIA or FBI is listening, I'm totally kidding.

JP Sears: [00:52:09] Yeah. No, he's not. I would never do that.

JP Sears: [00:52:11] I hear a knock at the door, Luke.

Luke Storey: [00:52:13] When you were doing, you know V1 JP content, It's all fun and games, new Age, spiritual stuff. Um, not a lot of risk involved there in terms of censorship being canceled, etc. When you started to see the tyranny that I think has been in play in the shadows for decades and is now in the age of convid, there's a con, they're not co for those not paying attention, um, it's everything that guys like David Icke and Alex Jones we're talking about 30 years ago and sounded super crazy. 

Maybe there were a couple of threads of truth in there, and then you see it all actually happening. I think it's just what's been happening, the way the world works. And it's just been revealed because they've played their hand in such an aggressive way. 

But when you started to see that this was blatantly moving into this tyrannical realm that we find ourselves in now, how did you summon the courage and take the risk in terms of your social media platform and all of that to be so outspoken? I mean, were there moments where you thought about, oh, what about my bank account or how people are going to view me and my wife?

JP Sears: [00:53:27] Yeah. There were certainly moments of fear thinking about what could I lose. And I think it was April 2020 when it became clear this freedom's actually a political issue. It's an issue that divides people. And there's the rationalizations why less freedom's good and just rationalizations nonetheless. But at that time, it was very clear to me I was being called to be a voice to help awaken people, to protect, preserve and celebrate the greatest God given gift we'll ever be given, which is our freedom. 

And then right in that sweet spot, April 7th, 2020, that's the day I found out my wife was pregnant. And that woke up a, I'll push all the chips into the middle of the table part of me where I realized like, there's a conversation I'm never willing to have with my son one day where I have to explain to him two things. One, what freedom was in. And two, why his father didn't do shit about it while he had a chance and do not something about it. 

I realize I'm one small person with a little impact, but nonetheless, I'm a cell in the body of humanity. I'm either going to do my part or not based on what I'm called to. But the fear was there of like, oh, I was always told, never get political. And now freedom, it's like, holy hell, very divisive. And part of speaking up about freedom is like not believing the propaganda about COVID and some of the other things.

So it's very divisive, very inflamed, mixing Biden, Trump, elections coming up, very inflamed time. So the fear of I could lose my audience, I could get de-platformed, my income could dry up. But I realized, yes, I'm scared of that, but that's not going to alter my decision. I came to a place where I said I'm willing to lose what I have. And then what I realized after doing that for a while, oh, if you're not afraid to lose what you have, you are not controllable. 

You just aren't. Who's controlling you is your soul. Whoever it is that's feeding us our life direction, they're the ones you're serving. You'll serve nobody else if you're not afraid to lose what could be taken away. And then in context as well, I love to hang around friends who are in the military or veterans because it helps me realize I don't have problems. My fear of, I could get de-platformed from YouTube, that's not a real problem. 

I'm not on the battlefield. This isn't bravery. It's artificial bravery. I'm saying words. I'm representing things. There's no bullets flying. There's nobody trying to take my life. So having that in perspective too was very helpful. And then that was the fear. I could lose it all, but I'm going to do it anyway. But then the reality has it that it's been the best thing I've ever done for my business.

It didn't do it for the business. It's just, oh, representing truth as I see it. My audience grew exponentially. And I think a lesson in there that's not just for me, I do think it's a lesson for everybody, when you're willing to risk staying aligned with your truth, what you're being called to serve life will reward you. Now, I can't predict how life is going to reward you, nor can I-- there's probably going to be pain along the way as well. I'm not going to minimize that.

But I realize, oh, life rewards you when you are willing to stand for what you believe. And I think life diminishes you when you're not willing to risk it. You'll have the illusion of still having all the things that could be taken away. But realizing even though you have all those things, you have nothing because you feel empty inside, because you're not living your hero's journey, you're not listening to what wants to live through you and having the courage to express it through you. And I would say that's principally where inner fulfillment comes from. 

So no matter how much you have that isn't going to be taken away, that doesn't fill us up. But being the life warrior who's willing to risk losing everything in the name of serving your call, then you're a rich man, no matter how much they take away from you.

Luke Storey: [00:58:08] God, and just the feeling-- I mean, I've probably done-- I'm sure I've done this in my life. I can't think of a time that the world's never presented me with these starkly contrasted options in terms of you're either on this side of the thing or you're on that side of the thing. But I can't imagine the shame and embarrassment I would feel as this thing unfolded, I pretended like I didn't have an opinion. 

I mean, how would I sleep at night? Or even more so if I allowed myself to sell out to it, and especially around the mRNA failed gene therapy technology. I remember getting an email probably mid-2020 from a PR company in LA offering me money to promote that experimental fake medication. And I was like, what? I mean, I'm just like-- I think I was actually crafting a really snarky email back, if I recall right.

Alyson would have to-- and I pretty sure, as is usually the case when I'm about to do something stupid or less than conscious, Alyson is like, dude, don't do that. And I believe she was like, honey, you don't need to email them back and show them how evil and stupid they are. And I resisted. 

But I remember in that moment going, holy shit. If they asked me who's someone who I got-- I've been podcasting at that point since April 2020 with people who are exposing all this stuff, and you're asking me to be on your side, I mean, oh my God, how many people like me took the money and are now sitting there going, oops, we're watching people just keel over left and right.

And who knows what we're going to see in the next 5 to 10 years, the failure of this experiment. God, what a shitty feeling that must have been and would continue to be if you know, and even if it's just a still small voice inside, it's like something's off, but I don't want to lose what I have, or I want to get that money, or I want to go along with the popular opinion and just not make waves. And then as everything starts to get exposed, to look back and go, oh, my God, I failed a massive test.

JP Sears: [01:00:25] Yeah. Yes. And it's all forgivable. And I think the easiest forgivable part is people who had an opinion but were wrong, I think the self forgiveness would be harder. You have an opinion, but you contort yourself in a way of being disingenuous where I'm going to do an ad for the mRNA shot, even though it feels like something's off for me, but I'll take the money and also that's going along with the current thing. So that's cool. 

So violating that inner truth, I'd imagine that self forgiveness is going to be more challenging to come by for some people. But what I think is very forgivable is people who fell for the scam. I understand they're humans. To me the propaganda-- you know Mikki Willis, he has a term called weaponized morality. And I love Mickey's perspective on this, so I'm going to totally plagiarize it, come across like it's my own original thought so I can be a brighter, more well-respected person. 

So my original thought is the propaganda works on good, kind people. It appeals to their good nature. Hey, you're a good person. You want to do the right thing, don't you? Not, hey, you're stupid, corrupt, weak, and controllable, so here's-- no. It preys on good people. And it's, in my opinion, a deeply designed, devious psychological ploy that gets people to go along with the current thing, the mRNA thing, whatever it is. 

And if someone fell for it and then they had their rationalizations why, and they're a caring person, so that was probably expressed through passion and advocacy, sometimes maybe they got a little dirty with rage, but who amongst us doesn't? to me, that's very forgivable. Some of the strongest people I've seen in the past few months, I mean, especially since the film Died Suddenly came out, I see people left and right coming out and basically owning it. 

They're like, hey, I was someone who was saying, lock up the unvaccinated, and you know what, I was wrong and I'm sorry. Dude, that's so inspirational, so admirable and forgiven instantly, for me at least. So I love when I see people-- and I guess the difference is someone who was earnestly for something wrong versus someone who was for something wrong, but it felt off to them.

Luke Storey: [01:03:11] I mean, any one of us that have-- I think you and I share a pretty similar perspective on all of that of that particular issue. I mean, I could have also blown it off, had David Icke on my podcast and all the other people that I did that exposed the whole thing as being fraudulent. And then it turned out to be a real thing and people were just dropping dead all over and getting sick and the medicines were effective and actually working. And I'd be sitting there going, oh God, I feel like an asshole. 

I was telling people, don't take this seriously. It's all a scam. And turns out it was the worst pandemic we've ever seen. So I mean, it could have gone the other way. I think so far the results are in and it's pretty obvious to most of us, I think that if it wasn't the full de-population conspiracy that I happen to, for the most part believe it is, that definitely the official story had holes in it. 

It's like 9/11. I don't know what happened on 9/11. What I do know is that I have two eyes and a fairly functional brain, and there's no evidence of a plane ever hitting the Pentagon. And there is no reason why Building 7 imploded on itself without ever being hit by an airplane.

JP Sears: [01:04:23] Very well-engineered implosion. Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:04:25] So I don't know what happened, who did it, who was involved, inside job, call it whatever you want, I just know something was off. And that's where we are with all of this stuff now. I don't fucking know. And to pretend like I know is ridiculous. Only the people that are doing it, the perpetrators of this whole thing know. There are many people and actually, probably a very few people at the very top of the pyramid that have access to the big plan know the whole thing. And the rest of us are just like, don't know, it's off.

JP Sears: [01:04:52] Yeah, it feels off. We feel what's not true. We don't know exactly what is true, but it's easier to feel when something's off and not true. You know what I was thinking about the other day? Because I'd imagine when we're 80, we'll look back on our beliefs during this time, I guarantee you we're wrong about something. We're not right about everything, you and I. So I was thinking, like how we'll crucify Klaus Schwab in our minds, like how you're George Soros, Klaus Schwab, ugh.

Luke Storey: [01:05:23] They're my voodoo dolls.

JP Sears: [01:05:24] Yeah. And then sometimes I think about how in the Bible people crucify Jesus. What if we're those guys and Klaus Schwab's actually the Jesus character, here to do so much good, but we're just like, no, he's an evil, bad person. Just like whatever they thought when they--

Luke Storey: [01:05:43] We want to conserve our old-time ways.

JP Sears: [01:05:47] Yeah. Well, I don't think we're wrong, but what if not?

Luke Storey: [01:05:49] What if it's 2035, we have these utopian smart cities, and you don't have to work anymore? You just sit there and eat ice cream, and have free sex, and everyone's happy. There's no more violence. And we're all eating bugs and they're delicious. And we look at each other as old men and go, damn, we blew it.

JP Sears: [01:06:05] I hope Klaus is right. I hope we're wrong. I don't think so, based on my current knowledge.

Luke Storey: [01:06:11] Have you seen the video of this plan for the Smart City in Saudi Arabia?

JP Sears: [01:06:15] I have. That super narrow-- 

Luke Storey: [01:06:20] That prison. Yeah.

JP Sears: [01:06:21] You're going to live there and be happy about it.

Luke Storey: [01:06:23] We're going to take a whole city and smush it into an even smaller footprint, and you'll all live there and never have to leave nor can you leave, probably.

JP Sears: [01:06:31] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:06:33] What would you say to someone listening? Because I get these messages a lot. I'm sure you get even more of them because your content is so focused on these issues from someone who is the black sheep of their family, is considered the nut, is the lone wolf, maybe has a smaller social media platform and is afraid of being outspoken or speaking their truth. What would you say to someone who's having a difficult time asserting themselves regardless of how big their audience is?

JP Sears: [01:07:05] Yeah, I'll answer that with a quick story that shaped the hell out of me. And it's going to shape how I actually answer the question directly for people who feel like they're the black sheep of their family. When I was 15 years old, going into my sophomore year of high school, I had an absolutely life-shaping event. Still influences how I am today. And what that event was is I quit playing high school football. It sounds like an easy decision. Who cares? 

It was a really big deal for me because I played in middle school, then freshman year of high school. I was a great player, two-way starter on the junior varsity team, earned my varsity letter. But once I was in high school, the coach behaved like a tyrant. And oddly enough, today I'm pretty allergic to tyranny, so I understand why I didn't like his behavior. So football wasn't fun. And during the season I would dread, and I'm not exaggerating, I would dread going to practices, made it through the season, whatever. 

I perform well on the field, but hated my experience because it was not a fun environment. It was tyrannical. So then when the season was over, my freshman year, I was already dreading. Damn it, in nine months I'm going to have to play football again. And I took my freedom. I no way gave myself permission to just not play football because I was small town in Ohio. High school football mattered to people for some reason, and their approval mattered to me. My mom's approval being one of them. And I got social status by being a good football player. 

But then that summer, several weeks before practice was set to start, it just clicked in me, no, I have permission to quit. I can do that. It's weird. Well, why am I able to quit when I wasn't for all this time in my mind? So that night I told my mom I was not going to go back out for football. She broke down crying. She was yelling at me. She got social status from being a football mom.

Luke Storey: [01:09:23] That's what I was thinking. I wasn't going to say it, but okay.

JP Sears: [01:09:26] She's a human, and it's all good now. But it was very tough at the time. And then the next day, I called the coach, let him know I'm not going back out, and I got nothing but resistance. I was absolutely the black sheep because I was riding the horse of my heart. My heart was like, I don't want to play football. And I knew this is a life-shaping experience for me because the coach, my mom, they orchestrated all these community members to be calling me. I was getting calls from older players. 

Some of them friendly, encouraging me like, I know you said you want to quit, but really it's not too late. And others were trying to intimidate me into it. And I realized if I go back on my decision, that's going to shape me as a person for the rest of my life. But if I stay true to my decision, that's going to shape me for the rest of my life. And I'm so proud of my 15-year-old self for staying true to his decision of football is not for me. I don't care how much ridicule I get. It's not for me. 

So looking at that and how vital that was in shaping me, what I would say to someone who's the black sheep in their family, their friend group, in the parlance of our times, which you become a black sheep pretty quick if you don't go along with the herd, my advice would be, tolerate the discomfort. 

If you're willing to tolerate the sweat lodge of your own feelings, what it means to you to not be accepted, ridiculed, people trying to change you, sometimes people getting angry at you, if you can stay in the fucking sweat lodge, hold the line of your own feelings, tolerate your own feelings, you're going to emerge from that sweat lodge a new person.
So with that, I would also share it feels bad to be a black sheep, but it doesn't mean it's bad for you. It's purifying for you. You're in the fiery flames of a life-shaping experience. And the call is, be true to yourself or not. Either way, the consequences are going to be yours to live. And as you're true to yourself, my advice would be, focus primarily on your truth and representing what's important for you. If you want to drive yourself insane, go ahead and try to change people's minds. 

But instead of doing that, I would recommend as you stay aligned with your truth, feeling the flames in your sweat lodge, love other people. Don't worry about agreeing. Don't worry about disagreeing. Yeah, it'll be some of that bickering. But true love accepts another person for who they are without the need to change them. That is the higher ground. That is what we need more of in our individual lives and the world as a whole. 

So being a black sheep, you're called to be a bigger person than your lower self wants you to be. Can you be the person who loves other people and accepts them without the need to change them even if they want to change you? Then you not even changing their desire to change you is part of love. If that's where they're at, so be it. So fucking uncomfortable. But the question for the warrior spirit inside of you is, can you tolerate the heat or are you going to leave the sweat lodge?

Luke Storey: [01:13:09] That's amazing. Yeah, I love that you brought in the piece of trying to change other people. I get a lot of messages from people around the convid issue in particular and to take the medicine or not and all that. And a lot of people are like, ah, it's drive me crazy. I can't convince my family. I've had them listen to your podcast or whatever. Watching your videos, I'm sure yours are shared all the time. Here, watch this guy. Look, believe like I believe. 

And it's like, dude, we don't want people doing that to us. And so it's like, you can lead a horse to water. And maybe what you're saying is just like, own your black sheep-idness, and just stay in your lane, and unconditionally love those people that don't understand you. And by the example of you being in your integrity, maybe some awakening will happen in the periphery.

JP Sears: [01:14:05] Amen to that. And I'm allergic to tyrants. I look at Justin Trudeau or any of our favorite--

Luke Storey: [01:14:13] Oh God, I forgot him. 

JP Sears: [01:14:13] He's great. 

Luke Storey: [01:14:15] Maybe because I'm not Canadian and he doesn't seem to be infringing on us. Whereas these other multifaceted global entities do have means by which to affect our life boat.

JP Sears: [01:14:27]  We do get affected. So you pick your favorite tyrant and--

Luke Storey: [01:14:30] It's hard to pick. There's so many.

JP Sears: [01:14:34] I think Trudeau boils my blood more than anyone else. I don't know why. Probably because I'm like him and I'm in denial. But when you mentioned wanting to change a loved one's mind, dude, don't take the medicine, that's us being the tyrant. It's us trying to dictate to them. Yes, well-intended, but tyrants see nonetheless. Can we meet them at a higher level? We become a better vibration, something better than tyranny. 

When we can love the person, maybe lead them by the example and that horse will either drink the water or not. God gave them their free will. That's probably not an accident. But it's so easy for loving people to become the tyrant energy without knowing it. Their love and their care, that can motivate them to shapeshift into the tyrant and they don't even see it. I don't even see it. Most of the time when I'm doing it, I probably do it way too much.

Luke Storey: [01:15:32] I find myself doing it sometimes with my wife by wanting to control the food she eats and what supplements she takes. And thankfully, it's been pointed out to me. I'll ask you if I want help. And then when she asks, I'm like, oh, finally. Oh, God. Okay, take this, this, this, this, this. But I learned that early on in the relationship and in past relationships, too. You're out to dinner with a date and you're like, really? You're going to eat the canola oil? Okay, I'm just saying.

JP Sears: [01:16:03] If that's where you're at.

Luke Storey: [01:16:05] Yeah. But I think it's fun to observe these things within ourselves, to see our own projections. And in that example, because I've examined this in particular. My defense would be, well, I love her, I care about her, and I'm looking after her well-being, and it comes off as control. And that's true. But what part of that is my own self-preservation and me not wanting to feel the pain of her getting ill or her health failing down the road and how that's going to affect me. 

It's like, where does that control really come from? What's the fear? Yeah, I'm going to-- I don't want to lose someone or have them get sick or have to deal with their health problems or whatever. You know what I mean? I don't have to drive you to dialysis.

JP Sears: [01:16:56] That's going to be inconvenient on me.

Luke Storey: [01:16:58] So it's just, I don't know, it's fun. It's fun being a person, man. And it's even more fun just, I mean, I think that's why I love humor. I like laughing at all of this. And I love laughing at myself, seeing the ways in which I'm tyrants on other people. 

But I wanted to get to another point of the same peice here. And that is so many people have literally just lost contact with their family, these black sheep, because they have a contrarian perspective. And I mean, I hear from people all the time, I lost my entire friend group.
A lot of people that moved to Austin are those people. They're like, yeah, I was living in New York City and I had no friends because they all basically banished me for not supporting the current thing. Having a Ukraine flag in their bio or whatever, not adopting bizarre pronouns, etc. And I think, wow, that's sad. But I always look at it, of course, because I'm not them feeling the loss of those intimate relationships that it's like, what a blessing it is to have the wheat separated from the chaff. 

It's like consciousness itself is acknowledging your own integrity and just stripping away people with whom you're no longer aligned. And there's a grieving in that, I'm sure. But on the other side of that I think there's so much benefit because now you have the opportunity to know who you are and where you really lack fundamental alignment with some of the closest relationship in your life. And now we have an opportunity to really find the people with whom we align. 

I mean, not that you've got to agree with everyone, but that you at least share some of the fundamental values, like you stated, one of your core value is freedom. So how are you going to be in a close social network with people in your life and your family that don't at least have that somewhere in their top three? It's not going to be a match. 

So I don't know. I guess, again, what would you say to people that are like, wow, I'm all alone and I don't have any friends and my family won't let me come visit because they think I'm going to kill granny? And how do you start over? And how do you find your people?

JP Sears: [01:19:13] Yeah. I think especially with the friends, because family obviously that's really hard. But friends, not that that's easy, but with friends, I think it's important to have a mindset shift, go from this is a curse, they all banished me to what's the blessing of this curse? Oh, the branch has been pruned. And maybe the lack of acceptance and division that caused the friends to push you out, you are not standing up for Ukraine right now. Why are you sitting down, Luke? That's terrible. Stand for Ukraine. That's going to make a difference. 

Luke Storey: [01:19:13] I mean, I should be taking a knee technically right now. 

JP Sears: [01:19:54] Take a knee for the anthem, but stand for Ukraine. Just up, down, up, down.

Luke Storey: [01:19:58] I mean, how do you even keep track of this shit?

JP Sears: [01:20:00] So it's like--

Luke Storey: [01:20:01] Oh, God.

JP Sears: [01:20:01] I think a mindset shift of you didn't lose friends you lost the illusion of friends. Because a true friend will love you no matter what you stand for or not, or agree or disagree. So I think when people lost friends and it's obviously a real phenomenon and pain, and even though I'm putting a positive opportunity to look at it when I acknowledge it's very painful, but I think true friendships are connections at the heart. And that's why I don't think it's important to be around like-minded people. I think it's important to be around like-hearted people. 

And similar to what you mentioned, I think we know we're around like-hearted people when we share similar values. Like minded is basically like, hey, we need to agree on everything here, but you can have similar values. One of my best friends, we're like-hearted, but not like-minded in a lot of ways. And we have a value for freedom, loving, kindness, family. And he voted for Biden. I voted for Trump in the last election. There is no division between us because our friendship isn't formed at the mental level. 

It's formed at the heart. Though he voted differently than I did, his motivation came from the same values that created my motivation. So we have so much respect for each other. So losing the illusion of friends makes an opportunity for real friendships to connect. And like any past painful experience, a little reflection will create progress. So okay, what did I learn from these friendships that turned out to be shallow and shitty? Okay, maybe we were more at the agreement level.
How can I find friends that are more like-hearted and share similar values? And one of my values is acceptance rather than rejection, rather than division. So I think there's some positives. And then my family and I, we think similar and different on some things. But luckily in my family there's been no division, no attempts at coercion. Believe this, or you're the black sheep. First off, I can't imagine what the hell that's like. And I do know that it's important. 

We're living in a time where people are being called to either be true to themselves or experience the consequences of betraying themselves. And sometimes connection with family is a consequence. So, I mean, it's unfortunate, yet it's a reality. And I do think it's one of the ways life is testing some people. But I won't pretend to have much perspective on the family thing because I haven't lived through that and I don't want to completely talk about it when it's not.

Luke Storey: [01:22:55] It's got to be brutal. And I get those reflections a lot. And having not gone through it myself and incidentally, I haven't lost any friends during this whole period either. And a couple of them and I didn't even think about this until you just kind of framed it in the heart alignment versus thinking the same exact way about everything. I have two really great friends back in LA who must not listen to my podcast and elected to do the therapy, the experimental therapy. And I was frankly saddened by that and feared for their safety. 

Well, they might listen now. Sorry, guys. I didn't say anything, but they already did it. And I'm just like, hey, live and let live. They know my position and our relationship has not changed at all for me at least. And not that I can tell from them, other than I have a little bit of concern about their well-being. 

But yeah, I remember hearing from so many people. I lost all my friends, and I thought I must have done something right prior to this in building my friend network because they all know what a kook I am and they just love me anyway, whether I'm right or wrong about these issues or not.

JP Sears: [01:24:06] And knowing you as a person, I mean, my judgment of you is before the plandemic, you had already done a lot of work with yourself to be a very heart-centered person. And I think the plandemic, the gift of it for some people was, hey, you haven't done the work to be a heart-centered person, but guess what, you're ready. So this friend group doesn't support heart-centered people, so the branch is going to be pruned, and you're going to have the opportunity to step into heart-based connections with your community. 

I think you had already done that. I seemingly had already done that. I also didn't lose any friends. I have friends we disagree on things. But there's there was never a threat of loss of friendship because they were already heart-based connections, real friendships, not the illusion of friendships.

Luke Storey: [01:25:03] Yeah. And also I think there's something to aligning yourself with people who perceive themselves and perceive you as something bigger and deeper than your opinions or beliefs about the world.

JP Sears: [01:25:19] Meaning they perceive you and not just the thoughts.

Luke Storey: [01:25:21] Yeah. And so maybe if you're someone like me and you who are doing some work to disconnect from our false identities of who we are, that you're just going to be around people that are also doing that if you spend a couple of decades meditating. What are you doing? You're learning how to become objective and witness the phenomena of your personality and all of its iterations and expressions. And so you start to get the sense, well, I'm not even this guy that has these opinions that I share on social media. 

I'm something much bigger than that. So I'm not looking at myself from that limited perspective hence, I don't look at other people that way. And they're attracted to being in my field and mine in theirs. So don't look at them that way either. So if my friend back in LA, trusts Fauci, and trusts the science, and goes to the doctor and does the thing, my relationship with that person is not based on their opinions. It's based on who and what they really are, which is a really fundamentally beautiful person who just happens to have a different mentation on a few issues.

JP Sears: [01:26:30] Yeah, and that reminds me of the beautiful saying that we were talking about before we started recording of don't believe everything you think. And I think not believing everything you think makes you much easier to connect to as a person. Whereas if someone not only believes everything they think, but they believe they are what they think, then anytime you're thinking runs contrary to their thinking, their self-preservation is like, well, I might die if my belief is wrong. 

So I'm not going to let your questioning threaten my life, which is my belief, which is all bullshit. But that's like the reaction people have. So I think that it sounds lackadaisical, but it's just a sense of non-attachment. Don't believe everything you think, and also don't believe that you are what you think.

Luke Storey: [01:27:21] Yeah, so good. And also one tool that I can offer, the saying like, oh, I never talk politics at the dinner table. I mean, really though, if you're in a family system or a friend group and you do one love one another, but you know that there's certain hot button topics, if you can surrender your desire to control other people's beliefs and thoughts and just stop doing that, just evading conversations in general where you just know there's going to be conflict and that conflict is not going to be resolved with everyone coming over to your side and suddenly thinking and feeling the way that you do.

I mean, I have people in the periphery of my life share dramatically different views. And I just know, why even talk about those issues? We already know we disagree. So why even engage in a disagreement? Let's talk about the things upon which we agree. And sometimes that's like, wow, nice day, huh? Sometimes you're just left to surface communication because you know that anything beyond that is going to venture into no man's land and the hot-button topics that aren't going to really serve either party.

JP Sears: [01:28:34] Having that wise discernment, it makes sense to me. On my drive over, I was listening to a Tony Robbin's audio and he's talking about relationship success or lack thereof, and he's referencing these relationship experts. I forget their names, but they were saying the vast majority of arguments in relationships are never resolved. They never come to a completion of like, oh, you were right, I was wrong or no, we conclude, I was right. You were wrong. 

He said, the successful relationships, they don't resolve arguments, at least not most of them. They simply have an ethos of agreeing to disagree. So that ethos of sitting around the dinner table like, oh, you voted for so-and-so, I voted for the opposite guy. Cool. I know what you think and I accept that's what you think. And hopefully, you can accept what I think. I think the only difference is, or opportunity for otherwise, is if there's a genuine field of curiosity where it's like, oh, you voted for the opposite guy, I want to understand more. 

Very different than the agenda of I want to change your mind. But a lot of us, we're not sitting around the dinner table with family and extended family in a field of curiosity, just wanting to understand each other. So I think that that common sense of like, yeah, don't step on the landmines. Sometimes you just don't want to do that.

Luke Storey: [01:30:09] Very much so. All right. So here we sit in the beginning months of 2023 at the time of this recording, I think, I don't know, maybe this is probably going too far. But I was going to say most people, but I'd say many people now realize that masks were a failure. Social distancing was a failure. Lockdowns were a failure. The recommended medical intervention has been a failure. The whole thing has been a failure. Do you feel any satisfaction in being vindicated as someone who has essentially held the same views on key issues like that from the beginning? Or do you just feel sad because you were right?

JP Sears: [01:30:52] That's a great question. It's more I feel sad that I was right. So much of the time along the way I would say I hope I'm wrong. The world would actually be a better place if I was wrong about my perspectives of what's going on. And there's certain things that you mentioned that are pretty objectively where we could be vindicated if we wanted. But yeah, I mean, personally, I don't take any satisfaction of, oh, I was right. It's more just like, oh, that's sad that someone would try to do all this and there's more work to be done. But I'm curious how you feel about the same question.

Luke Storey: [01:31:37] I mean, if I'm being totally honest, there is a part of me that's like, I fucking told you. I mean, it's like, dude. It just seems so obvious to me. I don't know. Maybe it's because I was red-pilled by 9/11. I mean, that was really the thing where I was like, all right, hold up. If this story, such a big story, historical story has so many blatant holes in it, what else are they lying to us about and have lied to us about? And that just-- I mean, I'm an OG conspiracy analyst. 

So to me, it's just like after a couple of weeks of seeing all the bodies falling like a zombie movie in China, I'm just like, no, no, no, no, no. And then when you see the measures make no sense, there's no recommendations for exercise, getting outdoors, a healthy diet, being around loved ones, taking care of your immune system, if the powers that be truly cared, they would be offering some advice that had some substance.

And so very early on I was just like, no, all this is bullshit. I'm not having it. And so that's been my position, and hopefully been compassionate about the people that have-- I always say, I know people have fallen ill. I don't know what it was and what test they took. And if that test is real, God bless you. If you've lost a friend or if you've been sick, I mean, truly, I'm not just adding that caveat to get myself off the hook. I don't know. 

But I do know that whatever we've been told is bullshit. So there is a part of me that's like, told you guys, wake the fuck up. But more than anything, I mean, truly in my heart, it's just like, oh, man, this is sad. So many people have been harmed by this whole agenda. Then if I can zoom myself out perhaps to a little higher perspective, I also know that we're not able to assume the perspective of what happens on the other side of this. 

And I'm getting glimpses of this now. I mean, look at the numbers you have. You have a million followers or something on Instagram, and you're doing videos about this. I think that the net effect of all this as much loss and suffering and death as we've seen and we'll continue to see, I really also see it as a tipping point. So beyond whether or not I told you so, or like, oh, God, this is the worst thing ever, it's like, let's just wait and see. 

It's like the great Shakespeare quote, "There's no such thing as good or bad, only thinking makes it so." And so if I can remain objective and somewhat neutral, then I can start to see this as, wow, this is a rough portal for humanity to go through. But there are many positives to it. I mean, I go on social media and I see kids in their 20s talking about the Bilderberg Group and the Rothschilds and like all this shit that used to just be relegated to the total tinfoil hat kook realm of conspiracy theorists. 

Now, 30 years later, you see, wow, many of them were right about many things. And you have vast numbers of conscious, intelligent, awake people going, no, there has to be another way. So that part of it excites me, just to see people just asking questions. Just that.

JP Sears: [01:35:09] Which I think is part of the awakening that this portal is offering. And similarly, I look at it like we've just been through a forest fire and I don't know is the fire going to get way more intense or is it actually fizzling out? But I think this forest fire, just like in nature, we think they're bad. But no, forest fires are actually natural and they probably suck in the moment, but it's actually good for the forest.

Luke Storey: [01:35:39] Great analogy. So you're looking at the two days after the forest fire. Like, oh, my God, it's all over.

JP Sears: [01:35:45] The birds lost their nests.

Luke Storey: [01:35:46] And then in 50 years, you look at this thriving.

JP Sears: [01:35:48] Way more lush. But we burn away so much trust that didn't deserve to be in the people, systems, and companies that so many people place their trust in. And so much of that got burnt away. So many people were outsourcing their thinking without knowing it, but so much of that got burnt away. So cool. I can't trust the news now. Pretty irrefutable. It's not a secret. It doesn't deserve our trust. 

So that got burned away. Cool. No more critical thinking and insourcing our news rather than outsourcing our perspectives. That's starting to grow in this forest as it's being reborn again. I think there are so many gifts.

Luke Storey: [01:36:31] I mean, think about the censorship. Imagine how many people would be awakening to a greater level of understanding of who runs the world and how they run it if there had been no censorship, I mean, so much has leaked through, even with just such oppression and suppression of information, of the sharing of ideas. I mean, it's still bubbling out to where I don't think they can ever put the genie back in the bottle.

JP Sears: [01:37:01] Right. But the fact that even this, we all see the censorship, but just that being present, isn't that also an awakening force? Even though it's suppressing the individual nuances of information, we realize, oh, we see the hand of censorship and we see it's attached to something. So I think that even stimulates more awakening.

Luke Storey: [01:37:25] Yeah. It's like the human curiosity. No, don't look over here. Don't look over here. What's over there? Yeah. What do you think is an example of the most egregious censorship? What's one topic that has just had the most negative impact that has been suppressed?

JP Sears: [01:37:47] I think the big one is the mRNA technology. I mean, it's literally life and death for some people. I think the big tech companies and their censorship people and algorithms, they 100% have blood on their hands. And to me, that's the most egregious. It's a medical decision with a very questionable medication, but it's a medical decision. Since when is a person's health and their condition not between them and their doctor? 

Since when is it Facebook's? When did Facebook become anybody's primary care physician? They don't even know your vital signs. They have no business and no medical knowledge, let alone no authority to alter and shape the flow of medical thoughts on your choices. So for me, that's the lowest hanging fruit, but also the most devious fruit.

Luke Storey: [01:38:58] Yeah, I think so too. That would be it for me. And that piece is so interesting because when you look at people that have been placed in positions of authority like Bill Gates being a great example, they've propped someone like that up who is not a doctor, who is not a scientist and is now the arbiter of cutting edge medicine. And like, how do people not notice that we're being dictated to by someone who has no qualifications yet at the same time, guy like me or you that have equally low experience and knowledge will be de-platformed by expressing the opposite point of view?

JP Sears: [01:39:38] Have you seen what happens when you Google who is the world's best doctor?

Luke Storey: [01:39:43] No.

JP Sears: [01:39:44] All the top results are Bill Gates.

JP Sears: [01:39:47] Oh, my God. Are you serious?

JP Sears: [01:39:48] Someone posted that on Instagram. I'm like, I actually don't believe it, but I'm going to try it. All the search results on Google, world's best doctor, all the top ones are Bill Gates. He's not a doctor. Certainly not the world's best doctor, but no doctor, no medical education whatsoever. It is wild.

Luke Storey: [01:40:09] Wow. Have you experienced any threatening censorship? I mean, I know the way you do things is so intelligent because you're using satire and oftentimes stating, in terms of the algorithm and the bots picking up the words that you're saying, you're stating the status quo of the current thing. I mean, so it's brilliant, but everyone watching is like, duh, we know what you're really saying. But have you had situations wherein you've had videos nixed from YouTube or been kicked off Facebook or anything like that?

JP Sears: [01:40:43] Yeah. I no longer post any videos on Facebook because I think two years ago they gave me a very stern warning, "Your page is on the verge of being banned for repeated community guideline violations," which of course I know what that means even though I just know I'm not going along with the narrative enough. But I didn't want to lose my Facebook page. It's like, that's not my hill to die on. And if they don't want my content, I'm fine with that. 

And then YouTube, there's certainly been a handful or two of videos that have been taken down. Not de-platformed, but a lot of people, they'll ask me like, dude, [Inaudible] three years, how have you not been de-platformed with what you talk about? And for me as a creator, the censorship is fun because it's now a dance partner with all my content. I am dancing with censorship. 

So using the language of satire or it's like, hey, with our mRNA technology, I've got things to say about that, but literally I can't say them, so how am I going to say what I can't say? Well, I can express that through metaphors and analogies. That's part of how I dance with the dance partner of censorship.

Luke Storey: [01:42:01] What if the overlords of big tech hear this interview and are like, no, fuck you.

JP Sears: [01:42:06] So I've wondered about that because I've said this before.

Luke Storey: [01:42:09] We're letting your secret out. And they're like, oh, we need to fix the algorithm here, so we know what he's really saying.

JP Sears: [01:42:16] I've come to, I guess, accept. I do this self-censorship on YouTube and dance with censorship. I just know it's a way I can reach people. So I'm either going to not censor and get de-platformed or I'm going to dance with censorship and stay on for as long as I can. But off my YouTube channel is like, I will speak my truth out loud. I'm not going to self-censor it. I have thought about that like, dude, what if they do hear it? It's like, yeah, if they do, then maybe they act on it. And if so, it's not like I don't think it's an outrageous possibility.

Luke Storey: [01:42:54] Well, that's an interesting risk benefit analysis that I think many of us have undertaken. With me, it's like I found my own way to stay above board and still be outspoken. Unfortunately, I'm not as funny as you, so I haven't been able to go fully that route. But I get a sense of what I can say and what I can't say. And then I've questioned myself, well, am I out of integrity? Why don't I just say all the things and just nuke my entire platform? And it's not so much about, ooh, then how would I make a living or something? It's just like, well, then I won't reach anyone.

So then what am I? Just have people over to my house, three people at a time that I don't know and be like, hey, come in, let me share my point of view with you? So it's like finding the compromise within me, even though I fundamentally loathe these companies that I'm using to get my message out. But how else would I get it out? And then am I-- in other words, is the net benefit of me having to be a little strategic about the way that I get what I want to say out? 

Is the net benefit reaching and helping more people than if I just went full blast and just nuked my whole platform and then just talked to a couple of stragglers down at the local coffee shop? Or whatever. So I think that that's the way I've reconciled the middle ground. And also the stuff that I'm talking to people about is multifaceted and oftentimes has nothing to do with any of these issues anyway.

JP Sears: [01:44:27] Yeah. I think it's like being behind enemy lines. There's people you want to reach, there's hostages you want to help rescue. So if you're just out there waving a flag saying like, hey, enemy, I'm here, your ability to positively impact the people who are currently in the territory of enemy lines, if they're on Facebook or whatever the platform is, you might not be as effective. And I do respect, some people seem like they had the genuine call to die on that hill, to in a way be crucified by being de-platformed. 

And I think that's a sacrifice that does have contribution because when we've heard of people being de-platformed, sometimes a big name, sometimes smaller name, that registers something inside of us like, dude, they're really assaulting truth. So their crucifixion, it is for a greater cause. But apparently, that's not you and I's hill to die on. We have other hills.

Luke Storey: [01:45:34] Yeah. And I think for me it's not even just not wanting to die on that hill. It's just I have a bunch of little hills. It's like, I want to talk about a lot of different things and I never would have talked about any of this shit. I mean, I don't know anything about politics. To me, the whole thing is a total charade and theater. Like we're talking about freedom. It's like, leaving aside all the tyranny of the COVID era, try not paying taxes one year. I tried it. It does not go well. 

Go try to sleep in the local park and just camp there. You know what I mean? We're free-range slaves. And I'm not denigrating the more egregious levels of slavery that hopefully, we've worked through as a civilization. But to be a citizen of the United States of America and have a birth certificate in all capitals, you are owned by the state. And so the freedom that we're even enjoying is a limited freedom. It's like having a bigger chicken coop. You're still in a chicken coop. 

So I never wanted to talk about politics at all because I think the whole thing is a scam. And I'm just like being a free-range chicken in a big coop. But then when it crossed into the medical realm and so much of what I like to share with people are ways in which we can heal ourselves, and not have to rely on the pharmaceutical cartels, and allopathic medicine and all of that. It has its place, and I'm grateful for it. 

But there are many other ways to take care of yourself and take responsibility for your own physical vessel. So I've always talked about that. And the only reason I was my hand was forced into covering these topics and we're dealing with today is just because it all merged. And it's just like, well, I can't ignore this because this is now in my lane. These are the things that I'm sharing with people, at least in part. But there's so much more too.

JP Sears: [01:47:26] And I feel similar. So yeah. And it's awesome though, when someone's like, dude, no, my one hill is just, say the truth no matter what, awesome. And it's also cool. Some of us have multiple hills that we need to look out for.

Luke Storey: [01:47:42] Yeah. I mean, listen, if I had been purely a political pundit and had an understanding of politics that would support doing that, then maybe I would have been all right, pow, and just nuked it. Blow the bridge and just keep moving on foot.

JP Sears: [01:47:58] You go stay on this side now.

Luke Storey: [01:48:00] Yeah. How do you-- I don't look at the comments in any of your stuff, so I don't know what level of trolling you receive, but I imagine it to be pretty immense because at times, even though I think most people bailed on me in the beginning of convid and they haven't come back. And the people that have stayed are like, dude, thank you for being authentic. But every once in a while I'll post something. 

I'm totally invisible on Twitter. But I posted something a couple of months ago about socialism, and I don't know how these people found me because I have like 4,000 followers on Twitter. No one likes my tweets. I must not be that clever with 140 characters or whatever it is. But I got piled on by all of these, I guess radical leftists talking about-- 

JP Sears: [01:48:52] Congratulations. It must have been something important.

Luke Storey: [01:48:54] You got ratioed, bro. And I'm like, I literally don't care. It's fucking Twitter. They were really enjoying the fact that so many people had what they consider to be valid points about why socialism is awesome. And I don't even totally understand it. I just know that I don't like communism based on my understanding of history. And it seems to be the case that socialism devolves into that. And even worse later. 

And I'm looking at all these trolls and it's like, oh my God, I don't even want to deal with this level of toxicity. So I made the mistake of trying to comment back and be clever and beat them. It didn't work. They just kept pouncing on me. So I was like, what am I even doing here? I just spent 20 minutes of my life talking to a bunch of idiots that I don't even know. 

And so I just deleted the tweets. But I'm like, how do people like you deal with, I assume, just hateful people and people trying to tear you down or disagree or engage your limbic system and egoic battles and stuff? How do you deal with the troll element of your work?

JP Sears: [01:50:00] Yeah. Well, I would say now I deal with it exquisitely well. My pulse isn't elevated even one beat. And I can share more about that in a second. But when I first started on YouTube, people's approval mattered more to me and it was like, there's this new territory, and I'm a little insecure about probably what I'm saying, how I'm saying it. And then there was a-- but then I got on cruise control. It's like, dude, I'm good. But then when my content shifted in the beginning of the pandemic, there was a--

Luke Storey: [01:50:38] The what?

JP Sears: [01:50:39] A plandemic. I'm sorry. Um, I'm controlled by the propaganda. There was a wave of like, oh, there's a lot of hate in the comments. Now, since then, those people have migrated out. They're dumb, literally dumb if they hate my stuff and have still watched my stuff consistently for three years. But during that time, there's insecurities in me because it's like, dude, I know I'm not always right and I'm doing my best to follow the guidance of my heart, but guess what, that's sometimes not the easiest thing to do. So I'm unsure. 

So people are encouraging me over here and people are telling me I'm a racist transphobe, Michigan sympathizer or whatever the hell over here. So there was insecurities there. But I would, even during that new wave of hate beginning the pandemic, I would never engage because I know that's just quicksand. It just takes you deeper. And nobody's ever had their mind changed in the comment section of the Internet, proven fact, especially when it's an emotionally charged comment. 

So I wouldn't engage, but I'd be bothered a little bit. But it was a good bothering because it would gear me towards self introspection. Am I saying these things just because I know they'll get a rise out of people, or am I saying these things because it's very aligned with the truth of my discernment? And it's like, yeah, it seems like it's the truth of my discernment. 

So pretty quickly it's like, all right, now I'm in the clear again. And now I think dealing with comments one on one, if they really affect you, my best advice is don't read the comments. If you're affected by barbed wire, don't jump into barbed wire. But then, when I do occasionally see a negative comment, my pulse isn't elevated even one beat.

Luke Storey: [01:52:42] From all the ice baths.

JP Sears: [01:52:44] From all the ice baths. Twenty one minutes, you only do 20. So we know our places again. But then also a little Buddhism here. If you don't want to be affected by the negative comments, you also can't be attached to the positive feedback either. Now, I appreciate all the positive comments. And one of the things I love most when I see the comments of the videos is people adding jokes, adding their humor. 

It's like, dude, now look at this creative creativity coming out of people. But when I see the praise, while I appreciate it, I don't cling to it because there's two sides to that coin. The degree that you cling to praise in source approval from the comment section, whether you try to or not, you will be as attached to the disapproval. You'll be weighed down when someone says something nasty or unsupportive or even hateful. So I think you got to have a bit of a Buddhist mindset.

Luke Storey: [01:53:39] That's beautiful. I love that. Yeah, it's like letting go of the attachment of negative feedback is really only possible when you truly accept and love yourself and believe in who you are and what you're doing. And then you don't even need all of the other 90% or whatever it is on a good day that agree with you and give you accolades and approval. It's like becoming immune to all of it. I like that. I've noticed in the last few years, because I really enjoy social media, and I mean, what a tremendous gift. 

And also I think that it has a lot to do with, why on a lot. I mean, it's probably the single reason why people are really waking up now. I mean, it's like even with the censorship, you can't stop these vast numbers of people that are asking questions and sharing ideas. So I think it's the best thing ever. 

But the phenomenon of online trolls, because there's been so much division over the past few years, it's its own social contagion and just something so bizarre to observe where you've gotten to the point where you have actually brands like Conspirituality, this podcast, it's like people are monetizing, becoming online trolls. People are turning online trolling into an actual job or trying to--

JP Sears: [01:55:01] It's like monetizing cancer.

Luke Storey: [01:55:03] It's really trippy. It's like if you can just see the addictive nature of that reactive, it's just like the addiction to negative emotions. That is  glue to the flies that stick to that paper and then it draws more flies and more flies and it just becomes this morass of toxicity.

JP Sears: [01:55:28] It really is, man. And we all have-- thinking about the conspiratorial podcast. Did I say that right?

Luke Storey: [01:55:39] Conspirituality. 

JP Sears: [01:55:39] It's Conspirituality. 

Luke Storey: [01:55:42] They talk about you quite a bit.

JP Sears: [01:55:43] I've heard they do. And thank you guys for giving me a little airtime.

Luke Storey: [01:55:47] They want to marry you, I think.

JP Sears: [01:55:49] But I get reminded because I like to understand what might be their motivation? I guarantee they're not bad people. Sometimes maybe they have bad behavior and shitty, hateful comments. That's bad behavior. Most of the time it's probably not coming from bad behavior or from bad people, just bad behavior. So why do they do that? Well, I start to consider we all have emotional needs. We're all going to meet our emotional needs the best way we know how in the moment. 

One of our emotional needs is the need for significance. That we all want to feel big, like we matter. And typically, the more attention you get, the more your need for significance will be met. So if you can get a lot of attention by roasting someone, it's going to be a very tempting addiction to fall into.  And that'll be a nasty addiction to get sober from. 

Because guess what? If you're not using cutting-- if you're letting go of the behavior of cancer, attacking people, because that's how you get significant, if you're letting that go, you're going to feel how insignificant you actually feel. Attacking anybody doesn't make you significant. It just makes you feel that way. You're already significant. Welcome. But you don't believe that that's why you attack other people. So getting sober from that, that's got to be very challenging. 

Um, but I realize there are people getting their emotional needs met the best way they know how. And I think about when I was a kid, there were times where I was bullied and there was times where, I hate to say it, I'm not proud of it, but it's true, so I'll be honest, there's times where I exhibited what I could say is bullying behavior to people. Not consistently, but I'd say some mean shit sometimes to people so I could feel better about myself. 

So I realize I'm not above that. I'm grateful that's not a dominating force in my life now, but I remember what it was like to be a kid who felt really shitty about himself. And if I can get five minutes of glory and feeling big because I had a mean comment to someone who's probably got a pretty fucking tough life at home, dude, I get it. I've been there.

Luke Storey: [01:58:19] Yeah. The significance piece is really interesting. And because it's a core need that we all have. And we either get it from ourselves or we get it from out there or we perceive to get it from out there. It reminds me of-- you know Mike Cernovich?

JP Sears: [01:58:33] Yes.

Luke Storey: [01:58:34] Yeah. Very clever man on Twitter. he's probably the most interesting person on Twitter to me. But he is always railing against the reply guys because he'll post a statement and then it always starts with like, actually, did you know da da da or source, please. He actually did a sub-- what do they call it? Reddit Substack?

JP Sears: [01:58:57] Substack. 

Luke Storey: [01:58:58] Substack thing. I don't even know about that. But it's like his whole thing on like how he blocks people, how he curates his audience and stuff. And he went into all of the classic examples of reply guys of the things that they say.

JP Sears: [01:59:12] Just the predictable patterns of it.

Luke Storey: [01:59:14] Yeah, yeah. And I was like, wow, I don't get a lot of that. But on Instagram I do occasionally get where I post a point of view or I have you on. I post a clip from this interview and you'll say something or I'll say something and then the reply guy comes in and says, actually, da da da da da is better. And trying to school me or everyone else there that we're wrong and that they know a better way kind of thing, which is fine, but you can feel behind it this desperation for significance. 

It's not like, wow, that's a really cool perspective. You know what I found in my life is this other thing is really cool too. It's not like a sharing of ideas. It's like, you're wrong. I'm right. I'm going to drop it in the comments to show everyone that I know more than you idiots that are featured in the interview or whatever.

JP Sears: [01:59:59] And I said the word actually like it's a fucking trump card.

Luke Storey: [02:00:02] Yeah. But yeah, that kind of thing. So the reply guy, shout out to Cernovich on identifying the reply guy phenomenon.

JP Sears: [02:00:10] It's awesome that he outlined that archetype.

Luke Storey: [02:00:13] Oh yeah. 

JP Sears: [02:00:14] The reply guy, you're not unique. You're whole-- 

Luke Storey: [02:00:17] An archetype thing. I could find his substack and send it to you. It's actually really good.

JP Sears: [02:00:20] I'd love to see it.

Luke Storey: [02:00:21] What I took-- and he's not being like, ha, ha, I psychologically analyze you losers and I'm better than you. He's just literally saying if you got blocked and your butt, hurt about it, these are my criteria for my community and this is my account. And I like intelligent, thoughtful people here. And if you come in with some bullshit that doesn't align with that, then you're just not going to be part of our group and our conversation, which from one perspective you could say, well, he's censoring, but he's not stopping them from talking. 

He's just stopping them from walking into his house. So it's like-- what the value in it to me was, what I took away was like, oh, this is boundaries. This is just healthy boundary setting. I wouldn't allow someone to walk in my house and be disrespectful to my wife or to me or to be a belligerent asshole. 

I'd be like, I'm sorry, you have to leave. And I think his perspective in social media is that. You're blocked, you have to leave the party. You're not invited anymore because your behavior is disruptive to what our common shared goal here is.

JP Sears: [02:01:24] Yeah, his social media, his Twitter, that's his page. Twitter isn't his, but his Twitter page is his. That's his home. And I do respect people who have boundaries of, like you were sharing, just like if someone comes in and starts talking negatively to Alyson, you're going to kick them out of your house.

Luke Storey: [02:01:46] At the very least. 

JP Sears: [02:01:46] They're not kicked out of the United States, not kicked off the world, but they're kicked out of your domain.

Luke Storey: [02:01:51] Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, thanks for helping me weed through that. I love the psychology of different people's behavior, my own included. And also seeing, back to the self-reflection, which has been a big part of this conversation. What is it in me that gets triggered by the reply guy? Is it that I'm threatened because they came in with a point of view and I want mine to be the one that's more accepted?

JP Sears: [02:02:16] That's an interesting inquiry.

Luke Storey: [02:02:18] Yeah. Any time I, like you said, my pulse rate doesn't go up. It's like when mine does, that's an invitation to me to see what I'm trying to defend. It's more telling, well, maybe not more, but equally as telling about myself than it is about that person if I'm truly triggered by their point of view.

JP Sears: [02:02:36] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [02:02:37] While on the topic of social media and censorship, everyone got so elated when Elon Musk took over Twitter and it seems like all these people's accounts have been restored. And to me, it's a positive move for our culture. And I'm happy to see that there's one bastion of free speech there. But do you think he's a wolf in sheep's clothing?

JP Sears: [02:02:58] So I question that, the whole Elon phenomenon. Is it good or bad? We shall see. Now, the one step of Twitter opening up that free speech and no longer banning people for frivolous stuff, bringing back, reinstating accounts. I would discern that move is good. Now, where I get questionable and say, is the phenomenon of him good or bad? I don't know. I get amused by people who are like, oh, dude, Elon's the best because look at these tyrants trying to control everything. Elon's going to save us. 

Okay. So one guy who will control a large territory of the Internet, Twitter. One guy who controls a big sector of the automobile industry. One guy who controls the Internet via StarLink. One guy who is making microchips for people Neuralink. Is that too much control for one guy? Are we shifting from like, oh, Elon's the solution to totalitarian energies having too much control? What's the difference? Right now he's doing something I like, but I don't want to fall prey to, I like what he's doing now, so everything he's doing is good forever. It's like I see a real danger.

I mean, centralization. One person, one entity, one corporation, one government controlling too much shit. We've proven over and over and that's a problem. He's already got a lot of stuff under his control. Now, granted, he's earned that through capitalistic endeavors, which I support, but I think diversification, decentralization of control is good, and right now he's got a lot to control. What happens if and when he makes a choice that goes against my principles, that goes against what I believe is freedom? Maybe that'll happen, maybe it won't, but it could.

Luke Storey: [02:05:10] That makes sense to me. I think my reservations are in the false idol category of people thinking there's going to be a savior. I mean, I saw this with Donald Trump and the whole QAnon fucking bizarre stuff. What was it? RFK's really alive. He's come back.

JP Sears: [02:05:30] Everybody who's dead is actually alive. Everybody who's alive, Biden is actually dead. Body doubles.

Luke Storey: [02:05:35] Living in this fantasy world of a savior. It's like, dude, we each have our own power. Create the world that you want. We don't need an overlord to come in and save us. But beyond that, I do sniff a little good cop, bad cop energy. To me, it's just like, hmm, would this person even be allowed to do what they're doing if they weren't making concessions to the powers that be? 

And speaking of powers that be, um, because I know we're almost out of time here, what's your prediction on this? Do you think that the regime is going to install Gavin Newsom as another puppet dictator next time around?

JP Sears: [02:06:15] I do, yeah, very much. Newsom is my prediction for the Democratic candidate. I think he's a terrible candidate and I think he's their best candidate. And I don't think their candidacy, if that's a word, selections are based on principle, merit, character or anything. It's more like, who has the puppet characteristics that we want? The guy's, I mean, he looks so deceptive, but good looking, knows how to speak in front of people, looks the part, and I don't see who else they have in position to put into that position. So yeah, Gavin Newsom would definitely be my prediction.

Luke Storey: [02:07:04] Okay. And then lastly, I want to end on this. I guess this has all been positive, at least from my perspective, but something that's very prevalent now, of course, with people like you and I that have different points of view than many others out there, there's such a trap in otherism of the left and right paradigm. Republican, Democrat. I mean, just vax, no vax. How can we create a world wherein we experience the other as us? And how do we avoid the trap of otherism with the people with whom we don't agree?

JP Sears: [02:07:46] Yeah. I'm probably drinking too much of my own Kool-Aid here, but I would go back to the spiritual principle of seeing the world as your mirror. The joke's on us. Our eyes point outward. But St. Francis of Assisi would tell us, what you're looking for is what's looking. Who we are and what we don't know about ourselves, we project that outward. But if we can just invite ourselves into the sacred space of asking, what do I see about me in this mirror? It appears to be the other. 

But if we look at who's looking in the mirror rather than focusing on the mirror itself, I think we win. We don't get lost in the illusion of the other. We use the reflection of the other to find ourselves. So letting the world be our mirror and especially when we get emotionally charged, whether I'm super happy or super pissed off. I'm triggered. I'm outraged that they're doing this now. When we have emotional heightenedness, that's our clue we're really looking at a reflection of ourselves. So to me, it's a timeless spiritual principle. It's easy to do when it's easy to do, but when it's hard to do, that's when we need it most.

Luke Storey: [02:09:13] Right on. Last question. Who are three teachers or teachings that have influenced your life or your work that you'd like to share with us?

JP Sears: [02:09:20] Yeah. My first mentor, so influential on me. Have you ever heard of Paul Chuck?

Luke Storey: [02:09:26] Oh yeah, sure.

JP Sears: [02:09:27] So I studied--

Luke Storey: [02:09:28] We've been supposed to record a podcast for about five years. I'm just holding out for when we can actually sit down. But yeah, great guy.

JP Sears: [02:09:36] He's great. I connected with him when I was 20 years old. I'm 41 now, almost 42. He's influenced well over half my life at this point so positively. I learned so much about health and I used to be a health coach, exercise coach, but more so the life perspective. And seeing the way he believed in me to a degree that I didn't helped model how I could believe in myself more because I saw someone I respected so much believing in me, so much. 

So Paul Chuck really helped gift me so much of me in my life. By the way, Paul Chuck's work, you can check out the Chuck Institute or just Google or Firefox Paul Chuck or DuckDuckGo. And then John McMullen. He is an exquisitely in-tune human, so authentic, so real, so playful. John Mcmullen's work is found at journeysofwisdom.com. Connected with John when I was 22 years old. So still very young and formative. I'm still in touch with both these great men today. 

And, man, the third, if you asked me three years ago, my answer would have been different because I was way more arrogant, still arrogant, just slightly less. But third would be my parents. I mean, I used to be of the crowd of like, oh, I have all these childhood wounds because of my parents. And I've got a-- they were unconscious and I got to grow and heal. Yeah, of course, we all have challenges. 

But man, my parents weren't without faults, but damn it, they were great parents. They gave me so much, so damn much that I didn't recognize it until 39, 40 years later. So yeah, my parents were powerful mentors and they sure as hell don't have a website. So good luck finding them.

Luke Storey: [02:11:42] Go find the Sears online Google or elsewhere. Man, well, thank you so much for your generosity of time today. So fun. I mean, we see each other around town and stuff and hey, what's up? But we haven't been able to really drop in, I think, since our last recording. So super fun. When I watch your content, this is all the shit, I'm like, oh, I want to ask JP about this and that. And so thank you for elaborating on all these ideas, and I have a lot more. So give it a little time and we'll do another one at some point soon.

JP Sears: [02:12:09] Dude, I would love that and thank you for having me on, brother. And if this recording was just deleted, great, such a win to be able to sit down with you, drop in and connect. And I'd also like to say to the Life Stylist Podcast audience, Luke is controlled opposition. He's using you. He's advancing a very devious agenda using help, insight, biohacking perspective to trick you. Please cancel Luke Storey.

Luke Storey: [02:12:41] Guilty as charged. The thing now, the big thing is like Malone and McCullough and these guys, because they're not on board or at least publicly with terrain theory, that they're control opposition. If you're still in the germ theory paradigm, then you're, I don't even understand all that stuff, so I don't know. I just know there seems to be people doing rotten stuff in the world and some other people doing better stuff.

JP Sears: [02:13:06] Everybody's controlled opposition. Trust nobody. Nothing is as it seems. Be stressed. Be panicked. Be vigilant. We're all going to die.

Luke Storey: [02:13:13] Oh, God, man. Thanks for coming on, JP.

JP Sears: [02:13:15] Thank you, Luke.

Luke Storey: [02:13:17] Well, that brings Episode 463 to a screeching halt, my friends. And I learned that if we can't laugh at our shared predicament, life could become really dark. And dig the way JP manages to convey his message without falling into the morass of doom and gloom. Because sometimes when you're a truth seeker, you find out some pretty depressing facts about world affairs. So to me, it's important to find a balance when it comes to staying informed and also taking decisive action to preserve your rights. And I think JP does a great job of doing just that. 

And I'm stoked that he paid us a visit to share some thought-provoking ideas, served up with a hefty dose of humor. And hey, if you don't already know it, JP has an epic Merch collection. So if you like clever memes and unwoke slogans, you're going to love his t-shirts and other apparel. You can find all of that at awakenwithjp.com. And if you use the code FREEDOM10, you'll get 10% off everything. Again that's awakenwithjp.com. 

All right. Let's talk next week's episode. Functional medicine explained: gut health mastery, autoimmunity, and why emotions matter, and that one features Dr. Will Cole. And it is sure to be a crowd pleaser. And before we go, I'll remind you that if you want all the content from next week's show waiting for you in your inbox Tuesday morning, make sure to get on the Life Stylist email list at lukestorey.com/newsletter. All you got to do is enter your name and email there and you, my friend, are good to go. All right. Stay tuned next week for Dr. Will Cole.

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